A Heartfelt Discussion on The Impact of a Breakthrough
On March 28th, Elizabeth and Makayla had a heartfelt discussion about the amazing ways breakthroughs can benefit their clients and the personal growth they've experienced firsthand. Here's a quick rundown of what Elizabeth shared with us!
Makayla Maniscalco: How has working with your unconscious mind impacted your life and helped you to create change?
Elizabeth Z. McDonough: I have noticed things slow down, and I don’t mean I have slowed down or I don’t get as much completed. There is a sense of awareness that I have that creates space between tasks and decisions. I am more present and less reactive. I operate with emotional regulation leading me to feel happier day to day and less intense “icky” feelings that include space to offer a quicker recovery from those “icky” feelings that would normally stay for days, weeks, or even months. It kind of reminds me of when I was on an antidepressant and the benefits I experienced, I’m not so reactive, punchy, and irritated.
MM: How has this work and teaching impacted those you have worked with? What changes have you seen with your clients?
EZM: Things don’t bother them the way they used to. One client reported before the Breakthrough feeling more anxious about all health-related items regarding herself and her children; ruminating down a rabbit hole type thinking. Post Breakthrough, she reported feeling calm, and cool and could operate with confidence. The Universe provided her an opportunity to test her new approach only 3 days after the Breakthrough - sending her son to the emergency room and she caught herself laughing with surprise at how confident she was operating and handling the situation with ease.
Another client reported he had never been happier and moving through anger within minutes versus days or even weeks. He feels calmer day to day and is blown away by how much happier he is living life. Reminder…he changed! Not his situation/living environment/job. HE changed his perspective; trusted & accepted the learning his Unconscious Mind shared with him through the Mental and Emotional Release® technique offered in the Breakthrough.
Client #3 continued to take things personally, feeling disempowered, and depressed about life. She couldn’t see outside of the victim's chair. Post Breakthrough, she accessed more possibilities from her Unconscious Mind and can’t believe the way her eyes see the world now. Within minutes of leaving my office, she reported changes internally (feeling excited about life) and realized she was closer to her dreams than she thought.
MM: Why do you believe it is important to address health as a whole human (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)?
EZM: It is all connected. I used to be a personal trainer and clients would say “I want to have a nice butt so let’s only work on those muscles” and the body doesn’t work that way. If you only exercise and let your diet go down the drain, your body will not produce the desired results. If you’re mentally stressed (which leads to increased production of cortisol) you can’t trim down/lean up. Having poor boundaries can emotionally overwhelm you and affect your motivation to work out, eat healthy, etc. Finally, if you disconnect with Spirit, you ignore your Higher Intelligence system that gives you direct answers to live a fulfilled life. All of it is connected - every angle you look at it.
MM: What clarity has come from your most recent experience in a Breakthrough session?
EZM: Non-negotiation to TRUST myself completely. When you commit to a Breakthrough you are essentially communicating with the Universe that you are ready for alignment. Your life’s purpose becomes clear. Your mission becomes your obsession and you live happier, energized, and fulfilled.
Choose Your Perspective
“If I do the work, will it [life] ever be fun?” This was a question that a client asked me, while fear and doubt rested in her eyes with a heavy belief in her mind that life would not get any better.
What was I to tell her? The truth? The truth is, the work never ends. Yet there are opportunities to find fun and happiness in between. It all narrows down to shifting the perspective. You’ve heard me say this once, and I’ll say it 1 million times again, “every second you have 2 million bits of information offered to you, and only 126 bits of information actually lands in your conscious mind. The rest goes to your Unconscious Mind.”
If the 126 bits that you choose to pay attention to reflect struggle, then you have chosen to remain in the “blah” feelings of life and ignore all the enjoyment that can exist.
Knowing this is ultimately MY choice, rest assured, I will be choosing to view life through the lens of gratitude and excitement. Unfortunately, for most, it may not be that easy to make the shift. That’s why we have multiple techniques that help tap into the brain and connect your Conscious Mind to your Unconscious Mind.
