Episode #15:

Doctors and Life Coaches… WTF?! With Dr. Noelle Nelson

Hello my Virtuosas and Virtuosas in Training, and welcome to the first interview of my latest podcast series. I’m so excited to bring you some real-life girl chat in today’s episode! To kick off the series, I have my amazing fellow physician, Dr. Noelle Nelson, with me. Noelle is a board-certified internal medicine internist who joins us today to talk about why she decided to also become a life coach.

Following a series of devastating occurrences, Noelle struggled to cope with day-to-day life and began looking for ways to feel happier and more positive. This chain of events was the catalyst for her taking the plunge into helping others through life coaching. In this episode, we discuss how life coaches help clients to understand their thought patterns and live their lives on purpose.

Tune in this week to discover why your thoughts do not define you and how you’re fully in control of what you think and feel. We’ll elaborate on why it’s important to allow yourself to feel your emotions, and why your entire life is formed by what you’re habitually telling yourself. You won’t want to miss this!

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

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The difference between life coaching and traditional counseling.

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How you can live your life on purpose.

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What buffering is and how you may be doing it.

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Why resisting your emotions is deterimental to your wellbeing.

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How your limiting beliefs could be holding you back.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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Check out more episodes of the podcast here!

TRANSCRIPT

Susan Crockett: Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast, with Dr. Susan Crockett. You are listening to episode number 15: Doctors and Life Coaches... WTF?! Interview with fellow physician and certified life coach, Dr. Noelle Nelson. This episode is dedicated to Noelle’s mom who passed away from breast cancer a few years ago and was Noelle’s biggest supporter.

Female Announcer: Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, where women learn to love their lives. Do you find yourself frustrated by society’s expectations? Looking for practical advice on how to discover your talents and level up your life? You’ve found the right place. Here’s your host, US News top doctor, robotic surgeon and certified life coach, Dr. Susan Crockett.

Susan Crockett: Hello, my virtuosas. Hello, my virtuosas-in-training, my VITs. I’m your host, Dr. Susan Crockett. As always you can call me Sue because I am not acting as your doctor here. You may be my patient, but not on this show. On this show I am Sue and we are doing an actual like conversation. It’s not just like pretending that we’re having girl chat, we are actually starting a really exciting series today.

I am starting a series of interviews, so the format is going to be similar to what it’s been in the past. I’ll always do a dedication. We will always have the what we’re listening to and reading and watching thing at the end of it, but instead of listening to me teach a lecture we’re going to be doing girl chat with some of my closest friends.

We have an amazing line-up of podcasts for you guys. I’m so excited to start this. So, it is a beautiful day in Texas today. It has been the perfect sunshiny day. The birds have sung all day long. My gardenias are blooming. Y’all, when my gardenias bloom, it is heaven. Gardenias and jasmine, just heaven.

So, a couple of months ago before I started all this podcast stuff, my husband was going to an estate sale and he found this beautiful, old, metal archway that goes over a garden sidewalk entrance. Beautiful wrought iron archway and he bought it for me and brought it home. It is in my garden now and the roses and the jasmine are starting to climb on it. He planted roses at the base of it, climbing roses. Oh, my goodness, it is so beautiful. It’s joy and calming. So, that’s what I’ve been up to.

All right, I’m super excited today. I am starting off a new series and I’ve got the most amazing guest on my show today. The next couple of months I’ll be interviewing all of the certified life coaches that work with me within VirtuosaCoaching.com and to kick off this series I have a very special guest. This is Dr. Noelle Nelson.

Dr. Nelson is a board-certified internal medicine internist, she works in private practice, but is also on faculty at the University of Minnesota. She’s been in practice for about 20 years and she teaches residents and medical students. I met Noelle because she and I are 2 of about almost 75 physicians now that have been certified life coaches through The Life Coach School.

I want you all to give a nice warm welcome to Dr. Nelson. Hey, Dr. Nelson, how are you doing today?
Noelle Nelson: Hi, Sue. Awesome. I’m really happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Susan Crockett: Actually, you just reminded about one of the rules of the podcast is we’re not practicing medicine here, we’re in girl talk and so I always tell my listeners they can call me Sue. Is it okay if we call you Noelle during the podcast?

Noelle Nelson: Always, yes.

Susan Crockett: Okay, awesome. So, I’m always really curious when I talk to other physicians, we all have our own story about how we ended up in life coaching and this isn’t something where you were just fresh out of residency and disillusioned. You and I had been in practice for over 20 years. Can you tell me a little bit about how you ended up with life coaching and what your journey was?

