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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default” animate=”yes” delay=”50″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]In this special episode, Kelly is joined by her coach, Catherina O’Gorman, Founder of Think Love University and creator of Think Love “A Q.U.E.S.T. For Greatness” Coach Immersion Training. Kelly reveals the transformation that she has seen in her life and business while working with Catherina, and how the ego can get in the way of our own success. Catherina also reveals a powerful process to instantly shift your thoughts, feelings and actions even in the midst of difficult situations.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”full_width_background” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” top_padding=”0″ bottom_padding=”7%” class=”custom-p” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”left-right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][toggles style=”default”][toggle color=”Default” title=”Episode Transcription”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”padding-3-percent” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Speaker 1: Welcome to Hidden Human, the podcast where we explore the stories behind the business leader. Get ready to hear insights from business leaders speaking candidly about how they became who they are today and the lessons they learned along the way. And now here’s your host, leadership coach and speaker, Kelly Meerbott.
Kelly Meerbott: Welcome to the space where we reconnect with our own personal humanity to deeply connect with our shared humanity. Normally I introduce my guests but I prefer that this guest, who is very, very important to me and my life, and my life’s work, introduces herself. So I’m going to turn it over to you.
Catherina: Well, my name is Catherina and some people call me the ego slayer. In my role within the privilege of working with you Kelly, and so many other souls from all walks of life, from heads of university to celebrities, to everyday people, you know? A plumber to a child, a student, every professional person you could imagine in the almost 20 years that I have been in service formally to every soul, I’m being and doing the same thing. I’m being the love that I am without conditions and assisting each of those souls bring into their consciousness awareness that they’re not, and what does that mean?
It means that we all have an ego and most of us down realize this, we don’t get taught this in school, so the role that I’m playing and my life’s work is about assisting you, and in this case, you Kelly, in the last few months, to really come into awareness of who you’re not, your full self, your humanity, your conditioned self, your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, emotions, and behaviors, as you, as people have identified with being or thinking in their lives, and certainly being the behaviors. But my life is dedicated to assist everyone realize that are the core of who we all are is love, and yes we have a human side of us, that’s why we’re called human beings. But that doesn’t define who we are, that’s being who we are.
And in work that I do as you know, Kelly, with you and everyone, is simply remind every person that I have the privilege of working with that they’re not their humanity. That’s an experience that they’re having. So at a spiritual level, that’s like we’re spirits having a human experience.
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah, and if the audience didn’t know, and I’m just going to kind of put it out there that this is going to be a very different version of Hidden Human because Catherina is my coach. I’ve been working with her for just two short months, but I feel like… and I’ll drop the “feel like,” I know that my life and my world has changed because of the work that I’ve done with her. When I came to you, Catherina, I was broken. My business was quickly going down the toilet.
We were in the process of losing our home, which that’s a long story I won’t get into. My husband and I who’ve been married but together for 13 years were being challenged. I literally had no relationship with my father at all, we weren’t speaking, and my finances and prospects for business were none. And what you’ve taught me in the very short time that we’ve been together, and again, I love when you say you’re not part of linear time because it doesn’t feel like linear time to me in the time that we’ve worked together Catherina, but it just feels like we’ve known each other forever.
One of my favorite things that you say is that everybody has this ancient wisdom inside them, you’re just waking them up to it. And I’ll say that just working with Catherina, one of the things that I hate that she does but I love that she does is that she provokes my ego to come out and lash out in its many forms. But what I realized yesterday because she did it to me this weekend was that she’s doing it in a safe space where I’m not going to lose her, you know? No matter what I say or how my ego behaves, I’m in a safe space to learn what I’m doing to sabotage myself.
That’s a long way of saying thank you, and I really have a lot of admiration for you because I’ve said some harsh things to you in the process, the ego, and you’re still here. That takes a special person.
Catherina: Let me remind you that there’s no separation at the high level, we’re all one and scientists are catching up to what ancients have known, we’re all connected. This is not woo-woo, this is science. But to come back to you and what you’ve acknowledged, I want to honor your soul and the power of it, and I knew this. So the circumstances in which we came together, as you know Kelly, were unique and not unusual for my journey as an intuitive, and that alone is indicative of who you are, meaning just so everybody can know, it was a guidance to connect with you through Linkedin, and I didn’t know you.
Long story short, I sent you a very clear message and it was you, you Kelly, that chose to respond to this strange woman saying whatever I did. My intuition was guiding me, and in that it was all you sweetheart. So what I want to just really ground and acknowledge is yes, I’m being a medium for love in everyone’s life, everyone that I have the privilege of being in service to. But in the end, if you, the client, does not choose to open your heart and to listen and to then take action in the direction of what I am being in that remembering and stage of your journey, so within what’s occurred yesterday with your ego reacting to what I was calling you out on, it’s you that’s showing up. It’s you that’s staying here.
Does that make sense?
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah.