Imagine having access to the information that sits in your Unconscious Mind. The possibilities then, are endless. NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP), offers a diverse set of techniques allowing us to communicate with our Unconscious Mind, and relate that to the Conscious Mind. One of my favorite techniques also used is Mental and Emotional Release (MER)®.
Dr. Matt James states, “The goal of MER® is to release unresolved negative emotions and the limiting beliefs that hold us back from what we desire. The process itself uses our memories—both conscious and unconscious—to release the emotional charge attached to them. The memory itself isn’t erased or necessarily forgotten. The memory remains. But when clients think of that past event again, they no longer feel the strong negative emotions that were once attached to it.
The goal of MER® therapy is not to become emotionless. We will always have emotions and some of them will be negative. But by releasing past emotions, whatever we feel in the present will be appropriate to the present situation, not colored or exaggerated by an unresolved emotion from the past. And they will tend to disappear or change more quickly. For example, you will still feel grief over a major loss, but that grief will dissipate naturally rather than hang on.”
In brief, your baggage in the past does not run the show. It is ultimately easier to choose happiness, leading to a life that is more fun!
After experiencing MER® myself, I can attest that my perspective seemed to shift more easily. I can only explain it as if I had a veil removed. Colors radiated brighter, and my art pieces showed up sharper. I can choose happiness, positivity, gratitude, etc., and not just say it, but feel it throughout my body. This has allowed me to feel full alignment with my mind, body, heart, and soul.
So to answer my client’s question, “Do I still do ’the work’,” now that my perspective has changed? The answer is yes! To do “the work”, is to grow and to evolve. It is a way of life, while keeping all things interesting, new, and don’t forget... fun!
If you would like to learn more about MER®, please email elizabeth@youfirstnow.net.
What is HeartMath?
HeartMath is a system of stress reduction, resilience-building techniques, and heart rhythm monitoring technology, that has been tested in multiple healthcare and corporate settings worldwide. The concept is bringing your physical mental and emotional systems into coherent alignment so that you can begin experiencing increased access to your heart and intuitive, guidance. HeartMath has been shown to help with a myriad of stressors, including burnout, PTSD, depression, fatigue, trauma, and anxiety.
HeartMath can also help adults and children improve academic and intellectual performance, self-esteem, clarity, and focus.
How does HeartMath work?
Your heart sends more messages to the brain than the brain to the heart. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections. In simpler terms, you can change the way you think and react with the application of repetition of HeartMath. Your heart communicates to the brain, helping it create space to cope in healthier ways with adversity.
In my opinion, HeartMath is the trifecta! Your brain gets positive retraining, your heart frequency is elevated, and you feel more at peace while contributing to a higher vibrating surrounding.
If you’d like to learn more and experience HeartMath with instant biofeedback, reach out to Lisa Shaheen, an expert HeartMath Trainer, at lisashaheen@me.com.
And if you love science like me, check out heartmath.org to geek out like me!
I want to do HeartMath!
It is recommended to do a “heart lock in” three times daily for five minutes a piece. In the beginning, I chose to close my eyes so that it was easier to get in touch with my body and keep focused on the task.
Start with a head to toe body scan while breathing 6 counts in and 8 counts exhale for 2-3min. Next, bring your attention to your heart. Breathe for one minute while imagining calm, peace, and compassion moving through your heart.
Great. Now, it’s time to access a really joyful memory, or think of something extremely joyful that could happen in the future. This is when the heart begins to move into higher frequency feelings, like joy, love, and gratitude. Wrap up the focus after five minutes and notice a shift in yourself.
Doing this three times a day for the next 30 days will jumpstart your brain and offer more opportunity to react in a calm and compassionate way versus irrational or impulsive.
Laser Focus: Creating A Vision
Many people make resolutions for the New Year with the best intentions to maintain them. Slowly, moving away from January 1st, these resolutions become a distant thought and another letdown. Statistics report that day 21 is the marker of whether we have followed through with what we promised ourselves or not.
In my observation, people are looking for a quick fix, a way to bypass hard work. We are a culture of instant gratification and hard work is, well, too hard. Nothing worthwhile is instantaneous. It takes patience. It takes love. It takes consistency. It takes laser focus and “blissapline” (a You First Now-ism that means energetically nurturing consistency to meet your goals).
