Transcript
Hello, everyone. Um, on this, I think the hottest day of the year in the UK so far, which doesn’t say, um, all that much. We’re gonna talk to Nicola, who’s in Ireland in a minute. Um, yeah, I’d like to welcome you to another podcast, and I’m really happy to be joined by Nicola. So, Nicola, tell us a little bit about yourself, and then I do want to hear what the temperature is. And thank you, Amy. Thank you for having me. Um, um, my background is in HR and organisational development.
I’ve worked I worked across HR and OD for almost 20 years and as a and as a leadership coach as well. And in the last 10 years, I have retrained as a mindfulness based psychotherapist and EMDR therapist. And now I’ve kind of created a new coaching programme on developing authentic leadership for emerging leaders. Great, great. Tell us the temperature and then I have to ask you what I think is about 16 degrees. OK, well, let’s let’s move on. So, um, yeah, so tell me mindful psychotherapy, because I would and what did you say MDR?
So I would assume, just listening to it, uh, but isn’t all psychotherapy supposed to be mindful? Or, or, yeah, what, what, what is that all about? Well, the, the modality that I trained in is called mindfulness based core process psychotherapy, and it’s a blend between Buddhist principles and psychology. And Western psychodynamic therapy. So it’s a real blend between um kind of Buddhist principles and Western psychotherapy. Well, that’s really interesting. Very interesting. Now, how do you, and you mentioned you’ve developed this new coaching programme. Um, were there some themes or topics that led you to say, I can see that I need to develop something that is answering a specific need based on what, what you’ve observed in terms of leadership stands at the moment.
Yeah, I mean, I think in in terms of my psychotherapy training and the the clients that I was working with and my own personal journey as well, um, during the training I really showed up. What was, what what is it that prevents you from being authentic and you know, we, we all experience moments of imposter syndrome or You know, have people pleasing behaviours or, you know, have a powerful inner critic and really in my training, I was trying to really understand where that comes from, and also understand where that came from within within myself.
And so I really explored that and during my when I when I was writing during my masters, I actually wrote my dissertation on what prevents us from being authentic. Uh, so I really kind of delve into that topic and then through the work as a psychotherapist and coach, I could really see the impacts of poor leadership, but also the impacts of where people who experience imposter syndrome or thought that they had to say yes to everything and couldn’t set healthy boundaries, the impact that had on their well-being, both physically, emotionally and psychologically.
Um, so, so that’s what kind of really led me to develop this programme, the coaching programme. So why, why does authenticity matter so much, right? Um, well, I think it’s really important to be to be able to show up as yourself, because what happens for us if we feel that we have to hide parts of ourselves. We’re pushing who we really are dying in fear maybe of rejection or abandonment or for whatever reason or fear of failure, or people will not accept us. So it feels really important to be able to show up as ourselves, but firstly and foremost, we have to be able to acceptselves who we really are.
Mhm, mhm. Yeah, and it’s so interesting because I think it’s, yeah, I mean, with this conversation can really go in any direction, right? Because you look at Uh, where does it come with, in your experience, where do we project or how do we project who we should be or we think we should be, and therefore, we’re not authentic? Where does all of that come from? It’s our background, it’s our influences, or is it also corporate culture that we perceive to hold out certain norms, right? Or, or maybe corporate culture indicates that you need to fit in and behave a certain way?
Yeah, I think it’s it’s multifaceted. Um, I think corporate culture absolutely um indicates that you have to show up in a certain way and behave in a certain way, um, that leads to people being inauthentic and fearful of showing up as themselves or, you know, kind of creating very healthy boundaries for themselves. But kind of where that stems from that can and it’s not for everybody, but it can very much stem from from our childhood. Um, you know, in the sense of if you have listened to or read any of um Gabor Mate’s stuff, you know, he very much talks a lot around authenticity and what prevents us from being authentic in his work.
And one of the key things is that really it’s our need for survival as children. We need to choose between attachment and being authentic, and we need to be attached to our primary caregivers for our survival as little ones. So in that sense, we kind of come into this world being very able to say no. It’s probably one of the first words that we actually express is no. But as we grow and we develop, we learn that we need to maybe um meet other people’s um. Expectations or, you know, so and that’s where we kind of start kind of shifting who we are in a relationship.
