Hi there and a very warm welcome to Season 5 Episode 46 of People Soup – it’s Ross McIntosh here. 

P Soupers - here's the third and final part of my chat with Michaela Thomas. Michaela is s senior clinical psychologist, CBT psychotherapist, author, award winning podcaster and corporate speaker.

In this episode you'll hear about Michaela's spacious adventure - a 10 day solo trip to Vietnam. We cover the origin story, the planning, the experience and returning home. she also reveals the secret mission that formed part of the endeavour.

People Soup is an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioural science, in a way that’s practical, accessible and fun. We're all about sharing the ingredients for a better work life from behavioural science and beyond.

There is a transcript for each episode. There is a caveat - this transcript is largely generated by Artificial Intelligence, I have corrected many errors but I won't have captured them all! You can also find the shownotes by clicking on notes then keep scrolling for all the useful links.

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PART 3

[00:00:06] Michaela: So what I noticed was that I needed to just honour my energy in the moment, if I needed to go up or needed to go down. When I needed more excitement, I joined a tour. You know, I did one of those walking tours or, you know, met new people. And what I noticed, that in order to create the experience I wanted, which was adventurous as well as spacious, I needed to be brave.

[00:00:39] Ross: Pea Soupers, here's the third and final part of my chat with Michaela Thomas. Michaela is a senior clinical psychologist, CBT psychotherapist, author, award winning podcaster, and corporate speaker. In this episode, you'll hear more about Mikayla's Spacious Adventure, a 10 day solo trip to Vietnam. We cover the origin story, the planning, the experience itself, and returning home. She also reveals the secret mission that formed part of the adventure.

[00:01:52] But this was the first time I've been moved to tears. Listening to Michaela talking about the meaning behind the singing of Shine Your [00:02:00] Light at the toddler group was beautiful and so powerful. And this whole episode was a lesson in true authenticity and showing up exactly as you are.

[00:02:20] And, of course, Claire will be receiving some of our newly designed bookmarks.

[00:02:32] he sent some of the previous bookmarks to Peru, so distance really is no object. and folks, you might have heard, about my Act in the Workplace, Train the Trainer program. It's rapidly approaching, and there's still time to reserve your place.

[00:03:19] Because you're recently back. So, maybe starting with the origin story.

[00:03:47] We, we practice sort of feeling the flow of the, of the brush. There's a particular type of water and water technique that feels very, I can't explain it in another way. It's very, it's very sensory, tingly feeling. [00:04:00] And it helps us to sit with a sense of purpose as well of bringing the values into it. So writing down a word or two on that bookmark that then you take with you.

[00:04:28] And I realized I was struggling, I couldn't quite come to one. So I was like, oh, yeah. Creativity. I really want more creativity. I want to do more watercolors that isn't just when I teach it. And it didn't quite sit right. So I was like, well, you know, that's about spaciousness, right? I want to be more spacious.

[00:05:06] After spending a lifetime of never using my voice, so, Oh, I want a bit of an adventure. And it came to me when I neared 40, which is the first day of the year. So on the 1st of January, 2024, I turned 40. So it's quite a nice thing of like bringing that in together with your vision board. And it came to me that it needs to be both.

[00:06:01] So I thought, let 2024, the year of my 40th birthday, be my spacious adventure. So I started creating a list which I called 40 things at 40. I saw someone do that somewhere. And I was really conscious to not put stuff on there in a kind of New Year's resolution, push, push, push, pressure, pressure, pressure, because pressure is like the most common thing in my community and within myself.

[00:06:37] spacious adventure

[00:06:46] No, no, it's midlife clarity. I realized how do I want the rest of my life to be. And I'm gonna borrow a phrase that one of my friends says, who lifts very heavy weights, like, you know, she can deadlift 100 kilos. She talks about how she trains for her old lady body. Right? And I wanted to train my mind and my body for my old lady body.

[00:07:45] It's going to be, when do I go up and when do I go down? So Vietnam was basically a concoction of the two, uppers and downers in a not illegal way.

[00:08:02] Michaela: Oh, I felt I ran out of all my spoons because I freaked out more about what. Backpack to use, than I did about the concept of solo traveling for 10 days, which is again a very kind of symptomatic thing of the ADHD brain of bringing, you know, calm to chaos and crisis and bringing chaos and crisis to the calm.

