Podcast Introduction:

Mentoring with Geraldine is a bite-sized practitioner podcast for naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists, and practitioners. Responding directly to the needs of the practising natural therapist.  With interviews, herbal discussions, something business, something clinical … you’ll get the variety you need to enjoy and stay motivated in practice.

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Episode Introduction: Getting to know Lesley

Geraldine: It’s a lovely afternoon, and it’s clearly a beautiful afternoon in Perth, because Leslie is sitting outside, the birds are singing, she’s had galahs going overhead. It’s lovely. 

It’s drizzling, and horrible and cold in Adelaide – we can only dream of sunshine.

So Lesley, introduce yourself. Tell everybody, what do you do? 

I mean, you’re a Naturopath – I’ve known you for 5 years now.  But you do lots of other things as well. And so tell us about what you’re doing, and what you do. 

Lesley:  Yes, so I’m a Naturopath and a Herbalist. I also run something called Journey Drum Meditation, and I have been doing this for a very, very very long time.

It all started because of my intuitive gifts. I am really intuitive and I was seeing things about people. I used to get messages and feelings and intuitions. So I always looked for a teacher who could explain it to me, and I could never find one.

So I gathered so much information, where I eventually got to the point where I could start explaining what I wanted to know. And I found the more you empower yourself in your life and the more you understand yourself, the more you heal.

Most of my students – which has been really surprising to me – say: It’s healed their trauma – which has been surprising because we’ve never directly spoken about it.  And what I’ve found as well is that I’ve become a master at symbolism. It’s like dream interpretation. It’s like conscious dreaming, in a way.

Guided Meditations:

So mostly how my work works, is that I take people on guided meditations, into a landscape, and it really depends on what our intention is. We have a look at that landscape, and we come back and we interpret it, a little bit like dreams.  

It gives you so much insight into:

• what is going on in your life
• what your energy is like
• what your energy is bringing up
• how you interact with others
• where your path may even go 
• where you have come from
• how that’s influenced you 

There are so many layers. And so I’ve developed courses around it, and am kind of growing that.

Geraldine:  It is amazing – I’ve done journeys with you, and I know who my spirit guides are – I’ve done all of the things.  I’m not particularly woo-woo, as I’m sure everybody would agree. I’m quite clinically focused and clinically based. But I feel really supported when I do the visualisations and everything else with you. 

And today we thought we would talk more around that aspect in our businesses, because you are combining your jobs – you’re combining your modalities. And that is something that a lot of people struggle with when they come out to practice – combining their past life, with their current knowledge and making that one thing.

There’s a lot of: “How do I do that?”

Combining your Old Life with your New:

Geraldine: So I was a nurse.  It was easy to bring it into Naturopathy, but it was really hard to interpret and get people to do what I needed them to do, because of my nursing behaviours.  (As in) The way I was trained to just tell people to do things, and you assumed they did them, and off they went, and you never saw them again.

So I trained as a Coach because I needed to change the way I behaved and spoke to people. So I had to do those things.  But then my coaching course is just a coaching course, like you said, with yours.  You know so much, and then you have to figure it out for yourself, so that you can teach it – the same with my coaching course. I did a year’s coaching course. But it taught you to be a coach – it didn’t teach you to be a Naturopathic coach, or to coach your Naturopathic clients.

So I had to weave this newfound knowledge into my business.  And then I had to weave the next thing into my business, or not. You know, I did kinesiology – I rubbish at it, so I do muscle tests, but I don’t do any of their theology. I couldn’t work it in there. I did it. I really enjoyed the course, but it didn’t work. 

The hypnosis, for example – people want hypnosis, but I know they need Naturopathy, so I’ve had to know how to meld the two together. 

And lots of people have other background knowledge that they have to meld into their business. And you have to figure out where your business is going. 

And so you’ve got a course coming up – and you’ve got a workshop coming up: “Journey to Success”.  And the workshop, very interestingly, starts on the 4th, and then on the 5th we’ve got a challenge coming up in “Strictly Education & Support”.  

With “Journey to Success”, that’s around business as well, isn’t it?  It’s around making sure that you’ve got what you need. So tell us more about your workshop, and what’s coming up on the 4th. 

An Insight into Working with Lesley:

Lesley: I’m really excited to present this – it’s kind of a taster of my work and it gives you the opportunity.  I know so many naturopaths, we work for ourselves.  Some of us work in shops or we work for bigger companies. There’s so many different things and ways you can do Naturopathy or herbalism or nutrition. 