Catherina: It is you that is committed, even to this podcast. I said it to you, right? “Hey, are we going to still do this?” And you said “Hell yeah, isn’t this what it’s about?”
Kelly Meerbott: Let’s set the context just so people know, because the people that aren’t in this work may not understand it. So basically the way my ego came out was I was interviewed on a show called Silverstone Live, and one of the things I love about Catherina is it’s all about being honest, transparent, and truthful, and my ego was doing a happy dance for about an hour and a half and just feeding itself on this interview, and I came out of it very proud of myself because I’ve seen the progress that I’ve made.
Now, that’s not what I hired Catherina to do. I hired her to dismantle my ego so I could live in the full power that I am and she just went to town and that’s her job, that is her job, to get it to come out so that I can see where I’m being blindsided, and she’s my reflection. I was very angry, I mean I was very angry at her and disappointed, and let me change that sentence. I was very angry at me more so, because as Catherina said, if we’re both the same, if I’m angry at her I’m really angry at me, which is what it was.
We had a conversation last night and she said “Do you really want to do this podcast?” And I was like “Fuck yeah, let’s use it. Let’s use it to show people what’s going on in our lives,” because really a lot of us, and we talk about this all the time Catherina, about people sleep walking through life and it’s really conditioning.
Catherina: Yeah, and the core root of all pain and suffering is dishonesty. So you in that interview were in your ego and the number one ego trait or strong suit in the ego is dishonesty. Most of us are being dishonest with ourselves, we’re not being true to our heart. We may be in a relationship, a marriage, a business partnership, whatever the relationship is, that’s in authentic. In other words, our heart is not resonating with that person but we’re putting up with them for the reasons people do stay in a marriage, for the children, for money, for looking good, whatever it is, yet meanwhile we’re in deep pain and suffering and more often than not certainly in this country, men and women are actively having affairs and acting out in their relationships because their needs are not being met.
Forget about being in the marriage needs being met, within themselves, because the work is about taking responsibility, it’s about really beginning to understand “What does it mean to truly love ourselves?” The greatest act of love is to be true. Shakespeare said it. I don’t own any of this consciousness, it’s ancient wisdom. But in the context of you Kelly, you’re learning to be honest and the interview was full of dishonesty, and that is the nature of the ego. It’s all about looking good, sounding good, being puffed up, and being in essence, full of shit.
What do I mean by full of shit? Well, full of thoughts and beliefs, feelings and emotions and behaviors that are not in alignment with the truth. So yes, I was calling you out on “Can you see where you were dishonest here? You had the opportunity to be vulnerable, Kelly. You had the opportunity to share your story which is compelling. But instead, your ego came in and shut him down and said ‘Oh we won’t talk about that.'” Right? So what I was doing with you and what the work’s doing in the context of our sessions is not to hurt or harm you, because I’m coming from a place of love and bringing about awareness that you don’t have. So like a horse with blinders, you cannot see. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Kelly Meerbott: Right.
Catherina: So that’s the role that I play. This last time, for whatever, I’ve come in very clear, you weren’t the first person that I’ve been doing this to, my parents were and then teachers, and throughout my journey I’ve been in training with coaches when I was an athlete heading to the Olympics. Nobody, nobody could tell me what to do. Most everybody that was trying to tell me what to do was coming from fear, and because I was connected to my heart I wasn’t listening to them and I was able to hold my own in being and remaining in my truth, and it’s been massive training now to essentially be in the role that I am and assist you because I’m clear, and I can see the ego.
Why can I see the ego in you? Because it’s the same ego in me. I’ve lied, I’ve deceived, I’ve manipulated, right? I’ve said things to look good and sound good. Granted for me in this journey it wasn’t for very long, but it was learned behavior. We all learned from our greatest influences, our parents, our peers, it’s collective conditioning. This is not something personal to Kelly or to me, it’s every one of us, and this ego is in everyone of us and it has been conditioned in the same way to get our needs met. To control, to lie, to deceive, to manipulate, to get our needs met.
This work is about assisting your line with your heart, instead of lying and deceiving, being honest. Connecting with truth, and here you are, being so fucking honest, so transparent and truthful about what has occurred. I mean I knew this about who you were and I’ve been holding space, but oh my god. This is the beginning of the rest of your life, madam. I am so on fire for your soul, I swear to god. You feel me?
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah, I do. And you know what? I want to go back because I found the message that you sent me on LinkedIn and I just want to read it because this is what launched me to come to Catherina, because like she has said many times, she’s a medium. She’s a channel for something bigger. And like she said, and I very much believe it, this is not woo-woo, this is everything. This is the way you are a leader.
On November 28th at 7:04 am, Catherina O’Gorman sends me this message on LinkedIn and we have never met each other, correct?
Catherina: Correct.
Kelly Meerbott: We’ve never met each other, so this is what I get, and to be very, very honest, transparent, and truthful, I get probably five to ten messages on LinkedIn pitching me every day. So for me to kind of zero in on this out of all of the messages, to me that has a lot of power to it.
