Hello! This week on the podcast, I talk with Chelsea Connors, Certified Life Coach, about giving ourselves permission to change. She so beautifully speaks to the fear that comes up when we’re evolving into a future version of ourselves. We talk about the guilt we feel for wanting to change, and making a life shift when you already feel established and routed in what you’re doing now. I hope this episodes inspires you to make that change you’ve been holding yourself back from.

Introducing Chelsea Connors

Chelsea is a former therapist now Certified Life Coach. She supports people in releasing anxiety and self-doubt while improving their emotional health using holistic mental health practices. She offers such great wisdom for women who see changes on the horizon but feels that fear is stepping in their way. She encourages us to use our values to step into change and how to remember them throughout the process. Chelsea received her master’s in Clinical Mental Health from John Hopkins University, and is passionate about destigmatizing mental health. She supports her clients through her core coaching program, Foundations of You, which helps women develop the foundations of who you are and who you want to be. She also works privately with clients through her program, The Practice. You can find her here on Instagram. Read on below and listen to our podcast episode to start stepping into change and become you were meant to be.

Letting Go of Old Identities

Letting go of our old identities can be hard. Things that used to define us are now shifting, and that can feel unsettling. Everyone can have a unique negative experience from this shift-such as feedback from peers or loved ones or an experience of uncertainty. You know you are moving in the right direction, but you don’t yet know why-and this can be scary.

However, it is worth it to keep pursuing this change, even though it’s terrifying. Change is inevitable. Being a leader of your own life can mean walking through that discomfort of change, and knowing that the benefits will outweigh the pain in the long term. The desire for change can vary with the situation, but it’s important to approach it with curiosity, compassion, and how the “how” is impacting your journey.

In Chelsea’s own life, choosing one career has always been very hard for her. She is multi-passionate, and she used to carry around a story that this was a bad thing, and she should just stick with one career focus. After her Master’s degree, she worked in a variety of clinical settings. During this time she was also planning a wedding and living in a new state, so she tried to go to different therapists, but she was having trouble connecting with them. She was itching for better ways to better manager her stress which led her to seek out coaching for herself. She fell in love with the coaching she received, and so she got certified in Life Coaching herself and started her own online practice.

What Happens Next?

How do we still give ourselves permission to change when we feel very routed in our current identity? This could be in our career, our relationships, where we live, or even the wardrobe we wear. This experience of changing and evolving is almost cyclical. We tend to resist that desire to change when we are rooted because we fear that we will lose all the work we’ve done to get to where we currently are. Start to see that it is a great thing to be in those changes, to question things, to acknowledge it’s time to make a shift. No one can take away your experiences, they just build upon one another to create the future version of yourself. Not making those shifts a black and white, 100% or 0% mentality can help when making changes.

Radical Permission To Change

In order to give ourselves a permission slip to change, we need to invite ourselves into a space of exploration or questioning so we can know what feels best for us. Connecting to your personal values as your anchor, as the reason behind why you are doing what you’re doing is so important, and doing so will allow you to find inspiration when you experience fear of change or hesitation of if what you’re doing is right. This can be so empowering when you are letting go. Think about your older self-what do you hope to say about yourself? About how you lived? How you showed up in conflicts and setbacks? These questions can help us see more than just the day to day, and taps you in to the value of your life. Asking ourselves these deep questions-how we want to live and show up for ourselves each day, can be so important in stepping into those shifts. Invite yourself to let go of things that are no longer serving you or don’t feel good for you. Give yourself time to figure out what feels good for you, and slowly you will learn what direction you want to go in. And give yourself permission to try new things out, and be okay if it only works for you for a season. Trust yourself and start experimenting and exploring. The real work is to just trust yourself.

To learn more about permission to evolve and how to overcome the fear of change, check out Chelsea’s website here, where she offers tons of resources as well as her coaching program.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

If you want to listen to the episode with Chelsea, click here and choose the platform you love to listen most.