I was talking with someone the other day and realized—not everyone sees therapy, coaching, and “brain work” the way I do. For me, it’s like brushing my teeth or moving my body. We all know working out is good for our bodies, and I think of coaching, therapy, and other mind tools as ways to work out my mind.

Over the past few years, I’ve been taking care of my brain with regular therapy, coaching, and tools like meditation. These practices have helped me reframe anxious thoughts, regulate my emotions as a parent, and navigate chronic pain.

In this episode, I share my experiences with therapy and coaching, including:

• The difference between therapy and coaching (and why I use both)
• My first experience with EMDR for chronic pain
• How “working out my mind” has shifted parenting and daily life
• Why emotional regulation sets the tone for my whole household
• How I’ve found therapists and coaches that are the right fit

If you’ve been curious about therapy, coaching, EMDR, or meditation—and want the inside scoop from someone who’s tried a lot of it 😉—this one’s for you.

xx, Megan

RESOURCES:

• Full show notes: maybethiswillbethecure.com/blog/therapy-and-coaching
• Other links referenced in the episode.

CONNECT

I’d love to hear from you:

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• Instagram - DM or comment @maybethiswillbethecure
• Email - megan@maybethiswillbethecure.com

If this podcast was helpful to you, please share it with a friend, or leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you!

And to easily catch new episodes, subscribe or follow along on your favorite podcast app such as Apple podcasts and Spotify (it's free!)

DISCLAIMER

The information shared in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Consult your physician before making any changes to your health plan. The host, Megan, is not a healthcare provider. Always seek guidance from a qualified health professional for your individual needs.

Welcome to maybe this Will Be the Cure, a podcast where the wisdom of a healing journey meets the warmth of shared experiences.

Join as we explore the topics of healing, living with chronic conditions, chronic pain, neurodiversity, mental health, and parenting kids with disabilities.

I'm your host, Megan.

For the past several years,

I've put a lot of energy into taking care of my mind.

I started by reading books and listening to podcasts from coaches and therapists.

And then I started one on one coaching.

At first, just as on an as needed basis, you know, once a month,

sometimes more, sometimes less.

And then I joined a coaching program where I got several coaching sessions every month.

And then I started therapy. And at first it was every week and then I moved to once a month.

I had tried therapy a few years prior, but I had only gotten in a few sessions before we had been kicked off our insurance. My husband had changed jobs and so I couldn't keep going in that interim.

I just listened to podcasts and then eventually was able to start doing therapy regularly again.

And now on top of the therapy and coaching that I do regularly,

I'm trying out a new therapist that also does EMDR and hypnotherapy to see if it can help with my physical pain.

Working with a therapist, another therapist, and coaches throughout the month might seem like a lot,

and it is, but it's also all for different things.

Coaching is really good for practical,

everyday managing your mind support.

In coaching, we tackle a situation,

figure out what my thoughts are about that situation or the circumstance going on.

We work to identify the feelings that I'm having and the results that are coming from those thoughts and feelings and then taking the time to intentionally choose new thoughts that are more supportive of how I want to feel about the situation and the results that I'm trying to create in my life.

It's helped me navigate holidays with my kids that struggle with social situations.

So, you know, I worked through how hard it is for me that, you know, sometimes they don't want to go to things. And so I prepared myself for the worst case scenario that they didn't.

And how would I navigate that? And also thinking through, you know, talking about some of the thoughts that I was having about that and choosing new thoughts that served me better.

And that way I didn't have to suffer twice. You know, it's hard enough to suffer when it actually happens or like the pain of missing out on things that are important to you or the pain of going by yourself when your kids don't go.

But I didn't have to, you know, continue to suffer. Leading up to it, you know, it kind of released that I didn't spend so much time worrying about it and could just deal with it when the situation arrived.

It helped me unravel some people pleasing and be more intentional about how I show up for other people or how I or how I engage with people in different situations.

It's helped me face fears about my kids future,

what that might look like and make peace with it so that I can lean into the present now.

