In this episode, Andrew and Barbara talk with empowerment coach Pat Honiotes about self-love, setting healthy boundaries, and processing tough emotions.
Note: This podcast was originally hosted on Barbara La Pointe’s website, which has since gone offline. I’ve reposted the episodes here so people still have access to the materials.
Transcript
Andrew Folkler: Welcome everyone to another episode of Broken Families, where we host conversations on divorce, parental alienation, and high conflict relationships. My name is Andrew Folkler.
Barbara La Pointe: And I’m Barbara La Pointe. Today we are going to discuss empowerment. How do you bounce back when you hit rock bottom? And who better to lead this conversation than our friend Pat. Pat is an internationally recognized empowerment coach. She specializes in setting up healthy boundaries and challenging the stories that we tell ourselves, and really complete personal honesty. She is the author of the book The Practical Guide to Figuring Yourself Out: How to Go from Stuck to Star in Your Life. So without further ado, welcome Pat.
Pat Honiotes: Good morning. Thank you. It’s fun to be here. I appreciate that.
Barbara La Pointe: It’s honor to have you here. Can you tell us a little bit more, just open up to your practice, empowerment coaching, and becoming the nucleus of your life. What’s that about, Pat?
Pat Honiotes: This is a bit new, become the nucleus of your own life. It’s not new to me. I’ve been working with it for about a year, but it’s so critical to everything as far as I’m concerned. Y’all are familiar with the nucleus of a cell, right? And that’s where the opportunity for growth is. That’s the opportunity for health, and staying in that nucleus is critical. It’s critical to have our lives roll the way we want it to roll. So I liken it to, have you ever seen the big wagon wheels with the hub in the middle, and then you’ve got the spokes coming out, right? And as long as that hub is central and taking charge, the wheel just rolls along and everything is smooth. But as soon as we leave that and start going out on one of those spokes, to any kind of thing that takes us away from centering on ourselves, then that wheel gets wonky and you’re gonna get woop, woop. It’s just not gonna roll right, okay? And when I say this to some people they say, “Well, isn’t that selfish or self-centered?” My answer to that is no because you can’t give what you don’t have. So if you’re not centered on yourself and let that run your life, you’re not giving all that you can give anyway. So whatever program I’m working in with someone, that’s the idea is to keep them centered and grounded in their nucleus so that they can give more, so they can have a more of a contribution. And it’s really about putting a stake in the ground for them until they can put a stake in the ground for themselves and having their back when they fall. Letting them know that they’re not alone.
Andrew Folkler: And the selfish part, it reminds me of when you’re on an airplane and those air masks come down, you gotta put yours on first before you put it on your kids, because if you’re not there and well enough to take care of them, then you’re hurting both yourself and them.
Pat Honiotes: Yes, perfectly. Perfect example. And the thing is sometimes some of my ladies try to, what I call fake it, which means they’re all sympathetic and empathetic with their clients or with their family, but not with themselves. And so then that is only a facsimile of care and understanding and that kind of thing.
Barbara La Pointe: The question that emerges for me, Pat, is, how is it that sometimes it’s so challenging or so difficult? Why don’t we fill our own cup up first or put our own air mask on first? ‘Cause sometimes we don’t.
Pat Honiotes: Oh, absolutely. I run into a lot of that. I work with some very powerful women entrepreneurs, and they’re still not doing that. I just say, “Think how fast or how much you can contribute if you do that.” It’s usually a pattern, meaning we’ve been taught, especially as women... I’m 74 so I remember this from way back, being taught that it’s our job to give, to nurture, to quote sacrifice in order to take care of our loved ones, in order to take care of our responsibilities. So it starts out as a pattern, and then it gets into the place where it’s how we’ve survived. It’s how we’ve made ourselves useful. And so it doesn’t occur to us to put ourselves center many times. And when it does, it brings up a lot of feelings and emotions around it like, “Oh my God, I feel guilty,” or, “I shouldn’t do that,” or, “I should have put them first.” So it’s that repeated pattern. Here’s the thing. One of my thoughts is the reason why we don’t put ourselves first is also the reason why we don’t set boundaries. And I’m willing to say 98% of the time it’s because we don’t want to have to feel and experience what we need to feel and experience when we do that, i.e. the guilt feelings, the shame, all of that kind of... People don’t wanna feel.
Barbara La Pointe: So what do we get when we deeply feel? What possibility is there in diving into feeling? ‘Cause what I hear you saying is we don’t feel, so we’re suppressing it. We’re not expressing it. We’re turning to alcohol, we’re turning to TV, we’re turning to addictions on our phone, whatever it is that’s distracting us from feeling it. Am I on the right track here?
