“There is no value in being harsh with yourself. Yeah, you have to get things done. But you don’t have to be harsh.”
Katrina Alilovic
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Let’s be honest, we’re all frightened of being judged.
But in truth, no one judges you more than you do.
It gets tiring hearing that inner voice constantly nagging that you’ve done something wrong.
Or that you’re going to fail.
And the stories we tell ourselves are so so powerful.
Our thoughts become our feelings, and our feelings our actions.
And all of a sudden we’re believing all those negative thoughts and they’re stopping us from being our best selves.
It’s time we said ‘no more’!
So today we’ll discuss how to make peace with yourself, silence that negative voice and learn how to tell ourselves better stories.
Tune in to learn:
- What kind of challenges Katrina has faced over the years as a busy business parent
- What your ‘inner critic’ is
- The purpose your inner critic serves
- How parenting stress can influence your inner voice
- The importance of recognising where your thoughts come from, and finding a way forward
- Why you should practice self-compassion with your inner voice rather than trying to silence it
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About Katrina Alilovic
Life outside the consulting room is all about her two girls (11 and 13), reading about her current hyperfocus (ADHD and neurodivergence have replaced peri/menopause in the last 12 months), strength training, food, family and friends.
Fun fact: Katrina has absolutely no sense of direction.
Connect with Katrina Alilovic
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Transcript
Kate Toon
Let’s be honest, we’re all frightened of being judged. But in truth, no one judges you more than yourself. It gets tiring hearing that inner voice, constantly nagging that you’ve done something wrong, or that you’re going to fail. And the stories we tell ourselves are so, so powerful. Our thoughts become our feelings, and our feelings, our action. And all of a sudden, we’re believing all those negative thoughts, and they’re stopping us from being our best selves. It’s time to say no more. So today, we’ll discuss how to make peace with yourself, silence that negative voice and learn how to tell ourselves better stories. Hello, my name is Kate toon. I’m the founder of Stay Tooned, busy business owner and okayish parent. And today I’m talking with Katrina Alilovic. Hello Katrina, did I say that correctly?
Katrina Alilovic
Okay, perfectly.
Kate Toon
Okay, cool. It doesn’t look like that does it like tune should be said To-on but everyone says Toon and everyone gets it wrong. I’m joking. I’m gonna introduce you. Katrina is a counseling psychologist and works with individuals and couples in a nutshell, she describes her practice as supporting adults to become more who they are, rather than who they think they should be. All like that. She supports adults looking for help with relationship issues, relational trauma, grief, and loss and anxiety issues. life outside the consulting room is all about her two girls 11 and 13. Reading about her current hyper focus, ADHD and neuro divergence have replaced Peri menopause in the last 12 months fun. Strength training me to food, family and friends. Fun fact, Katrina has absolutely no sense of direction. There you go. That’s my actually my superpower, you know, direction.
Katrina Alilovic
When I look confident, I will set off in a direction but people who know me will never follow me.
Kate Toon
I, I yeah, I’m really good at it. If I don’t use an app, like when we went to Europe with my son, we we use Google Maps, and I didn’t understand the little shadow. Like I thought the shadow should be in front behind you on the map. And he’s like, No, it’s foreshadowing. It’s showing you where you’re going. And I’m like, That makes no sense to me. So if I if I don’t use an app, I’m fine. I’m very good at working it out. I don’t know, just by osmosis. But apps mess me up Google Maps. It messes me up. And we’re talking about not necessarily being messed up today. But we’re talking about the little stories we tell ourselves like you’ve told yourself the story that you’re bad at direction and he made that your personality and it may not be true or maybe changeable. You know, like the little stories we tell ourselves so important. But before we get into that I did a brief outline of your business in your family. anything more to add there like as a, you know, psychologist with a family and running your own practice? What kind of challenges have you faced over the years as a busy business parent.
Katrina Alilovic
More recently, with my daughter starting high school last year, I just had this funny feeling that I was going to need, I was needed more vague feeling. And so I moved my practice from North River to much closer to home so that I could be accessible. So that was a big change, really, because I bleached my own property property. That was stressful. Yeah, so and now I’m even like, then the younger one is starting high school next year. And I’m thinking even more I need to have this thing about I need to work less, but all I want to do is work more, because I love, love what I do. But yeah, having to rein it in, in ways because the needs are just so much more complex, you know, like, they need me so much more emotionally now.