She said “As intuition guides me Kelly, my name is Catherina. I was guided to come online and noticed your post. More than that, I was intuitively guided to connect with you. I will simply say this sweetheart, and I trust you will understand. The universe heard you cry and in that, I am here to be of service to you. What that means to you, I trust as you are OPEN, will be revealed within an invitation to chat. I work with only those I am guided to Kelly, from all walks of life. I trust as this resonates, email me at catherina.ogorman@thinklove.com as I am rarely online here. We can create a time to talk, email me someday, time options. I live in the Hamptons, New York. So much love sweetheart, have a bliss filled day.”
I think probably, was it two or three days later that we connected by phone Catherina? I don’t exactly remember how it went, but I do remember that in that first call one of the things you said to me was “What we’re going to do is dismantle your ego so that you are no longer attracting people into your life that use and abuse you.” And literally, that statement, I felt my soul vibrate. That’s exactly what we need right now, and it’s that feeling that when I get nervous about finances, which has been a big theme for me, I go back to, because I know that all the choices that I’ve made in my life have led me to come to you.
Catherina: Absolutely. And to add to what I said, which no doubt was shocking to the ego in you, as we learn to assist you stop abusing yourself-
Kelly Meerbott: Right.
Catherina: … because the work is about taking responsibility for you being like a projector, the piece of ppr you put on and then it projects out, that’s what we are. We’re projectors. So if we are having abusive thoughts towards ourselves, self-loathing thoughts, which you have been being and doing, like most people, our mind, the mind that’s in our head that’s talking to us and saying we’re a loser when we drop a coffee mug on the floor and it smashes, “What a loser” or whatever the mind says, we’re mostly listening to that mind and those are self-loathing thoughts.
So in the context of self abuse, the work is about bringing your awareness back to you and taking responsibility for the thinking that you’ve been having about yourself, and moving that thinking from fear based limiting self loathing thoughts to that of love. And that’s what I reminded you was ahead of you in the context if you chose to walk with me and do this work was to learn to love you, which was the overarching foundation of the work, learning and getting to know love, and simply be the love that you are.
What so many of us don’t have any conscious awareness of is that we are not those thoughts. But how I often assist people, come to them, I believe I’ve done this with you, is to invite you to be with me right now. So I’m inviting everybody or anybody who’s listening here to be with your mind and to ask yourself who’s that listening to that mind? That mind, those thoughts that are happening, who’s that listening to those thoughts? And the answer is the who that’s listening to that thoughts is the consciousness that I believe is the spirit of who we are. Call it love, you can call it bubblegum if you like, but I call it love. The consciousness of love is that eternal spirit of who we are, and that’s who’s listening to those thoughts, and that’s the truth of who you are.
So what we’ve been doing with you is moving you into that awareness, that you are not those thoughts, you are the consciousness of love. When you have self-loathing thoughts, instead of judging those self-loathing thoughts you can bring awareness into having compassion for your ego, for your human. It’s having a human experience right now, like you with the interview, not being able to have the internal strength or awareness to be able to be honest, transparent, and truthful in the core. Rather than judge you, judge the judger in you for enacting that, have compassion and realize that every moment of our journey is an opportunity to grow and expand into more of the truth of who we are.
As we begin to have awareness of the possibility of who we actually are is in our thinking, we don’t get taught this in school, is in our emotions and certainly is in our behaviors, that most people I can guarantee are thinking, because I know, I’m speaking for my own personal experience as my own insane mind that was taking me to suicidal thinking, was most people believe our thoughts and identify with being those thoughts. For me, it was when I was 19 and I was like, “What the fuck am I doing on this planet? I feel like an alien and nobody can see me, so what’s the point of being here?”
Kelly Meerbott: You know, we’ve talked about this before Catherina, you said “What’s the point of being here” and you and I have both contemplated ending it all. I mean me when I was 22, you when you were 19, where did the shift occur for you to pull you back from that?
Catherina: Well as you know I was an athlete in training from a very young age, four years old to 14, so as an athlete in that time, I was very aligned with my heart. So the consciousness of who I was being and the reality that I created was a blissful reality. Meanwhile, simultaneously I was getting belted at home, so it was ego, soul, reality. But in essence, I was aligned with my heart and I was on fire for my life, you know? I was an elite athlete training to be in the Olympics.
But what occurred was at 14 I was perceiving that my dad was going to die, and within three years he did. So I pulled the plug on my athletic career. In truth, at one level I was seeking his love, attention, and approval, so it was like, “What’s the point of continuing training?” So from 14 to 19 I basically went through massive depression, from being unplugged to the only thing was feeding my soul, being an athlete, having that mind, body, spirit discipline. Sure enough, intuition’s always right, my dad did die.
It was after his death that in essence, culminated my thinking. What I did was I just had an awakening to what I had lived as a child. I had the memory, I recall vividly, I was crying and on my knees and screaming actually, “Please God, help me.” My mind was taking over my entire body and in that moment I was having thoughts of being in a psych ward and I was too scared to go and check because I had this vision that they’d put me in straitjacket and give me injections and I don’t like needles. So it was like, that’s not an option for me.