Pat Honiotes: You are absolutely on the right track. When we don’t feel, or when we selectively feel, and that’s another topic, we’re cutting out at least 50% of our learning and our awareness, okay? So I absolutely say, use your brain, use your intellect, but 50% of your learning, 50% of your growth comes from experience, and feeling is an experience. So you may get the top surface of a story or the top surface of a potential problem, but you’re not getting into the real learning part of it. Intellectual understanding very rarely solves a problem or causes a change in behavior. So when we’re willing to, when I work with my business women, they all get all up skittled. “You gotta feel in your business,” ‘cause we’ve been taught, men and women, that you don’t ever bring feelings into your work, right? That’s just not, do not become emotional. And the whole point about that is it’s impacting our work, it’s impacting our lives, whether we admit to the feeling or endure the feeling or feel the feeling or not. The impact is still there. So we lose awareness. In willing to feel, well, we’re making ourselves vulnerable, which, that’s not a whole lot of fun to do, right? But you get so much more information. You also get a richness or you bring a richness to your life that wasn’t there before. When you’re willing to feel the uncomfortable parts as much as the fun parts, there’s a real balance there. You open up a whole new venue for yourself.
Barbara La Pointe: Wow. How do you know when you’ve come out the other side and you’ve felt it all through? That’s a question I really want to know, because I’ll use myself in this as an example that I feel a lot. If you ask me to cry something out, well, I can really cry. But when have you felt it out and you come out the other side to those gifts that you were saying or asking.
Pat Honiotes: For us? And that’s a great question because there’s a difference between really feeling the feeling and getting the learning from it, and expressing the feeling. When you’re crying it out and can just cry and cry, that’s you expressing the feeling. And then usually what happens with people, then they’re done with it. They think they’re done and they shut it down. “Okay, I cried it out. All’s good.” Probably not. Because we think we’re finished, and it’s about being willing to sit in that experience or that feeling long enough to really get it in your guts.
Barbara La Pointe: Huge point of difference that you just created for us, Pat. Wow.
Pat Honiotes: And in that sitting in the experience is where you get the learning. Now I’m not telling you not to express the feeling. Cry, go on a rant, beat a pillow on the bed if you need to, but just know that’s not the end. That’s not the end. There’s more juice there for you.
Barbara La Pointe: That really deepened it. And so one of the things that I heard you say is that we get to tap into awareness when we do this.
Pat Honiotes: Yes. I also have this thing that I call the awareness paradigm, is that you can’t do anything about anything if you’re not aware that it’s going on. Right? So if you’re not aware that there’s more to feelings than expressing them or crying it out, what are you gonna do? We don’t go looking for something that we don’t know we’ve lost. Right? So you don’t know to go into it deeper and experience it. So for me, everything’s about awareness, getting that awareness first, about anything actually.
Andrew Folkler: How do you go about building that awareness considering how do you describe colors to a blind man, how do you describe sound, music to a deaf person? It seems like it would be such a huge challenge to try and really get that experience, especially if there’s underlying traumas or frustrations that lead to, you could say inhibiting our perception.
Pat Honiotes: Yep. So you brought up a couple of really great points. Yeah, if there’s trauma there, and I work with people and trauma a lot, it’s like, “Oh, hell no, I am not going there. I’ve been there, done that. Forget that noise.” Right? This is another part that comes in. Human beings are meant to collaborate. Human beings were not meant to be lone rangers. Okay? And so the way you can begin to have that awareness, I do that a lot with my people, get some support around it. Okay? It can be as simple as me saying to my daughter, “Please, please remind me if you see me swearing in front of your daughter.” Okay? I don’t have an awareness that I’m doing that. It’s kind of a silly example, but sometimes we need that outside person to call it to our attention with love, not with a pointy finger or that kind of thing. When you start getting into some of the trauma stuff, that’s where you really need some support because it can re-trigger some of those feelings. Okay? Some of the things that the internal stuff that was going on during the trauma. The one way I address that with my people is, first off, you need to listen. You need to let them get it out of their system so they feel seen and heard. And then it’s about having people understand that when that trauma happened, you didn’t have the skills and the ability and the resources that you have now. And so sometimes, Andre, it’s a matter of really taking the time to point things out in a loving way, and then support that person while they’re going through it, and have them understand they will come out the other side. Did that make sense, that process?
Andrew Folkler: It absolutely does, and in fact, it reminds me of a psychological concept known as the Johari window. Basically, it’s a matrix where the top side would be what I know about myself, what I don’t know about myself, followed by what people know about me and what people don’t know about me. So it creates four nice little boxes.
Andrew Folkler: What I know and what they know about me, what I know, what they don’t know about me. What I don’t know but what they know about me, and what I don’t know and they don’t know. And the whole idea is it’s moving things from those boxes into what you know and what they know about you, so that way there’s a greater clarity, a greater understanding. So that way not only your community understands and loves you better for who you are, but we are able to do that for ourselves as well.