Kate Toon
It’s interesting, isn’t it? My son’s 14, and he is a boy. So I think it’s probably a bit different. He needs me very much when he needs me and he doesn’t when he doesn’t, unlike that kind of constant need of a younger child that you constantly feel like you’re feeding them looking after them. You know, like it’s like nothing, nothing, nothing that everything. Yeah, you know, like, it’s indefinitely you kind of have to be constantly available just in case that moment comes because you miss it because it’s all you’re gonna get today. It’s all you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get that one hour of him being present. And then that’s it. So you really want to be there for them. And I’m, I’m the same as you. I mean, we’re we’re women of a similar vintage, and I love what I do. And I feel like sometimes I have this kind of repressed kind of sort of excitement or urgency or whatever that I’m like, I can’t wait until I’ve just got a free week where I can just get on with this then equally I know that that will also come with not having my Sunday at home. So this thing that I’m craving is also my absolute doom. Because empty nest and whatever, it’s awful, isn’t it?
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, I’m feeling it in a way that I didn’t feel it with my older one but my younger ones starting high school next year. I feel yeah, I’ve had this thing of like, I’m losing her. Extreme like, yeah,
Kate Toon
Very I’m very I’m absolutely melodramatic about it. I have no shame I try not to be in front of my son. But you know, like, there’s me a freeman poem about you know, losing your son is like the worst breakup. And it is, you know, it’s it’s awful is this big, strapping lump man in my house now who’s taller than me? Who I have to tell not to hug me so hard because it hurts. And it’s and I’m trying to, therefore fill the gap that he is left with myself. Which is terrifying. Like, okay, yesterday, boring. We will get into the episode people but cat is my friend as well. So yesterday cat, just well just keep trying, you could just do something else go and clean the kitchen while me and Kavita, he went to the cinema for the first time. And then in a local town, which involve you know, getting on the train with friends was a big deal. 14, he’s been waiting till he was 14 Till he was allowed to do it. So he I dropped him off at the station at like 10. And he didn’t come back till six, that whole day to myself. It was horrific to do, I could do all these things. I don’t want to do any of them. I can or can’t be bothered, I could come do some work don’t want to. In the end, I went to KMart and bought loads of crap I didn’t need and felt bad about it. But you know, the world is opening up for me. And I’m like, no, no, hang on. I’m not done. I still want to be a mom. It’s challenging.
Katrina Alilovic
It’s like, yeah, the paradoxes are mind blowing. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. It’s a good thing. I’m in therapy.
Kate Toon
Yeah. You know what, this was just gonna be us ladies fumbling around together having cups of tea, I often see like late like friends just sitting in a cafe having tea. And I’m like, That’s really nice. Look at you just chatting away, you know, we’ll be able to do stuff like that. I’ll come over to Perth, and we’re just sitting around the shops, it’d be nice.
Katrina Alilovic
Get through all the books that I have on my bedside table.
Kate Toon
Yeah, that’s it, well actually be able to read and do things that we’ve always wanted to. It’s funny, isn’t it. And we’re talking a little bit about the stories that we tell each other because that’s obviously a story. I’m telling myself a moment, and trying to come to terms with the fact that my life won’t be over when my son leaves home, I will find new things that the me my love. You know, I live my life by means Katrina, I need a psychologist because I’ve got Lindsey Graham, is you haven’t yet met all the people who are going to love you. And I love because I’m like, you don’t know all the adventures that are still in store. So it should be an exciting time. Not a sad time. You know,
Katrina Alilovic
It’s a wonderful thing to remember. Yeah. I was just on with a client and was remembering something that was said to me? Probably, yeah, 28 years ago. And it was it was essentially I was in this danger transition. And it was all like, it’s all going to be terrible. Like there’s only bad things that are going to happen as a result of making this change. And she just reminded me like believing the good outcomes for yourself. And I didn’t quite know what she meant at the time, because I was still in a lot of fear. But eventually, that came to mean something and something that I can go back to and yeah,
Kate Toon
It’s you need it aligns like that, don’t you? Because it means I guess, especially if it feels like it’s all downhill from here, all the exciting things in my life have happened. You know, I’ve we don’t seem to celebrate especially women’s successes in their career or whatever, as much as we do them getting engaged or having a baby or getting married. It’s like all of that. So it’s not gonna happen to me anymore. So interesting. Anyway, sorry, we are wobbling on but I think this is all relevant to degree we’re talking about inner critic now came along and presented at my retreat, and she did this amazing session, I still have this thing that she gave me she did these photos and told us to try and find photos of our inner critic. But tell us what you mean by the term inner critic?