In that moment I just had this memory, this visceral experience of being free in my mind, because as an athlete when my mind would come in, basically the Q.U.E.S.T. model that I teach and that you know, and I’ve been delivering to you, assist you understand that you’re not your thoughts. Your not the beliefs and emotions and even behaviors that are happening to you. The model is literally embedded in my consciousness of an athletes’. On track, I’d have thoughts of oh, I’m going to lose my race today because I’m not feeling well, I’d just been belted and I was feeling weak. But I knew that I wasn’t my thoughts so I changed my thinking and decided that I was going to win my race and I’d used my mind to visualize winning the race before I actually began the race. I’d win it in my mind. Then I’d run it and win it in reality.
So I had this memory in that moment when I was on my knees saying “Please God, help me,” that I wasn’t my mind. It was in that moment that I remembered that I’m not my mind.
Kelly Meerbott: Wow.
Catherina: So all that thinking, that incessant thinking that was causing me to feel like I was just fucking going to snap and just end my life just disappeared. It was no mind, since then I now experience varying levels of mind. It’s been a process, but now I don’t walk around with that insistent mind. That might sound strange, but I actually don’t have an active mind. When I’m triggered, 20 year old daughter, of course husband, 13 year, most intense relationship of my life, and having been in a previous marriage, this being my twin soul, when I’m triggered I definitely have mind.
The ego will come up, but through my awareness I’m not my mind. It doesn’t have any power over me, but I’m still a human being. The difference now is I’m practiced in the model that I have created and used as a child and to go back to that moment, that experience from that moment ’til now liberated my mind. So I haven’t gone back to that insistent thinking, that suicidal thinking. Don’t get me wrong, in the journey with Gerry for the last 13 years I’ve thought “Fuck, what am I doing here?” But not suicidal thinking. Not “I’m going to take myself out.” I’ve just had moments of just, “Wow.”
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah.
Catherina: “This is what it’s like to be in pain and suffering.”
Kelly Meerbott: Let me address what it’s like as you’re working through what happens. I’ve told you what it was like before, Catherina, and now, I think one of the most profound things that happened for me was we did an exercise called the value of the essence of me, Kelly, and the value of me as a coach. And I decided to take it a step further and read the list every morning to myself in the mirror, and the first day I did it I actually looked up and connected with myself in the mirror which may sound strange, but we look in mirrors to kind of do our makeup, to straighten ourselves out, but how often do we really look ourselves in the eyes and really connect?
It was almost startling. That was one of the first things, but even before that I’ve had opportunities come into my coaching practice to work with people that I’ve only dreamed of working with. We took out a business loan to begin working with Catherina and it was not great terms, and now we’re working on a loan that’s even better. My connection with my husband is a lot more intimate, not in a sexual way, on every level. We’re living in a home that I came kicking and screaming to, but is the perfect place for us. And after not speaking to my father for months, meaning since November, I get a call on Valentine’s Day and the voice is him apologizing to me.
Never in my 42 years has that happened, and really, it’s a direct connection of what Catherina has been teaching me which is loving yourself first. It’s not anymore complicated than that. It’s as Catherina’s been saying, it’s the thoughts, beliefs, behaviors that we’re conditioned to believe, and she constantly reminds me in our sessions that babies are born with two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. I see it as both of our jobs, Catherina, much more practiced in it than it am, is to help us unlearn and to help us get back to that ancient wisdom that we all have within us.
Catherina: Very pointedly shared, Kelly. The one thing that I know for sure that most people are enacting, and it is out of the conditioning to keep us in the victim, is they’re lacking self responsibility. Mary Williamson, I’m not sure if you know who she is, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this to you, has a beautiful writing that really depicts it perfectly. The essence of it is it’s not that we’re inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are all powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah, Marianne Williamson said it, that’s awesome. That’s such a great poem.
Catherina: Yeah, and it speaks to that, that it’s our light not our darkness that most frightens us, and are we even aware of our light? Most people are walking through life not conscious that they’re not their thoughts. They think that they’re human, they don’t realize that the human is the ego. So the work is about education and understanding your full self, your ego, and understanding your true self, the love that is you, that’s already you.
The analogy I love to use to describe it as you know is Michelangelo creating David. He acknowledged that David already existed in the marble, so was me with having knowledge that you already exist in your whole, perfect state inside the marble. Metaphorically, the excess marble is the ego-full self. All we’ve been doing in the work is chipping away, and metaphorically, literally removing that which is not you through your commitment of being in the awareness of your thinking towards yourself almost, towards Brian, your partner, and your colleagues and clients.
