Podcast

Reena Merchant:

You're listening to The OurVoice Podcast, and this is your host, Reena Merchant. Being your authentic self, it sometimes feels so much easier said than done, but what if it doesn't have to be that hard? OurVoice is committed to helping each and every one of us find ourselves and be ourselves. On this podcast, I have conversations with people who are inspiring me on my personal journey to authenticity. My journey within and without, and I hope that these conversations will be helpful to you too. So, let's get started.

Reena Merchant:

Transformation is such a big part of life. We are always transforming. Life is about constant evolution, change, and growth, both on an individual level and as a collective. If we consider what's happening in the world around us right now, it's apparent that this is a time of deep and fast transformation for us, and we're all feeling it personally, and as a society. Life, as we know it, is constantly changing.

Reena Merchant:

This episode's guest is Christina Pate. Christina is a PhD psychologist by training, and she's a facilitator of healing, learning and self-actualization. Through her work. Christina helps people and businesses transform from the inside out.

Reena Merchant:

In this episode, I chat with Christina about navigating difficult personal and work change, and how getting to the root cause of tough situations can help us. We talk about what alignment looks like, and we discuss how to deal with the grief that comes up when we go through huge change. We also talk about dismantling systemic problems while always making sure that we continue to celebrate what works well. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Christina Pate.

Reena Merchant:

Hey Christina, it's really great to have you here on the show today. Thank you so much.

Christina Pate:

I'm so excited to be here and have this conversation with you too, Reena. Thanks for having me.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah, so we were introduced by a mutual friend a little while ago, and when we connected, I really enjoyed our conversation. You were telling me all about the work you do. I know it's really focused around transformation and you had described it as transformation from the inside out. That really resonated with me because it feels like all of us are always on a personal transformation journey. Then I was thinking about what's happening around us right now, too, and just as a society, as a planet, it feels like we're on a global transformation journey.

Reena Merchant:

The topic of transformation and the opportunity to chat about that with you is really incredible. I would love to start with, if you could share a little bit about what you do.

Christina Pate:

Sure. I'm quite the curious person and I'm easily bored and restless. Usually, what that means for a person is that they're multi-passionate which I certainly am. So part of my life is spent working for an education non-profit. I do a lot of consulting with state and local agencies doing work around social-emotional development and educator wellbeing, things like organizational climate and culture and leadership and systems change and systems transformation.

Christina Pate:

And my other gig, currently my side hustle, but I think someday will be my main hustle, and I'll have to find another side hustle because that's just the way I am, but that's the Wellness Wayfinder. We guide and support people and businesses through their own process of learning and healing and transformation. I work at multiple levels. I do individual coaching and consultation work. I also facilitate workshops and retreats both online and when we're not in a pandemic, in person. These are both for people who are working on personal transformation, as well as organizations who are looking to support the health and wellbeing of their employees, but also to do their real internal work around leadership and management, to support healthier and more inclusive and caring climates for their workplace.

Christina Pate:

Eventually, we'll have more online things coming to our websites. Resources that are created by us, as well as expert contributors. I have a digital course coming out in 2021. We'll have lots of links and referrals to other Wayfinders because we really need to elevate the voices and services of other Wayfinders out there who are also helping people and businesses - a lot like your organization, Reena, with OurVoice.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. Thank you, and thank you for sharing. That's amazing, and I can't wait to dig into some of this with you. I am also just really inspired by the term Wayfinder. I think that's so beautiful and you're right, we're all Wayfinders and that's really incredible. I was wondering, Christina, what inspired you to do this? What was your journey leading up to this?

Christina Pate:

Well, we might need a few episodes to cover all of those things that got me here, but really my journey to the Wayfinder business has been a series of epic transformations, which involved a lot of failures and loss and darkness and some serious breakdowns. Then really breaking through and working through all of that to heal, to rise again, and to transcend a lot of the challenges that I've faced.

Christina Pate:

Professionally, I'm a PhD psychologist by training and I consider myself really a facilitator by nature. I've spent the last almost 20 years facilitating learning and healing and self-actualization as an educator and a clinician and a coach and a consultant. I really helped hundreds of clients probably at this point through transformation, both personally and professionally, but I've also been through my own deep, personal transformation over the last two decades and really continue to do my work as I evolve with my clients and with my colleagues.

Christina Pate:

After going through my own struggles and many dark nights of the soul, I really learned a lot about myself and about the mind and the body and the world and how they all interact. That's knowledge and wisdom that no educational institution ever taught me or could teach me, which I wish I realized that sooner, so I wouldn't have spent money on student loans. That's my path, and those are my lessons, but that's a whole other thing in itself.

