You are good enough. Somebody has loved you regardless of what you look like, what you weigh, what you've got in the bank, what education you've got, what job you do. They just think you're the best things in sliced bread.
That's unconditional love and that's actually the cure for low self-esteem. Welcome to the Level Up With Katie B podcast, where performance meets spirituality and you get all the tools you need to unlock your next level of badassery in life and business. I'm Katie B, airline pilot, human design coach, side hustle extraordinaire and crazy cat lady, and I know what it's like to have a vision for your life that is so big that it feels bananas.
I know what it's like to be busy and still want to live an abundant and fulfilling life, and I know that you have everything you need to achieve all of that without burning out. I know you're going to bring your dreams to reality. How do I know? Because if I can do it, so can you.
Each week, I and a series of guests will share human design insights, manifestation secrets, energetics and mindset tools that you can use to start stepping into your power as the conscious creator of your most aligned life. Buckle in, baby, because it's going to be a sweet, sweet ride. Welcome back to the Level Up With Katie B podcast.
So stoked to be here with you today and particularly stoked because I've got the most incredible guest joining me today. I am yarning with Louise Towler, who, after many years of writing comedy, also being a professional coach and running several children's theatres, Louise has found her passion, helping people find balance with themselves and their loved ones and restore healthy self-esteem. Louise's latest book, Balance, Restore Balance When Love Becomes Control, is for parents.
And if you're a parent with a child that has demanding or controlling behaviours that are driving you round the bend, Louise's message is clear. Quit beating yourself up and asking, where did I go wrong? And in her book, Louise will help you identify and overcome these controlling patterns that are actually rooted in low self-esteem. She helps parents gain clarity and gives them the tools necessary to restore a healthy, loving relationship with your child.
Can you imagine? You guys know I'm not a mum, but I have been a teenager and I have had a volatile relationship with my parents and I can, now that I've spoken to Louise, I can 100% see how life-changing her work is for families. If you are not a parent, do not sweat it. Louise has some incredible insights into patterns of behaviour that have been holding you and I back.
You know, this is not just for parents, this is not just for children, this affects everyone. Low self-esteem impacts everyone and to be honest, I had no idea. She's a storyteller at heart and as you listen to this episode, I know that you're going to have more than a few aha moments when you realise either you or someone very close to you is expressing behaviours that at their core are driven by low self-esteem.
She's got knowledge for days, but even better, she's got tools that you can use to help overcome this. So just be prepared to see yourself, your loved ones, and maybe your children and their behaviours in a whole new light. It is such an incredible episode and everybody needs to hear it.
Before we jump in, a wee announcement I am super pumped about. Doors are open again to Align and Thrive, my 5-month human design deep dive. This is your sweet and transformational portal to confidently levelling up, expanding and sharing your gifts through my signature thriving in business human design synergy method.
This transformative approach serves as a portal for you to thrive, thrive while you grow your soul-led business in alignment with your unique energetic gifts. I want you to be able to do it with ease, I want you to do it while you have fun. So if you are interested in learning to embody your gifts through human design and also unlock your personal karmic toolkit so that you can thrive as you build your aligned business, click the link in the show notes to find out more information.
I currently have two spots available, so have a look, see what you think and if you feel that it's a good way for you to step into your next level in life and business, I would absolutely love to support you on that journey. All right my love, let's jump into this amazing episode. Welcome Louise to the Level Up with Katie Bee podcast, so happy to have you here.
I'm so excited to be here. Well I am, like honestly the topic that we have chosen to talk about is just so relevant to not only our listeners but I think it's going to have a huge impact on their entire families. So I really am just so excited to hear all your beautiful insights about low self-esteem and it kind of comes at a time where you have, you're about to launch or you have launched a book that goes into the ins and outs of low self-esteem.
Yeah the particular book I've just written is actually for parents, this one's actually when you've got a child that's struggling with low self-esteem, so that will be exciting. So what gave you the sort of inspiration and drive to write the book and support your community in this way? Look I think it's been a 15-year journey, you know, of my own low self-esteem and you know, I think you know that I toured myself about 15 years ago as a comic in America for two years and realised that no matter how many standing ovations I got and everyone would tell you I was great, I still came off feeling low with low self-esteem. I just didn't feel valuable or good enough to be up there and I was having panic attacks and anxiety.
I didn't realise it was all part and parcel of low self-esteem what I was going through and it wasn't until I started teaching theatre skills to children when I came back to Perth that I started to realise that this was, this wasn't just me, it was happening to so many people and so many kids and so many parents. I was watching them struggle with the same things that I was struggling with, you know, and so I think that gave me the passion and talked to so many mums that were just, you know, what can I do to help my child? I don't know how to help my child. I know that there's this weird thing called self-esteem that's low but I don't really understand it.
So do you think you struggled with low self-esteem from when you were a child or was it that being in the arts kind of brought that out in you? I think yes to both of those. I think the stats say that 85% of people suffer with low self-esteem so this is not a, you know, this is so many people struggle with it. I think I struggled with it as a child and I think when you go into the arts, especially when you are up on stage, it's going to come flying in your face, you know, suddenly you're up on stage and everyone's looking at you and yeah, how's your self-esteem doing? Mine's not doing too well because my husband was putting me on with a cattle prod before the show.