This is what self responsibility means, it means to begin to be in awareness of what’s occurring for you in your mind, and then be able to take responsibility for that, and instead of reacting to the ego, responding in love. And as you know in the work there’s many different distinctions, one of the most profound and most relevant, it is not my distinction, but all life is a mirror. Everyone in our lives are mirroring the aspects of our internal insanity. So Trump for example, the day that he was voted in, because I don’t watch TV or don’t read the paper, I didn’t actually know that he was voted in and we were at the dog park with a dog and a woman that I met there asked me “So what do you think about Trump coming in?” I said “Oh, I didn’t know. But it’s really simple, it’s the greatest opportunity humanity has.”
She was like “What?” Then in that moment I said “Well think about it, what’s your thinking about him?” And she of course was sharing what she thought of him, and of course what she was sharing was really pointing the finger, metaphorically, literally, and saying “He’s this and he’s that,” basically judging him. Then I said “Now I’m inviting you to realize you’ve got three fingers pointing back at you, own all of what you just spoke about in regard to him, and own that it’s in you, and that’s the opportunity, that the racist in us, the prejudice,” the whatever list that she came up with, “consider that you might not have enacted it like he is, but own it in you. We’re not separate, and that’s the gift of Trump, and now he’s going to be the catalyst so that people can rise up and do something different.”
The next day she handed me a $33,000 check to begin working. How did that happen? Well it was simple, she realized and took responsibility and she was an older woman, very aware, lived on this planet for a long time, had many different experiences, had been massively successful in her journey, and she knew the truth when it was spoken. We all know the truth when it’s spoken. We all have a heart, we all have the ancient wisdom that you love to refer to that I talk about that is the truth, because it’s resounding in you, because it’s the truth. We all have that. We all are that.
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah, and talk about reacting, I’m going to bring it back to me because that’s the experience I had, yesterday we were discussing the ego in me in the interview, we had been communicating via email and I was just done with it. I remembered saying on the all to you, “Okay, I fucked up, I fucked up.” What was beautiful about that statement is there’s still this residual… I like to call it mental flagellation that I do when I believe or my ego has caused me to believe that I’ve messed up, and really, you flipped that concept right on its’ head because had we not had the interview we wouldn’t have had all these contrasts to allow me to work through it and, as you said, fast track me on this path.
Catherina: Yeah, and what I reminded you of was that not only have you not fucked up, that’s been perfect. It’s a setup because to your point, we’ve got all of this gold, as Gerry, my husband, loves to say, to mine, right? You know, when you go to mine gold the whole shaking of the tray, looking for golden nuggets, this is a golden nugget, the biggest one. And in that you fucked up, it’s been playing in your mind like an old fashioned answering machine for all of your life, right Kelly?
Kelly Meerbott: Yup, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Catherina: So in that moment, what I reminded you of is not only have you not fucked up, this is great! This is giving us the opportunity to essentially, the reason why we watched the interview was not because we needed to watch it for entertainment, but from a training perspective watch you and scan where your ego’s alive, see where you’re being dishonest, see where you’re enacting the seeker, seeking love, attention, and approval, which most people are doing all the time. They don’t realize this, we don’t get taught it in school, so nobody’s aware of it, right?
So see where all of your ego was acting out, and then essentially again, not to hurt or harm you, but to be a course for healing you by bringing it to your awareness and holding up the mirror. Inviting you to be able to see, “Yup, I could have said this or I could have done this differently.” And again, it’s not at all a fuck-up, it’s 100% an opportunity to heal you and then to grow and expand in the you that is the truth of you, the love that is you.
Kelly Meerbott: So what’s popping in my mind is if you could explain from your perspective, because I’ve explained from me perspective, how these situations help me be a better coach.
Catherina: Well, what I know for sure, we’ve talked about this, is I don’t get hired and get paid what I get paid without being raw and real, so without being honest, transparent, and truthful. How this correlates to you being not only a better coach, but let’s just get real about it, financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, more in alignment with your heart and the consciousness of your higher intelligence which is the heart, enables you to assist others to do the same.
Right now on the planet, the realization of the love that we are is not yet realized. Most of us are operating from the masculine mind and most of us, every day, especially in the corporate world, are living a breakneck pace, right?
Kelly Meerbott: Right.
Catherina: [crosstalk 00:33:25] talks about in her testimonial within the work with me that she was just doing, doing, doing at the cost of her own health and wellbeing as a mother with two children and a husband and a couple of companies, the level of insanity. So how does it relate and correlate? Well you, Kelly, get to be able to love you and be balanced in what you do. You get to be able to be 100% present with your clients and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, but even if you don’t it’s the truth, it’s what I know and it’s what I’ve experienced with every single soul I have met in the years I’ve been on the planet, that everybody, there isn’t a soul that doesn’t desire to have attention placed on them, for somebody else to be present and deeply listening, right?
So what enables you to be a deep listener? Listening is loving, being present. One of the distinctions, again, a high distinction is listening beyond self. What does that mean? It means when you’re in a conversation, like when I’m in session with you, I’m not thinking about what am I going to make for dinner or my next session or anything, I’m present to you. There’s nothing happening in my mind. I am 100% locked in, you’re my universe. So what it helps you do to as a coach, this work, is become present to yourself and your own needs, and therefore present to another human being and be fully there. And that space that you’re holding that love, that attention, is healing unto itself.
