Susan Hyatt:
Welcome to the Rich Coach Club. The podcast that teaches you how to build your dream coaching practice and how to significantly increase your income. If you're a coach and if you're determined to start making more money this show is for you. I'm master certified life coach Susan Hyatt and I am psyched for you to join me on this journey.

Susan Hyatt:
Hey, coaches. So, there are a lot of things I'm really into like obsessed with, and y'all could probably name most of them, because I talk about it all the time. Gorgeous shoes, fancy ass teacups, smashing the patriarchy, the latest thing I'm obsessed with, my garden. So, today I've got a funny story for you about how I made a scene with my landscaper plus I'll be sharing some ideas for creating upgraded experiences for your clients. And I have a really special interview with Victoria Albina that you're not going to want to miss. Ready? It's go time.

Susan Hyatt:
So, recently after my landscaping company finished servicing my yard they latched a little bag onto my door handle with an invoice and a glossy postcard promoting their upgraded services. And I immediately had FOMO. I thought I signed up for everything with this company. I mean everything they had to offer. I thought I was already getting it all. And here they were dangling these lush gardening services in front of my face. Why wasn't I already signed up for these things?

Susan Hyatt:
So, I called the company. And I'm joking, but I made a total scene. I was completely floored that I wasn't already paying for these upgraded services. And I was happy to pay for them. The woman on the other end of the phone, she laughed. She was noting that I was the most enthusiastic customer that they've ever had. So, as she plugged in my order for the upgrades, I asked about even more additional services, and she was confused, and she asked specifically what I was looking for.

Susan Hyatt:
And my answer, "I want everything. Sign me up for your highest level, your VIP package, any service that you have that I'm not taking advantage of, give me all that." And surprised and delighted, she took care of my request. And that my friends is the power of obsession. When you're really into something, you do not mind being sold.

Susan Hyatt:
In fact, you get annoyed if the company doesn't let you know about everything they have to offer because you want it all. Lots of coaches tell me they're scared of selling. They've got packages and programs and workshops and products and lots of beautiful powerful helpful things to offer, and most of these coaches have happy clients who do not even know about these things they are selling.

Susan Hyatt:
Why? Because they're too afraid to say, "Hey, I've got this other cool service program product et cetera, would you like it?" They feel like their clients will think they're being greedy. They're already paying for a service, shouldn't that be enough? Here's the thing when people are into you what you're doing, how you're serving, what you have to offer, they want every last bit of it. By not letting them know everything you have to offer, you're actually doing your dream clients a disservice.

Susan Hyatt:
So, if you're not getting the sales you want, you've got to offer your happy clients some upgrades. Not sure how to upgrade in your business, just give your clients what they're actually hungry for. Look at what they're already investing in and create the next logical step in the sequence.

Susan Hyatt:
So for example, let's say that you're a coach on money mindset and you love using tools like tarot and astrology. You could sell upgrades like your own tarot deck, individual tarot readings or create an astrology map to help your clients make powerful money decisions throughout the year. Another example would be if you're a coach who helps women balance their hormones. You could create upgrades like hormone balancing recipe guides or cooking classes or do a hormone audit where you study every area of their life and provide helpful suggestions on what might be affecting their hormones and how to get more balanced.

Susan Hyatt:
By creating and selling these upgrades, clients feel special, understood and taken care of. They also feel like a VIP, a star client. Yes. They are investing in these upgraded options, but they're also loving that they get the full VIP experience. So, if you want to make more sales, just reach out to your existing client base. And in the wise words of Beyonce, tell them let me upgrade you.

Susan Hyatt:
All right. It's interview time. And I just talked about how to upgrade your clients. What about upgrading you? What about upgrading your central nervous system? What about upgrading the way you behave in the world so that you stop people pleasing and doubting yourself and being codependent?