Christina Pate:

But I really came to understand that the psychology that I had been taught really over-pathologizes people who are just having real life experiences. It leaves clinicians and clients at this impasse, or even researchers disconnected from practice and really attempting to solve things at the level of the problems or the mental level or the surface level.

Christina Pate:

I like to use the metaphor of an iceberg. It's all the things that we can see above the level, rather than at the level of the solution or the root cause. Really all of those things that are below the water. I think through my own personal work and through my work with clients over the years, I've really learned that we have to shift not just our way of doing things, all of those things above the water, but really have to shift our way of being. That's all of these deep-rooted things that are under the water and they really required deep transformational work on many levels to uncover all of those root causes and to really address those in a comprehensive and integrative way.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. Thank you for sharing. It makes so much sense what you're saying about really going deep and doing that deep inner transformation. What you said about how so much of that transformation, it happens through our life experiences versus what we may be taught theoretically in whatever field we're in. The term transformation, because it's a big term, it means so much and it can mean different things to different people. You also mentioned the term self-actualization, could you help break this down for us? What do terms actually mean to you?

Christina Pate:

Yeah, great questions because there's also a lot of professional jargon that happens with people in the public, right? Transformation for me, and I think for this business is really a dramatic change in form or from one element into another by some sort of process. Or if we think about it like a butterfly, it’s metamorphosis, it's these life cycles that have these dramatic shifts to them. For people and for businesses, it's really about a change from the inside out, which often involves a complete destruction of what is, but really, it's about opening our hearts and shifting our minds and healing the past and all of the things that really show up in our minds and in our body, and they lodge themselves there.

Christina Pate:

Really healing all of that and then transcending our challenges and developing self-awareness and developing mindfulness and really to step into your full power towards self-actualization. That term is actually one coined by Maslow. If you've heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you have those basic needs like food and water and shelter followed by identity and belonging and well, self-actualization is actually the apex. It's this ideal thing that we're all working towards. It's the realization or the fulfillment of your potential. Your passions, your talent, your purpose.

Christina Pate:

It's really considered like a natural human drive or a motivation that really lives in all of us that we're all striving and desiring for this self-fulfillment. Really, what we're capable of becoming. Unfortunately, we often get stuck and we get trapped in fear or we succumb to fulfilling other people's desires or expectations for us.

Christina Pate:

Wayfinders can support people in really uncovering their true desires and their passions and their purpose, and really help them become aware of all those mindsets and fears and the conditioning by other people and by society, all the things that really hold us back not just from healing, but from achieving our full potential. That's self-actualization in a nutshell.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. Thank you so much for explaining that. It's so true. I can personally relate to just the idea of being held back by fear, as you said, I think we don't always feel comfortable expressing that or admitting that externally, but I think we all know it's a human thing and we all feel that internally. I was wondering too, you had shared earlier on that you work with both individuals and groups. This transformation or self-actualization that you described, it's a form of alchemy. If you could give us some examples to really ground it, what does that look like for an individual versus a group or maybe personally versus in a work setting?

Christina Pate:

Sure. I'll actually use a client of mine, a former client of mine as an example first. She was in her early 40s. She was finding herself in these relationships that moved really fast and they were intense, and then they burned out usually in really dramatic ways, and she was left feeling devastated every time. Simultaneously, she was talking about how she had frozen her eggs in her 30s because she wasn't ready to have kids at the time when she was in that relationship. Now, she's thinking that she needed to do something with them because she was getting older.

Christina Pate:

I started to wonder if she was rushing into these relationships because she felt like she was running out of time to have a baby. I was also getting the sense that based on our conversations that maybe she didn't really want to have children.

Christina Pate:

I asked her if she actually wanted to have children and she hesitated and was like, "Yeah, I think." I said, "Have you ever really thought about that? Because you seem to enjoy your life as it is without children, do you really want children?" She's like, "I don't actually know. I actually don't think so. I love children. I love being an auntie, but I don't know if I really want any of my own." She was surprised by her own response." I asked her what she thought that was about? Where did she think that came from? She said, "I think I just always thought it was something that people did, but I never actually thought about whether or not I really wanted that."

Christina Pate:

She started to think about her family, both of her parents are deceased now. She said, if her parents hadn't passed that they would still be pressuring her into having children. But since they're not, she hasn't really felt that external pressure to do it, and it was almost like she was on autopilot. We talked through that conditioning that she received by her family and by society really, and she was able to start breaking down those conditioned beliefs and really release herself from those expectations and begin to start thinking more clearly about what she wanted for her life.

