Episode 134: The Blessings of Coaching

Episode Summary

I’m so grateful for the gifts coaching gave me, and I’ll always be eternally grateful for them, for my coaches, for their courage and their offers to change my life for real.

This is why I do what I do. This is why I keep going even when it’s hard. when it’s hard. When I’m scared, my brain is always telling me, “we don’t have to do this.” And my brain is right. But I do it because I know it will change your life. I know it will bless you and your family, and so I pray for courage and I keep going. 

The top 3 things that I’m most grateful for that coaching taught me:

• Reconciliation and connection with the people I love most. Coaching taught me that I was the one who determined how much love I felt, and it taught me how to feel more.

• Reconciliation with myself. Compassion for my human experience - the choices I’ve made, the feelings I feel. None of them are wrong.

• Reconciliation with God. The thought that completely changed my relationship with God is that “I am not worthy and it is okay.” Before that, I was hiding all the parts of me that needed work and needed repentance and needed practice, and needed the enabling power of Christ. When I could acknowledge that, of course I am unworthy because I am learning, then I could come authentically and fully into God’s presence. 

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!

Hello, podcast universe! And welcome to episode 134 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I want to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I am so grateful to be here, and I'm so grateful I think I say this every year that my podcast comes out on Thursdays. Like, it's pretty awesome to have a podcast on Thanksgiving, and talk about the things that I am grateful for and I just want to like wish you the very happiest of Thanksgivings with your families, and with your loved ones, and I hope that you will take the time to just notice what an amazing life you have, right? Like most of the time, our brain is like, Let me tell you all the things that are wrong, but here, like is a moment where we can just stop and sort of revel, and wonder at the abundance of our lives, the miracle of our lives, all the good and positive in our lives.

Now, that doesn't mean the whole day is going to be amazing, right? Every day it's 50/50 and they're going to be plenty of moments of negative emotion even today. But I think it's so good for all of us to have spaces in our life where we purposely direct our brain to notice the good, and to notice the abundance, and to notice the blessing, and to notice the miracle of our lives. And today is one of those days, and I am so grateful for it.

And I also want to remind you that if you, even in your gratitude, and even in your amazement of your life, you may still want some things to be different, right? You may still acknowledge that like, yeah, I wish I was getting a different result in some of these areas in my life. And the other day, like, I was a little frustrated myself with some of the results that I am getting in my life. Like, especially like, like in my marriage, and my attitude about like my husband's work schedule, and and like the commitments he's made and all of that. And I was irritated and frustrated with myself, and one morning, as I was getting up and I was going to the gym, I was getting dressed and I had this thought, April, you are creating your result, right? Like the way things are right now, you are creating that with your thoughts, and that means that you are the solution. No one else is coming, it's just you. You are choosing your thoughts, and no one else gets to choose them.

And it was just kind of this moment where I was like, Oh yes, if I want something different in my life, I've got to do something different. I've got to think differently here, and that is true for you, too. If you don't love the results you are getting right now, the best news I can tell you is that you are the problem. Your thoughts are the problem and you are the solution. Your thoughts are the solution. No one else is coming, and no one else needs to. And that doesn't mean you have to try harder, or do more, or bully yourself into action, it just means that the way you are thinking about things right now is creating your current result. And if you want to change that, you want to change things in your life, you simply need to change the way you're thinking about things. And I would love to be able to show you how to do that next week!

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Starting next Wednesday, I am doing a three day training. It's called Get More From Your Life and I'm going to like teach you for an hour every day, December 1st, 2nd and 3rd about like why you aren't getting the results you want, how to create those. I teach you the real problem there, and then the real solution, and we're going to apply it to your life so that you can get more happiness, more love and do more of the things that you want to be doing in your life. It is going to be so good, and so helpful, and I have like designed it intentionally that you will walk away with everything you need to be able to get more from your life, okay? So you can sign up for that training still, you can go to my website aprilpricecoaching.com/Getmore. And you can register for that training. You'll get a link to the workbook and to the call, and you'll be all set up for next week. You can also just text the word "More" too 66866. So if you have your phone right now, you can just text 66866 and in the box you just type in "More" and then it will get you registered for that event.