It's so interesting, hey, because, you know, I talk a lot about manifestation and personal development and all that sort of stuff and I think there is a kind of preconceived notion or I think what I've coined pop culture manifestation theory kind of would have you believe that if something is a passion or it's aligned for you, then you should just feel like easy breezy. It's so easy to just get up and do it, right? Like it's so easy to get on stage because I know I'm an artist, I know I want to act but so why do I feel this sheer terror or anxiety or overwhelm when I get up and do it? So yeah, it's so interesting. So you obviously had the drive to just keep going despite the low self-esteem.
I think it was the fact that I was a breadwinner at the time, so my family were living off my earnings and I was on tour. I think if they hadn't have been, I'd have literally come home but, you know, we were on tour and my husband had given up his job to support me and drive the bus, you know. I think that I started to realise that I think the biggest thing for me was, you know, no matter how good people would tell me I was or, you I still came off feeling, you know, that I wasn't good enough and I think that was the biggest and I would have behaviours that were showing me, which is one of the big things that I teach about self-esteem, that self-esteem is actually a behaviour and you can start to see those behaviours manifest and they're very, very common and they're very typical of the self-esteem behaviours that come up.
Like I was having anxiety, I was definitely, I was having panic attacks. These are for me, this, you know, the symptoms and even it's, you know, if you Google low self-esteem, it will come up with some of the symptoms like anxiety, depression and all these things are to do with the fact that you just don't feel good enough and, you know, you're continuously rehearsing that in your head. Yeah, so is this the loud inner critic? Is that low self-esteem, that constant sort of like beratement that we often give ourselves? Is that normal or is that, do I have low self-esteem as well? I think, look, I think that's normal.
I think, you know, we're all a product of our input of our software and our software is put in as we're growing up. So no matter where, you know, I always say to the kids when I was teaching me, you've had, one of the biggest inputs for kids is comparison and when I'm, you know, working with low self-esteem, they'll say, oh, you know, I wasn't good enough. They told me this and they told me that.
And so we've believed all these horrible things about ourselves. One of the things I used to get kids to write down was, why don't you write down all the wonderful things about you? And you'd be amazed how many times I'd sit there with a blank piece of paper for at least five minutes. They couldn't think of one great thing to write about themselves.
But when I said, hey, you know what? Why don't you write all the terrible things? Let's get it all out on the table. They wouldn't stop writing. There'd be 22 things.
And there'd be things like, you know, I'm stupid. I'm fat. I'm this, I'm that.
All these horrible things that they believed about themselves. And so really, it's just a whole concoction of really negative experiences that they've believed. And we're all born with self-esteem.
We're all born with this full tank of petrol of self-esteem. And along the way, one of the biggest things I will say is comparison. Oh, you know, I'm not as good as, and the problem with school is that school is a comparison.
It's the whole model is based on comparison. Where are you in the class? How are they doing? What's their maths like compared to everybody else? What's their running like compared to everybody else? And the reason why I see so many creative kids in this area is because a lot of them at school just, they didn't have the skill set that the school set up for, you know, which people say is the typical, was it neuro diverse, which is like the creative person is really struggling because they just haven't got that kind of logic thinking. They've got this really creative mind like mine.
And, you know, a lot of the things, the tasks that are put forward, they, when they're compared to others, they're always going to be low, but give me something I can do. Give me a stage show to write or a song to write or a poem to write. And I'm top of the class.
But a lot of times that's not important at school. And so when I was dealing with the kids, I kept seeing this over and over again. And I kept saying to them, a lot of kids have on their list, I'm stupid.
And I would say to the kids, why are you stupid? Well, my maths is no good. And my English is no good. And so what are you good at? I don't know.
So when you work with these kids, like what is the turning point? What helps them shift from all that comparison? And I'm assuming that they have that kind of same sort of anxiety and panic attacks. And surely kids that age aren't having depression from this, are they? Yeah, definitely. When I had the children's theatre, there was a couple of little hacks that I did with kids.
And it's very difficult because a lot of the time I work with the parent, which is kind of my favourite thing to do is to work with the parent. The child's got enough support a lot of the times, you know, there's lots of support options for children. But and also, it's like psychology, and I don't get into the psychology side of it.
And I'd always encourage them to find a really good counselor or you know, someone to child to talk to. But when I deal with the parent, I can make the most change. I can deal with the parent, then the not deal with them, but help them to understand what's going on for the child.
That's the best thing I see that the best output. So I don't normally coach children. It's not really my area.
But I usually coach it. And lots of times, there's not a lot of help for the parent. They're, you know, they're taking their child here and there to get help, but there's not really help for them.
What can I do? And that's where I come in. These are all the things you can do to actually help this child change. So going back to the hacks of the theatre, one of the things, just to give you an example, had a child, she had perfectionism, she was struggling with low self esteem, she'd come from Asia, I think from China about 12 years ago, parents were, you know, scared about the fact that she was cutting herself and she was really down.
And I've done the thing where, you know, write down everything great about you, the sheet was blank, write down everything's terrible about you. She was at 22 when I stopped her. And I said, you know, she said, I'm scared to get apart because I might get it wrong.