Christina Pate:

Through that process, we discovered that she was rushing into those relationships because she thought she needed to have a baby soon, and she realized that she didn't actually want children. She didn't feel pressure to rush into those relationships anymore. We were really able to separate her authentic thoughts and feelings and desires from those conditioned ones, and she was able to start aligning her behaviors more with what she really wanted for her life. That's just one simple example of how that process can happen on a personal level.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah, and it's such a profound example. Thank you for sharing. That's the magic, right? That's the hard part, figuring out how to parse through that external pressure or external expectations that just, they become embedded in us. Versus what is truly authentically what I want on the inside. I am so curious, how do you help clients? How do you help them parse through that and really figure that out for themselves?

Christina Pate:

It happens in an organic process. It depends on what they are coming with and what they're presenting with. It's really a matter of chipping away and unraveling the threads that have gotten so tightly wound in us and figuring out which ones are mine and which ones aren't mine and starting to learn to cut the cords that aren't mine and cut the things that aren't a part of me and really start to think about, what do I want? We need to talk more about what that looks like in terms of coherence, but, it's really like a matter of unraveling and dissolving all of those things. Looking at it for what it is, and then starting to actually think about what do I actually want, and what do I actually need?

Christina Pate:

I think the hardest piece of that is then stepping into your courage to actually align your actions with that, because again, society or your family, or whoever might be telling you that this isn't okay. You will probably lose some people along the way when you start showing up as your authentic self. That gets into the more challenging piece, I think in terms of action.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. I imagine this is why it's so helpful to have a coach at times, because having that outside perspective, someone to guide you and coach you through how to parse through these things and how to build up that courage, because it sometimes can seem really overwhelming. I've been there, I think we all have. It's really helpful to hear how you help others in that way. I was curious too, you had mentioned that you've worked with people in groups, in a work setting, what does that look like? Do you have any examples of types of transformation that maybe happens at work?

Christina Pate:

Yeah. Transformation and even just wellness, it's not just for people, it's for businesses and companies and organizations. Our world is so full of illness and dis-ease and our businesses and our organizations are really just reflecting back the community or the society's wellness and also the individuals that comprise a business or an organization. I would say, especially the leaders who set the tone. That's what we work with business leaders and organizations to help them examine their organizational climate and culture, and really work to heal and transform some of those things and become the conscious business owners that they're striving to lead and operate.

Christina Pate:

It looks like breaking down our collective egos, breaking down our pride, breaking down our systems of oppression. So, dismantling sexism and racism and ageism in the workplace, all of these white centered and male centered narratives that we have all internalized and perpetuated in the workplace and really looking at inequities and disparities.

Christina Pate:

Let's see if our colleagues have an equal chance to be successful regardless of their race or ethnicity or sex or gender identity or sexual orientation or language or ability status, because inequities are created when barriers actually prevent us from accessing the conditions that we need to succeed and for reaching our full potential, for actualizing that.

Christina Pate:

In order to achieve equity, individuals and systems have to value all people and all systems equally, and we have to optimize our conditions where we live and develop and work. Once we start to dismantle these things or even by way of dismantling, then we have to really think about authentic engagement. I refer to this as voice, choice and agency. What does that mean as a leader or a manager, it's asking ourselves, what does it look like to partner with my employees or even with my clients, depending on the work that you do? What would it look like to co-construct practices and policies and products, and even our evaluation practices in the workplace? What does it look like to co-determine what success looks like in the workplace? Is it about people or is it about products and sales and money?

Christina Pate:

Because I'll tell you, a business that takes care of its employees has a business that can run itself. When you create a culture of care in the workplace, your employees will care about the business. Overall, we have to really shift our mindset and our approach to rather than providing services to clients, let's think about co-creating and serving with them, or rather than powering over our employees, let's power with them, co-create with them.

Christina Pate:

At the center of it all is really a sense of agency and it's allowing people to have authentic voice and choice and an equal stake in the process and in the outcome. That's just one example of the kind of transformation that I support businesses through.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah, thank you for sharing. I love that you use the word co-creation. I think that really hit home for me. I've been thinking through this, I am in a management leadership role in my day-to-day. It's always so top of mind for me to try to create authentic cultures where others on the team can feel comfortable in being authentic and that we can co-create that kind of environment together. I'm just wondering, if you had one tip for me, if I was trying to figure out - great, I want to create a healthier, more inclusive, more authentic culture, where could I start if I wanted to just go tackle that tomorrow? Do you have any tips for me?

Christina Pate:

Yeah, I think first and foremost is just as a leader, is to just listen and connect. Create intentional spaces for listening to your employees and trust what they're saying and allow them the space to be honest in that feedback. Creating a culture of feedback that's bi-directional is so important. Listen first and then create these intentional spaces for connection. Let people connect with each other, have connection spaces where it's around safe and supportive relationships. You're building that psychological safety that's so important in the workplace and really creating more inclusive and less exclusionary policies.