And what’s really useful, I’ve found with my journey and my visualisation, and meditating on the business, is that I’ve been guiding a few of my students into their workplace or their business. And it’s been really fascinating to see what has shown up for them. 

For instance, I had one work colleague and she was talking. She really had this clash with a colleague at work, and they had a more senior position.  And she couldn’t figure out what the clash was – what was the energy going on? So we did a meditation around it. And it really became fascinating from her viewpoint of what a Manager’s role was, and what she thought they were expecting of them.

And just from kind of unravelling her symbols, in the story. So, sometimes we use animals, every animal carries an element. So let’s just say, often I will get people to say like: 

“Close your eyes. What animal are you?”

 And they go:

“I’m a giraffe” or “I’m a mouse”. 

And then I’m like:

“OK, close your eyes. Think of the other person. What animal are they?”

“They’re a bird” or “They’re a fish”

And then it becomes fun when we start unpacking the symbolism, like:

A bird sees the world very differently to a giraffe or a mouse. They have different perspectives, different viewpoints. They value different things. 

And when I start to explain – if they’ve said their boss or colleague is like a bird – and I start explaining how birds view the world and how that compares to how they view the world, we have a real giggle.

What is fun about that is, even though we are all human we have different perspectives of the world.  We see things differently.  And so, you can start to value that person’s perspective on the way that they come to it. 

Translating this into your Business World:

When we look at just journeying into your business, and a fun thing … 

I kind of take you into a landscape, and what you get is unique to you 

… how you see the world. 

So we kind of unplug that and have a look at

… how do you see the world? 

… how do you experience it?

And then we going with an intention of like:

• Where is your business?
• What’s going on? 
• And what do you most want to focus on in your business right now? 

So just off the top of my head, say, for example:

You see this little sapling tree, in your journey.

And you are really focused on this sapling tree. 

So now anything can come up in a person’s journey.

But let’s just say for instance it’s sapling tree.

Then we kind of figure out “well what does that mean?” 

So your business is the sapling tree. 

What does it need? 

Does it need more water, which is emotional support and nourishment from you.

Are you giving it enough attention?

Is it neglected? 

Is the soil depleted and dry? 

Is it getting the nutrients it needs?

I mean, you can even see how we can journey a client’s energy.

Or we can get a client to have a look at their landscape as well. 

I do this now and again with clients too, and they will do visualisations with me, and from just the symbolism, I know exactly what’s going on in their life.

So the fun thing about doing this meditation on your business is, you’ll kind of see:

Where is your business going? 

What is fun when I do it for my own business … sometimes the path is a bit harder, before I get to my end goal. Or how long is it going to be before I get to my end goal. 

I get a really good perception of that. 

Like:

• What obstacles will I have before I get to where I’m going? 
• What else do I need to bring into my business landscape to support it – to give it the energy that it needs? 
• What else do I need to bring into my energy, to give me more energy and support, so that I can achieve my goals. 

I’m sure this is painting a whole picture for you as I’m talking.

So we kind of look at the symbolism from that, and also we have to look at your energies:

• Are you tactile?
• Are you visionary? 
• Are you auditory?
• Are you kinesthetic?

And how to really understand your energy – because after all, our consciousness creates our reality.  What you see, is what you’re going to get.  And we all know that if we have a low energy day, we cannot be motivated to do Facebook posts, or talk about anything, or be stuffed to do anything. So we have to factor ourselves, and nourish ourselves first.

Geraldine: Absolutely. With these visualisations on our business, we can then – you did it with a colleague – and the point is, we can do these with our clients as well. We can totally bring visualisations into our business. 

And I was doing visualisations before I trained in hypnosis. So I’ve been doing visualisations for quite a long time.  Because I learned about them on the coaching course – they didn’t fit in the way the coaching course suggested they should – but it fitted in. 

Because people would come and they’d be really stressed, and you have to get to the bottom of the stress. And they’re trying to do all of the things – they’re trying to parent the children – work full time – do all of the things. And so I found the visualisations were really, really good for them. 

So when do you put visualisations into practice – into your consults?

Channelling Energies:

Lesley: For me it’s useful – as you said, with a visualisation, you can help a person plug into their body – notice where they’re carrying their stress, how they breathe through it, where they are carrying it in their body. 

But when you take that upper level, and you use symbolism, you can also then start to see: 

• Is it just that person in the way that they see things?
• Or is there somebody else?
• Or are there other energies? 
• Or is it inherited from the family?
• Is it even before that – ancestral? 
• When you look at different cultures, they have such specific belief systems.

