Self Esteem, Self Image, and Self Confidenct
In this episode of This Fat Girl Life podcast, I am joined by Divorce Recovery Coach Elisa Thickson. We will be discussing self-esteem, self-image, and self -confidence and how they all co-exist. When going through any significant life change, such as divorce, we often times have to rebuild ourselves. This conversation points out some great ways to do that.
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Transcript
Here is the transcript for this episode. All parts that are in bold represent my words.
Welcome to this fat girl life, a podcast about self-worth, loving yourself as you are and body image. My name is Kimberlee and I am your host. We are back again and tonight I am joined by the lovely miss Elisa Thickson. Thank you so much for coming on my show!
Oh, you’re welcome! Thank you so much for having me I’m so excited.
Of course, so you are a discovery or a divorce recovery coach. What is that?
Thats right. What that is, is that I help single parents, recover from their divorce, I help them recover from, sometimes abusive relationships, and I help guide them through the divorce process. So, the court process, how to handle your Ex’s, even how to you know handle the kids if you have kids, like and how you want to take your life as a single person. Like what do you want to see happen? Do you want to become, do you want to be a new relationship, are you, how much are you needing to heal from your past relationship, how do you want to move forward? You know and it’s such a shocking time so people sometimes need help figuring out the next step.
Right, so now what, spurred you into going into this field?
Well, I am divorced, I’m a single parent of a 16-year-old, he’s going to be 17 in a couple of weeks. I started my career actually as a family law legal assistant and I was doing that up until my son was about 2 and what I found at 2 was that I had a really hard time hearing, I had a hard time hearing what other parents would put their through, like the CFS cases and I found I was always helping the clients find a faster way to deal with their divorce issues, than going through lawyers. So, when you’re an assistant, you can’t really do that.
Right, that makes sense.
Yes, and I found always, I was always falling behind in the administrative work because I didn’t care. I didn’t care if stuff got done, I wanted to help the people. So, that’s when, oh that’s when I started looking into life coaching and why I help people move past abusive relationships, I was in a narcissistic relationship as well. I have experience, I’ve recovered from narcissistic abuse, so I actually have done up some courses on how to heal from it, and kind of how to get out of that, that ongoing game playing I guess is what I call it.
And that’s something a lot more common than I think people realize, because I mean, I personally went through the same thing, so I’ve been there done that, so I’ve written a book about it, you know, and it’s something that if you don’t heal from it, you will go right back into it. I can say from personal experience I was in my first marriage which was not a great marriage.
Right
Did not heal from divorce, just kind of pushed forward and went into marriage which was you know God even worse.
Yes
And it wasn’t until I took time to heal myself, realize my worth and love myself that I finally discovered you know this is what I deserve to have, my husband and I joke that you know when we first met, we sat down and had a conversation of this is what I need from you, and if you can’t give it to me that’s fine, but if you say you’re going to do it, then I’m going to hold you to it.
Exactly. Absolutely and that is exactly what I teach and that’s exactly what I practice myself. Because
Now how does self-esteem work into that?
Well, how self-esteem works into that especially, okay, so when, when you’ve gone through a narcissistic abusive relationship, is even when you go into it, you can have all this, you know, self-esteem and take all of this stuff about yourself, but then they put you down, and they mentally do these things to you, you know. They emotionally abuse you, so when you’re done, you’re left with nothing. You don’t, a lot of times you don’t think anything of yourself, and you’re lonely you know? You almost can miss having that game. So, you need something to fill that void because you don’t know anything about yourself. You’re lost, you’re confused, so you go into another relationship, but what happens is your self-esteem is at zero. So, you’re going to get even worse because now you’re attracting all the negative, all the abusive people because your codependent and you need someone. You don’t want someone you need someone. So that’s when I step in and I say okay, so you’re thoughts, which is your self-esteem, your thoughts that you have about yourself, you’re at zero, so we need to build you up into getting those positive thoughts about yourself back, and we have to turn into self-confidence which means you’re going to now believe these things about yourself because if you don’t believe them, if you only think them, it’s someone can come in and change those thoughts but if you believe them and you know what you want, no one’s going to change that. And that’ll help you overcome the codependency. The loneliness, you have to spent some time with yourself and just work on rebuilding so that you can go ahead and in life and get what you want and be happy, get out of that emotional abusive circle.
And I love that you actually defined you know that self-confidence description and everything because there are a lot of people that probably don’t understand what that is.
Thats right.
So, thank you for defining that. Now, sorry I have an itch. One thing that you mentioned was that, you know, being lonely and you’re taking time for yourself. I think honestly, and please let me know if you disagree, that is like the hardest part is learning to be okay with being alone.
Yes, you are absolutely right that is the hardest part. And that’s what I help women with you know, to cure that loneliness why don’t we look into some activities that you used to like to do, and you may be want to go back to it because it’ll help cure that loneliness because that is hardest part, is yeah, being alone, but I teach okay, you know, you’re on your own but now it’s you time so you know you get to do in your house whatever you want. You know, you want to leave the kitchen a mess, leave it a mess, you know? You want to make noise; you go ahead and you make noise. You want to go out in the morning, you go out in the morning you don’t have anybody to answer to. Let’s start, let’s start enjoying the time alone instead of thinking okay oh gosh I’m lonely. You know, I need, I need someone here, because I can’t stand it. Now let’s just change that around a bit you know?