Christina Pate:

If we're thinking about discipline policies at work, are we putting things in place to support people before we get to those more punitive policies or are we always noticing all of the things that they're doing wrong and getting them to the next step, to the next step, to where they no longer have a job? I would say, listen first, connect, and then really examine your policies and your practices.

Reena Merchant:

Thank you so much. That's so helpful. I was also wanting to ask you, you had mentioned the iceberg metaphor earlier, and you talked about the surface level things, and I think you said that's the mental level, and then you talked about what's beneath the water, so the root cause. I was wondering if you could speak more to that? Because I know you were saying the psychology that we're taught is maybe different from the psychology that we experience. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Christina Pate:

Yes. This is a deep topic, but we're so quick to slap deficit-based labels on people. In fact, our medical system is set up so that you really can't receive mental health support without a mental disorder diagnosis, unless you have some really good insurance that will either offer you some sessions or otherwise you're just paying out of pocket.

Christina Pate:

As a practitioner who has conducted hundreds of evaluations on children and adults, it's really shocking to see the number of diagnoses that start so young in a person's life, and that follows them forever. We most certainly over-pathologize the behaviors of people of color far more because the systems have been created by white men and generally carried out by white women. I'm not saying that legitimate psychopathology doesn't exist because it does, and I'm not saying that people don't need professional help because they do. But so many people are going through so much in life and rarely have the adequate tools or the systemic support to help them heal and to transcend their challenges.

Christina Pate:

Then they get labels slapped on them, which is super deficit based, and it places blame on people when it's actually the systems that they live in that tend to create the problems. So, families, workplaces, communities, societies. If we could address some of these systems, we wouldn't have so many people feeling depressed and anxious in the world. We wouldn't have so many people committing aggressive and violent acts because they grew up in perpetual trauma and violence.

Christina Pate:

We really need to help people uncover the root causes of their issues and then begin to unlearn and relearn patterns that have rooted themselves in our minds, in our bodies, in our daily habits and how that has really influenced the systems we've created to perpetuate these problems. Simultaneously, have to heal and transform our systems, things like implicit bias and racism and sexism, all those things I mentioned earlier are so rooted in our institutions like education, in public health, in public safety and healthcare, all of these places.

Christina Pate:

But what I really want to focus on here is it's not just important to focus on root causes that cause problems, we have to identify people's assets and their strengths and their aspirations, and nourish those, and focus on those. We're always so quick to focus on what's not well, but what is well and why aren't we talking about that?

Reena Merchant:

Yeah, you're right. When you were talking about root cause, I immediately, even just in my own mind, I was thinking, right, what are all the root causes to all the things that need to be fixed about me? That's where my brain immediately went. I think you're right, I think we do maybe over-emphasize on that. Thank you for mentioning that.

Reena Merchant:

I'm trying to figure out how do we firstly, get to the root cause on an individual level? The root cause of what's working and what's not. But then there's these bigger systemic things that you were mentioning too. How do we begin to chip away at transforming both of those?

Christina Pate:

Yeah, great question. Root cause analysis is essentially an investigation into the earliest and most basic or deepest cause for a given behavior or a given condition. If we look at it from the deficit lens, it's the thing that is at fault, so to speak. It's the way that you see an error is by its manifested signs. For example, if you have a lack of diversity on your staff in the workplace, especially in a predominantly white organization, the surface level problem, the above the water problem is that you don't hire enough people of color. But when you begin to investigate the root cause of this, you're going to find things like implicit bias, which leads to less engagement in collaboration with people of color. You'll often find attitudes that people of color aren't the right fit, or they aren't qualified for this particular job, or you'll just see flat out racism, the list goes on.

Christina Pate:

Simply trying to hire more people of color isn't going to solve the problem that's trying to solve at the level of the problem. We have to get to the root cause, which most likely is going to be things like implicit bias. That root cause has to be addressed. Your staff, your leaders, they need to get support in identifying their bias and working through those issues and shifting their mindsets as individuals, that's the inside job, and as a collective.

Christina Pate:

All of those things that are below the water can now start to surface, and then we can start to adjust those practices above the water, if that makes sense. That's like a group or a workplace example. I don't know if you wanted an individual one as well.

Reena Merchant:

No, that helps and makes so much sense. On an individual level, what would I do... If I wanted to do this root cause analysis for myself, let's say, is it as simple as sitting down with a journal and just really introspecting and trying to figure out what's happening beneath the surface, or what might you recommend for those of us who want to start to make this change for ourselves?