Katrina Alilovic
Oh, well, I think the way that most of us relate to it is that part of ourselves, which we hear is a bit of a dialogue like a voice. And it’s that part of us that reminds us of all the things that we’re not in terms of not good enough or with just less than when we compare ourselves or, yeah, like basically all the meanest things that you use somehow reserved for yourself.
Kate Toon
Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it? And we all have one we sometimes we managed to sort of keep it a little bit quieter, but we all have one here. I said that you gave us the opportunity to look at photos on the table and pick our photo. And this is the photo I chose, you can’t see it, but I will share a picture of it. It’s actually Cookie Monster, because my inner critic is a bit less scary than he used to be. And it doesn’t come out so often. That he’s definitely still there definitely around around certain triggers, certain people trigger that inner voice, and, but I’m pretty good these days at silencing it a lot better than I used to be. But I think as parents, we’re always that inner critic is often present and the inner critic serves a purpose. Right. So I remember you saying that there’s a there’s a reason we have that internal dialogue, although I read somewhere that some people don’t have an internal dialogue. Yeah. What? Obviously, is absolutely lovely. So the inner critic does have a purpose, right? It’s to keep us safe?
Katrina Alilovic
Well, it’s a kind of a way of thinking, yes. I mean, it’s about limiting. Yeah, limiting the risk taking that you do. Yeah. And often good things are on the other side of taking risks. So it’s, it’s yeah, it’s about kind of reducing uncertainty, you know, in our minds and telling us that we if we increase the level of predictability of life, if we know what’s going to happen, when it’s gonna happen, then we’re prepared, we can deal with it, all those kinds of things. Yeah,
Kate Toon
Like, like keeping ourselves safe from crisis in our brain is saying, Don’t do that. Because you could die, basically. And I think the problem that we have is that we’ve lost the ability to differentiate, being eaten by a hippo from sending an email, like we give them we have the same level of fear about those two things, even though one is life threatening, and one appears to be life threatening. So we get our fear messed up a lot as well, don’t we?
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah. And that’s really like felt you feel it really strongly in your body, you know, the physiological ways that that shows up. But also then in terms of the, the, the cognitive side of things. So things that we this, like you said, the stories that we tell ourselves, so the way that the reason why the metaphor of the friend, the light trying to keep us safe, is useful is because if we think of a part of ourselves as some kind of evil, like mean, like part where, yeah, it’s not particularly if it’s kind of awful, like, Yeah,
Kate Toon
is this horrible thing is living within me. Yeah.
Katrina Alilovic
And so that doesn’t end up helpful. It ends up being more shameful and more tied in with that sometimes the messages that we tell ourselves is that there’s something wrong with me. But some some of us, you know, kind of we’re contending with the fact that, yeah, there is something inherently like awful, yeah. wrong with me. And so it’s not helpful at all. Yeah. And so if we’re trying to befriend the inner critic, on the, on the basis that actually all like It’s you It’s not some thing that’s –
Kate Toon
Separate to you. You’re not possessed.
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, exactly. It’s a part of you, just like there are other parts of you, that isn’t nurturer or whatever, we have this, like, kind of inner dialogue. That’s just part of what for most it is, most people it’s only a small percentage of people that don’t have that inner dialogue. Yeah. But it is a inherent part of being a human being.
