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Out and About with Lisa Mort, Life Coach and Breathwork instructor at the Empowered Wellness Studio here in Steubenville.
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Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:09 Um,
Speaker 1 00:00:11 Welcome to BLS JS podcast or the public library of Steubenville and Jefferson county shares with you. Our favorite quirky questions finds out what leaders in our community are reading interviews, local authors, and so much more this podcast as part of the out and about series, where we talk to business and community leaders, organizations, and anyone outside library doors to learn a little more about them personally and professionally, and as always we'll find out what they're reading.
Speaker 0 00:00:41 Um,
Speaker 1 00:00:48 Thanks for listening to the PLS J podcast. My guest today is Lisa Mort. Lisa is a life coach breathwork instructor at the empowered wellness studio right here in Steubenville, and has been in the beauty industry for 27 years. And the last 20 years of being in the industry, Lisa has been mentoring stylist, doing business, building, marketing, and skillset. Today. She's joining us to talk about creative visualization, creating a blueprint for your dream life. Welcome Lisa. Thank you. Thanks for being here. So can we really create a blueprint or is it already predestined?
Speaker 2 00:01:26 Both. It's already predestined, but if we don't do the work, if we don't put the work in, if we don't show up for ourselves, then that just kind of hangs out in the back.
Speaker 1 00:01:36 Okay. And so how do we know when, um, when we're not on track? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:01:42 So do you ever wake up and you just think it I'm just, I'm not happy or, you know, like, oh, I just want to get this day over with, or I have this to do I have this to do I have this to do, but you just, you're starting to go through the motions. And when we start to just go through the motions of life, we, we forget even what our purpose is.
Speaker 1 00:02:05 Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of people can identify with that feeling. I mean, maybe sometimes you just, you feel it inside that this is just not working. Um, but it's hard. I think, because for the people who like, at least with the, uh, career, um, you know, I have to be this job because I need the health benefits. I need, you know, those different things. So what do you say to people who may be saying, I know that there's something more out there, but I have to pay the bills I have to, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:33 So show up, show up in that industry, show up and do what you need to do. But on the other, on, in your free time, like, let's figure it out. Let's explore. What is it? Why do you feel empty? Why aren't you satisfied at your job? What is happening at your job that is not helping you feel fulfilled? What in the job could help you feel fulfilled?
Speaker 1 00:02:58 So finding that happiness, how so? How do we create a blueprint for dreamland?
Speaker 2 00:03:05 You know, so this one, this could go in so many different directions. There's so many self-help books out. Now there, if you get on social media, on the internet, you can find coaching seminars at the click of a button, you know? So there's, there are so many ways to get there. What we're talking about today is a specific exercise called creative visualization. And why, why I'm choosing this one? Why, why chose this one to talk about is most of us don't even know what we really want our life to look like, what is your dream life? We will sit here and we'll say, well, this is what my house would look like. Or this is what my car would be. Uh, this is how my kids would behave in public and all of this, but everything that we're focusing on there, they're all things, you know, what they're, they're things where we're chasing things. And what we have for God is what is the feeling? What is the feeling that we're going for? You know? And if, if you say, well, I want to be happy. And I know that that house is going to make me happy. All right. So you're tasting this house and you think when I have this house, I'm going to be happy. You don't even get the house. And it's like, I'm still not happy because we're, we're attaching our feelings to two things. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:04:31 Yes. I think, I think people are starting to maybe wake up to that and realizing that, you know, maybe it's not the things that are making them happy. So, uh, so when we do the creative visualization at the library, because this, this program will be done at the library, is it kinda like a visualization board? The
Speaker 2 00:04:56 Yes. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1 00:04:56 What I think of when I think of this.
Speaker 2 00:04:59 So what I am a huge fan of vision boards. I love vision boards. I do vision boards every single year. I've done them forever. They're, you know, it's on my mirror and my bedroom. This is where creative visualization is different. When we do a vision board and anybody who thinks they have never done a vision board, or like what's a vision board, I promise you we've all done them. If you've ever wrote a letter to Santa Claus, with your list of toys that you wanted, that's a vision board. If you ever looked through a Mac, a car magazine and just like mentally, you're like, I want that car. I want that. I want that. It's a mental vision board. We do this all the time. We all have them. If you're on Pinterest, that is like the Motherload of vision boards.
