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Welcome to the Inspired Woman podcast with your host, Sam Bell. Get ready to be inspired by inspirational women and men who are making a real difference in our world today. Listen in as they share their stories and provide their weekly dose of inspiration to help you stop existing and start living your life with passion, purpose, and joy.
Get ready to be inspired. Hello and welcome to the Inspired Woman with me, Sam Bell. And I am delighted to welcome an old friend of mine.
Well, you're not that old actually. I'm not old. But yes, Michelle Bateman.
You transformed your life from overwhelmed single mom to CEO, international speaker, author, facilitator and founder of Soul Journey. And as a confidence and clarity coach, you empower women and soulpreneurs to break through the blocks that hold them back and confidently own their worth in both life and business. Michelle's unique combination of spirituality, somatic and inner child healing experiences and powerful mindset shifts allows her clients to feel safe, seen, and transform quickly.
Welcome to the show, Michelle. Thanks for having me, Sam. I know.
Isn't it funny when you read your bio, you think, oh my goodness, look at all of that I've done. Look at me. So we go back a little way.
We did speaker training together and I know that you inspired me, hence the reason why I invited you to the show. But also we had something in common because we both identified with being a black sheep. Right.
Do you want to start us off a little bit with why are you a black sheep? Never like just diving in. Yeah, we are the black sheep, but I have reframed the term black sheep to the golden sheep because I choose to see myself as the chosen one, the chosen one to do things different, see things different, break ancestral family patterns and behaviors that have just been handed down from generation that are unhealthy. And so when we are the one that does things differently, that is frowned upon by the people that like the certainty of, well, we've always done it this way.
So how dare you go outside of the box and outside of the norm? And so, yeah, I embrace that term and always love reframing that to people that when they say that they're the black sheep, then we can just see it differently. Yeah, because I have been that black sheep, and I must admit, I'm going to embrace that because you've gifted that to me. I am now the golden sheep.
But yeah, what is it about black sheep that is just so inspiring or golden sheep? Well, you have the courage to do things differently. You're not going along to get along and following the herd and you have the courage to say, I'm going to do this differently. I'm going to be my own unique individual self.
And that might come at the expense of other people's judgment or criticism or even severing relationships. But when you can be so confident in knowing who you are and what you believe in and what you stand for, it takes a lot of courage to do that. And so I don't think that's anything we should ever look down upon, but actually commend ourselves for having the courage to do that.
I love that. And along that note, who does inspire you? Hmm. Oh, this is so good.
One of my biggest spiritual teachers was Wayne Dyer and he transformed my life. And I was giving a talk one day and I was talking about Wayne Dyer. And I said, yeah, every morning I would shower with Wayne Dyer.
And the whole crowd started laughing and I didn't realize how that came out. But, you know, I showered with Wayne Dyer. He didn't know we showered together every morning, but we did.
And it was really great for me. And he really helped me change my thoughts, my words, my beliefs. And, you know, when I did that, it transformed everything in my life.
And, you know, there's a couple of really famous quotes of his is, you know, change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change. And so literally I didn't have to change anything in my life. I just had to change me and my relationship to it, my perspective on it, how I chose to see it and embrace it as either for me or against me.
And so before Dr. Wayne in my life, I was bitter. I was angry. I wanted to smother my husband with a pillow.
He's not a very happy person. And so I didn't smother him, but I left instead. And that was my wake up call that I needed to make some serious changes in my life because I wasn't happy.
And I also had a friend who was dying of ALS at the time and he was fully paralyzed and he was happier dying than I was living my life. And I was like, wow, if he can figure out how to be happy dying, I need to make some changes and figure out a few things. I mean, I don't know if you know, I mean, this is always unscripted.
So just like you just reminded me, my tagline for my business is stop existing and start living. And that quote was given to me by a palliative patient. And she said, you know, that being given that diagnosis was actually a gift because she stopped existing in her life and she started living her life.
And, you know, weaving that into what you're saying with regards to perspective and shifting your perspective, you know, is huge. I mean, quantum physics and spirituality basically proves that that can make a change in your life. You know, if you change the way that you're looking at things, you know, and I can relate to that myself.
You know, being a black sheep, I was the victim as well. I played that victim role so well. Yes, I totally was.
And you know, life is happening to you and it's not fair. And I got ripped off and, you know, the whole narrative that we go through when we're stuck in our shit, for lack of a better term. And this was another Wayne Dyer quote that I have like up on my bulletin board that changed everything for me.
And he said, you know, when you're driving in a boat, the wake of the boat behind you has absolutely no ability to steer the direction of that boat. Oh, wow, yes. And so I was letting my past, that wake behind me, drive where I thought my future could go, which was nowhere but unhappy.