Kate Toon
And it can be a glorious thing. So you can almost reframe it as like a overcautious friend, a friend is overly concerned, like I am with with my son, I’m like, you know, why aren’t you wearing a coat like you’re gonna get cold, even though I know that cold is a virus, and he’s not going to get it from. But you know, so it’s like, if you reframe it as, as some part of you that it’s actually deeply caring about you. And that is perhaps perhaps a little bit overcautious, but has your best wishes at heart. You know, it’s only just trying to keep you safe. I love that, that is even just that as a big bit of a moment for me, rather than thinking of it as like a negative, evil beast, in my mind, trying to bring me down and make me feel awful.
Katrina Alilovic
Yes, except for there are there are messages that like have become internalized like over, you know, typically from, you know, our younger years, we’re very
Kate Toon
Susceptible.
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, exactly. But also it can happen as a result of, you know, kind of relational trauma or things that happen when you are you No at all. So the things that we tell ourselves, often horrible. And they are often connected to messages and experiences that we had earlier on.
Kate Toon
And I think that’s kind of like, the role that you play is to kind of dig those out and almost make those connections like, it was only recently that I realized how much I’ve watched people’s faces all the time. And I know Whether it’s because, you know, I hope my dad doesn’t mind me mentioning it probably won’t listen to the podcast. But my dad used to be quite grumpy when he got home from from work. And, you know, we’d often get sort of told off and whatever. And I would literally wait for him to come through and try and read his face to see if it was a good day or a bad day, and then respond accordingly. And I deal with everybody now, like, I’m constantly like, if I’m on a zoom, and people’s faces go a bit like, I’m like, Well, I’m messing up and doing a terrible job. And I sometimes say I just literally did one with a member of my class, and I’m like, You’re right. Is this making sense? She’s like, Yeah, I’m concentrating. I’m like, Oh, God, that’s your concentration face. Thank you. Thank you, because you’re looking across to me, and you’re not. So I’ve got this inbuilt thing. And that’s not a critic, but it’s a habit that’s formed. And fundamentally the message my inner critic is like, no one likes you. No one likes you. That’s where you’re starting from. They don’t like you. You have to dance more make them laugh be funny. Yeah,
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, beautiful. And thank you for risking saying something that. Yeah, exactly. Because that is often where people get stuck. Because the way forward feels like a trap. You like the way out feels like a trap, because I have to contend with, actually, there’s some things that I think were causal in, in me developing this, but I don’t want to go near because it feels too horrible. I should, you know, I like my parents, you know, like, they’re grateful to them. And then there’s this dissonance around, but you know, what, actually, that experience of that time of our lives? That did that did affect me, and it doesn’t take any way anything away from the fact that you actually like, you know, if you do, like, your parents and have a have an understanding of them as like, you know, fuller human beings.
Kate Toon
Personal. Yes, yes.
Katrina Alilovic
But you so part of it is really hard to go there. Yeah, we feel tremendous guilt, and that we’ve been disloyal. Yeah, go there. Yeah.
Kate Toon
And also that we’re going to unravel more staff, and it’s all going to be really messy. And we’re gonna have to have difficult conversations with people. And it’s like, okay, just put that in a box and put it over there. But, you know, and also the fact that we can, as you said, have two thoughts in our mind at the same time, I love my parents, they were great parents. But that particular thing wasn’t great. And it had an impact on me doesn’t take away from that. I’m fine about it. But at least now I know. And now when I’m doing it, I’m a little bit able to recognize it. And one important thing was I was able to mention to my partner, hey, this is something I do, because I’m always saying, Why do you look so grumpy? And he’s like, it’s my face, I’ve got a beard. I can’t help it. I can’t. And I’m like, but it makes me upset. And he’s like, I’ll be conscious of that. So at least I’m able to tell people around me why I’m, the voice that I’m hearing. So hearing your own voice recognize it, maybe sometimes seeing it as a thing for good. Sometimes realizing that it isn’t that good. And working out where it comes from? What do you think are some of the stories that working parents? What is what is the inner critic of a working parent in your experience? Because often, you know, it’s some some of the stuff you were touching on? Like, I’m working too much. I’m a terrible bear. And