Speaker 1 00:05:45 Okay. So maybe that's yeah. People can think of Pinterest as
Speaker 2 00:05:49 Yes. And that's, that's exactly what Pinterest is. This is what happens with the vision boards though. What are we putting on there? Things we want things we
Speaker 1 00:06:00 Want again, going back to what we were just talking. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:06:03 So there are things that we want, things that we want to manifest in our life. All right. And manifest is a very trendy word. Everyone's talking about. I'm going to manifest my dream life. And we think that, you know, creating these vision boards. So we're, we're constantly seeing it, which we are, but we're still seeing things creative visioning will. It goes deeper. It's going to take us below where the down below that surface, why do you want that stuff? And the, the biggest thing, the biggest thing with this is, most of us want that out of fear. We want that out of a fear of something. We are scared to feel. So when we have that car on there and we want that car, because that car is going to make us happy. Well, why is that car going to make me happy? Why is that car gonna make me happy? Well, you know, people will think I'm successful because I'm driving this range Rover, you know? Um, I just said that, cause that's the car I want. So you still can want the stuff. You still come on it. But if I'm driving a range Rover, I'm going to be successful. Well being successful, if I feel successful, what does that keeping me from feeling? What am I, and what am I scared to?
Speaker 1 00:07:22 So basically, okay. So this makes me think of maybe alcohol and drug addiction for the people who are, you know, I think doing that maybe to numb the feeling. So this is kind of like another way of, in some ways, because we do have to have something to drive bus when you are driven like that. It's kind of like what you're doing to numb the feelings. So we're getting to the heart of the matter
Speaker 2 00:07:45 And the core, right? So there's nothing wrong with wanting a range Rover at all. What, what I want to help, what I want to uncover. And this is with myself, like this is the work I've done on myself. Um, what am I scared to feel like? What is that car going to make me not have to feel maybe not good enough, not successful that I not really sure. Not good enough. Okay. You know, so that makes sense. So how about, instead of right now, looking at the picture of that car, how about we work on, why do you not feel good enough? What's what's the root cause? Everything we want in life is created from a root cause, feeling that we don't want to feel it's fear of something. Right.
Speaker 1 00:08:35 So during the creative visualization, because this, this could take years more than more than. Yeah. Um, so you're just focusing, you're taking, are we, are we going to be doing like any, like a meditation or is it,
Speaker 2 00:08:49 Do you want me to take you through what the class would be like? Yes. So when we start out with it, basically there's seven areas of life that we're going to talk about. Okay. There was seven basic areas of life and we will go through a meditation, a guided meditation, it's a breath awareness. And it's just putting you in, in the position to be open, to receive, and we'll go through each area. And it's like, what do you feel right now? And what do you want to feel? What do you want to feel in this area? So we go through all of it. And then, because this is a shorter, you know, this is a short, a shorter class. We pick the one that's maybe standing out the most class, the one that, not the one that we want to work on. The one that's has the most resistance.
Speaker 1 00:09:38 Good. And that's, you know, people I think, want to try and avoid, avoid, they want to avoid. So this is so we are going straight in there,
Speaker 2 00:09:48 Right in there where this works, where this house are you going to get all your answers in this class? Absolutely not. But it's going to start having you ask yourself the right questions and it can start helping you pack unpack all these conditioned beliefs that have been put on us.
Speaker 1 00:10:09 I think, to just sit in these emotions that you had to just sometimes sit in them, instead of trying to suppress them, suppress them or go move past them,
Speaker 2 00:10:18 Even moving past them. If we aren't feeling our feelings, we're shoving them down and they're staying in our body. So what happens is it built, is layer over layer, over layer. So a feeling right now could be so intense because it actually was created from a feeling when we were three year old, three years old, and somebody took our Popsicle, you know, but if we did, we just kept shoving it down, shut it down, shut it down. So if we don't work through our, our feelings are here to teach us and we can use our feelings as lessons, but instead we shut them down and we don't feel them. Okay. So if we learn to just allow them to come up and it's not even that you have to work through them, you just have to allow yourself to feel and, and be okay with that and be okay with that.
Speaker 1 00:11:10 Yeah. And then go get the therapist, right? Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2 00:11:12 Yeah, no, it's definitely what that talk therapy is always a great, great tool.