And when I realized that my past had no bearing over my future, my friend was like, your past doesn't equal your future. And it blew my brain out of my head that I could create something other than the past experiences that I lived and that I had the ability to create a different future if I chose to do that. Yeah, I love that.
I've never heard of that analogy before, but that's another beautiful gift for our listeners. So thank you. My next question was, how do you inspire people? But you're inspiring already, right? So anybody who's listening here, it's so lovely, just to have a little snippet of something like that, and it can change your perspective on your life.
I mean, as I say, I was always the victim and I blamed my mom for everything. And it's taken me a long time, but the first big step was I had this friend, and T, if you're listening, I'm talking about you again, but she turned around to me one day and I could have slapped her because she said, Sam. That's a good friend.
People, exactly. They're the really good friends, right? So Sam, you have to stop being the victim. People don't want to hear all of your sad story.
You know, shift your perspective. You need to move into forgiveness. And I was like, oh, and then I started to hear other people saying, you need to forgive.
You need to leave the past behind and you need to forgive. But one of the things that I found really a real struggle was to actually forgive. And I know that you and I have spoken about this before, but forgiveness, it's so difficult to forgive when somebody has been unkind, cruel to you, but maybe it's forgiving ourself rather than the other person.
What I have learned is to try to understand why somebody did something to me and not play that victim. What are your views on that? Oh, you know, so many. I remember being in my forties and having no idea the concept of forgiveness.
And I went through a really big betrayal by my best friend, my best friend since I was 16. She was there when I had my baby. Like we were like sisters.
And I really struggled with how she treated me in the midst of a brand new baby, a divorce, like my whole life was upside down and her betrayal was worse than my marriage ending. So I kind of felt like, you know, the people that were the closest to me in my life at the time were both these horrible people. And the fact that they were conspiring together, was also another element to that.
And I remember talking to someone and two things, the therapist is like, well, what makes you think what she did was about you? And I was like, well, because she did it to me. And she's like, okay, but just because she did it to you, it doesn't mean it's about you. It's about her own stuff and her own crap that would make her act that way.
And it's actually not about you. And I was like, oh, okay. So that was one layer.
The next layer was, one of the pastors said to me that forgiveness isn't saying what they did was okay, and that you're good with it. You can forgive and still say what you did was unkind, it was mean, it was cruel, it was abusive. But I'm choosing for my own sanity and my own wellbeing to let go of that anger, that hatred, all of that stuff that's inside of me.
And there's that old saying, you know, drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. They're going on living their life free and happy and we're sitting here in the misery. So that lack of forgiveness is tormenting ourself.
And like you said, forgiving ourselves to put ourselves in that position, not seeing red flags, you know, not taking action sooner. Like there's so many things. And I think forgiveness always needs to be two levels.
And we're always talking about forgiving the other and we often forget to forgive ourselves. And so I remember Oprah in her book, it's actually sitting on my desk, one of the books she had, it said, forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be any different than it was. It's not about right or wrong.
It's just, this was part of my story. It's part of my path. Can I accept that this happened and choose to move forward? And it's, again, it's that analogy of the wake of the boat, leaving the weight behind and steering forward.
I mean, I've reached this beautiful time now in my life. It's interesting because it was, I was in my early forties when I started this journey. I actually realized that I needed to fix something.
And it's now, it's taken me a long time, but it's now that I actually have gratitude for my mum, because if it weren't for her and all of her story as well, and all of her generational trauma, I wouldn't be the person that I am now. And I wouldn't have been gifted my life purpose, which is what I feel I'm fulfilling now. So again, it's forgiveness, but it's reaching this, it wasn't okay, it was not okay.
And I don't accept that it was okay, but I love the spiritual belief system that you actually choose to live your life and you choose who your mother is going to be, everybody around you is going to be, and you choose that because you want to learn the lessons. And if you don't learn those lessons, then you're going to come back and you're going to have to have another go. So you just better get it this lifetime, because I am not doing these things again.
I can mark my words on the wall. And that was how I felt, I ain't doing this again, no. Oh no.
I better get it right in this lifetime, because I ain't coming back. And you also touched on the point of like having an understanding of like, what was her childhood? What was her upbringing? And what was her mother's upbringing, right? All of this stuff gets handed down over and over again. And there's such a funny story that illustrates this.
It's so funny. It's the daughter's making a roast. And every time she watched her mom make a roast, she cut the ends off the roast.
And so she finally calls her mom and she's like, mom, why don't you cut the ends off the roast? She's like, I don't know, grandma always did it. We should just call grandma and ask. So they call grandma and they're like, hey grandma, why do you cut the ends off the roast? And she starts laughing.
She's like, because my pan was not big enough. And that's why I had to cut the ends off. And now three generations later, they're still doing it, but they never questioned why do we do it? So think about all the beliefs, the habits, the patterns, the behaviors that are just handed down generation after generation.