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, the double bind of never feeling like you do any part? Well, I think is what I hear parents say. So that sense that they’re not able to do their job as well as they are or run their business as well as they, you know, would like to because I’ve got all these ideas, but they feel rushed. And yeah, kind of dealing with things on the surface, or, yeah, not really being able to get stuck into things in the way. And then but also then feeling like, they’re never, like not able to go to that assembly or, you know, they’re conscious that they were rushing to cook dinner and their child is wanting to talk to them. And they’ve basically not looked at them, but they’ve said something that’s happened to me, like I think I didn’t even look at her when I heard that. We had that whole conversation. And that makes me feel like terrible because I feel that the eye contact, you know, and just being able to be present with that’s everything, you know, to a child so you know that the thing about reflecting all these things is that you are going to come you know, like we face those things that we don’t feel like we do well or that we feel guilty about. And then we feel like I just said I feel terrible. Yeah, so I now need to tolerate feeling terrible. I need to be able to, you know, what people say is stay with that feeling for a bit and, and and explore what that’s about and not hate on myself. Because that’s not going to be the way that I then change the way and support myself to be more available and then interact in ways that are you know better for her but also better for us, but Also, then you deal with that thing about expectations of like, I have to do that 100% of the time, and there’s no room for the moments where I bet Sure. Yeah, like, that’s not that is. Absolutely, yeah. Because people in business are often, you know, they have high expectations of themselves. They want to do everything to the, you know, to a really high level. And if it doesn’t hit that, then it’s not good enough. Like, that’s not good for parent, any parent, but
Kate Toon
no, I mean, I talked about this in the book, we’ve got a whole chapter on parent guilt. And obviously, some of that comes from how your parents said, Either you’re trying to make up for their inefficiencies, or you’re trying to match how great they were, society and what society expects of us. And especially for women, you know, we’ve been told we can have it all, we can be great parents and business people. And also who we choose, as icons, you know, people are shouting out about Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. They don’t do that. That’s the parents, you know, maybe brilliant businessman, but no, all divorced and navy don’t have the best relationship with their kids. I think Elon Musk is quoted as saying that, you know, he’s spent, like three years sleeping on his factory floor. And he deeply, deeply regrets that, you know, so I think we’d have to choose our heroes a bit more carefully, as well, like, who we’re aiming to be, and understand that we can be that, but there’s going to be compromises and is the compromise enough. I mean, essentially, that’s what my entire books about that you can have it all, but probably not this week, you know, and you’re gonna have a day where you win as a parent and a day when you don’t, one of the things you talked about there, and it is a kind of cheesy counseling psychology term, but it’s really important is the ability to sit in the discomfort of the feeling, and not block it out. Because another thing that’s obviously close to my heart is the mummy wine culture. And the idea that you struggle all day, you’re juggling, juggling, trying to be a good parent trying to do this than the other. And that alcohol is then some kind of switch off that you can press during, you know, either while you’re putting your kids in bed or after they’ve been put to bed. Because, you know, for a short period, it does switch off the voice doesn’t it literally disconnects your consciousness from your consciousness, doesn’t it? Do you? Do you find that there’s a problem with people that you talk to?
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, to varying degrees. But yes, it works, as a tool to take the edge off quickly. And to have those moments where you feel like you said, disconnected from how tired you feel, or how worried you feel like you’re churning. So yes, it is a problem for some people.
Kate Toon
And I think you choose your thing. I mean, it could be habitual scrolling on social media, it could be online shopping, it could be eaten loads of biscuits, we all pick, pick our thing to try and quiet the mind. You know, some things are more healthy than other, you know, meditation and the gym and whatever. For whatever we can do to try and silence that inner critic, rather than kind of your approach, which is not about just saying, I’m just not going to listen to Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, but to challenge our inner critic, and that’s something that you talk about, like actually sitting in the discomfort and taking your inner critic on and actually looking at it. You know, that’s important, right?
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah. And I feel like the practice of self compassion has been a bit of a game changer in terms of use as a tool, to support yourself to engage with the kinds of things that you’re saying to yourself. You’re, your inner dialogue. And, also, because yeah, that matching up dealing with the feelings is incredibly important. It is not just a cognitive process. And unfortunately, a lot of, you know, things that we might be exposed to, as ways of getting around it. One, they say it’s easy, and to that it’s just a process of changing what you think. And that’s not true. So, you know, what happens is that people can think, Oh, well, I’ll have a go at that, and then feel like we’re failing that.