It's helped me navigate different work situations and create better work boundaries and show up to work in a more easeful way.

It's helped me learn how to allow grief and pain and sit with those feelings,

but at the same time reducing suffering.

If you listen to the episode recently where I talked with Blake, my fitness coach,

he talked about that Buddhist principle of two arrows.

You have the first arrow, it's the situation that happens and then the second area. Arrow. Arrow is the meaning that you put on top of it. And so it's helped me reduce the second arrow and just allow the pain of the first arrow.

And it's helped me to see situations in new ways that bring me more peace. Day to day therapy, on the other hand, I feel like tends to be a little bit more big picture.

We still work on individual situations, but I feel like therapy has given me tools like mindfulness and meditation.

It's helped me understand OCD and the sneaky ways it shows up and tools how to identify when it's going on and how to navigate and work through it.

My therapist is a really good third party observer. She has a wise objective lens. She'll look at the situation that I present and provide useful objective feedback.

For example, one time I was telling her this story,

you know, where I was so mad at my husband about something. And as I'm explaining the story,

she basically was like telling me how is a me problem?

And you know, it stung a little bit.

But as she explained I realized she was right and so then I could go back and apologize and handle similar situations in a different way.

Another situation, I was worrying about something and I remember telling her how like, oh, it's probably a me problem. You know, it's just in my head, I need to get over it,

I need to chill out. And in that instance she actually validated what I was worried about. And she was like, yeah, there are some things to pay attention to here.

It's worth taking note of those or paying attention to those things.

It's not all in your head,

you should stay aware. And that situation totally warrants a conversation.

So I appreciate having that third party observer to those different situations so that I have those insights and helps me navigate different situations in my life.

Therapy has been so incredibly helpful for helping me better understand my neurodivergent brain and learning strategies and tools that are supportive and.

And so I've really liked doing both the coaching where it's very case by case practical solutions,

and then also therapy that's giving me this bigger picture of what's going on and the tools to cope with that and learning about my brain and working through it.

Okay, and then this new therapist I've been working with has been an entirely different experience.

My current therapist that I see regularly has never done like this d deep dive into my background. In history,

we just work on one situation at a time. You know, I think when I first met with her, she's like, oh, why are you coming here? Like, why did you seek out therapy?

And I just explained what was going on in the present. And so it's been very present focused.

Obviously sometimes as you're working on situations, there are things from your past that are impact like that are influencing the situation now or things from the past that you've been holding on to.

And so we gotten into that a little bit. But she never did like this big deep dive into my past.

And this new therapist I was working with, it was really interesting. The first session she was just like getting into my whole history, like, what was your childhood like? What was, you know, what's your marriage like?

What's your career situation? What's your schooling like? Just a. Why? Oh, what's your family history? She just got a deep dive into my whole background.

So that was really interesting.

Um, so she's starting with this big picture view of these different aspects of my life.

And then in the next session we just talked for a little bit, like caught up because I hadn't seen her in a few weeks, and then dived into my first EMDR session.

And this was my first time doing emdr. And I'm sure there's different methods. I know some people,

for some emdr, they'll do like something with the eyes or blinking or looking at something. I'm not sure this one involved tapping.

And so it was kind of, I would say, I don't know if you've been familiar with tapping at all. It's like nervous system tool.

So I would say this EMDR session was a mix between tapping met like guided meditation and like energy healing work, if you've done.

Or what's it called? Emotional processing technique. I've had my cousin Shaylyn on the podcast before,

and she does the Emotional processing technique, I think is what it's called. And so I think if you kind of merge tapping, guided meditation and that emotional processing technique, that's kind of how EMDR is, if you're familiar with any of those other things.

But basically I just, like, got comfortable and she's like, walking me through this guided meditation, but then also asking questions as we go along and. And then there's moments where you're doing the tapping and then breathing.

So it's mental, but it's also physical.

And yeah, it was really interesting. And I feel like I even got some insights even from just that first session.