Christina Pate:

I think it's like, in the example earlier, it's sort of unraveling the things. Starting with where you are and keep asking yourself, but why and where it's coming from and what are the patterns that have shown up in my life? I often use the example of someone who gets into maybe abusive relationships. The level of the problem isn't the abuser or the person you're in a relationship with. We have to solve our relationship problems by digging deeper into what makes you enter into those relationships with such people?

Christina Pate:

You might ask yourself, what is it about this kind of person that draws me in? What am I getting out of it, even though it's painful? Most likely, it's part of your experience in life. Maybe it's your family or your early relationships and partly your biological makeup or your personality. We have to first understand where all the patterns stemmed from, and then we have to start to unlearn because they are literally wired in our brains at this point as adults.

Christina Pate:

Unlearn a lot of these patterns that we learned growing up or in those earlier relationships, and then start to relearn healthier ways of being as an individual, as a partner, as a colleague, whatever it is, and really start to address those in a more comprehensive way. Physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, energetically. As I mentioned earlier, the root causes are also for those healthy, adaptive things too. As soon as we want to start going into, let me try and investigate why all these bad things are happening also uncover simultaneously the things that are causing you, health and happiness in life.

Christina Pate:

For example, I know that getting eight hours of sleep, making sure I connect with a good friend at least once a week, making sure that I have plenty of time for relaxation outside of work and that I have to have meaning and purpose in my work, those are all of the things that help me stay physically and emotionally healthy and happy. Those are all root causes of my health and happiness.

Christina Pate:

Once you've sourced some of those root causes of health and happiness, start to leverage that. That way, when things start to fall apart, when that relationship starts to go downhill, or when I start to get sick all the time, I can ask myself, huh, have I been getting enough sleep lately? Am I getting good connecting time with my friends and my family, is this work meaningless? Do I have purpose right now? What's happening? Am I alone enough to reset my energy? Any of those things can lead me astray and maybe into a relationship or a situation that is not my best self, if that makes sense.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah, and I was going to ask you, when you were talking about the things we have to unlearn, I was going to ask you how we do that. I hadn't really thought about, well, there's the things that cause me happiness, and maybe those are assets or strengths that I could use to help in the areas that maybe I want to strengthen or unlearn. Is that what you meant? Because that is a huge epiphany for me.

Christina Pate:

Yeah. I think there's a lot of ways to unlearn things. Sometimes it's like, you got to quit cold turkey. If it's an abusive relationship or it's substance abuse, whatever it might be, but you have to stop the behavior, but notice when it starts to come up, notice I'm starting to engage in this kind of situation or relationship or whatever it is, and really pause and be like, "Oh, why am I drawn to doing this again? What do I need to get myself grounded and calm and settled and connected and happy again?

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. What about, Christina, when you make progress in that way, and then sometimes it feels like you're going backwards? Sometimes it feels the path isn't straight for me and I make some progress and then maybe I've taken 10 steps back. How does that journey of transformation work? Because it's hard not to get discouraged.

Christina Pate:

Yeah, it's definitely hard not to get discouraged. There's a phrase that I've heard before and I don't know where it came from, but it's basically that transformation or change or whatever is not a switch, it's a dial. You're ideally moving to a desired position. I think the way I think about this is based on my own... I previously used to judge and shame myself when I thought like, oh, I had unlearned this thing and I know better ways of doing this, and I did great. Now, what the hell is happening?

Christina Pate:

I was shamed myself for falling backwards when I thought that I got better. But because of the way transformation works, it can go back and forth and it can feel more or less intense at times. Your life can get brighter or darker or you might increase or decrease your output. It doesn't happen in a moment or overnight, and it's not linear. You have to remember that change and transformation is not linear. I think without this, you actually couldn't notice the continuum of dark and light. You couldn't notice the expansion and the contraction that we all naturally have as part of us. Then you really wouldn't notice the overall growth that transpires from it all.

Christina Pate:

I just say, don't be so hard on yourself when you've reached some level of growth or improvement, and then you find yourself falling back into those old patterns again, or you find yourself in a dark place. The key is that you notice that it's happening and every time you'll build your skills and your stamina in a way that you can turn it back up again and you can get back on track faster than you did before, and you can live a brighter life yet again,

Reena Merchant:

Thank you. That's so supportive because I am really hard on myself, and I think so many of us are. It's the word you use, shaming, I think that's just what we do - we don't want to do it, but we do sometimes, we shame ourselves. I think it really helps to share these stories, I think, with each other so that it starts to normalize, hey, it is normal to feel that way, and it's okay. So, thank you for sharing that.

Christina Pate:

Totally, yeah.

