Embracing the Journey: Michelle Whiteside on Overcoming Adversity and Finding Self-Love

Welcome back to another episode of advancing what's Amy. Mental health lawyer. Today we have the indomitable, Michelle Whiteside joining us for a heartwarming yet stirring discussion on overcoming the odds.  Dive into Michelle's riveting personal journey from battling trauma and mental health challenges. To embracing self care and personal development with neuro-linguistic programming, she'll share her transformative experiences from her work with teens to her insights, into sematic work and the deep importance of self-empowerment. So take a moment to pause, listen, and get inspired. As we explore the winding pathways of resilience and growth.  Together, let's learn about the power of believing in ourselves, the strength of community. And the courage to change. Tune in as we join forces with Michelle and learn to navigate the complexities of life with  wisdom and love. 

  This is an episode you won't want to miss.    Michelle, how are you doing today? I'm good.

How are you, Amy? I am doing great and I am so happy to have you here. Thank you for having me. I just got goosebumps. We've been talking for a while and now it's like, Oh,  now I've got though. Okay. So,  if you could tell me a little bit about what made you interested in being on, the podcast. If there was something that resonated with you,  you resonated with me. 

Oh, we, we met and we have a lot in common without,, the details. And, um,  I always cry. So it's just,  that's okay. Um,  the women and men who have come into my life in the last few years have all been my tribe. Right. And I've been through a lot. Like I've had a lot of. , bottoms.  And this time it's uncomparable I have people in my life that show up that I feel like I've known my whole life.

And, um, just advancing. You know, it's that advancing with Amy, and I think you had a different name at first which I like to Warrior something Warrior. And then I'll health lawyer. Yeah. And. Yeah, really you, really you. Aw, well thank you. Tell me a little bit about, you said you've had several bottoms.

What are you talking about? What's happened?  Well, I think a lot of us have bottoms over our lives and the only time we ever do anything is when we hit a bottom. Some of our bottoms are a little more poignant or dramatic than others.  I had a bottom when I was born,  I was creamy, it was two pounds, three ounces.

I came two months early and my mother's water broke in the bottom of the cellar of Macy's. I was born to shop, I say,  and there was a cyst and they didn't know  it's when they smoke too. Hence the ADHD. Maybe, I don't know. There's a lot of things, but, there was a cyst, it was as big as I was, pushing me out of the way, and I think at that point I was like, no, uh uh, you're not, and I'm coming.

And I,  I fought. So I've been fighting since the beginning., they said that if I was a boy, I wouldn't have survived because of my lungs. I guess boys lungs don't develop as fast. And I was in the incubator for about two months. So it started there, and then it was all, I wouldn't say uphill, but it was, you know, my mother,  has a lot of mental issues.

And I didn't know a lot of this. I thought I knew, but I didn't. And, it was a lot of  being really good at connecting with the adults and doing all that, but always searching for that kind of love outside of myself. Cause I felt abandoned and my dad left when I was really young and I remember that's the one of my last memories.

And he's also wasn't, he's not now an alcoholic. And, so with her emotional manipulation and his, you know, I. You know, love my grandma. My grandma basically raised me till I was six and then she passed away. But I would stay with her. And I always say, that's why I wasn't a sociopath. Right. As she cries, she was like my mom. 

Yeah. And, I would call her on the phone  and tell her rescue for me from my mother. I remember climbing up on the counter with the long phones and, and she told my mom not to have any other kids. Cause I wouldn't be number one.  And, um, she's still with me, I guess I do the woo woo and she's with me. 

That's beautiful. Yeah. So bottoms mean, you know, I got involved  in a lot of things, but I got involved in drugs and alcohol.   I didn't realize it was because of my trauma because of my ADHD. My psychiatrist really believes that because when I did that, it was like, oh, I can think. Oh, I can talk. Oh, I can read a book.

And I didn't know all this. I just felt like I was normal when I started doing drugs, but I also had trauma and I had codependency from the very beginning. Only a symptom of something bigger. And my codependency of wanting that love and wanting to be putting myself in places  with people that are trustworthy.