You know, and I’m sure you’ll concur Kelly, in relation to you and I, that that can be found. We’re energetic beings. Again, science, not woo-woo. We’re all energy. So before any words are spoken, which scientists or whoever says 10% of communication is verbal, well I say that 99.9% is energetic and that small percentage is verbal. So in other words, we feel first. You know when you go into a room and you can feel?
Kelly Meerbott: Yeah, or you walk into a store where you can tell that nobody’s happy working there. I can feel that and I think you and I have talked about telepathy between hearts and I remember when I met you face to face in December, it felt to me like I was coming home to myself. That’s a really surface way of saying it, in fact, a lot of this work that Catherina and I do, which with me, it is a challenge to put into words because it’s so experiential. I used to get so annoyed with her, I would send her this win that I had based on our work and she’d be like “Okay, now write about it.” I was like “Shit. What the fuck? Why do I have to go write about it now?”
It’s not about the writing per se, it’s about capturing that energy, like we were just talking about. I’m grounding it so that for me, when I’m feeling wobbly or the ego is taking its shots at me, that I can anchor back to what it felt like when I was feeling grounded. That’s what the Q.U.E.S.T. model is so great about, and I would love for you to kind of walk through what Q.U.E.S.T. means, but I will tell you even before Catherina gets into that, that it’s almost an… No, I’m going to drop the word almost. It’s an instantaneous shift from stress to expansiveness within walking through this model, it just is. I can feel it, you can feel yourself shift in it if you’re really honest, transparent, and truthful.
Catherina: It’s just a light switch, right? Most of us right now, and when you’re in the ego, this is what most of us are experiencing is fear. When I say most of us, you know, I say that just to allow for people who think that they’re not in fear, but I can tell you that we are all connected. So we are all experiencing fear. It’s the nature of our humanity, it’s the number one trait of the ego, and the behavior of that fear or the very tangible way to describe it is we are thinking that we have control of someone or something, right?
Kelly Meerbott: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Catherina: That we have control of our lives, so we’re controlling our partner or we’re controlling our dog, or we’re controlling whatever we think we need to control in order to feel in control. So this is the number one trait of the ego, and in that, in the context of what you’re talking about Kelly, the model moves you from fear to, to your point, a completely expansive place. Said a different way, a place of peace, a place of love. So at a very practical level, it’s like a light switch. The model walks you through what your current thinking is.
So for example, in relation to money, right? “I don’t have enough money” or “I’m going to run out of money” or whatever the fear is, and then the belief would be “Well if I don’t have enough money then I’m going to die.” This is an extreme example. How does that feel? Well, oh my god, it feels like it’s the end of the world for me, and how do I behave contracted? I’m not able to do anything. And the impact of that on my life and my loved ones, well it’s enormous, enormous pain and suffering because they’ll pull away. This is the thinking and the beliefs and the feelings and emotions and behaviors that occur in us based on the thinking, right?
Then the model takes you to a new option, an option that will move you out of fear, an option that isn’t yet real, but is an option, right? An option to consider. Why would you want to stay in that kind of fear, that kind of contraction? So the option is love, so flipping it on its head and bringing you from a limiting fear base to a limitless love base, and then as you walk through that and create that possibility of the opposite of that fear based thought, then you come into a completely different, literally energetic feel. Your body’s at peace. Your mind is settled, and you create a whole new possibility for your life.
The power of the model is the simplicity of it. The Q stands for questioning that thinking, that fear based thinking that we’re walking around with. I mean what’s one thought that you can think of Kelly that would be relevant for most people? What is everybody mostly walking around with in relationship to a partner?
Kelly Meerbott: Oh in relationship to a partner? Oh gosh, I was actually-
Catherina: [crosstalk 00:40:22]
Kelly Meerbott: I’ll tell you what popped in my mind, was again, a money belief. “I’m going to run out of money and I’m going to lose my house.”
Catherina: Well done. So there’s the belief, “I’m going to lose my house” and how did that feel?
Kelly Meerbott: It feels scary, it feels shameful because I’ve lost our house before.
Catherina: Well done.
Kelly Meerbott: It feels blocking, like it just blocks, there’s nothing else I can hear or see. Let’s see, it feels tense and my whole body feels like a clenched fist. The muscle feels like it’s seized up, my breathing is shallow. I feel like I’m in a thought tornado. It just feels out of control.
Catherina: Well done. So how do you know you behave with yourself and your partner and everyone when you’re walking around with this thought, that you don’t have enough money, and believing that you’re going to lose your house as a result?