So, I have spent a lot of time and effort and thought in preparing this because I wanted to create something that could, in and of itself significantly create the shifts and really change things for you. Like, I wanted to be able to give you something this holiday season that would bless you, and like not something that's just going to disappear and get old, and wear out, or go out of style, but something that will literally last forever. Like to really change your mind about how you can get different things out of your life, get more from your life. So, my intention was to be able to help you change your mind forever. And I think you will bless you, and the people that you love forever as well. I will always be so grateful to my coaches for the things that they showed me, and the shifts that they gave me so that I could change my life. And I want to be able to do the same thing for each of you. And that's why I created that training, and I would love for you to sign-up and take part in that.

And actually, the idea about like being so grateful to my coaches for the things that they taught me, and showed me, that have changed my life, brings us to today's podcast topic. So, the other day, as I was thinking about Thanksgiving and all the things that I am grateful for, I realized that I am most grateful for the things that I have learned through coaching. I am so incredibly grateful for the knowledge and especially for the skills like the abilities that I have now that I didn't have before. The understanding that coaching has given me because this knowledge and these skills that I have received through coaching have exponentially increased the amount of enjoyment I have in the rest of my life, like it makes all the other blessings in my life even better. I feel like it just like magnifies that the blessings and that I already have in my life, right?

Like, when I really think about, okay my greatest blessings are, of course, like my family, and the knowledge I have of my Savior and the gospel of Jesus Christ. But like even both of these things are so much more enjoyable, joyful, loving, satisfying, like, beautiful because of the things that I learned through coaching. And like, I just feel like in so many ways, every aspect of my life is so much better because of the things I learned in coaching. And like a lot of times, I will think about the investments that I have made in coaching, in like time, and money. And I sometimes think like if I had to choose between, like giving up all the things that I know and all the things that I can do now, and if I if I had to choose between giving all that up and the money that I have invested, or even like 100 times the money I have invested, I couldn't do it, right?

Like, there is nothing that I would trade to give back the knowledge I have, because it has so deeply impacted my entire Earth-life experience, like the joy I have, the agency that I'm able to use and like I'm aware of, right? The ability that I have to create the experience I want and to do good in the world, like I just feel so eternally grateful to have the tools that I have to be able to live the life that I want to live. And I am so grateful for the gifts that my coaches have given me, and I will always be eternally grateful to them for, for their courage and for like their offers that they put out in the world that I was lucky enough to find so that I could change my life for real.

And this is in fact why I do what I do. Like this is why I keep going when it's hard. Like so many times, you guys, I'm scared and my brain is always telling me, like, we don't have to do any of this. Like, we don't have to be a coach, we don't have to make offers, we don't have to like, you know, feel insecure, and scared, and anxious, and all those things, right? And my brain is totally right. I don't have to do any of those things, but I do it because I know that it will change your life. I know it will bless you, and your family forever. And so, I just keep praying for the courage to keep going, and to keep expanding my own capacity to feel negative emotion so that I can do my little part to heal the world. And so today, I just wanted to share the things that I am most grateful for, the things that coaching has taught me, and hopefully they will help you to. I offer these things in the hopes that they will help you see yourself and your life differently, and apply these same principles and gifts to yourself.

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Okay so, the first thing that I am so grateful that coaching gave me is reconciliation, and connection with the people that I love most in my life? So, before coaching, I had a lot of anger, and frustration, and a lot of tension in my relationships. Like, I kind of made a list in my mind like of all the relationships that improved and like, there really isn't a single one, but there were especially ones like the ones most precious to me. The relationship with my husband, the relationship with my children, my parents, my siblings, my in-laws. There was just so much unnecessary pain that was there because of the way that I was thinking. And that's what coaching taught me. It taught me that I was the problem in every relationship. And that might not sound like good news, but it really is, because if I'm the problem, then I have a chance of healing it, and fixing it. And coaching taught me that I was the one always who was creating my feelings, who was creating my experience in the relationship. It was creating how much love I felt, and it taught me the skill of how to feel more, right? Like it didn't just tell me that I was the problem, right?