So in the visualisation that I do, you start to learn the language of symbols. 

So you can really see the layers of that. Even when I get a client to do a visualisation, sometimes it’s so clear that their gut is out of balance – because I start to see the nutrients in their journey or the elements that they are lacking. 

So it’s really, really fascinating. I’m kind of teaching you a language of symbolism that you can use with visualisation.  And to just help a client step out of where they’re going. 

I mean like some cultures, they’ll go:

“I’ve got a stomach ache”

… where they’re actually really stressed, and you wouldn’t know it. 

And some people are so clamped close, because they are so self-protective of their energy.

It’s like, how can you get them just to relax?

And sometimes I can do it in the simplest thing, like just visualising someone to hold a rose.. And to just like:

“How heavy is that rose?” 

“What colour is that rose?” 

“How big or small is it?”

“Does it have patterns?”

“Can you feel the prickles on the stem?“

And you notice how you start engaging with that person’s senses, and them when I tell them to recall that back to me, I can interpret the rose – it’s open-ness, it’s colour, if they’re tactile – I can interpret all those symbols, as well about what’s going on in that person’s life. Just from that image of a rose in their hand, and how they experience it. 

Does that make sense?

Geraldine: Yes, and you teach that as well. So it’s not like you are just doing it – you teach it as well. 

So, I mean, what’s great about having other modalities .. I mean, a lot of people just want to be a Naturopath:

“It’s all I want to be. I’m going to quit my job and I’m going to be a Naturopath”

And I think we have to remember – I’ve never suggested that people just be a Naturopath … and when I say ‘just’, I don’t mean ‘just’ as a nothing, I mean ‘just’ as in single, ‘just’ doing the one thing. A lot of people are in denial about their incredible skills and gifts from their past jobs, and their past who they are.

And by taking those with them and/or learning one or two things new … I was one of these people who would learn a new modality every year, for years and years and years, and would always just fall back on Naturopathy, and think: “Why did I learn kinesiology?”

But introducing things into our business, like visualisation, it’s really easy to introduce them, as long as we know how to do them.  As long as we understand that verbal, that:

“How am I going to discuss the rose with the client?” 

“How am I going to remember all of the aspects, you know, smell, taste, touch?” 

“What does it sound like even – you are holding the rose – there are sounds behind it.” (it might not be the rose makes any sound, but it could be bird song in the back)

 Knowing all of those things and asking those questions.  And they come from – as with you – what you were doing before you were a Naturopath.

We Learn from our Experiences:

Lesley:  Don’t you find too … you might have been drawn to kinesiology because you experienced it. When I’ve experienced something myself, I can relate it to my own life … I mean, most of us became Naturopaths because of health issues, or because of something else going on in our lives – we’ve got direct experience. I know so many Naturopaths who have overcome their own illnesses, through Naturopathy. That’s why I teach the way I do, because I’m very experiential – I need to experience something, and then if it works for me, and it’s so useful – it’s a useful tool, then I will share it with everybody else.

Geraldine: It’s really interesting, when we think about bringing things into our business, and expanding our business, and making our business how we want it to be. Because often our  dreams don’t align with the reality of what we’re doing to reach that dream.  Because often we just hold ourselves back.  

Holding Ourselves Back:

And we’ve had lots of discussions about holding yourself back:

• Not allowing yourself to take that next step
• Not giving yourself permission to take the next step, and do the next thing. 
• And instead that word ‘procrastination’.

There’s a lot of: 

“Are we procrastinating or are we just actually avoiding?” 

Procrastination is the word of overwhelm, I feel. 

• And sometimes we just avoid things. 
• And when we’re avoiding, and putting off … 
  • what is it? 
  • who is it that’s holding us back?

And that’s where visualisation for ourselves, for our clients – working in that other space, really supports what we’re doing, and how we do things as well, and our connections. 

So with your journey to success … so you’ve got this workshop on the 4th. 

How long is the workshop? What are you going to do? What’s going to happen? 

Lesley’s Upcoming Workshop:

Lesley: So in the workshop,I’m actually going to do a pre recording, of the guided visualisation. And when people sign up, they get the link, and they’ve got a whole week to do the visualisation. So what’s useful about that is, you can actually do it a few times. 

I will have questions at the end of that, and then you just write down what you saw, felt, heard in your visualisation. So you’ve got a week to do that. You can just do it once, or you can do it a few times. And then we’re going to catch up for our “Live” class to discuss your visualisation – what you saw, felt, heard – and then I’m going to help you unpack your symbol.