Kate Toon
Yeah. And then there’s another thing to criticize yourself. I mean, one of the most moving things you did when you came to our retreat was You made us write down some of the things that we said to ourselves, and then we anonymously all put them stuck them on little sticky notes and stuck them on a board. And then we read each other’s things. And honestly, all of us were in tears about the awful bloody things, ourselves. And these, you know, women at the retreat were particularly fabulous, but there was like, particularly fabulous people that and I could not believe some of the things they were saying to themselves, like some of them like genuinely shocked me. And I find with the people who are you talk not in any way. You know, we talk about psychology or anything like that, but I’ve coached people through business. People say the same things like If not like the 72 stories, usually there’s probably about five or six on a continuous rotation, just saying the same things yourself. And I have found it very helpful to write them down. And then the next week, I write them down and the next week, and it’s the same bloody thing. So we tend to get on a bit of a loop sometimes as well, don’t we?
Katrina Alilovic
Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, I mean, we can all choose, there’s not just one way to, you know, work towards wholeness or healing. But obviously, you know, I’m biased towards people, therapy, you know, like, as a process, but lots of other ways. But, you know, people can work through, you know, those things, whether it be via their business, and with a particularly good business coach, who’s conscious of like, willing to bring that in? To some extent, yeah. But yeah, I’ve just forgotten where I was going.
Kate Toon
No, it’s challenging, because as you know, you’re coming from the kind of psychology side, I’m coming from the business side. But the two are very much intellect, because you also work with kind of female entrepreneurs and people who are doing business. And so, you know, like, for me on the business, I was just talking to my mastermind as this morning and every single person was a bit like, life’s been really tough recently, I’ve got this happening this week with my kid and this child is sick, and I’ve got to take it. You know what, I just can’t get the momentum in my business. And I’m like that, that why do you have your business in the first place? Like it’s it is to support your own sense of, Well, you know, need and then your own need for like, self realisation and all of that. But mainly, if you go back to your original why it was you wanted a business that would work with your family? Well, here’s an opportunity for your business to work with your family, Aren’t you lucky that you can just take it and go and deal with these things. And yes, the business will suffer a little bit for a bit. But then next week, you’ll have a great run. And then next week, you won’t have and I think the biggest part for me of this whole six figures in school hours notion is accepting that we’re here for the long game. And that we need to have patience. And we need to allow space to for both the parenting side and the business side to kind of couple up together and realize that no one’s gonna neither side is going to win. Like it’s gonna do you know what I mean? Like, it’s not a battle. It’s not making a battle between your parenting and your businessing try and make them buddies in the same way that we want to buddy up with our inner critic, right? Just
Katrina Alilovic
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think, you know, as I’m reading your book, I’m feeling the comfort, you know, like, I think you are really distilling that there is no value in being harsh with yourself. Yeah, you have to get things done. But you don’t have to be harsh. Yeah,
Kate Toon
It’s funny, because I, you know, I’m a big believer in pushing myself out to the breaking point. Like, I think, you know, people like all good things happen outside the comfort zone. And I’m like, Really, 80% of my time is pretty comfortable. You know, maybe once in a while, I’ll push myself out. But we don’t need to live in a constant state of stress and cortisol. And it’s, you know, constantly driving ourselves to do bigger and better, unless we really understand why we’re doing that, like to what end, and I talk in the book about CV life and resume resume life and eulogy life, which is not my, my idea is a great TED talk, we came up with it. But you know, what, I don’t want this the end of the day is people to go okay, you know, she sold this many books, and she was really good unmuting her zoom quickly. So going at that, you know, you want to be a great friend, a great mom, a great daughter, a great partner, great person. And it’s really easy to lose sight of that in business. So I was gonna ask you some other questions, but I just wanted to do think, what advice do you have for somebody that is feeling that kind of that cognitive dissonance between I remember, and I’m a business owner, do you think turning off external influences is helpful? Because one thing that’s helped me, for example, is to stop following people who trigger the crap out of me like, Yes, I believe we need to sit with the feelings, but we don’t need to set ourselves off every bloody day. So do you find that that helps like reducing the amount of triggers or things that get you upset? Yeah,
Katrina Alilovic
Absolutely. The, the, I think the thing that you’re talking about is creating enough safety, you know, so that you feel, you know, emotionally physically, there’s a sense of safety in and that’s that it’s all going to be okay. And but many of us are running on fear. And we lived with it for so long like that, that that just feels like what normally is, which is unfortunate. So yes, the one of the things that I do in my work all the time with people and anyone who deals with groups will be doing doing this is you’re working on achieving a level of safety. You’re like it being safe to come down. And so you know, going back to the drinking alcohol, it’s like, we don’t need to feel safe to do that. It just becomes a habit and not to, you know, take any white thing away from, you know, the IT drinking alcohol is not inherently, you know, bad. But when it becomes an overuse strategy, you’re, you’re not going through the process of setting the conditions so that you begin to feel safe that you can come back, you know, to your body that it’s okay to pause. When you’re in that constant state of fight or flight. It’s well done. It burns out your body and you interact like you interpret things in the world, like people’s facial expressions. In a certain way.