Like, okay that's a good first step. But it gave me the skills of how how to feel differently when I learned that my feelings were created by my thoughts. Then I recognized that like, if I want to feel anything in any relationship, all that has to change is my thought about the relationship. My thought about that person. My thought about myself within the relationship, like my whole life. But I know you guys have heard me say this, and I know you think sometimes I'm exaggerating, but I I really was difficult and hard to live with, very, very prickly because of my thoughts, thoughts that my brain gave me protectively, right? That created distance between me and the people that I wanted to love. And like, I really did want to love others like I would set goal, after goal, after goal. And I would set goals not to yell, I would set goals not to nag, I'd set goals not to get angry, and not give David the silent treatment. Like, even just like I set goals about expressing love, like even expressing love, and telling people how I felt about them felt really dangerous to me and really scary to me.

I remember when my girls were very young, like I was getting them ready for school. They must have been like first grade kindergarten, like they were so young. And I remember my little daughter, she was standing up in one little stool, in the bathroom, and I was like putting her hair into pigtails. And I remember having this thought like, I love her so much, I am so proud of her. She is so beautiful. I remember just being sort of overwhelmed with these feelings of love for her, I remember looking at her in the mirror and thinking like, I should tell her, I should tell her how much I love her. And not being able to say it out loud. Not being able to express just how much I loved her, and how precious she was, how good, and beautiful, and sweet she was. And I remember thinking, like, what is wrong with me? Guess what is wrong with me that I can't love the way I want to?

Then shortly after that, I got into therapy and did some work there that needed to be done. But still, even after therapy, I still didn't feel skilled at loving. It still felt elusive to me. It still felt like outside of me, you know, and I didn't know how to create love or express it. And you know, in my marriage, like I married such a good, sweet man, and I always, just for years, and years felt like he had been ripped off, he got the wrong end of the deal. And like that thought only made me more impatient, and more angry, and more distant. And like all of this to say that coaching gave me the skills to change all of that, to make those relationships sweet. To Create love, to feel love, to express love like all of it, became tangible and practical, like it wasn't just love.

In theory, I actually knew how to create it, and it was all in my own mind the way that I thought. And it was just such a relief to know in every case that I was the only one that had to change, and it just had to happen in my mind. Wasn't about what I did, it wasn't about how I treated people, it wasn't about controlling my actions, and that kind of thing. It was about my thoughts. And if I could change my thoughts, everything else would change. And my relationships now are so different and so joyful. And the only time I ever get a little panicked or worried in them is when I think like, Oh my gosh, what if I didn't know what I know now? Like, what if I had never figured it out? Which, of course, like there's no sense in worrying about a thing that didn't happen, but like it is just such. I'm just so, so grateful for the reconciliation and connection that coaching has given me in my relationships with other people.

Okay so, that brings me to the second thing that I am grateful for. I am so grateful for the reconciliation and connection I have had with myself. So, it'll come as no surprise to you that like because I wasn't showing in my line-up in my life the way I wanted to, and I wasn't loving the people that I held most dear the way I wanted to, like then I really hated myself for that, right? Like, I spent years like really hating myself, and really wishing that I was somebody different, that I could be somebody different, that like, Oh my goodness, like, I just so desperately wanted to be different than who I was. And the coaching change that so significantly, right? It just gave me so much compassion for myself, compassion for my human experience, compassion for the fact that I did not know how to use my agency to get what I want and that was okay. I was able to set down all the regrets I had about the choices that I had made, the feelings that I had felt right, I recognized that like none of those were wrong. I didn't have to regret any of them. They were all learning experiences that brought me to where I am today. And like, I do not have to make myself wrong ever for the choices that I make. And the less I can do that, the less I judge myself, the less I condemn myself, the less I make myself wrong, the more curious I can be about what is creating it. What are the thoughts that are creating it and it? That has changed everything for me instead of this constant like self-flagellation. It's just a curiosity about what is happening for me and a compassionate, loving way, right?