And that's just how I lived. I always thought there was something wrong with me, that I was like, not defective, but there was always something wrong, because I was always missing something, it was always, learning disabled classes, or, the critical mother, and the homework, and this and that

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 But then I would get fired. And it was just, there was always something and underlying. It was really dealing with what was going on inside. They didn't know a lot of the things they know, know about ADHD. They didn't know about trauma and CTPSD, which I have.  Anxiety disorder.

They didn't know about any of that. I just took it on as if you got to know who I am, you're going to think I'm crazy and it's funny. I used to use that in my story for do a lot of work in the recovery community for it'll be 16 years in March. And, um, I used to say that that's what it was, but it was really that place of being crazy is that place of going outside of myself, trying to help fix.

And the people that I would do that with were the ones that needed that, but weren't really good to receive and back and forth. So I was always feeling  like there was not enough, right? And I did it all the way up until my fifties, right? So in different ways, raising kids, getting married, thinking that was totally different than it was.

 Cause I don't see clearly either. Magical thinking, I'm really good at that. We all see good in people and I'm really good at that. 

Right? . So, it's very difficult bottom line is,  I had to grow right? I had to raise my kids. I couldn't grow. I mean, I grew, but I've been working on myself for a  📍 long time.

 And. It kind of stopped with the kids. It's like I'm a different person.  My daughter's here with me now. She's 23 and she's got her music blowing up and 7, 000 things on Spotify. It's really cool. But I was telling her last night, I'm like, I was before I even had you.

This is who I am. She loves it. I mean, I love, I like who I am now too. I don't know where the other one went for 27 years. I mean, I was so wow. And, and, and the thing is, I was trying to keep everything together 

so COVID was a great,  awakening, so to speak.  And, my business totally was gone, like my, a hairdresser, 29 years, almost 30. And I was at the top of my game on Yelp, I'm still one or two on Yelp. And I had built a business for myself because that's what I did instead of being home, right? I took care of the kids, I did everything with the kids, really was kind of like a single mom.

And then I would work, and I built my hair business, and doing very well when COVID hit. And I also told myself when I was 50, when the kids were older and I could take care of myself, I would look at what's going on because I was really unhappy for a long time in my marriage. Not getting what I needed now granted there was that and there's also that hole that had to be healed because he would never been Able to fill it.

So I Had a little studio and my clients went, you know a lot smaller and and I went back to school and that really saved me Because I've learned now and I tell my clients when you're going through huge transitions to do something. That's just for you Even if it's not going back to school.

It could be you're starting to do art. Something very different that you've always wanted to do and it actually is probably, I don't want to say better than therapy, but it's huge. And because I was in a personal development school, it was perfect. I didn't know that. I just knew that it was a great school and I could do the masters with them too and it's transformational method so NLP and all of that, which I liked and, you know, before I couldn't read books, right?

And I've got three going right now, but I,  I love learning and, it was great because I made my best friend there. And these women, the 2 women that I talked to still every day, they helped me learn what love was, right? I didn't know.  I thought I loved, but I didn't know that that. Right.  They help me heal. 

So, they're just wonderful. They're my, you know, it's like huge. Like, the people in my life now are solid. Which, It says something about we attract what we are,  but that container and still, like, we still talk every day, we messenger and stuff.

And it's great. And the friendship between the three of us, one lives near me and the other one's in Canada. And I go to Canada every three months. Now I travel all over the place. I'm like, be careful, Amy. I'm going to come to your house. I'm serious.  That'd be great. I wanted to go back to what you said about,  PTSD and 

see PTSD, can you explain, because I don't think all our listeners know the difference. Yeah, I didn't know the difference either.  In the beginning of COVID, I started seeing a psychiatrist, because I was so forlorn, right? Everything was collapsing and I kicked my husband out of 28 years and to take a break and the business and,  I was saying, well, I have ADHD, because you know what you have, you have CTPSD. 

And I go, what's that? It's  complex post traumatic disorder and then post traumatic disorder. So PTSD happens. Usually they say with one,  which is so funny. Everybody has a lot more, but one, um, traumatic episode and C. T. P. S. D. is PTSD. More in a row  so, for instance, what we all went through coven with a fear of something happening.