So I’ll also get everybody to email me all the questions I’ve asked – their answers. So I can obviously gain insite into your journey and then give a holistic view of what it means. 

Positive Experiences:

It’s been amazing. I mean, I just remember the other day, someone actually sent me a message saying a journey I did with them 3 years ago – I did a journey into their future – how they were holding onto that as a lifeline, because how much of that has come true in the last 3 years? … just on a guided visualisation, and it really blew my mind. 

And it was all about their business, and where they were going, and what they would achieve. And it was so hard to see, where they were at, but their journey gave them this feeling of how they would feel at that. And the ups and downs of their landscape – and there would be challenges, but there would be great times. And there were such specific things in their visualisation that they held onto – and it helped them pull through really hard times.

So that was so exciting for me to see. And they had to come back and tell me:

“Oh my God, you’ve got no idea how profound that one visualisation was for me”.

Geraldine: Yeah. It’s amazing. I’ve had a few clients, with very similar sort of story. The visualisation – the realisation at the end of the visualisation is phenomenal, when they’re sitting in the room and they are like:

“Oh my God. Oh, that just changed everything. It’s made it all so clear”

And I can see what I’m doing, and what they’re doing, and how I can move forward. 

I mean, I had one lady. 

At the end of her visualisation – it was her 2nd or 3rd – she came and said: 

“I want to do a visualisation today”. 

And I was like:

“Ah, we weren’t actually going to work on visualisation today. We were going to do these other things. But that’s cool. – that’s what you want to do. Let’s do it”. 

And at the end of the visualisation, she said:

“Yeah, we’re going to move to Melbourne. I’ve been feeling it since the last one, and I just wanted to confirm”

I hadn’t prepared a visualisation, because I’d had no intention of doing one in that session.

So I used a combination of her first 2 visualisations, in this third one. And so it was amazing because she was able to go:

“OK, I can really see now. I know what’s happening and I know that it can’t change here, and we’re going to move to Melbourne”.

I was like “OK”

She said:

“I work for Telstra, so that’s fine. I can work for them in Melbourne, as easily as I can work here for them, and the whole family are going”

And I was like: “OK. Yeah”. 

Lesley: And how many decisions do we make on an emotional feeling? I mean, they say, you look at marketing … people make like 80% of their decisions based on their feelings. And I know as a woman, I base so much of my decisions on my intuition now, because I’ve learned to trust it – it tells me what’s right or wrong for me. How to do we learn that?  How do we grow that?  And it’s so useful in practice.  

How many people choose herbs by what feels right for that person, once you know them well. Even foods – you just have a feeling about things, don’t you?  The better you get to know them, you start having a feeling for what’s right for that person.  

Where do our new ideas come from, that land for you?  It’s about knowing your product – knowing your information. But you rely on your body as well, to feel what’s coming from this person – what’s going on with them.  And this just adds a whole other layer. It’s so fascinating to start to be able to use it, but start with yourself, with your business. Start there – that’s the best way. Because it will really land for you, on how useful it can be. 

Geraldine: Yeah. Because your workshop is on the 4th of September. 

And then on the 5th of September, we’ve got the Challenge in The Academy, which is going to be a nice easy one.  Because I know with challenges, you never get things done. They’re so intense, and everybody falls off the end. So these are every other day. So everybody gets a break.

Getting Motivated in Spring:

Lesley: It’s lovely with Spring now – there’s more motivation now to get things done. And I love listening to your stuff because it reminds me.  We often forget things – we need to tick the list, tick the boxes of what we need for our business, to make it tick over smoothly. 

And I always love the ideas you bring. I still go back and look at those. You know, your little tips in what you give to help our businesses run smoothly.  Because it’s a whole other thing – managing a business – never mind treating patients.

Geraldine: Oh yeah, totally. It’s two jobs as it is, anyway. You’re seeing clients, you’re running your business, you’re doing all the background stuff, and people who don’t run their own business don’t understand. 

And it really helps if we’ve got a little bit of woo–woo going on – not a lot – we don’t need a tonne of woo-woo going on, but it helps to have that other aspect as well, going on – to be able to figure out, this little bit extra, this other way of looking at things, and visualisations for yourself, or with others, they’re great. 

They help move your clients – move you forward, as well. Once you start doing them – once you start trying them out. We’ve got to get our ducks in a row, business-wise, but we also have to get our ducks in a row, in a mental space, as well – in a mindful space.

Starting simple things like journaling … so I’ll start journaling once a month, for 24 hours, and then I’ll stop doing it again. Then I’ll be like “turn over a new leaf – start journaling again” & I’ll be like: “Nah”, and it doesn’t happen. So anyway, there we go, there’s my honest moment there, everybody. 