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I remember, like for so many years in my marriage, David would say to me, like, why do you have to be so hard on yourself? And he would just like, beg me to stop being so hard on myself because he can see that if I could stop that, like it would just solve so many problems in my life. Like, I had so much judgment for me that like it just kind of spewed out onto everybody else around me. And so, like, it was such a gift to be able to set that down and to be able to love myself. And to recognize that I always had a good reason for everything I did like, I was always truly doing the best that I could, and I didn't mean that what I was doing was great. What it meant was that like when I understood that there was a good reason for it, then I had the power to go in, and look at it without shame and without judgment, and be able to change it. Be able to, like, change my mind about it, and be able to get a different result in my life.

So, it's really the idea of like, yeah, I am a mess, and it's okay right? Like and and truly like, the perspective I have now, even sometimes it's like maybe it's not even a mess, maybe it's always just exactly who I am, and what I should be, and I'm just constantly like gaining more skills, and becoming a person who could choose more of what she wants, more of the time. And so, really coaching really healed the relationship I have with myself.

And that brings me to number three, the third thing that I am so grateful that coaching has given me is reconciliation and connection with God. So, of course, if you hate yourself like our thoughts about God or just a projection of our of our own mind, right? Like most of us have not had an intimate face-to-face encounter with God. And so, our thoughts about him, what he thinks of us are really like a projection of our of our own thoughts, right? We don't know, in fact, what God thinks of us, but we think we do right? And it's really a projection of our own thoughts about ourselves that we've put on him, right? Then we reflected on to him. And so, if I spent all those years hating myself, I just sort of put that same projection on God like, listen, I know everything that's wrong with me, and it's a lot, and it's like, really shameful, and really hateful. And like, I really hated myself for all those things.

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And then I thought, well, of course, God, who can see all of this as well must think the same way as I do. And so like I loved him, and I served him, I went to church, I did the things that I could to be close to him. But there was always like a disconnect, and a separation because of my own thoughts about myself that I had projected onto him. Like, there was a distance that I had created by believing he can't love this, he can't love me like there's nothing here to love. And he who is so good, and so loving, and so faithful, must look at me with just such disappointment. And I spent so much of my adult life thinking that, and like, really like keeping this distance between us because of my own thoughts about myself, and so as I started to change my thoughts about myself that started to change the relationship I had with God as well.

And what I came to understand is that his thoughts about me were not based on my choices. His thoughts about me were based on his. He always chooses love. And so, like, again, just really understanding my agency, and what creates my feelings helped me to understand God's agency, and what creates his feelings, and knowing that changed the relationship that I had with God. So, I think for a lot of us, the trouble comes with the idea of like being worthy of his love, and worthy of a relationship with him, right? Like that, we think we have to be something else in order for him to love us, and approve of us, and have a relationship with us. And so, we're just always trying to be better in some ways so that we can have that relationship. Or be better so that we can prove like we're worthy of his love, right?

And what changed everything for me was really recognizing the same as with loving myself like, yeah, you're a mess, and that's okay. And it was the same thing in my relationship with God, which is that, of course, I'm not worthy. Like, of course I'm not worthy, I'm learning, I'm making mistakes. But that isn't a problem for him. Like, I am not worthy and it is okay. And before that, when I thought I had to be worthy and earn his love, right? Like I was like Adam and Eve, and I was always hiding, right? Like, I made this wrong choice, and now I have to hide. And it was always hiding my true self from God. I was hiding all the parts of me that needed work, and needed examination, and needed repentance, and needed practice, and needed curiosity like I needed to shine a light on all of those choices. But I was so busy hiding because of my shame, and self-hate, and my thoughts about what God thought about me that I didn't look at those things, and ask for help on those things, and examine those things. I was hiding instead of being my authentic self, and asking God for help and using the enabling power of Christ's atonement to work on these things.

So, when I could acknowledge that, of course, I'm unworthy because I'm learning, then I could come authentically, and fully into God's presence. And like, have a relationship with him as I am. Like, here's the thing, you guys, you are not worthy, but you don't need to be because he is worthy. And your worthiness doesn't earn his love, or approval, or help. That is all just there for free. You can't earn it, and you can't destroy it. God doesn't love you because you are good, he loves you because he is good. And his love is based 100% his choices and not ours. We are unworthy, but he is worthy. And like when we acknowledge that he loves us no matter what and we reconcile, and connect with him, then we have so much access to his grace, and mercy, and love, and his power is enabling power to change us. And all of that I got through coaching by really understanding my agency and understanding that, like my thoughts about God and my thoughts about myself were the problem in the relationship. Those thoughts were what were creating distance between me and God. And all of that has changed.