Right? And the uncertainty of work and if we're going to be okay health wise and all of that.  That's C. T. P. S. D. and it rears its head in very funny ways that you don't know. That's what you have either. And P. T. S. D. is the same thing, but it's limited to 1 event. And when you have complex post traumatic stress disorder, the way you process information, the way that you react, you can have.

Flashbacks, you can have dreams, you can have more  fear. It's, actually, I want to say powerful, but even when you heal and you go through it and do body work and all of that, Reiki, whatever, it's, it's one of those things that's almost still there, but that's how it all is.

It's just, you don't get triggered the same way and you might not respond to something or make a decision based on that place anymore because you're not coming from that, that  it's survival. It's that fight, flight, freeze, right? On steroids. So, we know, and a lot of us growing up had to learn how to walk on eggshells already.

So a lot of us who have  have had it our whole lives and didn't know.  Right and then we keep doing what. You know what we think and we keep creating more and more and more until at some point game over most people at some point it gets too painful to stay where you're at and that's where drugs and alcohol come in gambling sex addiction shopping You know, suicide, all of it, it comes in there, right?

And depression and anxiety, and I believe it's all linked to all of that. Everything, cancer, breast cancer, they say is from us not saying no.  I think that's very plausible. Right?  And they're getting to know more and more. So the difference really is one event or  continued events.  

Do you think the NLP, has helped with that?  You do NLP. That's right. Yes, very much. So, so I love NLP. And it's not new. I mean, Carl Young is so old, but everyone's like shadow work and it's not new, but I'm glad it's being adopted. I always said that what you put out is what you get back since the beginning and they're doing that now and I'm like, I did that before we had computers.

But the same thing with NLP. NLP is so great because we're computers.  And so we were programmed a certain way and we have beliefs, whether they're from our parents or not, or from society, and when we want to change belief, which  our experience become our, what is it, our thoughts become  our behaviors, become our experiences, become our identity, 

and so it's very hard to extrapolate what's real, but when you keep getting stuck somewhere. It's probably that belief system that says I can't make a lot of money. I'm not good enough I can't have that job because I'm dumb and it's running quietly And so NLP comes in and basically rewrites the program.

Very simply and you can do it in real time That's what I love. You can actually change belief in real time.  It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing I was told by someone like the quickest way because I'm like I want it now The quickest way is, let's say they say you can't go into that store, you're not allowed to go in that store, you're saying you can't, you're not good enough to go in the store, and you want to change that belief that you're not good enough to go in the store, you go in that store.

You change it. So it takes some courage and guidance. You can't do it alone, but there's a lot of activities and exercises you can do  and things that you can do to change. By little steps, you become different without knowing you're different.  That's what happened to me. I was NLP'd for a few years. 

And I need more, I need more. But it's true. Yeah, you made me think of Julia Roberts in the movie, Pretty Woman. Oh, yeah. Where she goes into the store and she's, she's like, I'll show you guys. I love that movie. Yeah. I love those movies, but they screw you up. Okay.  Yeah, we'll just extrapolate what can be helpful.

Right. That's what I would do now. I love my life now. I'm pretty happy on my own. That's amazing. I know we were talking before this interview about how far you've come and all the things you've got going on in your life right now.

Can you talk a little bit about your business? I do want to put a shout out for following your intuition, because  we all have purpose here to help others.

I do believe that somehow. And,  and that's, what's happened. It's not been, I'm going to go do this. It's been very organic.  I work with teens at the high school here. They're in, it's an independent school. So it's public, but it's for kids round hole square peg. I always say they do criminal things, but they're not criminals because they're not and they are amazing and I love them and I fell into it.

I just started working and I created the meet the future you program, which they do NLP. And they do mindfulness, they get to learn to ground the room, they like to take each other through meditation. Now, these kids were writing in a box that there are rats back at each other and now they hold the space when someone talks,  because that's who they are.