In the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, the author mentioned a concept called the 1% Rule. To summarize, if you can imagine 2 parallel boats traveling in the same direction and one boat changing course 1 degree, it may appear for a while that no change has taken place. Yet, over time, the boats dock on different sides of the Earth.
Humans need positive reinforcement to continue a new behavior. We want proof, to see, feel, and hear the changes, immediately otherwise it becomes too much work.
What’s the answer? TRUST and laser focus! Adopting the notion of trust could be a new concept. Doing your inventory, trusting you are on the right path for yourself, encourages you to keep focused, and let things happen and unfold. Remember you are not in charge of the outcome just the mission!
Create The Life You Love
Where has 2023 gone? Did you follow through on the resolutions and goals you created in January?
As I approach the end of the year, I reassess what I set out to do and what actually happened. I ask myself, “In the six areas of life, according to NLP, am I happy, have I excelled, and what needs improvement?”
Areas of life are spirituality, personal growth and development, relationships, family, career, and physical health. Each area contributes to the growth of the whole person.
This is what makes you YOU:
A common theme in the area of life regarding physical health is discipline, leading to yo-yo dieting and all-or-nothing workout routines. Sound familiar? You are holding on to baggage, keeping you in a repeating cycle. The limiting beliefs you have are specific and personal to you. Perception of your experiences forms stories/beliefs in your brain and body that, over time, become your truth.
Not THE Truth but your idea of what is to be true. All choices, behaviors, and perceptions are created through that belief lens.
Another example is in the area of life regarding relationships, I witness a lot of clients repeat the same beliefs and behaviors with each new relationship. Fearcasting (this relationship with fail like all the others), assuming (if she isn’t spending time with me she’s cheating), and all-or-nothing thinking (all men lie) to name a few. Leading to the demise of the relationship.
These patterns repeat because you carry your “baggage” from one relationship to the next. Limiting beliefs become your truth and you become stuck in a cycle, reinforcing maladaptive thinking and behaving. All of this, becoming so natural, that your insight into your destruction can be undetected by you alone.
Drop the baggage and get into congruence with your mind, body, heart, and soul with a breakthrough.
Heal your emotional wounds, create a powerful new mindset, and determine the best direction to take going forward to be happier than you could have ever imagined!
The breakthrough session is a 6-8 hour process usually completed over 2 days. We begin the process by doing a detailed personal history to find your limiting beliefs and the greater problem. It is typically an emotional day. Prepare to dump all you have into this for the best results.
On Day 2, we do MER® to remove the negative emotions and limiting beliefs that are holding you back. Finally, we resolve any conflicts in your values and end with a meditation solidifying values and a new mindset.
We set goals based on your values. These goals and your values are the basis of our coaching moving forward to ensure your success - does that sound like something that might interest you?
Make 2024 the year you open your eyes to the miraculous possibilities for your life! Have a safe and Happy New Year!
Attitude for Gratitude
We are entering the month of Thanks. As I reflect on the year what has been accomplished in the short amount of time for You First Now just amazes me... Or does it? See, there is an internal critic that all of us have that drives us to do better or it can debilitate us. It only operates when we are outside of gratitude. I found myself sinking into a hole last month. What happened?
There are so many things to be grateful for. Instead, complaining was on the rise, comparison, and judgment became the forefront of my thinking, colors became dull, fun was not being had, and the attitude for gratitude was showing up in empty words exiting my mouth, not attached to the energetic, high vibration my body is familiar with when I feel gratitude.
One of the key components of best self-care practices is having a healthy support system. My support system is brutally honest with me and I love it. Let me rephrase that, I hate it AND I love it. I got called out, I didn’t have an attitude of gratitude. I sounded like a victim with all the excuses in the book of why I needed to stay thinking the way I was thinking. I call it stinkin’ thinking.
This happens to the best of us and when it happens to me, I go back to the foundation. Starting from the ground up. You’ve got to root yourself in gratitude. You can’t just speak it. You gotta feel it, act it, surrender to it, know it, live by it. How do you do that?