Kelly Meerbott: You know, I lash out, I push Brian away. In fact, I’ve said this to you and I’ll get back into the process, but he’s said “You know, we’ve struggled before and I know that, but don’t treat me like an asshole.” I’ve been known to do that, to push him away and just really be cold and shut down, and just short and terse with him. If anybody who knows Brian, that’s like kicking a little child because he’s just such a good man. I’m more defensive, I take things personally, there’s a part of me that shuts down and closes off so I isolate myself, not just with Brian, with clients, meaning I’m not as open and vulnerable as I could be.
That’s all that’s coming up right now.
Catherina: Well done, and what’s the impact on your life when you have the thought that I’m going to run out of money and I’m going to lose my house? And all of what you’ve felt and how you’ve behaved, what’s your impact on your nervous system and your health and wellbeing? What’s the impact on you, Kelly?
Kelly Meerbott: I’m going to borrow what you said to me, it’s like injecting poison into your body. And just on a scientific level, it’s the adrenaline, it’s the cortisol. For me, I’m one of those people if you pick fight, flight, or freeze, I freeze. It’s analysis paralysis, I am paralyzed. I don’t know what to do, where to go, what to be, I mean it’s very paralyzing. That’s the best way I can put it.
Catherina: Well done, and now in this moment as you’ve gone through and felt the impact, I’m just going to invite you to take a moment to be with that and realizing the impact not only on your but your relationship with your husband, your clients, and everyone in your life that you care about and love, really feel that. I’m inviting you to walk with me into a new possibility, into the opposite of what you’ve been experiencing, knowing that this opposite, this opportunity is right now what you’ve created.
Kelly Meerbott: So the opposite, so if the thought is I won’t have enough money to keep my house, one of the things that has been coming up for me a lot is that I have an unlimited bank account and that this is not the only house. Every place in the world is a house. Does that make sense? I don’t know if that makes sense.
Catherina: Completely. You have an unlimited bank account and this is not the only house. There is a house wherever you chose, in essence. What can you now believe is possible for your life when you walk around with that thought? That I have an unlimited bank account and the house that I have is not my only house. What can you now believe is possible?
Kelly Meerbott: It’s instantaneous, it’s anything is possible. Anything is possible, and I feel like just kind of put it into better context and again, this is not… we don’t use drugs in this process at all, right Catherina? This is all our own internal work.
Catherina: Love is my drug. The consciousness of love. How are you feeling as a result of that belief and thought, that anything is possible?
Kelly Meerbott: I was going to say, I instantaneously in this process feel like Bradley Cooper in the movie Limitless. You look around and all of a sudden you see all these opportunities popping up, and then they do. I mean let’s put it into context Catherina, just this process with you, in two and a half short months, I have gone from having a coaching practice where I was desperately looking for people to three to four opportunities to make money, coach, and get hired, daily. Daily. So from nothing to anything is possible, and it opens up, like I said, this unlimited bank account.
One of the things that I love that you say is stop stepping on the hose. And if you could just kind of briefly… because we’re getting to the hour, I mean I want to have you back so we can do more of this because I think it’s very powerful and impactful for everybody who’s listening, but at the same time, I do want to honor Doug’s time who’s our great producer.
Catherina: Yes. So metaphorically, the hose analogy is simple. We all know that water comes out of the hose and the metaphor is water is love, love is energy, it’s abundant financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. So when we’re standing on it, we’re kinking the hose, we’re blocking the experience of love within ourselves and love within our loved ones and our lives, and therefore financial, emotional, spiritual abundance. So I invite you to step off the hose and realize that love already exists here. It’s the ego mind way of thinking that gets in the way and creates separation from that love.
So the model is so powerful because we walk these through, the thinking that’s effectively the hose being blocked, right?
Kelly Meerbott: Right.
Catherina: And I clear that, clear the fear. So here we are in the part of the sequence that’s the love based part of the sequence where you’re feeling or you stated that you can now believe anything is possible and how does that feel when you are in anything is possible, Kelly?
Kelly Meerbott: Relaxed, I can feel I can take a deeper breath. I’m clear, like I said, my vision kind of flips to “Oh my god, what am I going to do” to “Oh my god, look at all of those possibilities, look all these opportunities.” I’ll give you a perfect example, I was panicking last week and while I was in a meeting we had three opportunities between the hours of 9:00 and 10:30 come up, and one was an urgent opportunity to do training that needed to take place in three weeks, which meant they had to pay me now in order to secure it.
I mean, these are tangible ways that taking care of yourself and dismantling the ego really benefits myself and society as a whole.
Catherina: So coming back to the feeling as a result of feeling this way, that you’re clear and that anything is possible, literally you start to see all these opportunities, how do you find yourself behaving as a result of the feeling state that you’re experiencing?
Kelly Meerbott: I’m in the receptive mode.
Catherina: Right, and what is your behavior? How does that look? What is Kelly doing?
Kelly Meerbott: I’m open, more expansive, more grounded, more steady.
Catherina: How are you behaving towards Brian? How are you behaving towards your clients? How are you behaving towards these opportunities coming in?