And so what I needed to do was change that belief. Because that was what was keeping herself, you know, getting something wrong for her. And this is not a blame of the parent.
But this is the culture. If you get something wrong, then it's the worst thing in the world. And so all I said to us, you know, when I did comedy, when I started getting things wrong, the audience thought it was more funny, they thought it was fantastic.
And they laughed so much at that, that actually it was better for me when I got, you know, if I said, Oh, I forgot where I am, help me out, you know, they would all laugh. And so it actually worked for me. And so what I did was I put her in a comedy role in the show.
And at the end of the week, the father came and thanked me and gave me some chocolates and the cards. She's changed so much. And she said, What did you do? Did you coach it? I didn't do anything.
All I did was I helped her to see that being wrong can be good. Yeah. So she will have the comedy part and get everything wrong because she realized she could do something well.
It's just a little hack. Yeah, so cool. And what an incredible transformation in such a short space of time.
Do you keep in touch with these kids just out of interest? You know, I had hundreds of letters. I'm only just I had so many of kids just thanking me. It was it was a lovely time.
And it was a great time for me because both my kids work with me as well. Because they were kind of late teens, early 20s. And my son did the lighting.
My daughter was a director. And we wrote, you know, shows for kids. And really, I didn't care about the show.
It was about teaching kids they could do it. Yeah, so cool. So when from appearance perspective, I OK, so the kids are feeling anxious, possibly having panic attacks and depression.
How does a parent identify that? Because I remember when I was a kid and I was pretty freaking good at keeping things from my parents. They would have I don't think that they would have known if I was going through a hard time. You know, I didn't want them to know.
So how does a parent pick up on these things? Well, I think there's a behavior. So I speak about these two behaviors, and I call them pharaohs and servants. And so I've kind of gone through what you know, the whole hallmark of the pharaoh behavior.
And I call it behavior because it's not the child, it's their behavior. It's a protection mechanism they use into hide the fact that they they feel shameful, they don't feel good enough. For whatever reason, there's no blame on the parent or the school.
They've just picked it up along the way in our culture. That's what happens. And so I say to the parent, are they starting to control everything? Are they controlling you? Are they being quite nasty to you? Are they putting you down? And they're making you feel bad.
So, you know, we'll have all these behaviors. I've got a tick list, you know, that the parent will go. Oh, yeah, that.
Yeah, I've got pharaoh behavior. A lot of the time they'll say to me, oh, that's my partner as well. He's like that or that's my mom.
You know that. And I said, well, that's self-esteem. That's low self-esteem behavior.
So not only you've got the anxiety as well, you've also got this what I call triggered behavior. So what happens is they'll be fine. And the way I explain it when I'm talking to people is, you know, I talk about this stage, you know, that the stage is your partner or your loved one or your child's on stage and then they're normal.
And then suddenly, bang, something triggers them. And all of a sudden they leave stage and they're bad self-esteem behaviors on stage. And what does that look like? And so I say, does it look like a pharaoh? Does it look like suddenly they're being nasty and they're shouting and they don't really care about you and they're not saying they wouldn't say sorry, you know, and all these behaviors, because that is the protection mechanism of the self-esteem.
Don't push me. I'm already feeling I've been triggered and they just lose it. So this is the behavior.
And it's almost like I said, the parent, you have to sit and watch them from, from the stalls. You've got to keep off that stage. So that's kind of the behavior that I, I try and talk to parents about.
And when I start, we start to see in people at work and people, we know, oh yeah, that's fine. But then they swing, then they swing to the servant. And so then you see the servant behavior, that's the creeping back.
It's the, you know, it's the, all the things that, you know, and we see this a lot in, you know, this was my dominant self-esteem behavior was servant. So what can I help you? What can I fix for you? What can I get for you? It was just all about everybody else and not about me. I couldn't set boundaries.
I couldn't say the word no. I couldn't say the word no. It wasn't, that was just rude.
So there's these two behaviors. It's like a seesaw. And then we'll swing.
Yeah. Okay. So I, I was thinking that it would be one or the other, but it's yeah.
So any one person will go from one to the other and probably there's like varying shades of it along the way as well. Right? Yeah. So you can have a super Pharaoh.
I call them two concomitants and then you've got a super servant, you know, the, you know, the sacrificial lamb of everything. Everybody must, I must give myself to everybody. So you've got these very dominant and then like you say, but people, most people swing, you might know that somebody is quite a fair at work and when they go home, they've got opinion, they're washing up, you know, their servant to their wife.
And, you know, so this is how low to me, that's how the low self-esteem. And that's why I love coming from the arts because to me, there were two characters, but the main thing I want to get across here is this is not who they are. It's not a blame game.
This is, this is a behavior that they use that we all use that I have used many times when we are dealing with the fact that we don't feel enough, we'll either try and earn it or try and demand the respect for it. Yeah. Well, as you're speaking, I'm realizing that I definitely have some of those behaviors, you know, so, and actually to be fair, you know, I, the reason I became a coach was because I had pretty bad performance anxiety with around my day job.