Yeah, and I think then we start saying yes to things saying no to, which then actually changes and yeah, who we are. And it’s interesting. I, what I’ve seen in quite a few organisations is that parent-child relationship being projected or played out. Again, whether it’s with authority figures that we all, you know, whether we, we, we work with authority figures or we are authority figures. So, I’ve seen it so often that the parent-child dynamic just plays itself out time and time again and Yeah, that, that’s so unfortunate, right?
Because I think that does drive, sometimes, the inauthenticity. Absolutely. Absolutely. And when that’s kind of playing out, we’re not, we actually kind of sometimes fall back, yes, we fall back into the child role, as opposed to actually being stepping into our adult. Hm. So I have a difficult question for you here, or maybe it’s, right? But, um, All the, the, yeah, the, the hype about positive psychology and, you know, be positive and how does that sit alongside being authentic, right? Because I think And maybe it’s finding balance, but sometimes I, I’ve certainly observed, and sometimes even experienced if we all a bit too Pollyanna, for me, that also there’s a bit of the, well, I mean, I I don’t find that as authentic.
It there’s a lot of pressure on us to focus on things that work as a means of attracting positive things. What’s your perspective on that? Yeah, I think sometimes it’s um, yes, it’s good to have a positive mindset, but if we we can fall into that, I don’t really like this term but toxic positivity, um, and we’re not actually being real. It’s not really saying how we feel. We’re not, we’re not real with ourselves and we’re not real with others. So, um, so if something isn’t going well for us and we feel that we have to be positive, we’re actually suppressing what we’re really truly feeling.
Yeah, and I think if you look in the world, there is so much, um, I think such a push for trying to avoid anything that doesn’t feel positive or is positive. But it’s, you know, it’s that old saying, if you don’t experience some challenge, you might not appreciating the good when it does come along, or something like that, right? But it’s also how we can grow, and how we can really understand ourselves and how we can, um, Uh, you know, through challenging experiences, you know, we, we, we grow and we learn who we are.
Sometimes I can do with a little less growing though, just on that, right? I particularly like that it was like pandemic and war, etc. And I’m like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a little less growing. Maybe a little more, I don’t know, but not all this growing. But you’re right. Otherwise we won’t grow. So, um, our time is nearly up, but if you were to give a. Piece of advice to whether you’re a leader or emerging leader, to check in with yourself in relation to, am I being authentic?
How do you start that? What, what are some of the things that you can do? Um, I think some of the key things is just like the end of each day, kind of really reviewing and reflecting on, you know, was I fully authentic I show up authentically as me today. And if I didn’t, what was it that stopped me from showing up as being being authentic? What was it that I said yes to that really I wanted to say no to? And what was it that prevented me from saying what I really needed in that moment?
I’m really, I’m really, I’m really reflecting on what was happening for you. And I think that’s a muscle to be built because things are so difficult and, and, and fast-paced, and we’ve always got something else to do. Just taking the time to stop and do exactly that requires a bit of practise. Um, and it doesn’t have to be long, right? You can do it for a couple of minutes. It’s just taking a moment to reflect, to really kind of really deepen your kind of, I suppose, your awareness, um, as to how you show up and why.
You, um, what, what, what was it that prevented you from showing up as as you? Do you require a lot of self-awareness to be doing that or do you I think you develop self awareness. And I’m being being aware of the different parts within us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. Good. Is there anything anyone can read before we do our, our, um, conclusion today? Anything you’d recommend we read or have a look at? Um, I love the work of Gabor Mate. Um, I think he’s really great. Um, I also love the, um, as an old book that Brene Brian wrote, The Gifts of Imperfection.
Yeah, I do love that one. And I love that one. it’s, it’s really good, but I love the work of Gabor Mate when it comes to, um, authenticity. And you can find lots of his talks on, on YouTube and and and numerous books. The latest one is The Myth of Normal. Ah, I might order that one. Wonderful. Thank you, Nicola. So if people want to get in touch with you, uh, what’s the easiest way to do that? Um, they can just email me on Nicola at the Avenue consultancy.com.
Or just connect with me on LinkedIn. Oh yeah, that’s that’s also true. Well, listen, thank you very much for your time today. And, uh, yeah, I look forward to seeing what, what comes next for you. Thank you, Annay. It’s really lovely to speak to you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