Noelle Nelson: Yeah, similar to most of our clients, I was stuck. The fashion of stuck varies. My flavor was my life looked really beautiful on the outside. So, I have the best internal medicine position that I know of. Amazing partners, I have an amazing family, a beautiful house, my life looks really good and I felt really miserable and I didn’t know really why.

I thought everybody was happier than I was and that was sort of my steady state and then I had a series of things that occurred in my life. My house burned down, my mom got breast cancer and passed away, I was involved in a lawsuit, my dad got paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, a bad disease, my step-dad got leukemia. A whole series of things happened that I know now happened for me, but I no longer could cope well. I didn’t think that I had depression, but I just couldn’t figure out how to get through my day with anything but feeling so much frustration and anger and –

Susan Crockett: You just felt bad all the time and no wonder.

Noelle Nelson: I felt bad all the time and truly, I kind of felt bad most of the time going into that. So, I found myself then I would get to work and I would be thinking on my way, this actually was what I was thinking, “What is happy? Have I actually ever even felt happy? What does happy even feel like? Do I kind of have happy and I just don’t know I do?”

Then I would go into one of the exam rooms and I would Google happy thoughts, happy thoughts. Something to put in my head to start my day and just was happening more and more often and I just didn’t like the person I was seeing in the mirror.

Susan Crockett: So, how did you run into life coaching?

Noelle Nelson: Googling happy, the happy thoughts, how to feel better, and I had a partner who listened to a life coach for weight loss. She had been talking about it and I actually ran by a shingle. One of the ways I would try to feel better was by running and running and running and running and working. More running, more working.

Susan Crockett: A lot of us do that. We do things to try to numb the pain or avoid the pain. We use that term buffering when we’re talking about coaching, so for you that buffering was running.

Noelle Nelson: Totally, and I didn’t recognize it as a problem because I recognized overeating, overdrinking, those were the problems I thought were buffering. So anyway, my partner was listening to these life coach podcasts in an effort to lose weight and I tried listening. It just didn’t really resonate, but some of the messages were that the reason that you’re not getting the results in your life are because of the way you’re thinking.

Susan Crockett: Whoa, say that again, wait. Say it again.

Noelle Nelson: The reasons you’re getting the results in your life are because of the way that you’re thinking.

Susan Crockett: That hit you. When you heard that in the podcast you were like, “Wait a minute, we weren’t taught that in med school. Nobody taught me that.” Right?

Noelle Nelson: It kind of hit me, but right after that came that your thinking is causing all of your feelings. Your thinking generates all of your emotions. It just stopped me dead in my tracks.

Susan Crockett: Because that’s definitely not something we’re taught.

Noelle Nelson: No, I was sure that my neighbor burning my house down, my mom dying of breast cancer, all these things I didn’t realize there was a space between what was going on outside of me and how I was feeling. The thing between there that I learned is that my thoughts were there. I might want to think something that makes me feel sad, but maybe not all the time.

Then, the other thing I learned is that you can choose to feel your emotion or the thing that I was stuck in. So, this is where I was stuck. I was reacting to them so I was getting angry and showing it rather than just feeling it or I was resisting it like, “Go away, go away, go away, I don’t want to be mad right now.”

Those were the big things I learned, the reason I was feeling so bad was because I was resisting my emotions and I was reacting to them and then then only other mode I had was I was hiding from them. I was running, working and…

Susan Crockett: So, this is definitely very different than what we’re taught in medical school either from traditional psychiatry or traditional counseling. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between traditional counseling and life coaching? Specifically, the type of life coaching that you and I were trained to do and why you decided to become certified?

Noelle Nelson: Yeah, so partly psychiatry and therapy focus a lot on disease and non-functioning and also tend to have more of a past focus with how did you get here? I actually didn’t even feel like I had the energy myself to think about how I got here. I wanted to look at how to get somewhere else.

So, what we do focuses a lot on – I almost think of it as a map or a GPS in your car. Where you are now and where you are going. Where do you want to go? Not looking over your shoulder. It’s what are you capable of. Deciding it’s a reality identity shattering process. It’s about choosing who you want to be on purpose and then the role of the coach is sort of to help you see all these belief systems that are holding you back and keeping you stuck.

Susan Crockett: Yeah, that’s one of the things that really struck me too, is I always thought about coaching, prior to this, I always thought of it as like people who are trying to tell other people what to do or how to do things. I didn’t really appreciate it as we’ve been taught which is we are trained to help people see their thoughts and to teach them that they’ve got choices about those thoughts and how to live their life on purpose, right?

Noelle Nelson: Totally.