Susan Hyatt:
Oh yeah. I have Victoria Albina. She's a certified life coach. She's a family nurse practitioner and breathe work meditation guide. She has a passion for helping women realize that they're their own best healers so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing, and reclaim their joy.

Susan Hyatt:
She's also the host of the Feminist Wellness Podcast. She holds a master's degree in public health, and she also has a BA in Latin American Studies. Victoria's been working in health and wellness for over 20 years. And I was so delighted to interview her for the podcast. Get out your notebooks because you're going to want to take some notes. She gives some practical advice including she makes some herbal recommendations if you're suffering from adrenal fatigue and burnout. And I know a lot of y'all are suffering from burnout. So, here we go.

Susan Hyatt:
Welcome to the show, Victoria. I'm so thrilled to have you on Rich Coach Club.

Victoria Albina:
And I am delighted to be here. Thank you so much, Susan.

Susan Hyatt:
Now, listen, all y'all listening, do not get to witness how she has shown up to this interview. We're talking hair, lip, dress, like honest to goodness, amazingness.

Victoria Albina:
You are too sweet. I just wanted to show it right for you. That's just [inaudible 00:07:18]. It's plain.

Susan Hyatt:
Well, you have shown up in a full Rich Coach Club effect. And I am here for it, but really we're here to discuss your epic content. So, I was telling you before we started the recording that as soon as I saw what you are all about in terms of feminist wellness, I was like, "Yes. Book her immediately." Because listen, one of the big questions I have because I think everything relates to the patriarchy and everything can be a feminist issue, but I haven't heard this phrase this way. How is codependent thinking a feminist issue?

Victoria Albina:
Oh my goodness. So, codependent thinking the way I define it is this wound that says, "I am not worthy." Right? I am not worthy of love. I am not worthy of care unless someone else, a person, a place, a thing. So, it can be a job, it can be a title, it can be status, it can be a relationship, but something outside of me validates the fact that it's okay for me to be alive. Right? For me to take up space to have a voice. Someone I source my worth outside of myself.

Victoria Albina:
And humans socialized as women are taught this from jump, right? From like tiny babies. I remember walking with a friend recently, and she has twins. One's assigned female at birth and one's assigned male at birth and the conversations people would have at these little babies based on the blue hat and the pink bow were so wildly different. Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Yes.

Victoria Albina:
She's so cute. He looks so strong.

Susan Hyatt:
Right. I saw, I posted something on social media several years ago, but it was a post that went viral and I reshared it not too long ago and it was a two-one, like side by side onesies in a store and the female onesie said, "I hate my thighs."

Victoria Albina:
Oh my god.

Susan Hyatt:
And the male… Right. And the male onesie was a superman costume and just the disparity between infant clothing, the messaging on infant clothing and it sparked this huge conversation on my Facebook page about it, and what was interesting was someone in my audience was the original poster of this photo that went viral like six years ago and was talking about like that was, because somebody was suggesting that it was doctored or photoshopped and somebody piped up and said, "Here's the original photo from my Target shopping trip."

Susan Hyatt:
But when you think about the messaging from birth, right? That an infant girl should hate her thighs, right? It's just spot on. So, I'm curious what, because something that I run into in my work is that most of the women that I work with wouldn't, at surface value, say they were codependent or had worthiness issues. They might agree with about certain other things, but I think that it's so insidious, and so common and we don't even… We think it's like that's happening with other people, but not us. So, what are some of the common examples that you might be codependent?

Victoria Albina:
Right. And not even realize that, yeah. So, perfectionism, people pleasing, chronically… Listen, I love thinking about others. I love collective, right? Thinking about the collective and communitarian ways of thinking, but not at a complete disregard for our own wellness. And that's what we do from codependency. Right?

Victoria Albina:
We seek to make sure everyone else is okay, everyone else is fine, and then I can take care of me. Then, I can think about me. It also, part and parcel of that is not speaking up for ourselves. So, we may speak up as a business owner, we may speak up as a coach, we may speak up on behalf of our clients, but when it's actually about us and our heart that's when we take, we just, we clam up, right?