Yeah, make it a positive.
Exactly.
I think that one of the things that I did when I first, you know, got out of rehab and did all you know, went through all that, and started to heal myself, I used to actually take myself out on a date.
Yes
Get dressed up, go through the whole rigmarole and have a date with myself.
Thats right, that’s right. I’ve done that too. Yeah, absolutely, I’ll even do it in the morning. I’ll get myself like not completely fancy, but looking nice, I’ll put my make up on, do my hair, we’ll do my grocery shopping, maybe take myself out for coffee, and continue on my day, you know, then you’ve got all the confidence.
Now you just became my hero because I don’t have the energy to do that in the mornings.
I don’t do it every morning either. Thank you, I’ll admit it but
Today is the day that I worked from home, you can see there is no make-up. Yeah, that just does not happen
You look fabulous, I did a little make-up myself just to cover up the little you know the little things.
Little imperfections that come with you know, getting older in life.
Unfortunately, yes. Thats right
So, I know you said that you’ve created some programs to help women through this, a lot of women though don’t know, you know, they may be able to place, especially with everything that’s happened recently where they don’t have those extra funds to be able invest in life coach and invest in that. What suggestions do you have for somebody who is in that position where they know they need that but they just don’t have the extra money to invest?
What i do is i do offer some free sessions. Like I’ll offer a 2-week coaching program. I do work with people’s budgets, so if they can only pay, let’s for example say, $50 a month, and let’s say even for three months, I say okay. Let’s do this and we’ll look at things in three months because in three months they could be stronger, they may be wanting a new job, because that happens too after you know, an abusive relationship. Sometimes it’s six months and that’s okay, that’s okay too but they may find okay, I was doing this job because it suited my partner but it doesn’t suit me anymore. I need, it doesn’t suit my interest, it doesn’t suit, my wants, my needs, I want to look for something else. Well, I’ll help you look for that something else. Because I know how important it is to get the help.
Yeah, honestly that totally just reminded me of a scene from a movie called runaway bride with Julie Roberts and Richard Gere, have you seen that movie?
I have
With the eggs.
Yes, exactly. Exactly
I’ve never really thought of that correlation but that’s what it is.
Yes, that’s right. Absolutely, we do also will do like some free coaching for a testimonial because those help as well too. And I do post little nuggets of coaching tips on my Facebook page, I do that every day.
Okay
So, some people may find that useful.
Well, tell you what. When we’re done with this send me a link to your Facebook page, I will post it up on my page, so that if anybody is wanting to reach out if they’re in that place where they need that divorce recovery coaching and assistance, they can reach out to you. I’d love to do that for you.
Sure, that would be great, I appreciate it.
Not a problem.
I know what it’s like to need help, and you have no money. So, I like to work with people on okay, how can we get you the help that you need you know?
I absolutely love that. I love that you do that. So, I definitely want to you know help out with that and you know bring some people over to you if I can.
Yeah, that would be great.
So, is there anything you would like to add about what you do or you know, the importance of it?
Well, the importance of it is to know and love yourself and when you’re going through this after being in an abusive relationship you know, it’s not you, don’t beat yourself up about it. Narcissists are master manipulators and they prey on, they actually prey on the caring, on the people who have empathy skills and care for people. Thats who they go after so I mean, top notch doctors, fall for people who are narcists. There’s no limit you know? And it doesn’t mean stop being caring, stop being empathetic, just love yourself. Know it’s nothing you’ve done, just need to heal and you know maybe and just continue to love yourself and if you need help, there’s help out for you. It’s a tough time but you get, you do get through it.
Well, that does lead to my final question, I told you I was going to have one for you.
Thats right.
What is one thing that you love about yourself?
The one thing I love about myself is my zest for life and well okay, I’m going to add two. My zest for life and my ability to help others. The fact that I want to help others. I know it attracted maybe some unlikely characters but I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.
I think sometimes that’s kind of what builds us to who we are.
Exactly. Exactly, absolutely. There’s a reason why things happen.
Exactly, exactly. Well Elisa thank you so much for coming on this show tonight, I loved having you here.
Oh, thank you I loved being here!
And definitely send me that link I will post that link; I’ll create a little canvas thing for you and post it on there and let people know about your Facebook page so they can reach out to you if they need to.
Sure, that would be wonderful, I really appreciate that.
Not a problem
The more people I can help the better. Yeah, thank you! Thank you for having me.
Of course, it’s been real fun. Well guys that is all for tonight, next week I am going to be joined by miss Yvette love who is the miss plus America 2020, our miss plus Florida 2020, for the miss plus America pageant. So, you’re definitely not going to want to miss it. Join us here next week and I hope everybody has a great night!
Great thank you! Thank you for joining me!