Speaker 1 00:11:17 Okay. So, oh, you know, we also mentioned how you do breath work. So, um, or is there going to be any, the railway won't be any,
Speaker 2 00:11:27 We won't add breath work into that. This is part of, so there are some that I call is called breath, work, integration, coaching. And this is where this is like, uh, it's 12 weeks, eight to 12 weeks, depending on how much work a person really wants to put into it. And we meet weekly and create a visualization is actually one of the tools that I use in this, this, this program. Um, and then with, so when we go on the seminaries of life, the rough work weekly would be customized to what you want to work on. When you are in breath work, this is where we can start reprogramming. We can start reprogramming our thinking and it's, it's more so that takes creative visualization to a whole new level. Okay, good.
Speaker 1 00:12:15 Can you explain to people who aren't familiar with breath work? Like what is breath work? Yes,
Speaker 2 00:12:21 But the type of, there's all kind of all different types of breath work. What I do is called transformational breath work, and it is a constant controlled breathing. All right. Now what you're laying down, you have a pillow, you have a mask to cover your eyes and a blanket. And what we do is we go through a series of breathing techniques and I guide through that and they're there on purpose, you know? So what they do is the, the breath work starts to lower your cortisol and it increases your serotonin. So what it does, it takes us, it takes our body out of that constant fight or flight state. And most of us are in this all day long because it just stress, you know, right. Work, home school, kids like everything. We're just go, go, go, go, go. We try to do it all trying to do it all, trying to do it all.
Speaker 2 00:13:14 So when we come to breath work, what happens is the, your, your chemicals in your body start to recalibrate, right? And now you're getting, you'll get into the parasympathetic nervous system. And this is where you can start to relax. But in the parasympathetic nervous system, this is when you can start to hear, you can start to hear your thoughts instead of them being boom, boom, boom, wash the dishes, go laundry's in here. I have to go to this. Do you know, like, just that constant ramble that's going on in our head breathwork will put you into a meditative state. Even people that can't meditate. Even people who say I have add, and there's no way I can lay here that long. I have a list of people that they can talk to that are full-blown add. And we're like, wow, wow. Like, I, my mind has never been quiet like that. Wow. So it gets you into that state. And when, when we're in that state, it's the alpha brain waves. Like when we're in there, you connect to your higher self.
Speaker 1 00:14:21 That's awesome. So let me ask you this, because I know you've been doing this for a long time and I love the work that you're doing. I love what you're bringing to our community, but how do you go from the hair industry business to life coaching and everything that you're doing? What, what brought you to
Speaker 2 00:14:38 This point? Yeah, that's a great question because I know a lot of people have that question for a long time. I had that question
Speaker 1 00:14:45 To, um, for people who are afraid to jump from one thing to another sharing,
Speaker 2 00:14:50 Sharing your story, and I will say this, so I am 48. I'm I'm, you know, pushing 50 and I am completely changing careers. And it's funny, I just had this conversation with somebody this morning. It even, it's not a waste those 27 years of doing hair actually brought me to where I needed to be. I needed to have all the experience I needed to have all the experience with everybody that sat in my chair, life taught me how to do what I'm doing. Now. It brought me to that. So in the, all in all these years, like I used to tease and say, people don't come to me because of how I do their hair. They come because of the conversation and how they feel when they leave. You know? And I used to joke about that because I felt, I didn't really understand that, but there were so many, there's so much more like my relationship with my clients there, they were such a bond.
Speaker 2 00:15:51 Like our conversations were deep, you know, it wasn't, they didn't want their hair like hairstyling to EDD on both ends. Like I got as much from them as they were, as I was giving back to them, there was just this exchange. And, you know, as I started this journey and I just have been very open with it and sharing, you know, with people and then I would hear other people's journey and I love to teach. And this has been something that has gone back from, from even being young. I remember like, you know, if there was something that I wanted to do and it wasn't out there, I was gonna, I was going to teach it then, you know, like, that's just, I've learned, that's a pattern of mine too, you know, like I like to teach. So, uh, as I became successful in the hair industry, there was a book that was given to me called the success principles.
Speaker 2 00:16:44 And it was given to me early on in my career. Um, it had Jack, Jack Canfield wrote it. He's the one that wrote all the chicken soup for the soul books. Yes. We know. Okay. And for whatever reason, when I w I just connected to his teachings, like I read that book front to back probably 10 times. And I really built my career off of this book, like off of what, what I was taught in this book. And, you know, I would follow his, his lectures and his podcasts. And I had gone to some of his seminars and then I'd gone to, it was called breakthrough success to success. And it was an Arizona. It was a week long. And when I was there, I was like, I just, it resonates with me like the, that whole, it all resonates with me. So when I came back, I was like, all right, I want to be, I want to be trained by him.