Reach for the Tools When you Need Them:

Lesley: Don’t you find you reach for those things, when you feel like you’ve hit the crossroads. And it’s like: 

“What is next?” 

I’m the same when my life is hard, it’s when I meditate the most.  It’s like, I need to step out of this stress, and I need a broad perspective.

I find sometimes walking is really meditative for me. I have all these ideas, information lands, like the shower. Even when I do yoga, it can land. 

This could be a great start to your challenge. And that’s people at crossroads … 

• “Do I need to focus on this area more in my business?” 

• “Or should I do groups” 

• “Or should I do 1 on 1?”

• “Or what kind of program should I offer?”

This will give them more clarity on what area most suit them.

Geraldine: Absolutely. And that’s what you need. 

You need know: 

• where you’re going
• where you’re headed
• what your dream is
• what your goals are
• what is it that’s out there for you, that makes your life, and your business work 
  • the best way it can
  • and the calmest way 
  • and it is the easiest way 

But at the same time, our job’s are never easy. 

We’ve all got an empathy-suck going on, the entire time. 

We’re just like endlessly empathy-sucked by our clients. 

On Being an Empath:

Lesley: As Naturopaths and healers, we are empaths, because we feel empathy for others. That’s why we stepped into the service industry. That’s why we want to help on the level that we do, because we have this passion for service. And that’s part of what I teach as well. It’s like, what is yours and what is somebody else’s, and be really clear about allowing them to be where they’re at, and not looking at your belief systems, and having to carry that load – having to carry them across the line. Where you are asking your clients to step up, and do the work – to carry their load …

And allow them to do it – allow them to show up for themselves. These are such deep belief concepts that we have. Because as kids – we are empaths as kids because we are trying to support others – we’re trying to be loved more, and if you are more empathic, that’s your language of love.  You see what’s needed, and you step in and provide. The problem with the belief system is that often, we give too much of our own energy to do that. 

Expectations of Clients:

Geraldine: Yeah. That’s just it, isn’t it?  We got to make sure that when we do our job, we get our clients to do their job too, and do their part. And that is a huge problem, because people don’t necessarily do – they’re expecting that magic pill. And we often behave like we are the magic pill, and we have the magic pill, and they’re not doing their part of the bargain.

The odd client I have, you know, nothing’s changed. Why has nothing changed? I can’t understand why nothing’s changed. It always comes out of their mouths towards the appointment, when I’m feeling dreadful, like:

“Well you know, I haven’t done anything. I haven’t achieved anything” 

And they’ll turn and go:

 “Oh, no, I decided not to get the product”

Or “We haven’t used the product, because of what I Googled” 

And it’s just like:

“Well, great. Why are you here? If you can do it all with Google? Bye”

And of course you’ve lost a load of your confidence, and strength, because you are thinking”

“I’m rubbish. I’m terrible. I haven’t achieved anything”

 And of course, no, it’s nothing to do with you. They’re not pulling their weight – they’re not doing their half of the bargain, and you are just giving all of that empathy, and all of that support, and they’re not doing their bit – and they have to do their bit too. 

And that’s part of the consult process – that’s part of making sure that we can get it done – work it out, and get them working, and doing what we need them to do, for success.

Lesley:  Boundaries and expectations, isn’t it? And it’s about us getting clear about what does the client need? And being clear with them, about what we require of them, to show up and work with us.  Because it’s a working relationship.

Signing Off: 

Geraldine: Now – I think it’s probably time to go, isn’t it – we’ve been on here quite a while.

Lesley: I’m looking forward to your challenge. It’s going to be good. I need it – I’m starting new things. I need to tick some boxes as well. So I’m hoping to get clear in my visualisation about what I need next, and then using your challenge to help me action it. That’ll be fun.

Geraldine: Yeah, it’ll be really good. We look forward to your workshop on the 4th of September and the start of my Challenge on the 5th. And it’s just getting ‘ducks in a row’ people – it’s “Get Sorted September” coming up.

It’s been great having you on, Lesley. And thank you all very much. And thank you all for us everyone. We look forward to seeing you all again, when we see you again.

Lesley:  Awesome. Thank you G. Bye.

Geraldine: See ya. Bye. 

Thanks so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, for the weekly episodes. If you’d like even more support and learning, then The Academy is for you. Here, you’ll find part 2 of the herbal discussions, more clinical learning, and case studies, to support your clients in practice. Bye for now.