Victoria Albina:
We take that back seat. We don't want to offend anyone. We don't want to rock the cart, right? We don't want to… We eat the pizza that our mother-in-law made or the lasagna or whatever, because we don't want to offend her, even though we know we're going to have a tummy ache for three days, right?

Victoria Albina:
We do and think and show up in ways that chronically tell the world and tell ourselves and our inner children that everything is more important than us, than our feeling truly aligned inside.

Susan Hyatt:
Yes. I am writing quite a bit lately, I mean I have honestly for a long time, but the invisible workload of women and I'm talking about it in a little bit of a different way lately in terms of the wage gap, entitlement gap, achievement gap. I mean we got all these gaps and we're taught to focus on thigh gap. So, my question for you is when women are codependent, when they are always putting the needs of others in front of their own, because that's how we're taught that we are of value in society, what happens inside our bodies typically?

Victoria Albina:
So, we can go right to the level of the nervous system and we can… Would you like me to nerd out? Because I can do that.

Susan Hyatt:
I want to hear all about this.

Victoria Albina:
Let's do it.

Susan Hyatt:
Because when I read it, I was like, "Yes. Let's talk about this."

Victoria Albina:
Okay. Great. So, I would start in talking about how our codependency impacts our body by looking at the framework of the nervous system. So, our nervous system is this amazing gift within us that is constantly scanning the environment with one goal, which is to keep us safe from predators mostly, but those predators these days can be our workload, managing a home, a business, kids of family, partnership, friendship, et cetera.

Victoria Albina:
The constant dings and pings on our phone, and so when we look at our physiology and our mental wellness, we can see that when we are chronically stressed, our body learns that being in sympathetic activation, which is also known as fight or flight, a state of higher adrenaline, norepinephrine and eventually cortisol is the safest place to keep us.

Victoria Albina:
So, our bodies learn that it's safe to be constantly freaked out, because there's cause to be freaked out. And so, when we are in that freaked out state, sympathetic activation, fight or flight, nothing downstream works well. So, our cognition doesn't work well. Meaning, we can't think so goodly, our heart and lungs are not beating appropriately. We're not getting as well oxygenated, our digestion doesn't work as well.

Victoria Albina:
So, when you look at stress and irritable bowel syndrome stress and small intestine bacterial overgrowth, right? So, I was a functional gastroenterologist. That was my work as a nurse practitioner for many years. Chronically, I would see the overlap with codependency, perfectionism, people pleasing, and digestive concerns. Because when your nervous system is jacked, you're not going to break down that cheeseburger, right?

Victoria Albina:
Like that makes sense. Your body thinks that text from your boss at 10 PM is the same as a lion trying to attack you.

Susan Hyatt:
It's so interesting. And so, when you are in fight or flight, and your body is trying to keep you safe, is this what leads to burnout and neutrino adrenal fatigue?

Victoria Albina:
Absolutely. Yeah. Because your adrenals, and a gland can't actually get fatigued, but yes. I love to use the term adrenal fatigue with that caveats, because it's something colloquially we can really understand. The adrenals are like any parent on the planet. It's like, "Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom." And at the 400th time, you're like, "Oh my god. I just cannot with you. Here's the iPad."

Susan Hyatt:
That's best explanation I have ever heard in my life.

Victoria Albina:
Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Oh my god. I get it now. Okay.

Victoria Albina:
Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Right.

Victoria Albina:
I just cannot with you. I said, "No technology, but here's the iPad. Can you please, can you please give a woman a break? Go."

Susan Hyatt:
And then, okay. So-

Victoria Albina:
Okay. And then, you need adrenaline for like I don't know, getting up and putting on pants, because that needs adrenaline too, right? And your body's like, "I already told you no. I told you no. I told you I have nothing left to give you, woman." Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Wow. Okay.

Victoria Albina:
Wow. Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Yeah.