And then she prescribes homework. So this week she gave me a yoga nidra, and I'm probably saying that wrong meditation,

but I'm supposed to do that a few times each week. And then she gave me this exercise, this like, mental exercise to do whenever I'm feeling frustrated or annoyed.

And it's just been really interesting so far. And I've read that EMDR and like, somatic work and nervous system work can help with physical pain. So that's why I'm doing that one and giving it a shot to see if it will help.

I'm only, you know, that was my first EMDR session. I'm only two sessions in with this therapist, so we'll see how it goes.

But I am just really lucky that my husband is so supportive of therapy and coaching.

And that's probably related to the fact that we've had some pretty dark seasons between my mental health, his mental health, my kids mental health,

and we've all used therapy at one time or another. So I think he really sees and understands, you know, personally the value of it.

But it is an investment, and it's one that I sometimes feel guilty about or feel like I'm a burden.

But each time we've gone over our budget and looking to cut costs,

and I've mentioned, you know, maybe I should stop doing coaching or therapy, he's always like, no, your mental health is too important.

And I remember asking him, well, like, are. Are you at least seeing the effects of it? Like,

am I,

you know, I've been spending all the investing all this on my mind.

Am I like, a totally different person now? Like, am I way better to be around?

Can you tell that I'm just, like, growing and I just handle situations so much better?

And he was basically like, not really, but that's not why we started doing this in the first place. He was like, you're alive,

and that's the point.

And I know that's a little morbid, but, I mean, he's not wrong.

And I was talking to someone else recently and she was saying how,

oh, you have a lot of hard things in your life and it seems like you're using,

know, coaching and therapy to help you handle it all.

And, yeah, I feel like it provides me with the support to handle those challenges in my life so far without a complete mental breakdown. You know, knock on wood.

Um, I'm also lucky to have several friends and other family members that can appreciate therapy and other tools like coaching to work on.

Take care of your mind.

But I'm realizing that I'm kind of in this echo chamber and there's actually still a lot of people in this world that haven't experienced that work or don't see the value in it.

And that in those groups of people, I'm kind of a weirdo.

I mean, I'm cool with it, but just being with the people that I'm around that value it. Sometimes I,

you know, when I'm in different groups, I realize, oh, not everyone sees. Sees that the same way I was talking with someone the other day when I realized,

oh,

not everyone is as bought into this work as I am.

And it probably doesn't help that us therapy going folk are so insufferable with therapy speak and saying things like my therapist said. And I'm totally guilty of that. But I'm sure it can be annoying and maybe sometimes a little self absorbed.

But I, as I was talking to this friend at this event, I was saying, you know, like, how our bodies need movement and working out is so good for your body.

I was like, I think of therapy and coaching and meditation as, you know, things like that, as working out the mind. You know, just like you brush your teeth every day.

I also like to brush my mind on a regular basis.

And even if people don't notice from the outside,

my inner world has changed dramatically over the past several years. I literally feel like a different person in a lot of ways.

Sometimes I'll be talking with my younger siblings about, like, a frustration that they're having,

and I'll be thinking to myself, I remember totally thinking that way. Like, I remember having that same frustration or seeing that issue in that same way. But I've worked through it and like, in coaching and therapy, and it's no longer an issue for me.

Like, I no longer get frustrated in that same way, or I no longer view things that same way that I used to.

I also find myself responding to situations more intentionally in ways that I can be proud of and that bring me more peace.

I've been able to work through a lot of triggers and release things under the surface that were causing me to get triggered in the first place.

I am finding myself unfazed by some things that used to completely stress me out.

And it's interesting because when I first started therapy,

each session would completely wipe me out for the day.

It was like my brain needed to absorb the information and rewire and I'd be so emotional all day or just out of it.

And so I figured out like, okay, I can only do therapy on a day where I have nothing else going on, so I could just spend the rest of the day processing, crying, journaling, taking hot baths,

watching comforting movies, you know, trying to. To make sense of everything.

But now, like, I've been doing it for, you know, a while now, and I can fit therapy into my lunch break and get right back to work without issues. So it's kind of like working out.