Think Small
Find gratitude in the basics. I’m grateful I can breathe with ease. As I breathe in slowly and deeply, I notice the temperature and smell of the air. I notice my lungs expanding wide. I try and “amaze” myself by thinking of how miraculous our body is to breathe oxygen. I don’t move on to anything more until I can feel gratitude in my body.
Reason for Season
What if that doesn’t work? Is there something wrong with me? The answer is NO. Become aware of your seasons. Just like the Earth, we also have seasons internally. “OMG, Mom I’m telling you, I’m worried I’m going into a dark place again,” I cried on the phone. She reminded me that I’m like this every October. She was right! I started to review years past and just like clockwork, October shows up and my body and mind started playing tricks on me. I’m finally getting a routine from summer break and the holidays are around the corner (though exciting also bittersweet for me as my husband travels a bunch adding to my stress levels).
Higher Frequency
I hear you. You’re saying “Nope Elizabeth. It is NOT either one of the first two aforementioned.” I’ve got you covered! My favorite reiki master, Morgan Schultz, shared this message with her circles held at YFN Studio.
“So everyone has moved into different lessons and phases for this next year, October-October. Which will bring up new emotions. As we shifted into this we also were experiencing an intense and powerful lunar eclipse. This started in November of 2021 and just finally closed on October 27/28th. This is a time when people are experiencing “heavier & darker energies, their shadow self.” On top of all of that, the Earth is receiving a ton of solar flares. This means we are getting blasted with higher frequencies and our bodies are trying to adjust and attune to this higher frequency we are receiving. Now is the time to look at what keeps surfacing so you can clear it physically and energetically as January approaches.”
In plain English, it’s time to do the work and stop standing there waiting for something amazing to happen.
Therapy Works
What if you don’t believe in energy? Book an appointment with your favorite mental health counselor to help you decide what path to take to treat your flat, ungrateful, and/or depressive mood. Therapy is like a beacon of light in the night. Clears my mind, checks my stinkin’ thinkin’, and sets me up for success.
Spirituality Breakthrough
In addition to all of the above, I chose to be a student once again. I asked a fellow Master Practitioner for a spiritual breakthrough. After the personal history (I call the emotional dump) and Mental and Emotional Release®, this experience kicked me into high gear with the feeling of gratitude. I walked away with a sure connection to the Universe, a knowingness of how freaking miraculous we all are, and I will ALWAYS trust myself and my intuition over my inner critic. Nonnegotiable. There are many different options and strategies to help you lift your spirits. Choose one or all that work for you to live your best life.
4 Ways to Connect with Your Inner Child
The inner child is a source of strength since early experiences can play a significant part in your development as an adult.
This can go both ways, though: When childhood experiences negatively affect you, your inner child may continue to carry these wounds until you address the source.
1. Open mind Open heart
We contract with ourselves when we are children based on our best survival choices. Those choices aren’t needed any longer. Find what is missing and help your child feel the comfort of YOU, the adult, providing for what your inner child needs and is asking for.
2. Spend time doing things you used to like doing
I loved riding the waves when I was a child. I would imagine I was a mermaid coming to shore for the first time. I always loved using my body as the board. I connect with nurturing feelings, such as freedom, joy, presence, energy, and excitement. Play Time helps reduce stress, relax, and access creative spaces in your mind.
3. Write a letter to your inner child
Recall a memory from your childhood. If it is unpleasant and does not feel traumatic to be present in the memory, ask your little self what he/she needs to feel comfortable. For example, if she says she’s scared, write to the little girl letting her know “I am in charge and life is safe now. Here are ways I will show you” and begin listing the current reality of safety in your life.
4. Talk to a therapist
Therapy and hypnosis are safe ways to access your inner child. Memories that may be harmful or traumatic to you, are not encouraged to “relive” or visit. Techniques such as Mental and Emotional Release® (MER) and Breathwork can assist in releasing negative emotions without reliving the trauma as they work with the Unconscious Mind. Resulting in a feeling of wholeness and a healthier perspective on life.