Victoria Albina:
And so, that's what happens when you chronically think poorly of yourself, when you're chronically putting you down, when you're chronically putting everyone ahead of you. Your business ahead of you, your clients ahead of you. When you don't have healthy boundaries, right? When you don't prioritize yourself.

Victoria Albina:
And when I say yourself, I mean the somatic experience of being alive. The felt sensation. So, you may be taking the bubble bath, going to the spa, buying the new shirt. Doing the outward external self-care acts, but what's your internal landscape like? What is your emotional relationship to you? And what is your cognitive relationship to your own feelings? Are you feeling your feelings or are you just reading a list of emotion words?

Susan Hyatt:
Well, I think that this is such a great point, because when I am working with women on… I talk a lot about the more fun I have the more money I make. And fun can be a lot of things. It should be sitting in silence, and also self-care as a business plan, I do notice that many people hear that and create a checklist.

Susan Hyatt:
And so, the checking off of had friend time, went to get a mani-pedi, whatever. That is not… Those actions could be great, but what you're saying is what is often unexplained is that how are you feeling while you're doing those things?

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. I mean it's like you can do anything from the energy of I don't love myself enough to pause and feel my feelings. So, I'm going to keep buffering with all this activity or like you said you can go like, "I don't know. Go put your hands in the dirt in the yard." Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Victoria Albina:
And think of it as and feel into it as, and feel into it as an act of true service versus an act of obligation. So, that's something I talk about a lot. Sorry. I'm just zooming us back to women, the patriarchy and codependency. We do most things from an energy of obligation, because we believe we have to constantly prove ourselves in order to be worthy of love, in order to be worthy of oxygen, worthy of air, right?

Susan Hyatt:
Right.

Victoria Albina:
And so, we can zoom that forward to self-care, and yeah, it becomes that checklist, has to, has to, has to versus I am worth taking care of. I want to be serviced to myself as much as I'm of service in the world. That's the shift internally.

Susan Hyatt:
That's such a shift. And it's funny that you should bring up gardening, putting your hands in the dirt, because when the pandemic began and I found myself at home instead of traveling a lot, I started to turn my attention to my environment at home and my yard and my yard really hadn't ever been a huge priority of mine, whatsoever.

Susan Hyatt:
And so, it was like this perfect storm of you're literally planted here now, my children… I'm an empty nester now. And so, I'm like I have time and I'm not going anywhere. And honestly, I think growing things and learning to be in the present moment with my hands in the dirt, that is what got me through the pandemic. One of the big things.

Susan Hyatt:
And it was that presence and that connection. So, instead of maybe what it had been in previous years where it's like let's just hire a landscaper to make this work [inaudible 00:20:16]. That's the huge difference in what my yard looked like then and now.

Susan Hyatt:
So, when someone finds themselves, when there is a lovely amazing woman who has, because she learned from culture, codependent behavior as a way to prove her place in the world, what are some of the beginning things that you recommend because I know most of my listeners are probably like, "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah." How could they restore and regulate their nervous system? How could they begin to heal this in a way that is sustainable? And I mean here we are, listen, here we are, what are, we 20 months to this pandemic?

Victoria Albina:
Right.

Susan Hyatt:
And I have so many female entrepreneurs saying to me like, "I'm kind of done."

Victoria Albina:
Right. Yeah. So, I love that you went right into resourcing and regulating our nervous system. I think that is a key skill that we need to learn that isn't being taught enough. Right? I love thought work. I love changing the way we think. And we need to recognize the somatic resonance.

Victoria Albina:
The fact that when we say our thoughts create our feelings, we are talking about tension patterns that live within our physiology. And so, we need to address our bodies. I don't know about you, but I'd say a solid 96.48% of my clients live from the neck up.

Susan Hyatt:
I would say yeah.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. Okay. Great.

Susan Hyatt:
I would say most people.

Victoria Albina:
Good laugh.