Pat Honiotes: Absolutely. I’m not familiar with that particular theory. I like it. I’m gonna look it up so I can learn more about it. And I think I would add another box, and I don’t even know if it would fit, but what popped into my mind is, and what I can discover about myself.
Andrew Folkler: I would go so far as to say that’s what would be in the I don’t know section of them, considering the one that has the most mystery is the what my friends don’t know about me and what I don’t know about me. And that would be the greatest mystery, but it’s a fascinating concept, and a lot of it really rang true with what you were saying.
Pat Honiotes: Here’s what’s intriguing me now about what you said, is what I don’t know about me and what my friends don’t know about me, we have ways of knowing that and finding out what it is.
Andrew Folkler: That’s incredible.
Pat Honiotes: Yeah, isn’t that amazing? ‘Cause here’s the thing. You’re getting me wound up, and see, I love this stuff. Is that everything that’s ever happened to us is recorded in the subconscious part of our mind, at least from conception, if not before, depending on you, but it’s all there. And under certain circumstances and with certain techniques, it is recallable, especially if there’s a reason why you need to know that. And I’m not gonna tell you it’s always, “Oh, you just need to know, so it pops into your head.” No. When there’s a reason to know that, you can get there, and there’s some things, well, I don’t wanna go into the whole detailed thing, but there are ways to tap into the subconscious part of your mind that you can get those answers. And if you’re looking for something really deep or even something really traumatic, probably you can’t go there by yourself because, of course, our minds protect us from things that we’re not able to handle, but it’s still recallable, and you can use it. Once you get that, and it may be a matter of dealing with whatever that thing was or the trauma it caused, but then you can use it. I’ll give you an example of that. I’m board-certified medical hypno-analyst, so this was a two-year internship and all of that. I had a client at one point, a young lady that came into the office and was not able to have sex with her husband, and it seemed like all of a sudden something had been triggered, and what they said to me is, “I think it has something to do with the fact that she was raped when she was 13.” So we dug into that, and come to find out the part that she forgot about that was that it was not one person that raped her. It was a gang rape, so there were six or seven guys. That changed the whole picture because she was going, “I should have been able to stop it. I should have been...” But when you’re talking one-on-one, that’s maybe one thing, but when you’re talking six on one, come on. So what she could do then, how she used that, was to rid herself of the guilt that she had because she couldn’t stop it and had brought it along with her now that it wasn’t okay to enjoy sex because she didn’t stop it before. But that’s something she didn’t know, she had completely wiped out. So yeah, there’s ways to get to that.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. That’s a very powerful example.
Pat Honiotes: And that doesn’t mean, “Okay, I got it. I understand it,” and she was off and running. There’s repair work to do and all of that, but that awareness of anything is so critical, I think.
Barbara La Pointe: I thought you raised, or you are raising a good point sometimes that we do need support and we can’t do it alone, and we can find our blind spots with someone like yourself, a partner or coach can help us feel safe to access those awarenesses or blind spots that we don’t see or traumas that are still activated in our magnetic fields, for example.
Pat Honiotes: And it doesn’t always have to be something that traumatic.
Pat Honiotes: Okay? It can just be a... I just did it, by the way. My coach, and by the way, I think every coach should have a coach. I won’t work with a coach that doesn’t have their own coach. Good. I’m coming off on another tangent there.
Pat Honiotes: I just called to my attention that, “Pat, you don’t finish your sentences. You get on a roll and you start and you don’t finish the sentence. Please...” And I didn’t even realize that I did that until he called to my attention to it a couple of times, which is why I could see it when I just did it with you guys. I didn’t... And the thing is awareness always gives you choice. Okay? You can choose. It gives you the place to choose.
Barbara La Pointe: Choice is better than no choice.
Pat Honiotes: Well, yeah, because then you’re taking responsibility for yourself and your own life. One of the things I hate, I will tell you though, is when people say, “Well, they have a choice.” No, sometimes we don’t, even though we think we should. We don’t know what trauma has happened to somebody that took away their choice. Does that make sense?
Barbara La Pointe: Absolutely. It’s very compassionate as well.
Andrew Folkler: And sometimes even the circumstances of the available choices, it might be a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of situation.
Pat Honiotes: Yes. And that’s a place where then you can go into more... You’re always dealing with that underlying trauma that caused that, but when you’re aware that damned if you do and damned if you don’t, this is gonna sound kind of cavalier and I don’t mean it that way, but I’ll say to my client, “Pick one.”