[00:08:42] What was I booking and what, order? And I, he didn't need to do anything for me. He just needed to be that, that body double, that sounding board of me being able to speak out loud of what I wanted this experience to be. Because the most overwhelming thing coming into this trip was to pick. you know, for someone who wants to research everything, to pick what I did in what order and how to this.

[00:09:27] I'm not afraid to ask for help. So I approached my spacious adventure with that in mind I'm not afraid to ask for help. So that meant with organizing it my husband printed out all the booking confirmations I didn't do any of that. He let me know when I was on the trip. He sent me screenshots of when There was these reminders to book in for your flight, to check in online, etc.

[00:10:10] I thought, if any crisis happens, I will deal with that. No problem. Don't let me deal with the calm and composure just beforehand, because I have none of that. So, and I say that jokingly, with sort of a smile on my face, because that's part of the acceptance piece that I've done over the last year of coming to terms with the ADHD ness, that this is who I am, and this is how I'm gonna show up.

[00:10:41] Ross: Um, no, I think, I think you've covered it. Let me just have a look at my notes. No, I think I'd like to dive in. What did you notice when you were in the whole spacious adventure?

[00:11:17] Didn't touch either of them once. And I was just curious about why am I resisting that? I was running through all my other things on a daily basis, uh, that I do. I use an app to check off the things I'm supposed to be doing. And I don't mean supposed to be as in a pushy way, but the practices I've chosen for myself.

[00:11:52] The ones that are hard to do when you're juggling a couple of kids and working life. So, I really noticed that I found [00:12:00] myself loving and enjoying meditation. I've been meditating every day since mid January. And meditation has been like the final frontier for me with my perfectionistic, fast paced, brilliant mind that thinks faster than it can speak, if you see what I mean.

[00:12:51] And it was just focusing for 10 minutes, you know?

[00:12:55] Michaela: So what I noticed was that I needed to just honour my energy in the moment, if I needed to go up or needed to go down. When I needed more excitement, I joined a tour. You know, I did one of those walking tours or, you know, met new people. And what I noticed, that in order to create the experience I wanted, which was adventurous as well as spacious, I needed to be brave.

[00:13:50] And that meant that I had company and also, so that's kind of tickles there. The excitement need, the dopamine need, meeting new people, getting to listen to new [00:14:00] people's stories, having connection. And then equally, I had time where I had dinner on my own, I had spaciousness, and I got used to tolerating my own company.

[00:14:33] Ross: Yeah. Wow. And did

[00:14:36] Michaela: Profound.

[00:14:46] it just

[00:14:50] Michaela: No, because that's, you know, there will be some ADHDers who would love that, the prospect of that spontaneity, but that freaks me out, um, because I need to have some structure to feel good. So, I did exactly the same thing as I did when I solo travelled around Japan in 2012. I set my itinerary beforehand, which is the agonising bit of having to plan, structure and plan, you know, organise it.

[00:15:35] And once I've done that, it flows. I can just throw meat on the bones. So, that's again, having a, An awareness of my ADHD brain, so I needed to have the skeleton, I needed to have a rough itinerary. So I booked all my accommodation, I booked my flights to arrive in Hanoi and fly home from Ho Chi Minh City.

[00:16:10] Seeing more things versus having time to also rest. So, there was a lot of that and I was trying to kind of almost like counterpose it. Like in yoga, we do a stretchy pose and then you do a counter pose to offset whatever you've done. So, when I'd had a stretchy walking tour, long dinner with someone, then I offset that with a long shower when I came back or, you know, meditation in bed, etc.

[00:16:58] One on a platform on stilts in a lagoon at sunrise, twice. I mean like, if you don't like yoga in those settings, you're not gonna like yoga anywhere. So, I collect sort of yoga experiences. And all of those were aimed at It's downregulating after I had upregulated, you know, I'd had the space, I guess spaciousness after I'd had lots of fun, connection with new people, because I love that, I thrive off that, I charge my batteries off it.

[00:17:40] Ross: Absolutely. And I'd love to hear you talk so clearly about up regulating and down regulating and doing what you need to do. so you land back in the UK, what plans have you put in place to sort of ease your way back in? Because, because I guess the temptation [00:18:00] could be, goodness me, family life, work, I've been away for 10 days, goodness me, blah, blah, blah, blah, how was that?

[00:18:30] before and after going to Vietnam. I extended it by a week thinking, you know what, I don't want it to be something I do in a pushy, pressurizing way that I'm stressed out about. I want it to be easy. I want it to be all the things that I talk about, ease and peace. So I extended the cart, cart open, as they call it, for a week.