Susan Hyatt:
Yes.

Victoria Albina:
Right? And so, we're not present in our bodies, because at some point in our life we learned that it was scary or dumb to be in our body, to be present with our feelings, many times for really good reasons. And so, we just never went back to there and we never learned the skills.

Victoria Albina:
So, learning to explore felt sensation and to actually start to connect those feeling words on that sheet of paper that you have next to you when you're doing your thought work or thinking about your business, and the actual sensation that feeling creates in your physiology is so vital. So, let me, I'd love to share an example of a tool that folks could use.

Susan Hyatt:
Yes, please.

Victoria Albina:
Okay. Great. So, I'll invite you to get out some pictures. So, pictures of a nice time, right? Like Disney or Paris or that camping trip. Something that really is going to be either neutral or positive for you. And I want to invite you to look at those photographs and get present to the physical sensation in your body that arises when you look at you holding your…

Victoria Albina:
Now, you're an empty nester and your kid was four and you're camping and everyone's smiling and the s'mores stuff is set up, and you just feel that warm glow in your belly that expands up into your chest. And then, you slowly feel into what it feels like to smile from your spirit. Right? To smile in that deep and powerful way.

Victoria Albina:
And we start with something positive very much on purpose. Right? So, we can start to feel joy, happiness. We can start to feel those physical sensations and can then expand it from there. Yeah?

Susan Hyatt:
Yeah.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. Because most of us don't really pause to do that.

Susan Hyatt:
No.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. So, we start with something positive, something that brings joy and we really start to feel into it. And in my work, I start from there, and support women and to really feel into a complexity of feelings, but we start with there. What is joy? What is happiness in my body?

Victoria Albina:
And then, the next time you're excited about something, pause, and feel into it. Where does excitement live? Oh, it's a tingly feeling in my paws. Oh, my knees are a little like, they're sparkly. They're excited too. This is anticipation. This is kind of fun. Right? Feeling into this felt sensation.

Victoria Albina:
So, that's the first step of the work, awareness. Awareness, acceptance, and then action. It is so the American way to jump to action, right?

Susan Hyatt:
Right.

Victoria Albina:
Like New Year's resolution garbage.

Susan Hyatt:
Yes.

Victoria Albina:
Totally. Yes.

Susan Hyatt:
And I think that for so many people listening that action has, that's a coping mechanism and that's a way to like bitches get shit done. And so, that can be true, but what is also true is that if you change your value from being a report card of what you get done, to I would say to like how many… I'm always like, "Did you experience awe or wonder or pleasure or deep satisfaction or nourishment in any way?"

Susan Hyatt:
Instead of it being a report card, what can we pivot to or have as a new way of discerning if we're really living?

Victoria Albina:
Right. Right.

Susan Hyatt:
It's interesting.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. It's a new paradigm for sure. Right? And it's the oldest paradigm within each of us, because like, "What are babies?" Right? They're just like little joy machines that turn into little anger machines, that turn into little demand machines, and their diapers wet or they're hungry. Right?

Victoria Albina:
We are born with this wild, beautiful, amazing capacity to feel our feel, recognize our needs, verbalize our needs, right? With no BS, no excuses, no justifications, no explanations. "Well, I was hoping that maybe because I cooked dinner and I actually bought all the groceries and I got the kids and I walked the dog and I took the dog to the vet, and I mowed the lawn, could you maybe do one dish or take out the garbage just one time, please, maybe? It's okay. I can actually just do it."

Susan Hyatt:
Oh my god. With the way that the heat is rising in my chest just listening to that. It makes me stabby.

Victoria Albina:
So, stabby. So, stabby. I'm glad we didn't record in person.

Susan Hyatt:
Oh my god.

Victoria Albina:
Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Well, and so it's like, okay. So, if that's not what we're doing, what are we doing?

Victoria Albina:
What are we doing? Right. We're putting so many false barriers between ourselves and the lives we want to live. We can just say, "Can you please take out the garbage? Thank you." Clean, clear, direct, clean, clear, direct.