We've always done it that way. And there's so much of it that's subconscious that we don't even know is actually running the ship. So the black sheep, the golden sheep, us chosen ones are the ones that are like, wait a minute.
Yeah, and asking the questions. So there's another golden tip for listeners out there, ask the questions, ask the questions, and find out the answers. Don't just assume that, well, this is my lot and I ain't gonna get any better than this.
And yeah, ask the questions and yes, things can shift. And I was listening to, I couldn't remember who it was. I believe it was Ed Milett was telling a story and he said this thing and it literally took my breath away.
And he said, we are the answer to our ancestors prayers, that they were praying for someone to come and make changes and do things different and do the healing that they never had in their generation. And so imagine what's different now for our parents, for our kids, for our grandkids, for our great grandkids, because we are stepping into doing this work. And in the indigenous culture, they believe that when you heal, I believe it's seven generations back and seven generations forward.
And I don't know how they came to that number, but I truly believe the power of that, the energetics of that healing and the ripple effect that that has is so powerful. I mean, living here in Canada, we hear a lot about the path to conciliation and our indigenous peoples. And it's fascinating, the culture, when you actually take the time to understand their culture and their beliefs, there is so much wisdom in there.
Oh, so much. And I love weaving that into my work. And as I say, I remember that I'm stood here and by doing this work on myself, I am healing seven generations forward and seven generations back.
And now that I know that you've been looking at nervous system healing and somatics. And I think now that we have that depth of understanding, we can actually understand how that cellular, those memories are held in the cells and how we can actually change the future generations through neurosomatic intelligence and healing. So we got a big subject here.
I love the shift for me, even just when I started seven years ago from doing a lot of just mindset work and changing my thoughts and my beliefs and all of those things were so powerful, transformed my whole life. But now there's a layer even deeper of like understanding that, you know what, if we don't give voice to and allow the sadness, the grief, the anger, all of those emotions are all valuable. And if we try to push them away and repress them, ignore them, we're actually creating more of that stuckness in our nervous system and in our body.
So I love that it's a shift instead of like, I shouldn't feel that way. I shouldn't be angry. I should just be positive and have, you know, gratitude and all the things.
But now it's like, okay, we get to welcome anger, sadness, grief with love. And when we can do that, then it can move through us instead of getting stuck in ourselves and in our DNA and all of those things. And so that's been really beautiful for me as a highly emotional human being since the time I was very little.
I was always the hysterical crying child. That was always the memories that my family says. And I just watched a documentary a couple of days ago called Sensitive.
And it's actually proven that 20% of the population are high sensitive people, but we're actually the most aware of our surroundings and very in tune to everything else that's going on as well. But it can be a lot to hold all of that. And so I really had to embrace loving that part of myself, the emotional part, the sad part, the part that felt everything so big instead of like, I shouldn't feel that way and I shouldn't cry and I shouldn't all the things of like, of course I do.
That's just part of my gifting is I am a big feeler. I have big joy and big sadness and big excitement and all of the things. And so really the more we can just embrace all the parts of ourselves with love and gratitude and affection, then it doesn't get stuck and it doesn't get trapped and we aren't disowning parts of ourselves.
I think that's a big thing to own all of your emotions and accept that they are real and they are a part of you and that we are human beings and this is normal. It's absolutely normal. Get me on the subject of the patriarchy, and also the Brits with a stiff upper lip, you have to, the show must go on kind of thing and pushing all of those feelings down.
When you think about that in itself, hiding feelings, pushing them down, eventually they're going to surface or they're going to rot the core. It just totally, it just absolutely makes sense. Well, it creates dis-ease in the body, which is disease.
Dis-ease, exactly. And it's amazing how many people are using that phrase now. I had one of my previous guests, she was talking about disease and dis-ease.
It really, just understanding what that is, is huge. It's a big revelation, but yeah. And again, you're a holistic practitioner like me and it's very much, I love to bring the spiritual in because there is just so much wisdom there.
And I love to bring in the physical and the emotional together because the one affects the other both way. It works both ways. It works.
Absolutely, everything's intertwined. Like think about it, the moment you get stressed, what happens? Something happens outside of you, your heart rate changes, your stomach feels nauseous, you get a lump in your throat. So our emotions and what we're experiencing directly gets affected in our body.
So why would we think that our emotions, our feelings, all of that stuff we repress and trap and deny and push against doesn't affect all of that? And a big thing for me was learning that the emotional abuse that I had as a child and why I was playing that victim role, a lot of that was, I'm trying to think of the word, think of the word, a lot of it was so trapped inside of me and I was trying to be somebody that I wasn't. I was always trying to be somebody else, to please somebody else. And by the time I reached my 40s, my marriage of 21 years came to an end and I thought, oh, I can fix it, I can fix it.