Pat Honiotes: And whatever happens, we’ll deal with it, because not making a choice is making a choice. And so it sounds kind of have to say, “Pick one already,” and then we go from there.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. I agree with that.
Pat Honiotes: And sometimes that’s hard.
Barbara La Pointe: I just think if you’re empowered to make a choice, you can always choose differently after, too. And when I got that deep down, then it freed me up to just move forward and make choices.
Pat Honiotes: Yes. And again, the thing that stops us from making a choice is we wanna feel that it’s right, and it’s good, and it’s the right one. And we don’t like dealing with the feelings that might come up if it doesn’t work out. Or it all goes back to this feelings thing. We don’t wanna feel uncomfortable feelings.
Pat Honiotes: I know it sounds really simple, and I’ve had, “But it can’t be as simple as that.” Yeah, it is as simple as that, it’s just not necessarily easy to work with it. But if you think about it, I think that’s pretty much the primary underlying thing we don’t wanna feel.
Andrew Folkler: That is true. So what if we flip the script and say you want to try and work with somebody, but they don’t wanna feel? We see this a lot with children who are estranged from their parents, where the parent is just constantly trying to reach out, and whatever they’re doing is not working. And now that’s a total tangential bit as far as what can they do better, but just in general when these parents, they’re trying to reach out to somebody who doesn’t wanna feel, how can they work with that frustration of not feeling good enough?
Pat Honiotes: It comes back to the individual again. So first of all, be willing to feel what you’re feeling without taking it out on yourself or the kid, right?
Pat Honiotes: So I will tell you that my daughter was estranged from me, didn’t speak to me for six years, okay? And it wasn’t the same thing about alienation. It was a thing between us. The worst thing I could have done was to keep going to her to try to get her to talk to me. ‘Cause what we all do, but kids especially, and dig their heels in. “You can’t make me, and I’m not going to.” So that’s one aspect, is to give them some space and time. And the other thing I would say is when she finally did call me, was to listen without judgment or criticism. Because they’re having their experience that we can’t possibly know what’s going on. And the age of the child makes a difference. But within yourself, you know what kind of a parent you are. You know what’s going on. You’re not gonna convince that child of it, okay? Especially if they’re getting information from another side. So it’s about listening and giving them space without it being detrimental to give them that space. And then it comes back to the parent, which is, be careful within yourself that you don’t start blaming yourself. Keep clear about what you know the truth to be, and make sure it’s the truth, right? Some of the people that I’ve worked with around this, they are hearing so much about how bad they were or they’re not a good mother, that you know what? I don’t care how empowered you are, that can start to mess with your mind, and you go, “Well, maybe I’m not. Okay, maybe I did screw up.” And that’s when I say, get some support that can keep you in tune with the truth of yourself. It’s also a time when I don’t know that I’d necessarily go to a friend for that support, because my friend’s gonna be on my side, right? That’s just bottom line. So that’s a time when... And I did, actually, was to go for support to a professional that could see clearly and had no skin in the game. But it’s also about being willing to feel those feelings. It just comes down to that ‘cause then you don’t shut down and mess yourself up.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. I think that’s part of the great irony. You got a lot of parents out there that don’t wanna feel their own feelings, so they’re repressing it, and then at the same time expecting their estranged loved ones to open up.
Pat Honiotes: Yes. And who wants to feel like you’re a terrible parent, okay? And that possibility’s gonna come up when they start talking with you, right? It’s also easy to get defensive, and then we all know what that ends up with.
Barbara La Pointe: But basically what I hear you saying, Pat, is, ‘cause we do have so many parents that inquire how, “What can I do to heal our relationship with my child, my relationship with my child?” Is you’re asking us to listen non-judgmentally.
Pat Honiotes: Yes. That is the whole key. I have this thing, drop all judgments, opinions, beliefs, expectations, and rules, and life is a breeze.
Andrew Folkler: Unconditional positive regard is what I’m hearing from this.
Andrew Folkler: Good old Carl Rogers.
Pat Honiotes: Love me some Carl Rogers. ‘Cause as soon as you judge it, you’re making them wrong and you right. By the way, judgment isn’t just about, oh, you’re bad and terrible. When we think someone’s good and wonderful, that’s also a judgment. And sometimes we get stuck in the negative parts. So know that it’s all judgment, and just stay out of it and just let it be what it, you know what else, guys? Around feelings. Stop judging the feelings as right, wrong, good, or bad. They’re just feelings.
Barbara La Pointe: I think that you just hit the nail with the hammer on the head or whatever that saying is, because I just am impelled to say, well, how can we? How can we reach a state where we’re more neutral, non-judgmental, less triggered? And because...
Pat Honiotes: First step is always awareness, right? So if I’m aware I’m being judgmental, that’s step number one. Step number two then is sitting with, “Oh my God, I’m judgmental.”