And yeah, I mean, it started, I don't think I've ever been overly confident. And I always say to the people at work, like, I'll never be a top gun. Like I'm not one of those pilots that just thinks that I'm shit hot and all that sort of stuff.
But I got a really, I had a really triggering experience with an examiner where he literally screamed at me and called me stupid. And it's funny because to me, I just like brushed it off and moved on with my life. But it wasn't until three years later when I was talking to a psychologist about why I was having suffering from quite bad performance anxiety at work, she was like, Hmm, do you think that might have had something to do with it? And as you're talking, I'm like, well, that's an obvious point in time where I've had an experience that has like just undercut my self esteem in a pretty severe way.
So super interesting. And I think I would definitely be a servant that would be kind of my go to, I would say a recovering servant. I think I'm in that basket to recovering sermon, because I can slip into it.
But now I catch myself and go, Why am I doing that? Why am I needing that person to think that I'm okay? What do I prove? So it's definitely and I love that. I mean, I love that story. Thank you for sharing that.
Because I think so many people have been in a situation, similar situation where, especially as a female in that male dominated environment that you're in, where you know, you're they're giving you all and I kind of relate to, you know, to I've heard people that the surgeons the same a female surgeon, you know, and the male surgeon, it's that male, it's that Pharaoh and behavior that he was using to undermine you and to come across you. And I think one of the biggest things that I get from that is how wonderful you were to be able to cope. And the fact that you've gone and talked about it, because that's really good.
And the thing I say to you is that was not about you. That was not about you. And this is one of the things I teach is, you know, when people are showing that behavior, the biggest thing to realize is it's all about them, about their low self esteem.
And they use that behavior to try and put shame. And it works. It works, you know, because suddenly you're like, and then like the thing as well that you then rehearse that in your head.
So I remember having a massive panic attack when I was in Texas. And I had a crowd of 2000 people on stage, I was on stage, and had a massive panic attack on stage and 2000 people looking at you. It's huge.
And I managed to actually still continue the show, whilst in my head, knowing that I was panicking, and dealing with all the symptoms, the chest, can't breathe all the I'm still carrying the show. And, and eventually, it's like a wax and wane, it comes down, and I was fine. But I was so proud of myself, I was able to, in the end, into the end to nobody would have known.
But it's, you know, still, I hadn't then started to realize what it was. Okay, so you didn't, hadn't really identified it as low self esteem at that point. But you already had some really good coping mechanisms, which I can relate to as well, because I have a lot of really great tools that I lean on when that performance anxiety kind of rears its ugly head at times.
What coping mechanisms do you have for times like that? Depending on, so there's lots of tools that I use with pharaohs, I suppose, with pharaoh behavior. One thing I realized that particularly with the situation that you mentioned, right? Were you actually the student at the time? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So you've got a pharaoh there that's in his domain.
And you can't take a pharaoh down when you are when it's their domain. So I will teach people, you know, if they've got a pharaoh in their life, and they're not, you shouldn't take them on that, you know, because when they're being pharaohs, you will lose when they're in that when they're on stage in pharaoh mode. You can only deal with them when they've come back to themselves or whatever.
There's lots of tools. But I think that, you know, especially when you're dealing with pharaohs, one of the biggest things with pharaohs just to realize it's not them. It's not who they are, and to keep you out of it.
Yeah. And so is this what you, I guess this is what you tell your the parents of the students that you're working with, right, to help them understand the behavior of their children when they're behaving, this pharaoh behavior is coming out, hey? So let's perhaps put it into two categories. We've got when you're dealing with a pharaoh, perhaps dealing with your own self esteem.
So perhaps dealing with a pharaoh, so you've got a child that's a pharaoh, or a partner that's a pharaoh, one of the biggest things that you need to realize is that when they've been triggered, there's nothing you can do about it. With you going, don't speak to me like this, or don't you do this, that's just going to, you're going to go into their playing field and you're going to lose. You're going to lose, I'm telling you now.
So once they have gone into that mode, once they're triggered, you're not triggered. So you've actually got the choice. You can go, you know what, I know what this is.
Whoever I love, my partner, my child has left the stage. I've now got, and I usually get them to give them a name. They come up with some funny names, like, you know, all kind of resting bitch faces here, or, you know, or we've had funny ones like Mary Poppins is on stage, you know, because she was perfectly in every, she was perfect in every way.
And every time she came around to the daughter's house, she would make her feel like she wasn't perfect, nothing was done right. So we called her Mary Poppins, and I'd get them to actually make a character in the head. And so do your mum's gone.
Mary Poppins is on stage, what's happening? Oh, she's telling me the washing's not done. I said, because that's her stuff. Don't fight with her.
That's she's, she's in her mode. And so I teach them about keeping out of their stuff. Stage as I call it, keep off stage, let them have the stage they've taken over.
And eventually they'll come back down, they'll stop being triggered, they'll leave stage, and your loved one comes back on again. And they might not feel remorse. They might not say sorry, because the dominant behavior of servant is never an apology.
And that's the dominant behavior of a servant. They apologize continuously. Yeah, dominant behavior of the and even if they do, it's a begrudgingly round the block one.
So yeah, so and I suppose that's just a few things. I call it the BAM, you know, keep yourself out of it. Don't give them ammunition.