Kate Toon
Yeah, yeah. Everything starts to feel a bit bleak. Yeah. And again, not dissing the alcohol. I think when it’s your only tool in your emotional talk, it’s not great. Do you know what I mean? Like what it’s, it’s the only thing you’ve got to feel good to feel bad feel sucked. And thank you for that. I don’t think it was great. And that was my situation. And I think the thing you mentioned there about it becomes a natural state, I talk in the book, I don’t think from a financial point of view, feast and famine is something we need to accept in business and something we’ve been talked told, Oh, as a freelancer, it’s going to be great one month and not great. The next like, I think you can create some continuous equilibrium there. But I think as well, for a long time, I mistook what essentially was stress for excitement. wasn’t exciting. I was just stressed crap. Do you know what I mean? And I’m stuck contentment for boredom. And now I’ve really learned to appreciate that. I am. I mean, this is literally I am working towards keeping myself safe, as much as possible. Not like, yeah, it’s still going to jump out of a plane and do whatever. But in my day to day, why put myself in situations that I find genuinely awful, you know, straightaway, I can build up to that I can build up to speaking on stage in front of 600 people, but I don’t need to do that from the get go. Maybe I’ll just try and do a few Facebook Lives before I take that step. But I think business pushes ourselves to do these big things, dream big up level, hire a staff member, get some offices, do you know, because that’s what you do. And you don’t need to do any of that? Like, why I think it’s the question. I’m babbling a little bit now. But that makes sense. Yeah.
Katrina Alilovic
Well, one thing leads to another, doesn’t it? It’s a big topic. And yeah, it is when you deal with when you’re talking to people who are, you know, when you get an insight into how much they’re grappling with? Yeah. So you just want to, yeah, you want to do something to ease that? And, you know, I think that was really like, the, in the beginning of your book, you talked about that. You The reason that you wrote the book is to ease, like distill some of that learning. And because you see how much angst and distress, you know, people are actually living with? And that’s it and a sense, it doesn’t have to be that way. Yeah. And, and obviously, when people are in that place, they don’t think that anyway out. Yeah. Often it’s a crisis or something that happens to kind of shift. But if there’s a chance that, you know, you’ve heard this message, you know, a few times it’s like, yeah, okay, maybe, maybe it doesn’t have to get worse before it gets better.