You know, when you first start a new workout routine, you're so sore,

but eventually your body adjusts and gets used to working out regularly and bounces back faster.

The new therapist I'm working with talked about your brain as if it was like this muscle. And I'd never heard it explained that way, but it just such a great way for me to conceptualize it.

And she was saying how sometimes we spend a lot of time in our survival brain, also known as the limbic system,

and we end up strengthening those muscles. And it's similar to someone that's going to the gym and only doing arm day. Like, they totally skip leg day and their arms would get very strong, but their legs would be so weak.

And so she was talking about, like, the work that I'm doing with her is to help strengthen the thinking part of the brain,

also known as the prefrontal cortex, so that I can have a better balance between the two and spend more time in that thinking part of the brain.

And I find that as I've worked on my brain, my capacity has expanded. My plate is very full right now. Between my health issues, my kids health issues,

homeschooling,

I work full time. I have this podcast that I'm working on. I have a web design business that I still serve clients on the weekend.

My husband also works.

We just have a lot going on and Somehow I'm handling it.

I also think that working on my brain or taking care of my brain has also had a positive impact on how I interact with others.

And I've also learned that my emotional regulation sets the tone for everyone in the house.

When I'm regulated, it supports everyone else's well being.

Autistic kids are so sensitive to emotions, energy,

intentions of others, they pick up on so much.

My kids will sometimes notice that I'm not okay even before I totally realize it. Their brains and bodies just are taking in so much information at once.

So my emotions and regulation directly affect them. And that doesn't mean that I have to be perfectly calm or happy all the time or I'm ruining them.

It's just it helps when I know what I'm actually feeling and thinking and can name it and be present with it and be upfront with my kids instead of trying to hide it from them or just moving through the day unaware or just always numbing out.

And I'm not perfect at this. It is a daily practice, but it really does help when I'm mindful and aware and intentional even when I'm having a hard time. And it helps when I can spend more time in a regulated state state.

And I think therapy and coaching and meditation and working on my mind is all helping me to practice that.

Anyways, if you couldn't already tell, I'm a fan of working on my mind.

I found it really helpful to try to take care of my brain and while some people might find it selfish or self absorbed,

personally I can see how working on myself and my mind benefits everyone around me.

I am really grateful that I have the resources to invest in myself in this way. And if you're listening and thinking,

must be nice.

I totally get it. And before I could afford one on one therapy and coaching, I spent years listening to therapists and coaches on podcasts and Instagram and reading books.

Some of my personal favorites to listen to are Tiffany Rowe,

Sarah Fisk and Brooke Castillo.

Two of two of them are coaches. One of them is a therapist.

But I know that their style and tone aren't the right fit for everyone. But there's plenty out there to choose from. So find one that says things in a way that resonate with you and you could start there.

The other day someone was asking me how I even found a therapist and a coach in the first place. And I I definitely think it's important to find someone that's the right fit for you and your situation and someone that resonates with you that you're comfortable with, that understands where you're coming from.

So for my current therapist, I was looking for someone that could understand the unique experience of parenting a kid with type 1 diabetes. It was shortly after my son's diagnosis, and I was totally not okay.

And I needed someone that could understand that unique experience.

And I happened to have joined a bunch of different Facebook groups, like support groups for parents with kids with diabetes or even just, you know, someone in the family that has diabetes or personally, like people in the group have diabetes themselves.

I just joined a bunch of Facebook groups around the time that my son was diagnosed.

And so I just searched for any comments that had to do with therapists.

I was looking specifically in the groups that were local to me, like Arizona diabetes support groups.

And so I just searched if there was any comments about therapists,

and I found a bunch.

And I just looked into each one, checked out their website,

and I ended up finding one who also has a son with type 1 diabetes. So she totally understood, understands where I'm coming from,

and it was just very comforting and helpful that she could understand that. She also understands and knows about pda and so that's rare. Not all therapists know about pda and I think that was super helpful.