And, you know, move away all these things. I've got these tools. So if you're dealing with a pharaoh, and it definitely makes a huge impact.
If you're dealing with your own self esteem, I suppose, the first thing I'd ask myself is, you know, what is my dominant behavior? Where do I switch? Am I am I doing Pharaoh? Am I in servant? Okay. So then I would say, okay, so I'm in servant. Okay.
I would then watch for when I trigger, I would start putting down my triggers in my phone and going, okay, what triggered? Like the other day, I was I was tapping out a text somebody and he was like, How are you? You're writing? Why am I? What is this? What's triggered this? You know, and so I start to look at what's triggered that and then I catch myself going into servant mode and I start to look at what the triggers are. So that was and the other thing that I teach is this whole thing that we're talking about, you know, especially with ourselves, the you know, the cure, if you like for the word, the cure for low self esteem, is the opposite, which is unconditional love. So we, we got to there, we got to low self esteem by having conditions on our love, because we were measured.
So people measured us against everybody else, and we had conditions on whether we were enough. And so if we take that ruler down and go, okay, I always get people to think about something in their life. And we've always had somebody, whether it's an animal, or whether it's a person, maybe close your eyes for a minute, close your eyes for a minute and think, who is that person in your life that showed you unconditional love? Was it a grandparent? Was it a parent? Was it a dog? Was it a cat? Feel that feeling, step into that feeling.
And remember what it's like to have somebody love you with no conditions whatsoever. That is perfect self esteem. You are good enough.
Somebody has loved you, regardless of what you look like, what you weigh, what you've got in the bank, what education you've got, what job you do. They just think you're the best thing since sliced bread. That's unconditional love.
And that's actually the cure for low self esteem. But we have to get there. It's a long journey.
You can't just get up and say a few affirmations and go, oh, I love myself today. And you look in the mirror and go, holy crap, you know, look at me. I weigh this or I'm this or look at my wrinkles or I'm not successful in my job.
I haven't got all this money in the bank. So we put all these conditions on whether we're good enough. Does that make sense? It makes so much sense.
You know, the Mel Robbins high five habit is one of like, when you read that book, you kind of understand what you're talking about, about the incremental development of self love, because if you've ever tried to high five yourself while you're looking at yourself in the mirror, you'll know the first few times it's fucking jarring, you know, like because you like not many of us look at ourselves in the mirror with love in our heart, right? Like most of us, you know, without practice, without practice. And yeah, it's such a it seems so simple, right? Seems so simple. We practice low self esteem.
We practice, you know, we practice it every day. We we practice the feeling of low self esteem. And we say the things like you said, I call it Cinderella thinking I'm not good enough.
I'm not this. I'm not. But what about if you did the opposite? What about every day you said to yourself, I am enough.
I am. I'm enough. I can do this.
I've got this and all these things, you know, but it's not even that. It's not even that it's actually deeper than that. So you can say affirmation as they come out your wazoo.
Right? What you need to do is get in contact with that feeling. So when you say that thing, you know, you've got to get in contact with that feeling, the feeling of being good. We all have memories.
If you think back, you will have a memory of when you were good enough. Everybody does because we're born good enough. So, you know, you've got that memory and it's like that's the feeling that you've got to have every day.
Yeah. What I do every day is for me, it's my granddad. My granddad made me feel that didn't matter what I did.
I was perfect to him. What I weighed, what I look like, what I said was perfect. So for me, it's touching something that reminds me of him every day and just holding it.
So if it was this glass, it's holding it in my hand just for a minute and actually stepping into that feeling and practice that practice self-love because somebody along the way, I always believe God or universe has shown you unconditional love. And that is the cure. If you sense the word for feeling not good enough, because somebody's showing you that you're good enough, no matter who you are, what you are, what you did.
Oh, I love that practice. I'm going to do that tonight. I'm going to think of the last time or just invoke that feeling, like you said, of unconditional self-love.
It's hard because actually, as I'm sitting here thinking, I can't think of anyone off the top of my head, but it's probably because we're chatting on a podcast, maybe it might've been an animal. I don't know if you had a dog or something when you were young. I'm a crazy cat lady, Lou.
So you've had a cat. What's it like? Loves you regardless. Oh, they're amazing.
Yeah. That's actually a really good one. When I got, I was away for work for like three months and I got home and my husband had been away as well.
So my mother-in-law had been looking after the house and I always tell the story of when I walked in the house and my cats were all over me like a bad rash. Like I couldn't make it past the floor mat at the door. I was on the ground with them both like cuddling me.
It was so beautiful. I cried. I literally cried because I was like, oh, they love me.
See that when you were talking, your whole expression, your whole body language changed. Yeah. That is the feeling that you need for you.
Yeah. That is, you need to see them like they see you. This is my best person.
Look at her. She is perfect. She's absolutely perfect.
And that we have these eyes of all these conditions we've been told. So when we look in the mirror and we go, oh, and then you go, oh, I'm supposed to have a business. I'm supposed to be successful.
And we've got all these conditions on ourselves. Your cat just went, thank God she's back. We've missed you.
Threw themselves on you. And so that's, you know, that it's almost like, yeah, that's the feeling that you've got to practice every day. That's how you unravel your self-esteem and help you to get better if it's you that's dealing with it.