Susan Hyatt:
Clean, clear, direct. So, your story, I know that this is very personal to you.

Victoria Albina:
Yes.

Susan Hyatt:
Everyone listening is like, "Oh, she's smart. She's got her shit together on this." How did you heal yourself? Talk to us about your story a little bit.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. So, it's interesting. It's circuitous like so many of these stories are. I came into this world through my own health problems. I had wicked irritable bowel syndrome from jump pretty much, from birth. And went into medicine to effectively to learn how to heal myself, because I wasn't getting the support I needed.

Victoria Albina:
So, I went to UCSF. I became a nurse practitioner. I got a master's in public health because someone has to be an epidemiology nerd. And through that process learned, I became an herbalist and learned about functional medicine and really made the gut my focus thinking that I was going to be really working with the gut microbiome and talking about bacteria and parasites and nutrition and supplements and really at the end of the day what my patients needed was love and care and compassion and to learn about polyvagal theory and their nervous system.

Victoria Albina:
They needed to really think about stress, distress and trauma and the way those things show up in our physiology and like we were talking about before, keep us in that chronic fight or flight where your gut can't work. I mean because science, right? Susan, if you were being chased by a lion, would you stop to digest some French toast? Would you?

Susan Hyatt:
Oh, I don’t think so.

Victoria Albina:
Thank you. Please don't. That's a dumb idea. And you're a very smart woman. So, right? We keep ourselves running when we think we're supposed to be running. And when you're set to run, you don't do anything else. So, it's in that whole process I came to understand that even though I got the right diagnosis, because I had parasites which went undiagnosed by the Western medical system for 30 years.

Victoria Albina:
And so, I treated that. I did, took all the right pills, ate all the right diet, all the right supplements. This is all the right everything like obsessively. And it would come back and it would come back. It would be remitting and remitting like time and time again. And the key thing for me was the mindset piece. Right?

Victoria Albina:
And I always want to be clear. I'm not out here being like mindset is absolutely everything. No. I had a parasite. I had blastocystis hominis. We needed to find that. We needed to murder it. I had to get my thyroid set up right. My adrenals were a hot mess. Physiologically things needed to get healed and the mindset piece, the self-love piece that actually speaking my mind. Right?

Victoria Albina:
So, this is the interesting thing that you were talking about. I am a wicked, gregarious Leo. Right? I'm out here to talk and talk and talk like a real New Yorker. And when it came to someone I was dating saying something I didn't, that hurt my feelings, clam up. A parent doing something that didn't work for me, clam up.

Victoria Albina:
So, I was gregarious on the outside of my intimate relationships. And I was codependent as fuck within my most intimate emotional relationships. Because that's what was modeled for me in childhood, codependency, passive aggression, not being direct, saying something, but then doing something else. The story of being the long-suffering martyr and the savior and the saint and the fixer like all these tropes that we fall into from our codependent habits.

Susan Hyatt:
Wow.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah.

Susan Hyatt:
And so. And so.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. And so.

Susan Hyatt:
After healing this, when you're working with someone and you teach them what you articulated on today's podcast episode, which is basically awareness. Is there anything else as an herbalist that you would recommend?

Victoria Albina:
Oh that's interesting. Yeah. Here's my not a prescription. This is not medical advice, but L-theanine. So, L-theanine, when you see an L in front of something, it means it's an amino acid. It also ends in I-N-E, that's an amino acid. A dose is 200 milligrams at a time and I lovingly call it nature Xanax.

Susan Hyatt:
Oh, I think I take that-

Victoria Albina:
Oh, you should it's so good.

Susan Hyatt:
… in one of my drinks. Yeah.

Victoria Albina:
And actually, animals can take it too. I've given it to cats and dogs at a different dose, of course, talk to your vet. But that's a great one for reducing our experience of stress, our perceived stress. So, that we can then do the mindset work. Because let's be honest, if you're all adrenaline, can you sit down and write about your feelings?