Susan Crockett: The other thing that was really different for me when I was going through all of this was like you, where the feelings and thoughts thing came in. I was introduced to the idea of being the watcher, of being able to watch your thoughts in your brain. I really hadn’t solidified in my own self that my thoughts were voluntary and that I could step outside of what my brain is doing and actually have some ability to control those thoughts that are just pouring through.

In other words, I am not my thoughts. I can watch my thoughts, I can choose my thoughts. I think, in my case, when it came to feelings – and I think a lot of us who are female physicians in particular go through this, we go through this rigorous training with residency and everything and we’re almost taught not to feel.

I remember telling people that I hadn’t cried for years. I am the person who doesn’t cry. I don’t do it. Did you have anything in your background that was like that? Does that sound similar?

Noelle Nelson: Totally, and in a way it’s a gift because it’s what got me to this work, but yeah, I grew up in an environment where you didn’t show sadness or frustration. You just didn’t show emotion. What I know now is when you are hiding all of the negative emotions you also don’t really have the same capacity to develop your positive emotions. Or I should say if you’re not feeling them because you don’t have to display them.

Then, when I started having trouble managing my emotions I found this nationally syndicated talk show host who taught that emotions were selfish. She taught that one of the biggest distinguishing features between high achievers and others is that they are not emotional beings. This just all resonated with what I already thought, so I just became more and more convinced that I just had to use willpower and clench my fists and pretend they weren’t there.

Susan Crockett: So, that was the background of how you processed emotions when you came to this point where all of these circumstances, all of these bad things were happening. So, no wonder you were like, “I don’t know what to do with this except run.”

Noelle Nelson: It wasn’t processing. Your only option is almost to start blaming other things. So, the gift of this work is realizing you’re creating it all yourself. None of it is anybody else. It’s my thinking creating my feelings and it is the most empowering thing because you know you can change it.

I want to squish in this other pearl because it was one of the first things I learned and it gave me relief immediately with nothing changing was just that the normal human experience is that half of the time we have negative emotions. That’s just normal. That was such a weight lifted off me immediately when I learned that. So, I just like to say it whenever I can. So, I squished it in there.

Susan Crockett: That’s a good one. That’s definitely a good one on the Instagram.

Noelle Nelson: Then, it’s really what you do with those negative emotions like do you eat so that you don’t feel them? Do you drink so that you don’t feel them? Do you spin and overwhelm and get stuck? It’s what you do with negative emotions more so – so many of us are worried about being happy more of the time and a lot of what’s holding us back is the screwy things we’re doing with normal human negative emotions.

Susan Crockett: I agree. This is kind of where I saw this fitting into my practice. Can you talk a little bit about how life coaching fits into the practice of modern medicine, especially from two MD physicians? What that looks like for you?

Noelle Nelson: Yes. I love that you’re asking about this because we place so much value on physical health and so whether I have a heart failure patient coming in or it’s an annual physical we have such a routine down for good, physical health and we have such a routine down for even just going through, what is your workout? Is it aerobic? Is there resistance training, pliability?

Then, when it comes to the mental, emotional health part you learn to almost frame it like, do you have any severe anxiety or depression going on?

Susan Crockett: Yeah, like, do I have to medicate you or not? Do I have to hospitalize you or not? It’s at that level.

Noelle Nelson: Yeah, and I send a fair amount of people to therapists and they help me out a ton, but it’s a real minority. Also, many women aren’t very happy but they don’t have depression or anxiety. So, even just learning to ask what we call empowering questions or just getting them to see possibility. I feel like this is in the biggest missing part of wellness in our practices.

Susan Crockett: Me, too. In the practice of medicine in the US, that’s kind of how I saw it. So, most of my practice is surgery, but for the patients that aren’t needing surgery I saw this huge number of people struggling with chronic medical illnesses because of things that have to do with their stress or their mind, how they’re managing their lives. It’s not a blame kind of thing, it’s just like a realization as I started going through the coaching for myself that I was like, “Oh wow, this has the potential to really help a lot of people,” because so much of what we see with overeating which results in obesity and diabetes and cardiovascular disease, or overdrinking, or just the lack of skills for being able to handle the stress in our lives, those things are all things that we can teach and learn by practicing this CTFAR model, that’s the model that we learn in life coaching which is how we teach each other and our clients to recognize their thoughts and to be able to start getting a handle on them.

Noelle Nelson: Totally. So many of my patients, I would say 95% of my patients are trying to lose weight and they’ve all tried it so many times in so many ways and in my opinion, the truth is all those ways can work. The thing that’s missing is what’s in-between where you are now and where you are going. It is what you’re telling yourself. Your life is what you habitually tell yourself.

So, it’s not that complicated to get to your goal weight.