Reena Merchant:

I wanted to ask you a little bit about the change that we're going through right now. I think that we're experiencing something hugely transformational as a global society. What does change and transformation look like for us in the current context? What are your thoughts on that?

Christina Pate:

We are all going through massive, massive change. I say that change will really be the catalyst for what we need to do our inner work, because we're really creating a new normal. Right now we have new relationships, a new society, a new self, and I think it's really obvious right now who is trying to do their inner work and trying to shift and change with the change and who is continuing to try to do the same old thing in this new context, because it's not working for them.

Christina Pate:

I think, first and foremost, we have to be realistic and gentle with ourselves, and this is with any change, but especially right now. I just encourage people to set a new baseline, forget everything that you knew before, and this is your opportunity now to do better and to show up as a different person.

Christina Pate:

Most of us haven't been prepared for this new normal. A lot of people are crowded at home, they're not able to find space or time for themselves, or they might be struggling with boundaries at work because we're on literally Zoom calls all day, every day, or some people are living alone and they're feeling especially isolated. It's bringing up all sorts of thoughts and emotions and behaviors to the surface that we had no idea were there. We'd been stuffing them down.

Christina Pate:

This is totally normal. I'd like to say that it's happening to all of us, but it's not just happening to us, it's really happening for us. If we can look for the meaning during these challenging times, as well as the opportunity to do different and to be different, we could really create a better world. But if we keep trying to do the same old things, we're going to keep falling back into the same old patterns.

Christina Pate:

Give yourself permission to grieve the loss of your old life and feel those feelings, but try not to get stuck in them. Give yourself time and space to figure this out, reduce your workload when you can at home and at work. If you're a leader, allow your colleagues and employees to also reduce their workloads, offer them flexibility and just give yourself permission for trial and lots of error.

Christina Pate:

I would say, last, is just be patient, get comfortable with the discomfort, prioritize some things, and then let some shit go. We're all in this together, and we need to offer ourselves and other people some grace as well.

Reena Merchant:

I completely agree. It's so amazing what you said, that things... If we see it as not happening to us, that we're not the victim of things that are happening to us, but how can we reframe that and see things as happening for us? I think that's definitely a huge takeaway for me as well. I think it would probably help us feel more empowered maybe about the situation.

Christina Pate:

Yeah.

Reena Merchant:

You spoke to this a little bit, but I just wanted to dig in a little bit more, the idea of grief, because I've been experiencing it, it does feel like I am grieving the life I knew and the normal I knew, and I think we're all going through that right now. How do we really manage that grief? Because at times it is intensely painful.

Christina Pate:

Yes, it is intensely painful. Any sort of shift or change requires loss, and a lot of times loss will lead to grief. I think just normalizing that can be helpful. A lot of people, they're not just losing their old habits and their old ways of doing things, but a lot of people have lost their jobs and they've lost relationships. I think, again, being gentle with yourself, getting support when you need it and how you need it, a lot of people are numbing out right now. I encourage us to lean into the discomfort rather than try to avoid it or fight it.

Christina Pate:

Really, help yourself recognize that it is happening for us, and that there is going to be some meaning in this. A lot of people right now are experiencing anticipatory grief. Some fellow psychologists who study grief, actually put a great article out in the Harvard Business Review, if anyone's looking for more information on that, but it's the feeling we get when the future is uncertain and we're afraid of what we might lose or who we might lose.

Christina Pate:

That leads us to this worst-case scenario thinking. It's this endless cycle of ruminating and telling ourselves stories that aren't true and it's focused solely on the unknown future, and it's rooted in fear. It further perpetuates fear, not just for yourself, but it really spreads like a virus to other people. If we can remember, change happens in the now and really trying to accept the current moment, it's really where your power lies. You don't have to like what's happening in the moment. In fact, you want to feel those feelings, it's critical, but we don't want to get stuck in them, but we cannot control our external circumstances and we definitely can't control the future, and I feel like we're all very well aware of that right now, but you can control how you perceive it and how you respond to it.

Christina Pate:

There's this quote from Victor Frankl who was actually a Holocaust survivor, and he says, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." I think it's so powerful coming from a Holocaust survivor who endured perhaps one of the most horrific experiences of humanity who had absolutely no control over his circumstances. He turned inward and started to think about how he could change himself, how he perceived the situation and how he responded to it.

Christina Pate:

We have more choices than we realize, and I think once we begin to recognize that, we can really begin to search for meaning, and there's actually so much opportunity for growth in these challenging times of change.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. I never heard that quote before, but that quote and the situation that Victor was in, as you said, when he said that is, it's so motivating to hear that. I found that, I think just naturally inherently, I started doing that too, where I would go through obviously on a smaller scale, but in my own life, difficult things. It does feel like you can control what's happening within sometimes more than what's happening without, and that does feel like a great place to start. It gives you hope in a sense.