And when I realised that I was the one that needed fixing because I was never showing up as me because I didn't know who I was. And it sounds a real cliche, but in my early 40s, I had no idea because I had spent my life trying to please and be somebody that I wasn't. That was a huge realisation for me.
And then, like yourself, realising that there's a reason why my mum was stuck in narcissism and I was stuck with being the empath, the scapegoat. And I was stuck in that dynamic and that's why I became the victim, right? And a healthy being will move within all... I mean, there are times we can be narcissistic, there are times that we can be empathic, there are times when we can be the apath. But I think my spiritual learnings really helped me and I have to give kudos to Cindy Smith who explained to me about being an empath and that that was, like you say, sensitive people, why you become that narcissistic supply and how you can try to protect yourself and understand yourself and not take on other people's feelings and accept that they're not my feelings.
And I talk about root and fruit feelings. I don't know if you've ever heard me talk about that. No? So as a root feeling, that is... So one of my root feelings is joy.
I love that feeling of joy. It makes my heart flutter. I can feel it in my body, you know, but I can wake up and I'm in my root feeling of joy and then I'm driving down the road and somebody cuts me off and suddenly the joy disappears and I become a demon.
Right? Road rage. Right? And then I can let it go again. So that is a fruit feeling.
It grows like the fruit, usually because of something else that has happened and then it will run its course, its cycle, and it'll drop off the tree and then feed the roots again. So, and then you go back into your root feeling. So I can't remember who told me that analogy, but I've used that a lot, you know.
Is this my root feeling or is this somebody else's feeling? So I've taken it on, in which case it's fruit and I can let it go. Yeah. Yeah, that's still a work in progress for me because I feel and sense things so big.
And, oh, how much do I want to share about this? So the last year I went through a really challenging separation and there was things in spiritual communities and, you know, people that I was seeing things and I'm like, this is out of integrity. Like, I don't understand why everyone's flocking to this in this blind adoration when I could see something that people around me weren't seeing. And I started to think like, maybe I'm crazy.
Maybe I'm just judgmental. Maybe I'm whatever. Turns out all the things that I was sensing and feeling came to be true after the fact.
And so I've just got this really heightened sense of intuition that can pick up on things that other people can't see, feel, sense yet. And so I really had to learn to just be like, okay, what I feel is true and right. And just because everybody else isn't seeing it or feeling it doesn't mean it's not right for me.
And so I really had to learn to trust that intuition and that inner knowing of myself, but I see, feel, sense things very big. And I was having a conversation with someone and I was like, hmm, what's going on? I sensed your energy changed. And he was like, you know my feelings before I know my feelings.
He's like, that's really weird. Because I'm just that tuned into everything in and around me. So I've really had to just learn how to navigate and work with that and not feel and take on, like you said, other people's.
Okay, so that's theirs and not make it about me. Like, are they mad at me? Or did I do something wrong? Or all of that. It's just like, okay, that's what they're experiencing.
And I can stay here in my center and experience what I'm experiencing and not get pulled into whatever they're feeling or whatever I'm making a story about why they're feeling the way they are. Yeah, I love this conversation. I could carry on for hours on end.
I know, right? This conversation. But for me, to be authentic, that's another one of my root feelings is when I am being real and I'm being myself and being authentic. Everything flows when I'm in that mindset.
But it took a very, very long time because life had conditioned me to be something completely different. My life was like I was on a stage. And then the only time when I was really me would be when I was on my own.
And then I would be overwhelmed with the sadness and the fears and the anxiety. You know, because, yeah. And- It wasn't safe.
You had to adapt to protect yourself. Exactly. You know, so one of my, the first things that I say to anybody if I'm going to work with them as a client and with me as a coach is that we need to find out who you truly are.
You need to know you. And it's amazing. It's such a beautiful gift because lots of people get to the end of their life and they've never done that work, you know? So what a beautiful gift.
So if there's anyone listening out there and you feel that you are, well, you relate to being that black sheep and not knowing those feelings that you should be recognizing and that you push them down, then find somebody who can help you to discover your truth, your true north. And it's so powerful. And- Have you heard the new study that authenticity is one of the highest vibrating emotions above love and joy and everything? Authenticity is like up there.
I did not know that. It doesn't surprise me. Does not surprise me at all.
Dr. Zach Bush was talking about that when we saw him in the summertime. And if you think about it, when you are authentic, everything else is in alignment. So of course it would be, right? When you're authentic, your joy is online, your peace is online, like everything is flowing in alignment.
So of course it would be the highest vibrating. Absolutely, totally makes sense. I'm going to have to put lots of citing my sources or your sources in the notes for here.
What I love about you is you always are able to quote, you know, make quotes and refer back to Wayne Dyer in the shower, et cetera, et cetera. There's so much wisdom out there and you know, and you have so much wisdom as well, Michelle. And so thank you, thank you so much for being with us.