Kate Toon
Yeah, like burnout isn’t the end of this. I’ve had a few people come back to me and say, Oh, I feel seen I feel really seen by your book, which is obviously a huge, lovely, fabulous thing to hear. But I think the other thing for me is realizing that I have yet to meet one person who doesn’t feel like this. I am yet to actually talk to someone who says, Yeah, you know what, I think I’ve got perfect balance. And I’m a great mom. And I’m great. Really, I haven’t I have not met and I’ve talked to I talked to, as I just said a bit on this book tore up to 300 people, and not one of them has said, Yeah, I got it sorted. And I you know, a lot of people will be like, Yeah, I’ve worked out strategies, I’ve got ways of doing things. I don’t do this anymore. You know, I don’t follow this particular person because they visit not not their fault, but I feel bad when I look at their stuff, they’re not doing nothing, but they just get on my tits. And I don’t know why. It’s like it’s okay to not follow everybody. It’s okay not to log into LinkedIn every day, it’s okay. To equally on the flip side, it’s okay to miss canteen duty and you don’t have to turn up to every splashathon, and your kid probably won’t remember any of that anyway, but you will beat yourself up for years about it. So it’s such a difficult one. And
Katrina Alilovic
I just think with that, you know, as a parent, like, what do you want for your kids? You know, like, I think to myself, I don’t want my kids to be laden with that, you know, like, so if I’m thinking that that’s a like a reasonable or acceptable, that’s just how it is. You know, I have to you know, pull myself in all those directions. I do not want them.
Kate Toon
Are you modeling for your kids? Yeah, yeah. And
Katrina Alilovic
even not thinking about it as I just wouldn’t want that for them. So why would I want that for me?
Kate Toon
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there’s again, you know, as I said, I live by Instagram memes I have no shame about it’s a lot cheaper than Therapy. You there’s a little meme where it’s like a little, have a little picture of yourself as a little kid and try saying all the stuff to them. Do you know what I mean? That little innocent being that was just trying to get on, you know, I think it is so important to just be gentler on ourselves to be a bit more patient to realize we do have time, and also that no one’s looking. No one’s no one cares. You know, like you think you’re impressing people. But most people aren’t impressed. They’re too busy about worrying about their own stuff. Yeah, gosh, we could talk about this all day, but we won’t. You offer all kinds of services DD telehealth and online stuff.
Katrina Alilovic
Fantastic. I like to have a balance between having people in the room and and mentally and telehealth,
Kate Toon
yeah. Nice mix to be able to offer that too. Yeah,
Katrina Alilovic
I just, you know, wanted to say like, we’re encouraging that self compassion, you know, being gentler with yourself. Typically, when people try and start out with this blokes will come up, things will come up, like with a vengeance around how strongly they object to, you know, really strong reasons why it’s not a good idea. So I just would encourage, like, watch out for that. And, you know, there’s some, that’s just part of the work is getting through those blocks, supporting yourself to work with those blocks, rather than stopping at the blocks and thinking, Oh, well, I’ll just continue,
Kate Toon
as yes, yeah, no, I get what you’re saying. And I, you know, even through the process of writing the book, I identified some blocks of my own, do you I mean, have I gotten over them yet? Not quite what a mine is that inability to relax and spend, as I just said, My son went off to the cinema. And I had no idea what to do as myself, because I’m so used to a routine and regularity and doing that I’m not very good at being. And that’s something that I’m working on. So it’s anyway, fascinating topic. Where can we find out more about you, Katrina?
Katrina Alilovic
I’ve got a link on a Facebook page.
Kate Toon
Great.
Katrina Alilovic
That people can find me on. Yeah,
Kate Toon
we’re working on Katrina’s website and lead magnets in the digital marketing collective, she will soon have all of that, that I’ve been ready with an email nurture sequence and a lead magnet, it’s coming. But she’s prioritizing her children at the moment. So you can all just wait because the world will wait. Katrina it’s always an absolute delight to talk to you. Thank you for your time today.
Katrina Alilovic
Oh fab, thank you.
Kate Toon
Oh, that was a long one. I’m sorry. I like to keep these short. I just couldn’t stop talking. I love that topic. And I love talking to somebody who genuinely understands this because you know, I love a bit of pop psychology. But I don’t know much about this. So it’s thrilling to have Katrina on the show. If you enjoyed that episode, I would love you to head into the misfit entrepreneur community and talk about, you know what kind of feelings that brought up or anything you’d like to share with the other busy business parents in there. That would be great. And if you did enjoy it, feel free to leave a five star rating and review wherever you’re listening to this. Remember, you can buy a copy of the book now on my website, Amazon booktopia all over the shop. And if you want to follow along with the journey of the book, you can go to Instagram at six figures in school hours. So until next time, happy juggling and remember, the world will wait