I'm just holding a flashlight for them to say, uh huh, okay, yeah, I got chills. I know it's really, I think it's part of my calling. I don't know where I'm going to end up with that, but I've now created in my nonprofit, for meet the future.  I, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I know I want to help them because I was them. 

Poppy, why?  Now you got me crying.  I mean, parents or whatever, they're good, whatever, but I was that kid. I was the kid that was not understood. I was the kid that had the big heart, but no one saw it but me.  Right? Yeah. I grew up always feeling like the black sheep. Always.  Yeah. I did a video on that black sheep thing.

We're actually the chosen ones, the black sheep. Because we are, because we're, we're authentic, but people were scared of that. And so I was the black sheep. I have brothers and everywhere I went, I'm even still sometimes I don't care. I'm kind of glad now with family members and stuff. So yeah.

And so that's great. I want to help them. I think everyone should have one of us in schools. Yes, across the U. S. across the world. That's how I want to make a dent  and,  helping teachers  it's not hard. What we do,  it's believing in them, right? And really feel that and then having experience with drugs and alcohol.

They asked me all these questions. But they don't trust anybody. Right? And so you build the rapport and that's pretty easy because I'm a teenager, right? I'm a kid. So that's 1 thing I'm doing and then. I'm working on my certification or my licensing for drug and alcohol counseling. 

Because before I started wanting to be a coach. I didn't want to do the marketing thing. So I did that  but I don't want to do this every day. So I'm just doing that. I don't have much left and I just think it will help me help others.  But I'm working with an amazing center up here in Sonoma that's relatively new that works on mind, body, and soul.

But also with, recovery and alcoholics anonymous and all that is pretty awesome. So things are changing. Like people are starting to use energy work and being more aware about trauma and the stigma of it being, there's something wrong with you and all of that. It's everywhere now.

Which I love. Right. You said you were going to be able to use, Reiki there. Yeah, so even in their commercial, they have a commercial and they say Reiki. I didn't know that. And, I'm going to be doing Reiki there on Sunday evenings for the residents

and, Gratitude and DreamWork, which will be cool because I like Carl Junging and DreamWork. Because it's very healing. So Reiki is something like acupuncture that it's on the eastern bent, but it's known for  anti inflammation I use it in my coaching practice with my clients because to clear blocks because the body keeps the score So even though we do all this work even the NLP we do all that but then there's still ritual stuff in our body in order to really close the trauma loop to heal We have to get in the body.

So I do some somatic work and Reiki with my clients Because it's all mind, body and soul has to be completed in order to really heal and not have the same trajectory anymore because we go back to what we know really quickly. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about the somatic work and what that actually is? 

Yeah. So,,  I was going to be doing the somatic Institute and doing all that. I've decided  as things going, I can still do that, but it's, it's great. A lot of different therapists, doctors use somatic experiencing. The way that it works, it's the same thing. There's a lot of body work.  But somatics can be meditation too.

It's anywhere where you're getting into the body and connecting, the different pieces of not really so much the trauma, but right in the heart with the body, which is the body is the place that it's holding all that tension or holding all that trauma from that car accident.

Right? Or whatever that was. And when you start messing around with NLP and stuff like that, that stuff will come up. So there's different ways. I know that with a somatic experiencing, you can actually hold someone's arm and actually guide things to go that way. I know authentic movement, um, meditation dance is huge way for somatic work.

That's all somatics. A lot of coaches use it and don't really even know because it's all just different various levels if you really want to work with trauma, that's the somatic experiencing and you go through the process of doing that and learning how to do that

 but anybody can do somatic work, just go outside and just move your body where it wants to go and cry if you need to cry and laugh and that's somatics.  Wow.  What do you think life is bringing to you?  I have no idea.  No idea? And you're just open for whatever comes? 

So,  I'm getting really choked up with you, Missy. Um, I, I think,  no, because I,  I know this is the best chapter of my life.  I feel like it is for me too.  Right? For a lot of us.  And, a lot of forgiveness for myself, and I've done a lot of work around that, so important. We think we forgive ourselves, we can forgive everybody else, and that's even hard, but for yourself, for all that time that we didn't trust ourselves, that we believed in ourselves,  because we gave our power away every single day. 