Barbara La Pointe: Even judging our own feelings as those feelings are talking in our head.
Pat Honiotes: Yes, ma’am. And then we start feeling judgmental because we’re judgmental. It can turn into a vicious circle, right? So yeah, it’s always awareness, and then it’s saying, “Okay, I think,” or whatever, “I’m depressed and I shouldn’t feel depressed.” And I go, “Is there something wrong with being depressed?” “Well, I just don’t wanna feel that way.” I hear you and I understand that, but you are. So the second one then is accepting where you’re at. If we keep fighting, “Oh, I’m depressed. I don’t wanna be depressed. I’m gonna...” All it does is pounding it in harder, right? So it’s awareness that you’re accepting that you’re depressed, experiencing beyond your brain that you’re depressed. Again, that’s really sitting in that feeling of depression for a few minutes. I’m not gonna tell you to wallow in it for a week, right? But really getting a sense of that, and then reclaim your power around it. So if I’m sitting in this depression and just wallowing in it, I’m probably gonna stay in bed. I’m not gonna get dressed. I’m not gonna... Start with then a choice. There’s where the awareness gives you choice. And choose one step, one tiny thing you can do, a step at a time. That’s how you work with whatever it is, whether it’s depression or whatever it is. If I’m judgmental about my neighbor, I don’t know, my neighbor doesn’t mow his lawn regularly, and that’s bad. That’s really judgmental. And the thing is he just doesn’t mow his lawn regularly. What’s getting you up skittle is the judgment that you have that it should be neat and trimmed at all times. I give goofy examples because it’s easier to see. Does that make sense?
Andrew Folkler: Yeah, definitely. And judgments are always things outside of our control.
Pat Honiotes: Ooh, say more about that. What do you mean by that?
Andrew Folkler: Well, I’m mad because my neighbor won’t mow his lawn. Maybe you could argue, well, I could just go and mow his lawn for him. But what I am really upset about is that he himself is not acting in a way that I want this neighbor to act like.
Pat Honiotes: Yes. Perfect. Yes, exactly. You should do what I think you should do and behave the way I think you should behave. That’s out of your control. You’re absolutely right. By the way, I have this idea that control is an illusion anyway. I don’t think there is such a thing as control. We like to think there is, but really, come on.
Andrew Folkler: You’re absolutely right there.
Barbara La Pointe: Pat, I’m gonna invite you now to talk to us about boundaries, personal boundaries. Because I’ve noticed that many of us human beings struggle with this concept of boundaries. And I get the feeling you might have something to say about personal boundaries.
Pat Honiotes: Oh, I love my boundaries. I teach courses in it. And by the way, I’ve got an e-book that we can send out to people, too, but that’s another thing right now. First of all, it’s awareness again, okay? You have to be aware that you need to set a boundary. What’s gonna bring that up for you? And you’re gonna love this one, too, because it goes back to feelings. The biggest reason why we don’t set boundaries is because we don’t wanna feel what we might have to feel when we have to reinforce them, okay? And it’s like, “I don’t wanna hurt their feelings, and they might be mad,” all of that. But first, all right, so recognize that you need them. Determine exactly what the boundary is. Be specific. So it might be something like, “I don’t want you to call me names anymore.” And? It’s, “Please stop calling me a stinker.” Do you see the difference? Be specific. All right? And then determine the exact consequences of that person not honoring the boundary is.
Pat Honiotes: And the thing is you got to let them know about it. I actually had someone in one of my classes say, “Well, do I tell them I’ve set the boundary?” I go, “Yeah, because otherwise, how are they gonna know?” You don’t just bounce up one day. So then it goes like this. I call it the if you, I will trick or technique, okay? If you call me a stinker again, I will end the conversation. Now, that means I either hang up my phone or I what... That may not be your boundary, but you want it to be that specific.
Pat Honiotes: And be that... Be.
Barbara La Pointe: How clear.
Barbara La Pointe: That’s very clear and strong.
Pat Honiotes: Now, here’s what comes into play here. You have to be willing to follow through on the boundary or on the consequences of the boundary. If you’re not willing to follow through on the consequences of the boundary, don’t set the boundary in the first place. ‘Cause if they cross the boundary and you don’t enforce the consequences, you see my point? They’re just going to keep doing it. I promise you, you’ll be tested.
Pat Honiotes: And remember, there’s consequences for you as well, even when you set the boundary and honor the boundary. Setting boundaries is a walk in the park. It’s the honoring them. And here’s the thing: when we honor them, nobody else has a choice. As long as we’re willing to put the consequences in place, they have a choice of honoring the boundary or taking the consequences. And you have to do the consequences no matter how it makes you feel. Otherwise, that just leads into being a people pleaser, right? Letting people walk right over you. Bam.