Kelly Meerbott: Just lovingly, but not attached, meaning these opportunities come in, “Wow, that’s a great opportunity, I’m going to do the best I can to secure it.” If it’s not for me, it’s not going to be for me. But if it is, there’s a level of gratitude because I realize that these people are mirrors for me and I just behave more warm and openly. So I’m more in alignment with the love that I am.
Catherina: Well done. What’s the impact on your nervous system? What’s the impact on your relationship with yourself, Brian, and all your clients and people in your life? What’s the impact?
Kelly Meerbott: The impact is I’m the best version of myself. I’m not holding anything back. I’m bringing everything that I have of me to the relationship.
Catherina: Beautiful. And what’s your commitment right now? The commitment aspect of the sequence is about inviting you, as you know Kelly, to commit when the old limiting fear based thoughts of “I don’t have enough money and I’m going to run out of money and lose my house,” when that old thought arrives, which it will because it’s programming, it’s like the old fashioned answering machine, what’s your commitment on a scale of zero to ten, ten being the highest level of commitment to choosing this new love based thought, that I have an unlimited bank account and that there’s houses all over the world for me? What’s your commitment to aligning with the love based thought versus listening and aligning with the old fear based thought?
Kelly Meerbott: It’s a 10+.
Catherina: Well done. What is a baby step right now for you? This is part of the sequence that enables you to take action in your life, so holding you accountable to action, what are you choosing to do differently?
Kelly Meerbott: Just lovingly but not attached, meaning these opportunities come in, “Wow, that’s a great opportunity, I’m going to do the best I can to secure it.” If it’s not for me, it’s not going to be for me. But if it is, there’s a level of gratitude because I realize that these people are mirrors for me and I just behave more warm and openly. So I’m more in alignment with the love that I am.
Catherina:Beautiful, and how are you feeling right now?
Kelly Meerbott: Really good. Really good, which makes me really sad that we have to wrap this up. But anybody who really wants to do their life’s work and step into their power, reach out to Catherina O’Gorman, the Think Love Alliance really is what it is, I mean it’s the most powerful, most important work you’ll do in your life. Catherina, if you could just tell the audience how they can reach you, that would be great.
Catherina: Absolutely. They can go to the Think Love University website and in that is a contact sheet and they can connect that way, or they can connect with you and you can refer them on. But I want to just acknowledge the importance of you in this right now, in the core and the opportunity to work with you as well Kelly, and that we haven’t shared and I’ll quickly share that I don’t work in the way that Kelly does.
So Kelly, you’re in the corporate world, physically going into environments within that world and working with people. Correct, Kelly?
Kelly Meerbott: Correct.
Catherina: I work differently. I work with key influencers and people from all walks of life, and I work via technology all over the world. The way I most often work is an intensive retreat and I extract people out of their environments. It’s not to say that I’m blocked and not open to coming into an environment, but that’s Kelly’s domain, and certainly part of Kelly’s training. I’m willing, and this is part of my commitment to the client, to co facilitate for her training, to come into a corporate environment if it is that somebody’s listening right now and really is interested in what we call “self love,” realizing self is love, doing a workshop or a talk on self confidence.
This is all the things that I am willing to do for Kelly’s training, essentially mostly work with people one on one or if it is a group, extracting a team out of the corporate environment and bringing them to a retreat in Italy or somewhere different, primarily because that’s my immerse state, is to really work intimately and intensely and bring people out of their current environment to create maximum change really fast.
Kelly Meerbott: Correct.
Catherina: Is this to you Kelly, ground for all the difference? Compatible of course, Kelly is. And that’s something I want to say is what you have lived Kelly, I haven’t, and that’s why there’s no possibility of comparison. You’re an amazing human being. What you’ve been through, I haven’t been through. So yes, this is the work that I’m being and doing with you, and yes it’s powerful, but here we are together co creating infinite possibilities for humanity. Different people are going to resonate with you, and different people will resonate with me, and yeah, there’s not one that’s better than, it’s just different, right?
Kelly Meerbott: Correct. That’s why I always say to people it’s who matches with you, chemically and vibrationally, that’s your coach. For me, that happened with email. So Catherina, first of all I just wanted to say thank you and second of all, for anybody who’s listening to this, it’s really our intention that you’re honest, transparent, and truthful to deepen the connections in your lives and put the fear aside and go and have a great conversation because that’s really what can change your life is illustrated by this podcast.
Catherina: Yeah, and I just want to acknowledge you in your conviction and your commitment to liberating your soul, Kelly, by being so honest, transparent, and truthful today. So vulnerable and so willing to be in service to yourself and therefore humanity by your authenticity. That’s compelling.
Kelly Meerbott: Thank you so much Catherina, and we’ll talk later today. Have a great day everybody.
Speaker 1: You’ve been listening to Hidden Human, the stories behind the business leader. If you’ve enjoyed the episode, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. To learn more about Kelly and the services she provides, visit youloudandclear.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a new episode.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/toggle][/toggles][/vc_column][/vc_row]