And it works. Believe me, it's not perfect. And every day I go, oh, why did I do that? But at least I'm questioning.
Yeah. The anxiety went away. The panic went away.
Sorry, Karim. Oh, no, I just think that's so amazing though, that I do feel that often the small things, the simplest things are the most impactful, but it's also why it can be quite hard to, for people to implement them because like, oh, it's so little, how can that possibly? And so they don't. And the answer is just try it.
Just start doing the thing, start practicing, like you say, holding something from someone that loves you or just practice the small things and you'll notice the big shifts probably. And you definitely won't if you don't try it. But also, as you said, like that awareness, you're never going to get perfection, right? But awareness is such a great pattern interrupt, if nothing else, right? Yeah.
And it is a pattern interrupt because we're all full of patterns and we, you know, you practice all day long, all these patterns and you think, where's my life today? Because of all the patterns I had yesterday and today in my brain, if you change those patterns, if you start actually showing yourself unconditional love, it will change. And that's kind of like, you know, your self-esteem has been blown out by conditions. The only way it can get better is by unconditional love.
And that's why I work with parents because parents have total unconditional love for their child. You know, even though they might have put all these things, we have to get back to that. And what I'm teaching the parents, we need to get back unconditional love for that child, no matter what they look like, what they say, who they are, who they're dating, all these things.
We need to take all those away because that is conditional love. And that's teaching the child that they're not good enough. We need to teach the child that they are good enough and the child will work it out themselves.
They're smart. So I always say, you know, if we change, they change. That's the biggest key.
You know, people go to, well, can they change my child? No, I cannot. And I wouldn't anyway, because it's not my area of expertise. I'm not going to start coaching children.
I mean, I've done that. And I realise now that the only way I could make change was by helping the parent change. Because once the parent changed, the child changes.
Is it challenging for parents to shift that behaviour, remove the condition from love? Because to me, that seems like a pretty ingrained part of societal conditioning, like it's a, it's a deeply rooted part of our society, right? That expectation to achieve and conditions attached to almost everything. Do you find it's a tricky process for parents to go through? No, I find that working with most parents, I think the clarity of what's going on, that's my first session when I work with them is like, what is really going on? Where is their self-esteem gone? What happened to them? And when they get all that, they go, oh my gosh, you know, and it's through their love, you know, it's through their love that they go, I was doing all these things because I loved them. I was doing these things because I wanted them to be successful.
I wanted them to achieve and I wanted, I said, yeah, but do you see that's all conditions for them? And also I teach with the parents, there's two massive big, I call them software viruses in a parent. And it's done utterly through love. And that's why I always say the very best of parents have children that have low self-esteem, not the crappy parents, the brilliant parents, the great parents have kids with low self-esteem.
It's because they do two things. One, they say to themselves, I never want my child to suffer. And the second thing they say is I never want my child.
I want my child to have everything I never had. Yeah. So these are the biggest things that I say, I call them Trojan horse viruses, because what I say to the parent is, here's the deal, right? Both of those are about you.
They're not about your child, right? You won't never want a child to suffer. You don't think suffering is what we all need to suffer. We all need to learn stickability.
Your child's not going to have any resilience if they just give up after an hour or a minute, if you're always rescuing them and picking them up. And then the other thing is, I want my child to have everything I never had. But they never had your childhood.
All they think is they've got a card to get out of jail free for everything in life. And you know what? Life isn't like that. As they go through life, they're going to go have a lot of hardships, because people are going to go, you know, suck it up, princess.
You know, we're all we're all doing this. And you need to learn, learn the hard way. So in a way, it teaches the children not to be resilient.
And so I say to the parent, you know, you didn't mean to do this. It's just that somewhere in your childhood, you went, when I'm a parent, I'll never let my child do that. And I will always make sure my child has everything.
I won't let them suffer. And out of that love for them, you've kind of gone swung the other way. And that's why a lot of parents end up end up with Pharaoh children, because they're serving the Pharaoh.
They're serving the Pharaoh. And they're going, Okay, I'm going to make sure that you've got everything I'm going to do this. And the thing is that the parent, the child actually hates it.
And so this anger and everything towards the parent that I see a lot is, for God's sake, leave me alone. You know, stop on at me, you know, and they're literally trying to say to the parent, stop serving me. But there's so many miscommunications firing.
They're not really sure what's going on. But this is a scenario I see. But it's mainly because the parent has put themselves in a servant situation.
And that's because of these two rules. I never want them to suffer. And I never I don't want them to have everything I never had.
So you're putting on your or your childhood stuff onto them. And they're like, I'm going to do anything turn up, then I have to try that I have to save for anything. Mom's going to buy me a car, a house, train set everything I need, I don't have to even think about it.
But what happens? The kid ends up with anxiety and depression, because they're like, what is the point of me showing up? I don't have to do anything. They go, what's wrong with my child? And I'm like, they've got low self esteem. I've given them everything.
When they say that I say, well, there's the problem. When you give somebody everything, why should they even try? You haven't even given them a chance to show you what they can do. The minute you stop doing that, they'll go, Oh, you know what, not not nice the first time, but then they go, Oh, okay, I'm going to show you I'm going to save them by my car.