Pat Honiotes: So that’s how you set those boundaries. Setting them is a piece of cake. It’s the honoring them that the thing comes in. And that’s where you may need some support. Like, “Oh, I set the boundary with my daughter and now she’s mad at me. I feel so guilty.” Yeah, well, still do the consequences. If you need to talk it out or feel it out with someone, do that.
Barbara La Pointe: It just sounds so beautifully simple when we’re talking about it here. But I really notice that women struggle with this concept of boundaries. It’s elusive, it’s challenging, or they’ve had a history of not setting boundaries and living out the consequences of not strong boundaries, personal boundaries.
Pat Honiotes: And all that you’re saying is absolutely true. It does sound really simple here. I’m gonna tell you, it is that simple. You notice I didn’t say easy. Because if you’ve been doing this for years, or not doing it for years, you’re breaking a pretty strong pattern, right? You’re not only breaking a habit, but you’re also having to deal with all this stuff that comes up inside. All right? Setting boundaries can be threatening to people inside of themselves because we make up all this stuff that might... “Well, if I set a boundary with my boss, he might fire me. The last time I set a boundary, someone spread bad rumors about me.” And it can be even more serious than that. So the idea, the concept, is really simple. But it’s not easy when you start implementing it. And so it’s difficult and it’s challenging because we don’t realize all the stuff we have to deal with to be able to do it. People just, “Oh, set a boundary. Okay, right.” And now we get to deal with all the stuff underneath it, and that’s... I’m a big proponent of that. And the reward is there, as far as I’m concerned.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. And you feel more empowered at the end, after you work through those emotions and after you work through any frustrations or the what ifs, the should’ve, would’ve, could’ves and all of that. And then you feel more empowered at the end, recognizing that where you would be if you hadn’t honored that boundary would be a far less pleasant state.
Pat Honiotes: And as you feel more empowered, like you said, and you do, it’s easier to set the boundary the next time because you’re more empowered. And so it just keeps building on that and building on that. It’s about that feeling of empowerment. Absolutely.
Barbara La Pointe: Pat, this is your interview. What would you like to talk about next? Something maybe that you’re passionate about in your work, something that shows up in your practice, something that’s relevant to our audience. What’s our next step today, Pat?
Pat Honiotes: I have a passion for... Let me start out this way. I have a firm belief that every single person on this earth has a birthright of dignity and respect. Bottom line, no exceptions to that. I don’t care who they are or what they’ve done. And so one of my big things is having every person I work with or having every person I come in contact with able to call on that dignity and respect for themselves. So I work a lot with people who have been dismissed and disregarded. I’ll tell you a little story. I had a sister that was born severely mentally retarded, and that was in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, so that’s the term that we used then. And I saw how her and her peers were dismissed and disregarded. I just don’t stand for that. I’ve got a stake in the ground for people that don’t have a choice. And then as I grew older, I started teaching those kids when I was 12. I started seeing it wasn’t just those that were mentally or physically handicapped, it’s people... I taught high school at an inner city school, and to see the way the known gang members were disregarded and disrespected by teachers and counselors, that does not sit with me. And what I discovered is that some of those kids were some of the best people I’ve ever known, the best people I’ve ever had the opportunity to hang around with. They didn’t have the power to put the stake in the ground for themselves, so I helped them do that. Okay? There’s so many gifts. One of my mentally handicapped kids in high school turned into this artist, and just, so it’s stuff like that. I’m 74, so I live in a senior community now, and I see how some of the residents here are disregarded. They’re just those old people, and that just isn’t okay with me. So a sidebar to that then is when I’m doing my coaching with my people, obviously I’m not coaching these people right now, that’s my side gig, right? Is I see these people that come to me that have these gifts, talents, abilities, and are afraid to use them. And that’s a broad term. Because of the traumas they’ve been through. And so for me, it’s important to me that they reclaim those and reclaim their dignity and respect because they have the ability to do it. Does that make sense?
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely.
Pat Honiotes: So I call my people, they’re mostly rascals and renegades and odd ducks that they’ve got these weird ideas, but damn they’re good. Or they have a way of expressing that some people kinda go, “Eh.” And then they’re not your audience. But I wanna empower or have them empower themselves to speak out even though they’ve been told they think funny or they don’t know how to do this, or you’ve got really weird ideas. One of my favorite things to say to a client is, “Honey, you’re not normal, thank God.” That means you’ve got so much to give. And so those that can, I wanna do what I can to support them to do what they need to do to get back to their real selves, and to me that’s all about dignity and respect. So I wanna work with those that can but don’t, and over here, just supporting those that can’t is a side gig. So you got me off on a rant there. But I want you to see what you’ve got so that you can use it. One of my favorite sayings is I say, “I just wanna shake the shoes off of you right now.” They go, “Well, what do you mean?” I go, “Because you’ve got it, and you’ve got it, and there’s something that’s keeping you from stepping into it. So I wanna cause a little bit of a disruption so that it blows up and you can move forward.”