Susan Crockett: It seems like it is, but –

Noelle Nelson: Right, because it’s what we’re telling ourselves and the way we beat ourselves up. So, if our thoughts create our feelings create our actions, this thought, feeling, action cycle is just so neglected. But really, why is that I probably seriously have one patient a year that makes more than 10 pounds progress towards their weight goal and I have 1,200-1,500 patients. What are we doing wrong?

Susan Crockett: We’re failing in modern medicine.

Noelle Nelson: Like the bookshelves are full of how to lose weight and it’s not the action piece. We’re missing the thought and the feeling driving the action.

Susan Crockett: Totally agree. I totally agree with you, right on.

Noelle Nelson: Yeah, so it sounds goofy until you get in a session and sit down, but what we teach is a daily practice that our clients can then do on their own. Finding these limiting beliefs, it’s just a little bit of work. Not a lot of work, but it really yields amazing results. The results are more like just being more of who you are.

Susan Crockett: Right, stepping into yourself and practicing with intension becoming your virtuosa self, what do you want to be? What do you want to become?

Noelle Nelson: Totally.

Susan Crockett: All right, so this has been an amazing interview. If you had one nugget of advice to wrap it up what would you have to say for our listeners?

Noelle Nelson: My favorite thing that I talk about with my clients is that you’re good at what you practice.

Susan Crockett: That’s so good. Wait, say that again. That needs another one. Say it again.

Noelle Nelson: You’re good at what you practice, but I think the unique thing is stepping back and looking at what you’re really good at. Are you really good at overeating? You’re practicing overeating. I was really good at feeling miserable. I was thinking thoughts that made myself miserable.

So, we want to choose the virtuosa thing that you want to be really good at on purpose. I was accidentally an expert at feeling miserable.

Susan Crockett: You don’t have to now.

Noelle Nelson: No. I mean, half the time I have flavors of feeling yuck, but nothing like that. It’s still 50/50, but it’s not despair. It’s low grade annoyance. I’m really good at a different emotional balance.

Susan Crockett: That’s amazing. Well, Noelle, thank you so much for your taking your time to talk with us today. I'm so pleased with this conversation. I know our listeners are going to get a lot out of this and I just wanted to let them know where they can find you if they want coaching from you.

Noelle Nelson: I have a referral-based practice. It’s the practice of feeling better. I am in full-time medical practice so I take very few clients and I work with you and then I take an occasional private coaching client.

Susan Crockett: Those are from people that you know in your practice. So, if people from listening to this podcast want to find you, probably the best way is the VirtuosaCoaching.com?

Noelle Nelson: Yep. I actually don’t coach clients formally in my medical practice. I keep them pretty separate.

Susan Crockett: Yeah, I do, too. It’s one of the things about being both, we want to make sure that there’s a distinction there.

Noelle Nelson: Yep, I’m a doctor but not your doctor when I’m [inaudible 0:19:27]

Susan Crockett: Exactly.

Noelle Nelson: Thank you for your work.

Susan Crockett: Thank you, this was amazing.

Noelle Nelson: You’re welcome.

Susan Crockett: Have a great day. See you later.

All right, you guys. Wasn’t that absolutely amazing? She’s such an inspiration. I had such a good time interviewing her. I hope you enjoyed it, too. I hope if you had questions about like, why would a doctor do life coaching? That this kind of clarifies it. It’s really something that’s been such an integral part of both our lives.

So, Noelle said I could still choose this week what I’m listening to and what I’m reading and what I’m watching. So, I did kind of fun this week. So, what I’m listening to is Robert Palmer’s Bad Case of Loving You. “Doctor, doctor,” you know that one? So much fun. What I’m watching is Dr. Who. Awesome. What I’ve been reading is nothing. I have not been reading a single book this week because I have been working so hard to learn some new technical stuff. Y’all, I’m learning Kartra and how to do some coding online and how to do some video editing stuff, and just all the stuff. So, I’ve been doing a bunch of that this week and I actually haven’t picked up a book this week, so no doctor book for you.

Go enjoy your day and enjoy your week. Next week, y’all are going to want to listen in because we are going to be talking with Jennifer Hillman Paredes about weight loss and how to stop overeating. That’s right. All that weight that we’ve put on over the winter and that we’re trying to get off now for spring time. She is going to tell you how life coaches handle the process of helping you lose weight and it’s going to be great, y’all. See you next week. Have a wonderful week. I love you all. I will see you next week in episode number 16.

Female Announcer: Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. If you want to find out more, come check out virtuosacoaching.com. That’s virtuosa - with an A - coaching.com. See you next week.

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