We are so beautiful. I don't mean that like ego, it sounds so weird to get in my mouth,  but we're, and we're such, I mean, we're wonderful, but we just didn't believe in ourselves. So we never were the best versions of ourselves, which actually helps somebody else. And so I get that opportunity now.

So I don't know  where I'm gonna end up. Like if I'm gonna be just working with kids or I'm gonna be doing, you know, more group work. I love group work.  I just keep following because I don't really know. I know I'm on my path. I know I'm in my purpose because things are kind of like move. So so fluently. 

I'm kind of excited. Some days I get really excited. Other days I'm like, I'm bored.  You have so much going on. How could you be bored?

No, I need like, you know, social life. I love working. So my working, is my social life. So  down the road. I see myself in the Rockies with a big space for retreats. I'd like to take women and do retreats and healing  it's one of those things that I'm, I have a place I could go in Costa Rica, I've been offered to me and she's like, just put it online and see who will come. I go, I don't even know what I do yet. Like, so, you know, I haven't done that one yet. Oh, I can so envision that and see you doing that.

I want to do that.  I want to go all over the place and help kids all over the world. I love to travel.   I see horses, I see  retreats, like  somewhere and teaching from there, like something like that. I love to teach. I've always taught 

I tell you how you think you should do everything. So,  yeah, I don't know. How about you?   That's a great question. I'm wondering why did I go back for my MBA? What am I planning to do with it? And, I don't know. I feel like things are falling in place for me but I'm waiting to find out what it all means.  I see you're doing what I'm doing. Yes. So, we don't know why I am going to go get a non profit LLC. I don't even know what that means.  Or MBA, I don't really know what that means either, smart girl. No, I do, sort of. But, by doing that and trusting, there is something,  this is like, this is what people, Strive for their whole lives, right?

Like that place of being in trust and just following you don't have to know the outcome so for people like me who are like fear based future tripping all this for me to even be walking like that is is a Anomaly in itself, right? It's finally enjoying the journey Hey, and why we have to wait so we're like what 50s.

I mean, right  You're, you're the same age as I am, too. Yes, I'm 53. Same age as me. Yeah, it's a great age. Yes, I love it. But do all women this age feel like this?  I hear a lot, midlife women, they tend to know what they want and stuff, but I think for some of us it's a deeper,  because it's like going back in, like Carl Jung again, I love him, but going back in, to go back in, we were outwards, so everyone at midlife goes back in to look, right, we go into  what's important to us, and I think some of us, I do believe the people that have the most trauma,   have  big things to do or to pass on to others, like I just believe, None of the stuff that we've been through, is without purpose, because 

I wouldn't change any of it. My mother, nothing, nothing.  And  because it wouldn't be me now and I, I like me and I, and I think I keep getting better. I'm spunky and I got a sense of humor and, it's pretty funny. And.  There's no scarcity, right?

There's no like, well, what if I don't, what if they don't want, it's none of that. I spent my whole life like that. That's NLP. I tell you what, I don't know what else it is, but  yeah, it just takes time, but we don't do it alone. Right? Like I've had people show up and teach me and pass it on and that's what we do.

That's incredible. So you'll know what that is when it's all, is it all completed yet?  The middle of May I should be done. And what is it for? Which one? Master of Business Administration.  You're smarty pants. Okay. Well, no, and I'm struggling.  I'm taking finance right now, and I'm struggling. 

I probably need to take finance. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, but you're so, feely too. I,  I see you using it, but not for necessarily what you think. YEah.  

We'll see. be good internally. It makes shifts, even if it's not that thing. I think because of the trust for ourselves, it rewrites that story and that belief. So what happens is you've completed it. You may not even use it, but what it gave you is like going to bring you over here because you can do that now because you see it now.

Yeah. Awesome. Right? Yes. Oh, I totally believe that. Oh, I got goosebumps again. That's true.  Oh, we got to get together sometime. You've got to come to Missouri. Oh, yeah.  Yeah. Don't say that. I will come. I've been to Utah,  Canada. I might be going to Colorado. Oh, yeah. Oh, I love Colorado travels. Yeah, I go.