And I'm going to save them by a house. And I'm going to go back to college or whatever they're going to do. Because it's like, now you're letting me show you what I can do.
So good. I mean, I feel like this is a bit of a revelation on many levels. And I almost wonder if there is anyone in the world that couldn't benefit from reading this book that you've written, because it feels very much like it's going to be helpful for parents, it's going to be helpful for adults who don't have kids, even just for that sheer level of awareness, right, that awareness of the behaviours.
And like you said, when you are acting out the servant or the Pharaoh, having that level of awareness, so you can go, Oh, what triggered me, and then, you know, do what you need to do to work through that. But then also parents being able to understand these behaviours from kids, like I can see that the relationships are going to be so much stronger on the other side of this, right? Is that one of the I mean, you must say it all the time when you work with parents coming out the other side of it, probably it's like, the relationship is so much stronger, hey? I think one of the things that parents feel is scared of is that they're gonna have to cut a child off, especially when they've got really bad behaviour. And it's awful to have to cut somebody out of your life.
I mean, don't get me wrong, if you've got a toxic somebody in your life, you need to get rid of that's fine. But when it's your child, or a loved one or a relative or a mother, I've had people beg me, I'm gonna have to divorce or I'm gonna have to get cut my mother out of my life. And what the great thing is, I'm able after the first session, they go, wow, I don't have to do that anymore.
Because now I know what's going on for them, I can take a step back and realise that I'm an observer. And you know, and one of the biggest things I get back is we've stopped fighting. The house is peaceful again.
Because now I know what's going on for them. It's a bit like, you know, somebody's got, I don't know, something and you go, oh, you know, now I know what's happening for them. It's like a diagnosis, almost sometimes people get from a diagnosis, or that's a relief, because now I know what's wrong with them.
I think the biggest thing shift for me. And that's what I love is after that first session, they go, oh, man, and I've got some tools to deal with it. Now I know I can have a rehearsal, I call it a dress rehearsal.
You know, when it when they triggered, I know what to do. I'm not going to fight with them or scream. And I think I know what to do now I know how to cope with this behaviour.
And that's the biggest shift I see. And when you do that, the person that's then triggered, doesn't know what to do. Oh, okay, well, this is different.
No one's having a go at me. No one's fighting me. And it's so interesting to see the dynamics.
They look at you like, okay, well, this isn't normally happening. That's a good pattern interrupt. I'm just remembering when I was a kid and my mum, like, firing up at me and me spitting back, and then it was just this bit session of us being angry at each other and yelling at each other.
And it would always be the same, the same, the same until my dad would step in and be like, all right, enough is enough, right? I'm just imagining the difference if mum had just like, gone. Or if I had, you know, done that and been like, Oh, okay, this is just, you know, that level of awareness would be absolutely life giving to so many families. And that's why I really want to get this message out.
I mean, this first book, Restore Balance, is for parents, this one's for children, but I've got three more in my head. You know, I've got one for partnerships, you know, for relationships. I've got one for work, even, you know, you've got a pharaoh at work, and you don't know what to do.
There's so many rules for pharaohs, you know, with you can't, there's so many, I mean, I can't even go into, but there's so many rules of how to deal with a pharaoh, and how you can actually have them in your life if you want them, and how to have a relationship with them. And so yeah, I've got a few things that I've got up my sleeve. And I just want to get out there and start speaking my truth about the things that I have, not only, I wouldn't say conquered, I think I've got some insights into with what's happening for me.
I've also seen a lot of change with the people I've worked with. And I've been so excited because the feedback has been so great. Wow, you know, we don't fight anymore.
And that just takes the level, I call it under siege, you know, when your house is under siege by a pharaoh, you know, the minute that your house is not under siege, everybody's benefiting. Yeah, husband's not stressed, he's not being called back to home because things have kicked off. The other siblings aren't hiding in their rooms because the pharaohs kicked off.
And you know, and the mom's doing her best to deal with whatever she's she's trying so hard to understand why this child is behaving like this. And you've got all this don't speak to me like this and don't do this to me. It's not about you as well as it's not about you.
You need to step back. This is their stuff. They're dealing with it.
But the way to actually help them through this is for the parent to change. And I've done this a lot of time with kids, you know, parents have asked me go and coach my child, you know, and I look at them, I go, you know, if I coach your child, you know what they'll say to me? No, what they'll say is, my parent needs to change. I can actually just write it down for you.
And I'll get the child to say yes or no. And they just laugh. And I said, because what the child's going to say is there's nothing wrong with me.
It's my parent. They're mad. They're nuts.
I said, I can tell every child I've coached. That's what they've said. Don't coach me coach them.
They're right. And they're right. They're actually right.
But you know what the parent got there out of love, love, not out of hate, out of love. They're trying their best to get their child the best life they can. And in that this has happened this feral and servant relationship.
And that's what I can come in and go okay, after two hours, I can guarantee your stress in the house can go from a 10 to a zero. I can guarantee once you've had that insight of what's going on for your child and the parent and the child's like, thank God. Thank God.