And then she also has experience with O, C, D and neurodivergent brains and adhd. And so it was really helpful working with her for those reasons too.

And yeah, just like looking over her website,

reading about that, listening to any content that she's produced or put out there, or like reading content she's put out there just to see, okay, is this person the right fit for me?

And it's. She's been great. I really appreciate her and am so grateful that I found her.

And then for my. For finding a therapist for my boys,

I wanted to find someone that was knowledgeable about PDA because it isn't officially recognized in the US Yet.

But some therapists are ahead of the game and have received training on it or are aware of it and affirming of it. I found a directory online of PDA affirming therapists in North America, and I just started working through the list and there weren't any in Arizona, where we live,

that had availability.

So I started with some states that were close by that we could possibly travel to, like California, Nevada, and I got on those wait lists and as a part of that process, I happened to have a call with a therapist in California, and he told me about psypact.

And basically some states are part of an agreement called psypact.

So if a therapist is licensed in one psypact state, they're allowed to see clients in other psypact states too, too.

So I looked up the different psypact states and was able to find a therapist place in Illinois that offered virtual assessments and therapy. And it seemed to be a good fit after, like, reading through their content and their website, just get a feel for their perspective on things.

And they have been amazing. I love them so, so, so much. So that was great. And then when my husband's OCD was really bad,

to help find a therapist for that, I reached out to a friend of mine that I knew had struggled pretty bad with ocd. And I'm so grateful that he was open about it.

And I hadn't talked with him in years, but I just, like, sent him a Facebook message and asked if he had any advice about, you know, getting support for ocd.

And he pointed me to the International OCD foundation and an article that they have on their website about how to find a therapist for ocd. And it gives a list of questions to ask and tips for choosing a therapist therapist for ocd.

And then he also recommended that I look for someone that's an expert in exposure response prevention therapy.

And so with those tips, we found an OCD specialist about 30 minutes away from where we lived.

And he completely saved us.

He was amazing. He was completely an expert at what he did.

And, you know, it was more than we had ever spent on treatment before at that time, but it was. It was a hundred percent totally worth it.

And I'm really grateful to my friend for sharing his experience and giving me tips. And I'm so grateful that we found that therapist, and I'm so grateful that my husband was willing to go and able to go.

And he just got so much better after working with him for coaching. My first coaching experience was actually with a friend of mine.

She had started a coaching business,

and I was still in the early days of my web design business. And so we traded. She would give me coaching sessions and I would do web design stuff for her.

And that was great. She helped me so much.

And then when I finally was realizing that my boys were probably autistic, I think it was right before they were diagnosed, but we were pretty sure at that point I wanted a coach that could coach specifically on that or that, like, understood that.

So I really like Brooke Castillo's approach. She's one of the coaches I mentioned earlier that also has a podcast, and she started the Life Coach School where she trains other coaches.

And so on their website, they have like a directory of coaches. So I use that to find a few coaches that work specifically with parents of autistic kids or neurodivergent kids.

And I just started following a few on Instagram and listening to their podcasts. And then eventually, you know, once I got a feel for each one,

I joined one of their coaching programs.

And in that coaching program, she has a few different coaches that provide,

you know, coaching regularly.

And so you get a couple sessions a month and you meet with one of those coaches.

And I've loved it. And I love all the different coaches that I've worked with in that program.

They all have a different style and bring something different to the table. And I've just gained so much from each of them.

Anyways, I hope that gives some ideas of where you can kind of get started on finding someone. I love reaching out and asking friends or looking in Facebook groups, looking up directories online.

And I like to really listen to people's content and get a feel for them and their style before diving in.

Anyways, I'll link to some of those resources in the show notes. I hope that's helpful.

And thanks for being here as I talked about my experience,

taking care of my mind,

and thanks for letting me talk your ear off.

Thanks for joining us today. Where dreams are nurtured, challenges are met with resilience, and every tiny step forward is a victory hit. Subscribe so you can easily find new episodes and join this community,

because maybe this will be the cure.