Christina Pate:

Yeah, absolutely. I think focusing on your locus of control, what can I control when I can't control all this craziness happening around me? How I manage myself. Then how I learn to take care of myself for sure.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah, that's so helpful. I was also looking at, I believe there's an article that you'd written and an event that you hosted recently on the topic of coherence. When I was reading about this, it really resonated with me because you talk about something called mind, body, heart alignment. I have, just for myself, a personal framework that seems really similar where it's distinguishing between what's happening in your mind and your heart and your gut. I immediately thought, oh, I want to ask Christina about this. Would you be able to share more about your thinking around coherence?

Christina Pate:

Absolutely, we might have to collaborate on this. Figure out what might be helpful for folks. But yeah, I'm still fleshing this concept out. I feel like I had the mind, body, heart alignment piece of it, but the whole self-coherence concept is still forming for me. But it's something that's really rooted in your why and ensuring that your what and your how, your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, those are all aligned with each other and with your why.

Christina Pate:

Your why is your reason for being, it's your purpose, your passion. In Japan, they call it ikigai or in India, they call it dharma. Whole self-coherence, it's really bringing your whole self; mind, body, heart, soul, all the things that we perceive to be good and bad and right and wrong and pretty and ugly about ourselves, all those perceived dualities, literally your whole self and all of your actions and really cohering around a common vision or your why.

Christina Pate:

We can align our thoughts and our feelings, we can align our thoughts and our actions and all of that is great and absolutely necessary. But if we're missing a steady vision for ourselves, for our life, essentially our why, our reason for being, then none of it matters. Asking yourself, why am I here? Who am I, what is my authentic voice? When you start to uncover that and you start to align yourself in ways that cohere to this inner vision, things will really start to shift and transform in a way that not only serves your highest purpose, but it's in highest service to all, because you will show up as your authentic self, you will step into your authentic power, and that will be of highest service to all.

Reena Merchant:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Is our why or our personal vision or purpose, do you think that's something that we identify, or we design? Is it something that already exists within us and we just have to find it, or is it something that we can intentionally decide and craft?

Christina Pate:

I think that is a great existential question. It probably depends on people's orientation to their beliefs about higher power and things like that. I personally believe that there is something within me already that has to be discovered, but I, 100% believe that whatever is meant to manifest from me, if I tap into it, I can co-create or co-design that with what I was put on this Earth to do. I think the why is somewhere steady in there, but the what and the how, how that comes out into the world, I think could take so many paths.

Christina Pate:

But I think when you ask people, as they get older, people who felt like they really fulfilled their mission in life, their life's purpose feel like there was always some steady, consistent thing in there, but it ebbed and flowed and maybe took some different paths in life. But I do think that, it's not about finding yourself as much as it is about creating yourself. I think there's a quote about that actually somewhere out there, but, yeah. Not a clear answer on that.

Reena Merchant:

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. You were talking about that alignment across mind, body and heart. How do we do that? How do we achieve that?

Christina Pate:

This is, I think really important and what I've noticed over the years with myself and with my clients is that when we operate out of alignment internally, then our external circumstances become so undesirable and often miserable or impossible to manage. But when your mind and your body are not in agreement about what they want and what you want, your why, all of these things weaken individually and collectively, and then it's like your whole self diminishes, and then all those individual parts start to fail.

Christina Pate:

How do we achieve alignment? I don't think there's one path for one person, and I think a lot of clinicians and researchers actually get caught up with this in their practice because they're always so focused on evidence-based practices, but really it's a series of trial and error and it's dependent on context. I believe we're meant to learn lessons in this classroom called life, and those aren't the same for everyone, but I do think there are ways to tap into the alignment process.

Christina Pate:

I do know different Wayfinders approach it in different ways. Again, trying things and seeing what works for you is necessary. But I think regardless of your philosophy or approach, I think most Wayfinders would agree that you have to get still first and listen and observe because our lives today are so incredibly busy and distracting and with so much sensory overload that we're unaware of our thoughts in how we feel physically and emotionally, and we're unaware of how we move about the world socially. When you get still, ask yourself, what am I feeling in my body? What thoughts are going through my mind? What am I feeling in my heart? What do I want? What does my higher self want? What does my soul want? Is all of that in alignment with my current circumstances?