They're not shouting at me anymore. So cool. I am just a little bit mind blown, to be honest, because I didn't really, you know, I recognize all these behaviors, all the way that you're explaining it makes so much sense.
I can see how it has a flow on effect from childhood to adulthood, to every single relationship. I never ever, ever made the association that low self-esteem was at the root of all of those behaviors. And I guess it makes sense because I've always been a firm believer in self-love being kind of the pathway to a lot of a lot more ease, a lot more confidence.
So I guess that does make sense. But that little piece of the puzzle that it all starts with low self-esteem is the point where we kind of need to recognize it. That's the key.
That's amazing. I love it. No, it is the key.
You're right. And that's why I'm so excited to get out and share this. You know, I've been struggling myself like everybody would like, you know, why would people listen to me? I think the biggest thing I was like, you know, I'm not from science.
I don't have a degree. I went to study psychology and I hated it. And I studied counseling and I hated it.
And I was like, what's wrong with me? You know, why can't I, you know, I should be able to learn all this so I can help people. But then I, you know, what was the biggest great insight for me was I realized that coming from the arts was actually a gift. It was a gift that I didn't realize I had, because, you know, I'm not, I like science, don't get me wrong.
But when people are giving me stats and all kinds of things, I don't get it. But I talk in stories. So I'm coaching people.
I give lots of stories. And I think when I'm talking about the stage and who's on stage and the characters that I bring in, people go, I really understand this. It's because you've come at me with this creative kind of show that I've got it.
And I said, thank God, because I said, if my schooling would have been like this, I would have got it. I would have got it. But because it wasn't set up for the way that I thought, I didn't really understand it.
And one of the biggest things I want people to understand self-esteem and really get it because once you get it, and you think about the characters and stories and, and, you know, it's really quite simple. It's so simple. But it's taken me 15 years to work to get all this information through my sieve of my creative brain, and then come out as very simple.
This is what it is. This is the way that I see it. You know, so I don't say that I'm from science, because I'm not from the arts.
And it's always going to be it's always going to be creative session when you're working with me and fun session, we laugh so much. Because once we make, you know, because I talk about the fairer behavior, but then we start making the character that they're dealing with. That is honestly, we cry with laughter.
We cry with laughter. I remember one woman, she had like a knitting needle in the person's hand, because all she wanted to do was burst everybody's button. And then she'd rather than get annoyed when this person was triggered.
She said, I just stopped laughing. Because I kept realizing that she got a knitting needle out, she started bursting everybody's bubbles. We were laughing so much about that.
And I said, see, how are you going to react now? She's I'm just gonna be great. You know what you do you, you do you, you get your knitting needle out and start bursting my bubble. But it doesn't matter because I know who you are.
And I know what this is. Mm. Amazing.
Lou, thank you so much. I just, I feel, I don't know, I feel like my life has been deeply already affected in a positive way. I think this awareness is going to shift how I show up in the world, it's going to shift how I respond to other people's behavior.
And I'm really grateful for that. And I know that everyone listening is going to have had a lot of aha moments. I was just nodding the whole time you were talking.
My head feels like a bobblehead. It made so much sense. So congratulations on writing, finishing the book.
And you're just about to go on tour as well. So congrats on that. And just massive thanks for coming and sharing your story with us today.
Well, thank you. This is my first time I've done a podcast is my number first one. So this is exciting.
And thank you for being such a great host and for asking the right questions and helping me to relax because obviously this is my first one. I'm so excited though to come on. I love self-esteem.
It's kind of my favorite subject. And yeah, the book's coming out soon, Restore Balance. That's for parents.
And people want to get hold of me. I'm sure you'll put a link somewhere. Yes, I will have all the links to be able to get Lou's book and access her website and social media as well.
You got some socials, Louise? Yeah, yeah, we're just getting on to that. So yeah, they can actually just register to know to keep in contact with me where I'm going to be on tour. If they want to catch me speak, I'm speaking on Wednesday.
It's exciting. And I've only got two tickets left. So I'm only doing small little gatherings to begin with.
And yes, if I'm with anything, come and hear me speak or keep in contact with me. And that'd be lovely. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Louise. Thank you. I told you you'd have some aha moments.
Did you even know that low self-esteem could have such a huge impact on your life? I mean, it seems sensible, but I don't think many of us have really looked at low self-esteem in the way that Louise explains it. And I honestly think it's life changing. If you'd like to find out more about Louise's work, you can head to getrestorebalance.com. That is linked in the show notes there.
You'll be able to grab her book. You'll be able to check out her tour dates. She's currently touring the Southwest of Australia with her show Triggered, which is a 25 minute journey into low self-esteem behaviors through the characters that we talked about in this episode, the Pharaoh and the Servant.
You can find all that information and all Louise's offerings at getrestorebalance.com. That's it from me today, team. Thanks so much for joining me. Don't forget, if you want to find out more information about Align and Thrive, my five month human design deep dive for anyone who's in the first three years of their business, click the link in the show notes.
Don't miss out. There's only two spots available and I can't wait. I can't wait to discover who the two people, my two new clients are going to be that get to experience the freedom and the joy of building their business their way.
All right, team, until next week, take care, keep milking the shit out of life and I'll catch you in the next episode.