[00:19:08] I could have written newsletters about it. And then, instead I'd just lean back in again, and trust that what will be, will be. And people who need this offering, they will come into my world, and they can join whenever. So I decided to change the rules again, and get into the rebel streak. Rather than, doors closed now, you can't join for six months.

[00:19:44] You know, we've not touched upon that, but I'm very conscious. I'm a very connected mother. I'm very conscious that I was hard for them to be away from me or me to be away from them for 10 days and I needed to hold space for their dysregulation. So I decided no, I'm not going to do any more promotion of that.

[00:20:20] That just, it's jarring, right? It doesn't match. It's not on brand for the message I try to share. So I had to be very Restful about it. I've worked very little this week after Vietnam And then I took four days off to be with family from Sweden and I really wanted to be present with them But I always noticed the urge first.

[00:21:03] They held the fort nothing Combusted nothing blew up. Nothing bad happened, and I'm in a good place It's

[00:21:32] Michaela: going to be very exciting, that's, I mean, it's something I've not mentioned yet, but it was a secret mission as well to go to Vietnam, that I went to four different accommodation places because I was scouting out where I'm hosting my own spacious adventure retreat next year. So, that's

[00:21:50] Ross: ho

[00:21:53] it, it's in the lagoon.

[00:22:16] Get in touch and I'll book it for you. So, it's one of the things that I have accepted and allow myself to just be multi hyphenated. Like, I'm an author, hyphen, speaker, hyphen, you know, podcaster, hyphen, travel agent, hyphen, retreat runner. You know, I can be anything I want. Because that makes me feel alive and vibrant.

[00:22:39] Ross: Wow. I love The Secret Mission, and if you're not already following Mikado on social media or listening to her podcast, I'll make sure all the links are in the show notes. But Mikado, I just wanted to draw us to a close. Oh, I feel exhilarated. Um, Would you have a, takeaway for our listeners? Thinking about perhaps the workplace, would you have a takeaway that perhaps would be quite practical for them?

[00:23:27] Inner story of failure and fear of failure. Is that the pressure you're bringing into the workplace or is the pressure actually external so that there is, you know, a sense of needing to be constantly available, constantly, um, dependable, you, you know, actually allowed to switch off because the expectation is around you to reply to emails at 10 o'clock at night.

[00:24:08] If you're in a toxic environment and already bring high internal pressure, it is a recipe for burnout. So I encourage you to consider and notice where's the pressure coming from and what choices can you then make. Because even if you suffer your internal pressure trying to be kind and caring and compassionate to yourself, if you're in a toxic environment, you know, you're in a soil that's never going to allow you to blossom.

[00:24:55] Ross: Wonderful. Michaela,

[00:25:03] Michaela: yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've I've had to sit with that a lot, it's, it's, owning it over time, and it's, it's not to say I'm not scared, I mean, I'm petrified of what people will think when this comes out, and you're still recording, so you can use this too if you want, I am petrified of what my colleagues will think, and I'm doing it anyway, it's, you know, The classic of like feel the fear.

[00:25:41] If a single psychologist. is a little bit more daring, a little bit more rebellious, looking at the systems they're in, my work here is done. If a single individual person goes to their workplace and goes, hang on a minute, this is toxic, my work here is done. If a single person goes, I can give myself that same permission, [00:26:00] my work here is done.

[00:26:10] You truly are inspirational. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

[00:26:25] Ross: Amen.

[00:26:43] And if you're liking the cut of Michaela's jib, and are interested in her burn bright program, you'll find a link in the show notes. And please say that you discovered her on PeopleSoup. Now, folks. We need your help. You can support us and help us reach more people with this behavioral science. So

[00:27:00] you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, we'd love you to do three things.

[00:27:12] Number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This would all help us reach more people and make some noise with stuff that could be useful. We'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at peoplesoup. pod at gmail. com. On X, formerly known as Twitter, we are at peoplesouppod. on the gram, known as insta, We are at People. Soup and on Facebook we are at PeopleSoupPod. You can also drop us a review or get in touch using a voice note on WhatsApp.

[00:27:49] Brilliant.

[00:27:56] Ross: Brilliant. Thank you so much.

[00:28:01] Ross: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. And more.

[00:28:07] Michaela: Oh, that's good to know.