Barbara La Pointe: I love that.
Barbara La Pointe: Pat, you’ve used a word that I think is universally resonant for every person. You’ve used this word and it’s the word reclaim. Reclaim your power, reclaim your gifts. Talk to us about reclaiming. That word reclaiming is really resonant for me.
Pat Honiotes: It goes into that you’ve had it. It’s still there, you’ve just dismissed it or gone away from it. So it’s like, how do I explain this? Reclaim your power, for example. We all come in with our personal power intact. All right? And then due to whatever has happened, we kept giving pieces of it away, and pieces of it away. It’s time to reclaim that, ‘cause you fricking need it to do the work you’re here to do. So it’s really about you’ve had it, and now let’s go back and remember it, and bring it with us. Does that make sense?
Barbara La Pointe: Absolutely, and we so need it. We so need it to be able to access it.
Pat Honiotes: And it’s fun. When people start doing that, it’s fun for them too, and they go, “I forgot about that.” Or I’ll remind them of... I had a gal that I was working with, amazing writer. She hadn’t written in 20 or 30 years, and I said, “Do me a favor, just humor me. Just write me a short poem. We’re not gonna publish it, you don’t have to put it out there.” Next session, she came back with five, and was jumping around like a little kid, because that was something that brought her joy. It reminded her that people loved it before, so it brought her respect. So that’s the fun part of it, and it’s not always as simple as bringing back poems, but it’s what pieces of you have you given away? There you go, bam. What pieces of you have you given away that you need to reclaim? And I got a MP4 with music behind it, a visualization that can help you do that. But it’s also something you can do in your own head. And you don’t even have to know what the piece is necessarily. Just realize that we’ve all got pieces, so just visualize a piece, just for a second here, of you that you know that you’ve got missing. You may not even be able to recognize what it is, and just see it there. And then just visual that white light coming into it, bringing it back to life. I’m going quickly here, but... And then bring that piece back to you in your mind, and absorb it.
Pat Honiotes: And something just shifted in you, didn’t it?
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah, I felt like a integration. Even though it was so quick.
Pat Honiotes: Bam.
Barbara La Pointe: Bam. We’re getting a lot of bams here. Awesome.
Pat Honiotes: And so that’s a simple exercise that you can do as long as you don’t have to, “Oh, I’ve got to get this part-“ That’s a way to start. Just bring those pieces back. You know you’re out there. I get excited about this stuff. Can you tell just a little bit?
Barbara La Pointe: I love it. Similar to Tito pat, I’m gonna ask you now to bring focus to a book you’ve written called The Practical Guide to Figuring Yourself Out, ‘cause I’m still trying to figure it all out and I need to get this book. But what’s this gift that you... What’s this book, Practical Guide to Figuring Yourself Out?
Pat Honiotes: Well, I’m gonna tell you that was a book that I wrote in 2013, and my whole philosophy has changed since then. Okay? The whole idea behind that was the book takes people through this process, and it’s so intellectual. It’s a good start if you wanna stop there so you can put some things together and figure it out. What I’ve learned since then is something like this to really figure yourself out, you cannot do it alone because of the things that we talked about before, what I know, what Andrew was talking about. And so while there’s a lot of really cool basic concepts in there, like how the mind works, how... the whole awareness grid is in there and how it works and what you can... All of those are really fabulous tools, right? And I still use them.
Pat Honiotes: But the process there that to where you start trying to put it all together for yourself, first of all, it’s difficult, I’ve had my readers tell me. And second of all, I think we miss a lot of things when we try and do it ourselves. Okay? So it was a great book. I loved it, and I don’t really talk about that book anymore from the standpoint that I’ve made such a shift into people taking a more active, collaborative role. It’s also a great beginner book in terms of some of the concepts and some of the things to look at.
Barbara La Pointe: So if we find ourselves led to follow you into deeper collaboration and be more active, does that involve getting out of our comfort zone?
Pat Honiotes: Yes, absolutely. It does. In fact, part of my whole thing is I do the best I can to keep you out of your comfort zone. Because if you’re sitting in your comfort zone on the couch eating potato chips and Spam, you’re just vegging, right? If you really wanna go for it, if you really wanna move forward and better yourself, I said there needs to be some disruption. I don’t want you comfortable. I want you to be wormy and squirmy and go, “Okay, what’s the next step?” I have a friend, and she says, and her thing to her people is, “If you’re comfortable in your comfortable zone, you’re playing too small.”