Susan Hyatt:
No. And I think that is like when I think about my own experience, when I get jacked. It's so true. It's you have to calm it the hell down in order for you to even be able to access-

Victoria Albina:
Totally. Totally.

Susan Hyatt:
… your [crosstalk 00:33:02] thoughts, any of that.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. Here's another one I love. So, I don't know if this, but lavender actually works in the same way as the benzodiazepine drugs.

Susan Hyatt:
What?

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. So, it's a calcium ion. It works with the calcium ion channels in our bloodstream. Breath work, which I teach in all my, all my clients does the same thing. It works in the same way. And it actually physiologically calms you. How cool is that? So, there's actually-

Susan Hyatt:
That's-

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. There's pills you can take of lavender.

Susan Hyatt:
I was just going to say because when I'm looking out my window here at my garden, I've got some lavender. I'm like, "Wait a minute. What do I do with it?" But you're telling me to buy pills.

Victoria Albina:
I mean bring the lavender inside, diffuse lavender oil, put it on your pulse points if you're feeling stressed, but there's also pills. It's called Lavela. There's one company that makes it in the US, no financial connection with them. They're called Integrative Therapeutics, Lavela. It's pretty magical. If you're not allergic to lavender, it's a great, great option. How cool is that that it works like a benzo?

Susan Hyatt:
I mean.

Victoria Albina:
Because who doesn't love a benzo? Let's be real. I mean they cause dementia so let's avoid them. But, man, they're great.

Susan Hyatt:
I'm going to have my whole podcast listenership like addicted to lavender.

Victoria Albina:
Right?

Susan Hyatt:
There are worse things.

Victoria Albina:
Much worse things.

Susan Hyatt:
There are worse things.

Victoria Albina:
Much worse things.

Susan Hyatt:
So, what happens, I think I know, but what happens when someone successfully recovers from adrenal fatigue, burnout, codependent thinking, like what happens for someone's life in business?

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. So, I'd be delighted to use myself as the example. When I was running my functional, even 10 years ago, running my functional medicine practice and my coaching practice. I was so chronically obsessed with what my patients and clients thought about me. If my treatment plan was good enough, if they were going to get better, because that reflected on me. Which if you think about is really paternalistic, and like kind of fucked up. Right?

Victoria Albina:
It's not trusting my clients and patients. Like I had this call [crosstalk 00:35:20]-

Susan Hyatt:
What a great point, and for all coaches listening. I mean we talk about dropping your attachment to your clients result, here's a feminist reason to do that. Okay?

Victoria Albina:
Oh yeah.

Susan Hyatt:
Because you have to trust that your clients can know what to do with their own fucking lives. And I don't need to be anybody's mommy or daddy. That's not what they're hiring me for. And it's really fucked up to think that that's my job. Yes. It is fucked up. Y'all stop doing that, okay?

Victoria Albina:
Cut it out. Cut it out, y'all. So, now I can actually hold space for my clients. I thought I could hold space, but I wasn't because I had an attachment to their outcomes. And now, I don't. Right? I want them to do well. I want them to meet their goals. I want them to live the life of their dreams, but that's not my journey. Right? That is their work for them to figure out.

Victoria Albina:
So, I provide all the tools. Right? All the thought work, all the somatics, all the breath work, all the herbal medicine, right? All the tools, and I now allow my clients to be humans. Oh, here's one for coaches. If someone asks for a refund or to quit the program. That's cool. Right?

Susan Hyatt:
I'm the opposite.

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. What happens for you?

Susan Hyatt:
Oh, if they ask, I don't make it mean anything about me, but I have a strict no refund policy.

Victoria Albina:
No. No. As to why I mean is that my brain no longer goes to, "How did I fail them? What did I do wrong? Why am [crosstalk 00:37:07]-

Susan Hyatt:
Oh, right. I [crosstalk 00:37:07].