What kind of dog do you have?  She's little. She's sleeping. She's at a rescue.  She's a Italian Greyhound and a,  they say Chihuahua. She's not Chihuahua. She's like a Jack Russell. Come on, I'm going to show you on the camera. You're like, that's an interesting mix. She, an Italian Greyhound, Jack Russell Beagle.. 

Oh, she's about 14.  She cuddles so good. And she's all around the house.  She's sweet. Yeah, well, she saved my life, this dog. Did she really? Well, she did because I got her in 2019 in the summer. She picked me.  I wanted a big dog  and she knew that COVID was, she knew a lot of things and she's like my dog. And the more confident I get, she's pretty feisty now.

I want to talk to that dog. I'm not leaving. I go, Oh my God. Yes.  So as mom grows, 

so does Pinky. She didn't like people. She didn't like dogs and she's, she's my everything. Oh, she is just a doll.  And she goes on airplanes. Oh, wow. She's very calm. She is. Well, no, not really, but right now. No,  she is now, but she was sleeping. 

I love you.  So if you could tell anybody who'd been in your shoes, had a rough marriage, had a rough childhood, and they were struggling, what would you tell them? 

Even if you don't believe in yourself,  go to that mirror every day. And tell yourself that I love you,  and it'll be hard, but it's hard to look at yourself.  Surround yourself with people  that are good for you,  that love you good and bad, unconditionally,  that don't leave you, like, they're, they're solid, right?

Like, and if you don't have that, there's, there's ways, and there's groups of women, and  Realize that it takes time  to heal and there's nothing wrong with you. Nothing.  And treat yourself like you would a friend, right? Like talk to yourself like a friend, not like The critic that we have, you know, like how, because we're all really good at taking care of people.

And what do you need? You do that to yourself  and know that you're going to be okay. And any 1 of us would give you our number to call like, we're, there's so many of us out there open handed to help and don't not ask for help because even the help of just knowing you're not alone. Makes huge shifts for yourself.

And the next thing you know it, you're flying all around to see your friends everywhere.  That's beautiful. You know what I mean? So it's like, I think that's what I would say. And they don't have to know how to figure it out because when you're in that place, the women that are there  They don't even know they're really there.

That's the thing. They know something's wrong. Like, what are they crying about the middle of the night, right? They know they're really unhappy and they've been unhappy their whole lives. Something's been wrong their whole lives. And we internalize it, that it's our fault,  which is good to look at and have self awareness, but we did it from a very different place  and to know that you don't have to know.

But if you have an inkling that you want to know, that you want something, that is enough to turn the key. That's enough willingness.  Of being willing to be willing to change everything. Yeah, so just, I mean, it's believing in yourself when you don't believe in yourself. That's like, oh, yeah. Okay, but then do things to believe in yourself because that's changing the pattern.

That's the NLP. Right? So  you're say, you're going to get up at 5 am. You better get up at 5 am because that stuff. I mean, you know, you say that you're going to go for a walk, go for a walk. And if you don't treat yourself like, okay, next time, but that's what builds trust. Right. And changes the pattern that you're capable and a lot of us didn't believe we're capable for whatever reason. 

 I think it's also important to comment  on what you said about the women being there for you that if you don't have anybody, there are groups of women.  I, I think that has been. So important in my life that for so long, I thought it had to be a romantic partner that would fill that hole inside of me.

And now I've realized that my friends are the most amazing people and have been there for me through thick and thin, literally.  And yeah, and, and it doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. It's just has to be love.  See, in women, we're lucky that way because we can connect that way and that unconditional love.

Like, we're not perfect, right?  I can be a lot of things, you know? But that, that is, it has, we learned somewhere that another person makes us whole. We, it's codependent. We learned that I needed a man. I don't know where I learned that from Disney. I mean, I was just gonna say Disney.