Pat Honiotes: Love it. And so it’s about getting uncomfortable. Let’s see what’s out there. Let’s see what’s next.
Pat Honiotes: I call myself not the feelgood coach. When I was working on my degree in counseling, we were taught that, and this was a million years ago, I don’t know what they’re teaching now, that a client should feel better when they had left my office than when they walked in. And I’m going, “Eh?” That just makes no sense to me because that tells me that we didn’t really touch on anything. We need to get in there and root around in that stuff that’s holding you back. And so to feel better when you leave than when you walked in, not really. And sometimes it won’t be as uncomfortable as others. But yeah, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable, and maybe not feel so good when you leave, have some things ruminating in your head.
Barbara La Pointe: Very appealing. Andrew?
Andrew Folkler: You mentioned an e-book earlier. I wasn’t sure if that was the practical guide or if this is another e-book.
Pat Honiotes: That you had. No, this is. It’s only 62 pages. It’s called Hold It Right There. It’s not published. We do it through, we send people the download and all of that. If you guys want a copy of that book, all you have to do is, is it okay to say this now? Is to send an email to support@pathoniotes.com and ask them to send you a copy of the Hold It Right There book. And it’s a boundaries primer, okay? It’s a very basic thing. The secret too is you have to download it because there’s worksheets in there, and it’s a refillable PDF, and so you actually get worksheets at the end of each chapter to reinforce what’s being taught. But again, the way to get that is to support@pathoniotes.com, and just ask for it. You know what else? Request a copy of the boundaries scorecard at the same time. And what that is is you can go through and check, “Oh, yeah, here’s a boundary. Oh, I’m doing really well here. I’m doing...” It’s a way to track yourself and see how you’re doing around setting and honoring boundaries. So just ask for both of them. She’ll send them right out to you.
Barbara La Pointe: Very appealing, very resourceful. I’m gonna pose one last question for you. And I don’t know where this question is emerging from, but can you chat with us about hope? What hope might I have coming to your practice or what hope is possible for us humans? I won’t say women. For us, it’s us human beings.
Pat Honiotes: That’s a great question that I haven’t really thought about before, so thank you.
Pat Honiotes: I think we all have hope when we go to work with someone else. It’s just like, “Oh, God, please let this be the one. Please let this be the one.” That kind of thing. Hope is part of what spurs us on. Hope goes along with faith for me. The hope that it’s there, but also the faith that it’s there, trusting in that. I have people that come to me that feel hopeless. So helping them to connect with maybe that little bitty spark of hope that brought them in in the first place. There had to be some, I don’t care how small it was, there had to be something. Okay?
Pat Honiotes: We get disappointed a lot, I’m clear about that, and then the hope kind of goes down the drain. “This is just hopeless. I’m never gonna find...” I don’t know what else to say about that. If you’ve got a more specific question, I’m willing to answer it. But I wanna thank you because you’ve brought up something that I hadn’t really thought about before. I’m convinced, though, that you have to have at least a piece of it in order to seek help or to seek collaboration to begin with.
Barbara La Pointe: Very beautiful response, and very... Thank you for that course. Very valuable.
Pat Honiotes: Well, of course. Of.
Pat Honiotes: I’ll just say one more thing and then I think you guys are probably done too, is Start on your journey, because what it’s going to do, even if it’s just a tiny step at a time, it’s gonna start bringing you more what I call deep satisfaction and more fulfillment.
Pat Honiotes: And it may not be all at once. It won’t be all at once. But the more you go on that journey, the more you’re willing to look and see and embrace yourself, embrace your essence, the more deep satisfaction and fulfillment you’re gonna feel. And then in turn, you’re gonna have a bigger impact on your life as well as others.
Barbara La Pointe: Beautiful. Absolutely. Beautiful place to end our conversation today. Thank you, Pat, for that.
Pat Honiotes: You guys, thank you. This was fun for me, and this was a little bit different than most podcasts for me, so thank you for letting me just talk for a while. I feel heard, and I hope people got something out of that, so thank you to both of you.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely, and thank you for the wisdom that you brought on board. If listeners wanted to reach out to you, learn more about your practice or maybe even work with you or collaborate with you, what would be the best way for them to do so?
Pat Honiotes: Do that, send an email to the address that I gave before, support@pathoniotes.com, and we will set you up with a 30-minute strategy call, and we don’t charge for that. And in that call, we get to know each other a little bit to see if they wanna work with me or if I wanna work with them. It’s a two-way street. So the best way to do that is support@pathoniotes.com and ask to be set up for a strategy call with me.
Andrew Folkler: Right on. All righty. Well, it looks like that’s all we have time for today. Once again, everyone, thank you for taking the time to...