Speaker 2 00:17:38 I want to be, uh, a coach through him. So I signed up and it was like a year, was a year program. And I went through all the training, how to do it. And it just, it felt so, right. So I started doing it. And the funny thing is, is this is what I've been using the same blueprint for all these years, that I had apprentices that I was teaching them how to be able to build their business. So it was so comfortable, but this was just kind of like, it was, I felt like, okay, since I'm certified as a transformational coach through him, now I can do it. Do you know? So I had a validation. So I had that in the back of my head though, who am I to do this? I'm not good enough to do this. Like, it's like, we all go through different things in our lives.
Speaker 2 00:18:25 So that was a whole exploration for me then, you know, and originally, and that was, I was just going to start slowly stepping away from hair. And I was in the beginning just going to focus on the hair industry because, you know, I know that language, I know that world, I, you know, I can sit down and help you figure out a business plan for a stylist behind the chair and not even think twice about it because I've lived it for so long. But what I started finding is not hairstylists. Weren't the only ones that were interested in had questions, you know, and some of my clients would be like, Hey, are you going to have a workshop? Let's have one, we'll do a workshop. We'd come to a workshop. You know? And I just had this fear, uh, because it's, I, I knew what to talk about.
Speaker 2 00:19:13 And in the head with hairstylists, I knew, but who am I to tell someone else what, you know what I mean? I guess it was something I had to work through. So to make a long story short COVID happened. And I decided, um, I went to Costa Rica. I went on the spiritual journey. Right. I went to Costa Rica. We were in the jungle. We worked like with ShawMan and I was introduced to breathwork and this was the first time I've ever been introduced to breath work. And I just remember, like, in the beginning, I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to breath work. Cause I was thinking it was gonna, that's not what I was there for it. And that was in my mind. Okay. I'm not here for yoga. I'm not here. I want to go, I want the deep work. Like I wanted to go and face my demons, you know?
Speaker 2 00:20:04 So I go to breath work and when it was done, I was like, holy crap, what is this? Like, what is this? It was, I couldn't even explain, like I was, had, I said, all I can say is I had a conversation with God in, in this breath work, laying down, you know? And it was so powerful. So I went continued the week. Um, the, the retreat that I went to was an Iowasca retreat. And I lost it as a tea. That is, it's very ceremonial year with shaman, but it's a psychedelic, you know, it's a hallucinogen, but it takes you on this spiritual journey. And it basically makes you face your demons, you know, and brings you face to face with them to work through your own self doubt, your own fear and all this. And it was, that's a whole other podcast. So I won't get into that too much, but this was my, this is how I ended up where I'm at.
Speaker 2 00:21:01 That's why I feel like it's important to talk about it. Um, at the end of the week, we did breath work again, and I found breath work to be just as powerful as what happened in with the Iowasca ceremonies. I was releasing this self-doubt, that was so deep inside me. I didn't even know where it was coming from. Wow. So when I came back, I would look for breath work and I couldn't find it. The closest studio I could find was 300 miles away. Like I was willing to drive to Columbus once a week, if I can find it. Um, so then this is where I do what I usually do. Well, maybe I'm supposed to teach it. So I just started messing around with the class with friends and then it, the classes started getting filled. So I was like, I probably should go get certified. I should probably go get certified in this. And so I reached out to who taught me breath work, and I got certified through his company that I became a coach through his company. And now I'm actually in the training to teach people how to become breathwork facilitators because we need so many more. So are you,
Speaker 1 00:22:07 Uh, I guess, are you training a lot more people? Yeah. Great. So there'll be more out in our communities. Definitely. Yeah. Wonderful. Okay. So, um, thank you for being here. We'll go ahead and conclude our interview. Um, but I always like to ask people what their favorite book is and what they're reading now. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:22:26 My favorite book was, would probably be the Alchemist.
Speaker 1 00:22:30 I love that. I read that,
Speaker 2 00:22:32 That I was given that very young too, and I probably read it every year. Like I have a couple of copies of it because my first one is so warm. It's just whenever I need something, I always go to that book. And what I'm reading right now is by Jay Shetty, think like a monk, which is an amazing book. It's it's really good. Interesting.
Speaker 1 00:22:57 Okay. Well, thank you so much. And, um, look forward to our program together. Thanks for listening to PLS Jay's podcast. Visit us in person at your library, branch or [email protected].