I still love Disney. That's the thing. But,  but the friend, we had good friends before, but see the differences that the friends that come into your life.  When you're on this journey, it's a different friend. It is very different and

it's a lot more vulnerable  But it's hard when you don't have a lot of friends Let's say you're raising kids to know where to meet those kind of people And then I would say go places that you like to do things and you'll find them But actually they're online now because of the all the media there are so many groups and you go look into what you're looking into and there's coaches and there's Facebook, there's so many groups you can join.

I think this, so I've been learning from LinkedIn. This LinkedIn was a huge part. Those audio rooms have actually really helped me heal because I would not talk. I don't want to talk now. I talk, talk,  self esteem. And I met other people in the mental health world and some not, but they're all the same belief and they get to know you and all those people I have talked to.

I met you from LinkedIn, LinkedIn.  And that is like, I, I personally think it's better than Facebook. I agree. Facebook and.  Instagram is fine and TikTok is fine, but there's something about LinkedIn. LinkedIn is is amazing. I, I tell everybody it's the best platform. People are also connected.

They're all growing. Yes. There's people there that will do breath work with you, no charge. We do things, we working with someone in Africa helping with meditation and stuff. No charge. That's what we do and that's really good and that's where.  It's really hard when you don't have friends and you're going like that and it's all the other moms and they're not just just pay attention.

They're out there because they yes,  and the more you attract  what you are, I believe that Oh, I totally agree.  Yeah.  What you see and what you believe you see more often,  right? So if you say I want to see hearts everywhere It's a great way to see how this actually really works a manifestation works You want to see hearts out there and you make a mental note?

I bet when you go out that door, you're gonna see a million different hearts everywhere.  That's what you're focused on So, you know energy goes where energy flow or energy flows where energy goes. Yes. That's my word of the year flow Yeah, I like flow. I didn't know what that was a year ago. I had to explain it to me.

They're like, you're in the flow. I go, what the hell is that?  Nothing.  Oh, it's against the flow.  But it is. And so within, so without. Like everything on the inside, reflects your outside. Right? So if you're in a place of darkness and fixing and what do you think is in front of you?  And I heard yesterday, I wrote it down.

That we deserve exactly what we allow.  Oh. Michael said that. You know, Michael. Wow.  And that's true because  we are captains of our own ship. We are the creators. We have power. We make decisions.  Until we start working with the NLP or the meditation, we're not as much captains because we're kind of being run 95 percent of what we don't know, right?

And so that's why the work so good to do because.  Then it's real it's not  painted, but it's true. We allow people to treat us the way we treat, treat us for our own selfish reasons or whatnot.  So, Michelle, you are so amazing and I have just totally enjoyed talking to you.  Where can people find you? 

We know LinkedIn. Um, so I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, I'm everywhere, um, levelingupwithmichelle. com is my website. Some podcasts are on there and you can reach me there and email me. I think I even have my phone number on the LinkedIn thing. I'm pretty open. I would go to my website and send me an email or any one of those platforms to message me and totally happy to connect and talk and, help shine that light, right? 

That's awesome. Thank you so much. Go home everybody. Yes, go big or go home. Thank you, Michelle. I love you, Amy. Thank you. I love you too. Thank you so 

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much for coming on today.  

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 As we draw this heartfelt episode to a close, we hope that Michelle Whiteside's transformative journey has ignited a spark within you to embrace personal growth and aspire for self care. Her story is a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the incredible strides one can make on the path to healing. 

If Michelle's message resonated with you and you're feeling inspired to learn more about her methods and insights, we invite you to visit her website levelingupwithmichelle. com. Discover the wealth of resources she offers and perhaps embark on your own journey with the support she provides. In the spirit of community and connection, don't forget to rate and follow Advancing with Amy Mental Health Warrior on your preferred podcast platform.

Your engagement helps us reach more souls searching for support and guidance. Finally, if you'd like to contribute to the continuation of our empowering conversations, consider becoming a patron on Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Your generous support enables us to keep sharing these life changing stories and connect you with incredible guests like Michelle.

From all of us at Advancing with Amy Mental Health Warrior, thank you for listening. And remember, your journey towards better mental health and unconditional self love is the most worthy adventure. Keep on advancing, Warriors! 

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