This week in The Brain BS Blog and Podcast, we are going to explore why we are resistant to investing in our emotional and mental health. We will examine how we are prepared to spend a great deal of money on a flat screen TV, but bulk at the idea of paying a coach to help us find self-love and peace of mind. We will go all out on that vacation abroad, but not willing to dish out a dime to learn how to manage our minds and have better relationships with our family members. Sure, we want to feel better but unless insurance covers it, we are a definite NO. We will examine why we think the way we do and how that is creating less than desirable results for all of us at both the individual and collective levels. I will then offer how we can reframe the way we look at investing in ourselves with a coach in a way that actually works in our favor.

Okay, let’s begin by taking a look at how excited we are to pay money to get that flat screen TV we have been coveting. We set aside a certain amount of money every week so that we can save enough funds to finally get that TV. It might take us months or even years, but we are determined because we really want it and think it is going to be so much fun to have. We will get to watch movies with the family, enjoy sports with our friends, and have access to lots of educational information and interesting documentaries. We don’t want the TV so we can just admire the technology of it and look at it when it is turned off. We want it because of the experiences it is going to create for us when we turn it on. Our thought is this TV is going to be awesome. The feeling is excitement, that lead to the actions of getting the money and then the result is we purchase the TV. As my mentor Brooke Castillo taught me, thoughts create feelings, those lead to actions and that gives us our result.

This relationship between thoughts and results is present in everything we experience and manifest in our lives. When we want to go on a vacation, it might first start with a thought like I am so ready to get away. Or maybe we see a commercial or ad for something and it makes us think I want that! Whatever the thought might be, that is what gives us the feeling that leads to the actions of actually taking the vacation. So how might we want to feel in order to plan a vacation? It could be we want to feel ready, deserving, inspired, determined…it will be different for all of us. It is up to each of us to choose thoughts on purpose that support our goals. In his abundance meditation created for Mind Valley, Bob Proctor says that if you can hold it in your head, you can hold it in your hand.

I think it is also beneficial to look at why we want the vacation. What are we hoping to get out of it? Maybe we love scuba diving, and we want to get certified. Maybe we love paddle-boarding, and we are challenging ourselves with a three-day excursion. Maybe we just love to travel, and we want to get away. If we dig deeper, we will find that the reason we want to do anything really comes down to wanting to experience a feeling. How will we feel if we get certified in Scuba diving? Confident? Accomplished? Excited? How will we feel if we go on a three-day paddle-board excursion? Fit? Skilled? Grateful? How will we feel if we finally get to get away? Rested? Replenished? Rejuvenated? Whatever it is that we want to do is because of the way it will make us feel after we have done it. The same thought process holds true for the TV.

Let’s look at the money aspect of this now. When we think about paying for a TV or a vacation, money concerns might come up in our minds that need to be managed, but not in terms of whether or not we should have to pay for either one of them. Everybody knows that TVs are not free and neither are vacations. However, that does not stop us from buying them over and over again and wanting to experience the way both of them makes us feel. We don’t think this is total BS, I should not have to pay for this. We don’t think this is so unfair, somebody else should have to pay for me to have it. No, we work hard, we prioritize, and we make it happen. We invest in the TV because we know it is the gift that will keep on giving. We invest in the vacation because we will create memories that can inspire us for years to come. We figure it out because we see value in both of them and are willing to give up something like money in return for the way both purchases will make us feel.

So now that we have explored the thought process when it comes to buying a TV or investing in a vacation, let’s explore how it is so different for many of us when we consider the possibility of hiring an individual coach or group coaching program even if the results could be super valuable. Typical thoughts that can come up are this should be covered by insurance, this industry is not regulated, coaches are a bunch of therapist wannabes, coaches are greedy and only take care of people who have money, getting a coach is a little too woo-woo for me. If these don’t fit you, maybe the thoughts that come up are I desperately want this but cannot make my needs a priority. Maybe I have the money, but my son needs it, so I am going to give it to him instead. Notice that even though the outcome of coaching could very well be life changing and amazing, we don’t think about that like we do the tv and the vacation. We decide to think instead that we should not have to pay for it, and it should be covered by insurance. We often think I just can’t afford it as a knee jerk response, and we don’t even explore how we might actually be able to pay for it. We focus on what we are giving up and totally lose sight of what we would be gaining.

What can we gain from working with a coach? Well that depends largely on the coach and what a client wants to get from coaching. In my line of work, you would be gaining peace of mind, self-love and an ability to set and reinforce clear boundaries. You would also learn your inner purpose, make physical transformations (if inspired), stop worrying about what other people think of you and find your inner purpose. Oh yeah and did I mention that you will be excited about the future again and believe the best years of your life are ahead of you? I mean call me crazy, but that sounds like you would be gaining a heck of a lot more with coaching than you would with a TV or vacation! So why the reluctance to pay for coaching? Because thoughts create feelings, those lead to actions and give us our results. When we are thinking it should be free or focused on what we are giving up, the result is never going to lead to hiring a coach. We have to change the way we are thinking if we want our lives to improve.

Now let’s look at this from the collective and societal level. I don’t know about you but there appears to be a great deal of people in pain out there. Our healthcare system is not set up to take care of the emotional and mental needs of our citizens. It just isn’t. We know this because of the results we see in the world. We have mass shootings, increased crime rate and international tension all around us. When I worked as an OT in a locked psychiatric unit, we referred to the same patients coming in and out as frequent flyers. They would get hospitalized because they were a danger to themselves and or others and then discharged back into the community with no support system in place. Naturally, they would find themselves back in the same situation repeatedly because they were not capable of changing the way they think so they could not create a different result. The bigger problem is that as a country we are not changing the way we think about the way to treat mentally ill humans and the price we are paying is way too high. We must start to invest in our emotional and mental health and create a system that works for all of us. Instead of thinking this is just the way it is, we start thinking about how we can possibly make it better and then we get curious which leads to different actions and results.

Let’s chat now about what thoughts we can choose if we want to heal and experience emotional health. Maybe try on the thought I am dying to invest in myself and ready to find the coach that is a good fit for me. Or I am ready to heal and invest in myself. Another thought might be I want to live up to my highest potential and learn how to live a deliberate life where I create what I want on purpose. Another good one is that coaching is the gift that will keep on giving for the rest of my life and my entire family will benefit from it. There are so many good thoughts that we overlook because of our fears and scarcity around money. When we focus on thinking we don’t have enough money or that a program cost too much, it keeps us stuck and looking at our problems from a lacking place. When we think negative thoughts about coaching, we don’t look for the good coaches that can help us to transform ourselves and our lives in amazing ways. When we think holding onto money matters more than our emotional and mental health, we will always struggle and never have peace. However, if we decide to think from abundance and declare that anything is possible, we could be inspired to take different actions. Instead of thinking coaching should be cheaper or covered by insurance, we could think I am so grateful to have this option available to me and willing to do whatever it takes to heal and feel better.

In conclusion, we are so quick to spend money on items like TVs and vacations, but we are totally resistant to spending money on our emotional and mental health. The reason for this is because thoughts create feelings, those lead to actions and give us our results. It is time to lose the thoughts that coaching should be free, covered by insurance or less important than TVS and vacations. It is not serving us because it keeps us from participating in a process that can truly change our lives for the better. It keeps us in a place of scarcity where we actually value having money or material items more than peace of mind. Join me in The Brain BS Podcast to discuss this further.