Okay, the next thing that I am so grateful that coaching has given me is the awareness of my possibility, and potential. So, for so many years, I had the thought like, that's not for me in one way or another. I just believed that the things I wanted were just like outside of my capacity. And maybe even just because of like my own choices like let's take love, for instance, like I felt like really loving like Christ wanted me to love, loving, like I wanted to and my family was outside of my capacity. Like, I was just like, maybe I just I'm a person who just can't love, right? And but what I learned through coaching is that, like everything I want is available to me. Everything I want. There aren't things that are off the table. If I want a result in my life it is only a matter of thinking the thoughts that will create for me over, and over, and again long enough to create whatever result.

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I'm not saying that that means, like any result is so easy. You just think the thoughts what I'm saying is like when I believe that I can create anything in my result like that, I can create the experiences I want in my life and then go to work thinking the thoughts that will create it like that is so powerful. And coaching really allowed me to become a creator like to step into that inheritance that I have for my heavenly parents. Like the truth is, we are all creators, we are always creating whatever result you have in your life right now is the result of what you have created. We are always creators. We can't not create like that is are our heavenly gift. It is our power. But like, what coaching gave me is like the ability to see that in fact, I was creating everything. And if I wanted to create something different that was available to me, it was not reserved for just other people or different kinds of people. It was 100% available to me. And coaching allowed me to see that that was just a matter of choice, a matter of choosing what I wanted to think.

And I've just been amazed at how much I've been able to create it, like in all these areas that I thought I couldn't. Like, for example, like my body and like my strength, and like the ability that I have to go to the gym, and to lift really significant amounts of weight. Like I had for years told myself like, you know, I have a bad back, and I have compromised body, and I have like all these problems. And like, I make really bad choices with food, and I've never been an athlete, never been a person that exercises like all of that was just made up. It's like amazing to see what you can create when you start to change one thought at a time.

In my business, like I've told you this story before, but it's just kind of remarkable, right? Like I was a stay at home mom for 20 years, never created a dollar outside of my home. Like I just didn't like think that was like anything in the realm of possibility for me. Wasn't for a person like me. And yeah, I mean, you know, a very short amount of time being able to create a lot of success in my business, and it's just because I have changed my thoughts. It's all been through the thoughts that I've nurtured, and asked myself to believe, and really worked to believe in my life. And like I told you this fall, I went and I met with my accountant because he had told me, like, if you know, if you ever make above 50k, like, you should come back and we can reorganize this. And he when he said it, he was just like, like, you know, that's really like a pipe dream, but good luck with that, right? And like when I came back and I told him how much like I made last year, and how much I was planning to make, like he was just shocked and amazed. And as I watched him and his surprise, I was like, Oh yeah, like, look what I made out of nothing like, it's freaking amazing.

And what I want to offer to you is that I am not special, I promise you. I just spent so many years thinking like, that's for other people, and it was simply not true. Coaching has just like opened my eyes to what is possible, and that truly like it's all available if you're willing to do the work to believe the thoughts that create it. And now, like, I understand those principles that it's just going to be one thought at a time. But I believe I will and can do all the things I want to do instead of just hoping, and wishing that someday I will. Like, it's made all of that sure and certain for me.

The last thing that I want to talk about, I'm so grateful that coaching gave me is the ability to make the most of my Earth-life experience. To, like, use my life in a useful way, like to learn the skills of using my agency, I came to Earth to learn, to choose and to learn, to choose more like my heavenly parents, right? Like when I mastered that ability to choose and use my agency, I emulate them, and I become more like them the greater ability I have to choose. And I now know how to do that better than ever before. I was always working on choosing from the action line, from my behaviors, from what I was doing, and trying to like force myself to do things, and behave in ways, and make choices. And like, sometimes I was successful and a lot of times I wasn't. And it was because I wasn't using my agency to change the right thing. And I know we've talked about this before, but it begins with a thought. And when I have a thought, it just a simple example.