Christina Pate:

Checking in... I think there's some ways that you can do this. Some people like to just journal it out. With clients who are more visual or they think we're linearly, I've just had them create columns. Write down your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, are they lining up across the page? Other people like to just talk it through with a friend or a coach. If you're in the workplace, you can see if your intentions or your goals for the quarter, are they lining up with your actions or did you create goals that actually don't align with what you really want to be doing in the first place?

Christina Pate:

There's different ways to go about that. But I think really here, going back to my point earlier is let's start focusing on our assets. What do we want, what do we like, how do we want to feel, and is that your current circumstance and are your actions lining up with that? If not, what are the things that we need to unlearn and relearn and do in place of that?

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. Is this the kind of thing that can also help us just get out of our heads? Sometimes I feel that I have this conflict between what my heart's telling me and what my mind is telling me. I'm just wondering what tools or what way of thinking could help us when we get caught in that cycle?

Christina Pate:

Yes, we're such a mind driven society and we're actually taught to believe what our minds tell us and to believe the things that other people's minds tell us or to argue about and create conflict over each other's thoughts and beliefs that we've lost sight, that our minds don't operate in a silo or in isolation from our bodies and our hearts and our environments, they're all very interconnected. I think so many of us are doing things that our minds have convinced us, we have to do. Our bodies might be feeling like shit or we're exhausted, or we're feeling resentful, but we'll do things anyway because we think we should.

Christina Pate:

We get into this endless rumination or mind loop or storytelling to ourself, but we have to realize that our thoughts have so much energy. When you have a thought, you've really initiated a vibrational communication to your higher self that I think can go one of two ways. It's either a signal to further perpetuate that energy and attract more of it.

Christina Pate:

If it's light and positive and asset based, we're probably going to focus more on those things. But if it's shitty and stressful and negative, then we're probably going to focus more on all the negative things, and that's the stuff that's going to show up in our life. Or it could be a signal that, hey, something is going on here, what is that about?

Christina Pate:

Then you have to really be intentional and begin to shift your focus and your attention on what you really want to feel instead. I think in order to get there again, we have to notice, and the best way to notice is to pause and listen. Really start noticing that it's happening. I think meditation and mindfulness practices can really help us drop into that space where we can actually hear what's going on.

Christina Pate:

My body work Wayfinder friends will tell you that you have to get still and listen to your body first because it's the most intuitive. It doesn't rely on all that crap in our mind, on logic or on emotions. But I also think that physical and emotional feelings are really guideposts that's signaling to you that something is up. Again, when you notice that feeling is coming up, whether it's physical or emotional, that is an indicator that I need to do some checking in with myself.

Christina Pate:

It's a way to pause that crazy mind chatter process, but that requires self-awareness. Really noticing and being intentional about those things that are happening in your mind and then what we need to do to shift that.

Reena Merchant:

Yeah. Thank you so much, Christina. That really helps. I'm wondering, is there any final thought you'd want to leave us all with, on this big topic of transformation and change?

Christina Pate:

I think overall, be kind to yourself, offer yourself and others some grace. At the same time, if you're ready to change, there's this quote, don't be upset about the results from the work you didn't do. If you're ready to do the work, it is your work and it's an inside job to transform your life in order to transform your business, and it all starts with you, but be patient, know that dial will go backwards and forwards and really get comfortable with the discomfort.

Reena Merchant:

Thank you so much. What a wonderful note to end on. Christina, thank you for your time, thank you for sharing all about the wonderful work you're doing and the way you're helping people and businesses. There were so many wonderful tips and strategies and just beautiful, inspirational things that came out of our conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Christina Pate:

Likewise, thank you so much.

Reena Merchant:

My last question to you would be how do people stay in touch? If people want to find out more about what you're up to, what's the best way?

Christina Pate:

Sure. You can head over to www.wellnesswayfinder.com. You can also email info@wellnesswayfinder.com or on Instagram, @thewellnesswayfinder.

Reena Merchant:

Perfect. I am excited to stay connected with you, Christina. Thank you so much, again, for your time and your insights.

Christina Pate:

Thank you. This was great.

Reena Merchant:

I learned so much from Christina about how to navigate transformation and change. It was great hearing her speak about change from the inside out and how we can open our hearts, shift our minds and heal our wounds. We learned about going beneath the surface to uncover root causes and managing grief and fear, and we also spoke about how we can align with our authentic selves personally, while also creating the right cultures at work. Most importantly, how not to judge or shame ourselves and to always be kind to ourselves.

Reena Merchant:

I hope you found the conversation with Christina Pate as supportive as I did. If you enjoyed this episode, please give the podcast a rating and a review online. It helps us so much, and be sure to check out the show notes at iamourvoice.com for links and resources related to this episode. Keep finding yourself, keep being yourself, and until next time, I am sending you so much love.