Victoria Albina:
… why am I not lovable as a mammal?" No. No. Right?

Susan Hyatt:
None of that. Because it's never about us. It's never about us.

Victoria Albina:
Unless, we're still stuck in our codependent spin. And then, here's the funny thing. We think we are so not important that we need to believe that literally everything is about us as a protective mechanism. Is that fascinating?

Susan Hyatt:
That is super fascinating.

Victoria Albina:
Right? And so, we take everything wicked personally as a way to think that we're protecting ourselves. What are brains?

Susan Hyatt:
Wow.

Victoria Albina:
Right?

Susan Hyatt:
This is so good.

Victoria Albina:
It's so good. It's so good. Yes. So, on the other side, we don't take things personally in the same way we don't make things mean things about us in the same way. We are able to allow other people to have their own lived experience of being themselves, and having their own life. And from there, we're able to truly, truly, truly be of service, because the result is not about us proving our worth.

Susan Hyatt:
Wow.

Victoria Albina:
So good.

Susan Hyatt:
So great.

Victoria Albina:
So good.

Susan Hyatt:
So good.

Victoria Albina:
And things taste better. Can I just say that? No, but like I mean it. Right? Because so much of this work is about getting present. Right?

Susan Hyatt:
It's like true. When you're present, you're able to actually-

Victoria Albina:
Taste better.

Susan Hyatt:
Right. You actually can see it, smell it. You know what texture the food is.

Victoria Albina:
Right?

Susan Hyatt:
Right.

Victoria Albina:
Sex is better.

Susan Hyatt:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Victoria Albina:
Going for a run is better. Literally everything is so much more better when you're actually present in your body.

Susan Hyatt:
Say it for the people in the back. I agree. I mean it's like the thing that everything that humans think they're going to get from a diet or from a boot camp or from some kind of strenuous productivity plan. Actually, they get from presence and pleasure and self-care and all those things.

Susan Hyatt:
And I love that you came on and gave the nerdy research-based, awesome, reasons to back up a lot of what I spout off about. I'm like, now, I can say, "You need to go listen to this episode because science backs this."

Victoria Albina:
Oh yeah. All the science, all the woo, the place in between.

Susan Hyatt:
So, how can people find you if they want to hang out with you?

Victoria Albina:
Yeah. So, on my website victoriaalbina.com right at the top of the page, you can download a set of free meditations and nervous system grounding and orienting exercises including an inner child re-parenting meditation that people have just been loving. That's the one I get the most messages about.

Susan Hyatt:
Whoa. Amazing.

Victoria Albina:
It's so cool. Yeah.

Susan Hyatt:
[crosstalk 00:40:13] download and listen and-

Victoria Albina:
Oh, thanks.

Susan Hyatt:
… of course, we have all of those links in the show notes for y'all. And Victoria, I just want to thank you for taking so much time to show up and bring this brilliance to our listeners.

Victoria Albina:
It was such a pleasure and thank you for everything you do. I love your work.

Susan Hyatt:
Okay. So, wasn't that an amazing interview? I took so many notes. And I hope that you'll give it a shot. I hope that you'll really think about how to be present and how to break some of the habits that women have with being people pleasers and co-dependent, because it is literally robbing you of your life, and not to mention business.

Susan Hyatt:
Okay. One more thing before you go. When you're offering upgrades to clients, try to describe these upgrades with shoe sale energy. Okay? So what's shoe sale energy? I've talked about it a million times on this podcast, but if you're newer to me, it's when you stumble upon something so exciting like a designer shoe sale, and you just can't wait to tell everyone about it.

Susan Hyatt:
Describe your upgrades with bold enthusiasm like the hottest shoe sale of the year. This attitude will get your clients excited and ready to upgrade. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Rich Coach Club Podcast. I hope this episode has inspired you to upgrade yourself and your clients. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next week.