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When I have a thought, I'm not a person who exercises. And then I try to change exercise from the action line, and I just try to go, and go, and go, to the gym. But I have this thought in the back of my mind always fueling my actions. I'm not a person who exercises, I'm not a person who exercises. Then pretty soon I give up, and so I just learned that like listen to make the most of my Earth -ife experience. It's a matter of what's happening in my mind, and so much less so about what's happening everywhere else. And like for each of us, we are here on Earth for a limited time, for a finite amount of time. And we came to Earth, not just to come here. But we came to Earth to become while we are here. To be calm as we exercise our agency, and we are like, God knew that was going to be hard.

God knew that it was going to be challenging, right? He also knew it would be hard to be on this Earth when everybody else had their agency, and that their actions would impact us, and that their choices would impact us, and that that would create like a certain amount of suffering for each one of us. And the tool he gave us to use again was our agency. That no matter what happened, and no matter what other people did, or said, or the way they treated us, that we always got to choose our experience of it. Like, really understanding that has changed so much in my life. And so I am just so grateful to have the tools and the skills to be able to make the most of my time here and to like keep practicing those skills.

Like coaching really did give me the ability to use my agency like never before, and the awareness that like I was in charge, no matter what other people did, no matter what else happened in my life, I was in charge of my experience. And like the ability to use my agency to make that choice and to use the Atonement of Christ to enable me to make that choice, like when it felt so hard to make myself that made such a difference for me. And I know, like when you think about that, you're like, how could that be significant, right? Like, every child knows, they get to choose. Like, you learn that the very first lesson of primary probably is choose the right, right? Like we all know, we get to choose. But I just didn't know how, and coaching taught me how, how to really choose my experience. And that, for me, has been life changing.

Okay, so you guys, that's what I have for you. Time to eat turkey! Coaching has allowed me to reconcile with the people I love, with myself, and with God. And it has opened up for me a world of possibility, and potential, and really has allowed me to the to be the creator of my Earth-life experience, and to become more like my heavenly parents and emulate their character. That's like why I came and what I aspired to. And coaching has given me the practical tools to be able to do that to apply all of that to my real life.

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And I just want you to know that if you want any of these gifts and blessings in your own life, they are available to you. I would love to be your coach. I would love to show you the things that I have learned. Like a lot of us think we have to like, I don't know, justify coaching or like, earn it, or like, deserve it. And I remember that because that's how I felt when I went into it. Like I was just like, Oh, April, here's one more thing for you to screw up in your life, okay? I just want you to know that like, you don't have to justify coaching, you just get to have it if you want it. My next group starts the first week in January. I want you to get on a call with me, and see how coaching can change your life. And then come join my coaching program. We are going to start the first week in January. We're going to spend the next six-months working together. And it is going to be so powerful, I want you to be a part of it. I want you to have this knowledge and these skills in your life.

And you can come start changing the results in your life that first week in January. Actually, you can start even before that. And as soon as you get signed up, you get access to the membership portal to all the videos, and tools, and workshops that I've given, and you have access to the workbook. You can get started right away. And if all that feels overwhelming, and you feel scared, and nervous, and you don't know if you deserve it, I want you to get on a call with me. I would love to coach you, and to show you what is available to you, because everything, everything you want is available to you. It is just a matter of knowing how to use your agency to get it, and that is what coaching showed me.

And I would love to show it to you, and the gifts of coaching never end. These blessings, never end, the things I learned, the things that you will learn, you will have those gifts forever, and they never stop blessing your life. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening. Happy Thanksgiving! And I will see you next week.

Your precious Earth-life experience is finite. Each of us only has so much time to spend here, and so while you're here, I think you should get more of what you want. You can get more love, more happiness and more accomplishment. And I love to show you the one thing you need to change in order to do that. On December 1st, 2nd and 3rd, I am offering a three-day training how to get more from your light to teach you exactly how to do that. Go to aprilpricecoaching.com/Getmore to register.