Break Free From Limiting Beliefs To Achieve Your Desires – Jen Ingram

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:00:05

Welcome to the D Shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get the shift started.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:00:24

Hi, and welcome to another episode of the D Shift podcast. And I have to tell you, I am super super hyped to be able to introduce the guests that we have on the show today. This is Jen, Ingram. And Jen is the a competence catalyst and business mentor. She works with female solopreneurs. And she is just a fantastic person. And Jana, I'd like to welcome you to the show. And I have to tell you something, I was so excited when I woke up this morning. I'm like, Yeah, I get to interview Jen. I have been following your Facebook page. And I love love, love your posts, they are so inspirational. So after that long introduction, Jen, tell us a little bit about yourself, and what got you started in this really fascinating and very important service you offer to people? Yeah,

Jen Ingram: 00:01:12

well, I'm super excited to be here. Um, so my name is Jen. And, as Mardi already mentioned, I'm a competence catalyst and business mentor. A little bit about me, I am a California girl. Originally, I moved to the Midwest with my family as a teenager, you can imagine that culture shock moving from California to Kansas, but I'm, here I am, you know, now really kind of, I guess living out my dream life, if you will, I now live with my college age son and my senior pit bull. And we are just a cozy family in the Midwest. And, um, yeah, it's really my passion really lies in helping women kind of come through their self awakening and breaking free from all of the societal chains, limiting beliefs that are kind of weighing them down. So they can really figure out what they really desire for a lot of them that is business of their own, and obtaining the freedom and location and financial freedom they're looking for. So that's, that's my passion.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:02:23

I love that. And I understand that whole culture shock. I came from Canada to Texas, that was a culture shock. I didn't really even understand some of the some of the phrases or language terms. So I completely relate to you. So Jen, tell us, tell me a little bit, because I think this is so important for women, um, limiting beliefs. That's a term that gets tossed around a lot. And I don't I you know, people say limiting beliefs, glass ceiling, you know, whatever they want to call it. What what, what is, what is a limiting belief? And how does it play out in our lives,

Jen Ingram: 00:03:01

the limiting beliefs are kind of those automated thoughts that we have, that we use our brain uses to keep us safe. It's probably something we learned as a child, if you think about it, you know, our family would tell us things to keep us safe, like, don't play out in the rain, you'll get sick, right? So now you have this belief, oh, goodness, if I go out in the rain, and I just have a good old time standing out in the rain one day, I might get sick, and now introduces that fear. So we've now got this limited belief, oh, if it's raining, I gotta come inside. And now we've just limited ourselves from an opportunity. I don't know if you've ever played in the rain as an adult, but I gotta tell you, it's actually pretty freakin fun. Just the kinds of things that, you know, we're told along the way, and they are intended to keep us safe. But what starts to happen is our brain starts to recognize that and, and those thoughts start to become automated. And those start to be the beliefs and the thoughts that hold us back and kind of keep us in, in playing small from doing the things that we really want to do. And so I really kind of help women break free from I call them chains and i i give kind of the Oh, the story of if you've ever seen a circus and the elephant, how do they get the elephants to stay in line follow along? Well, it starts when they're a baby elephant, they tie a chain to them. Eventually, they break the chains free after they've trained the elephant. But the elephant doesn't know the chains are no longer there. And they keep acting as though they're still chained in line performing their job, and what happens to us as women, we do that to ourselves and our own self limiting beliefs. We do that with the chains of society. Relationships, toxic relationships, stigmas, and they just kind of weigh us down and weigh us down. So, yeah, that's limiting beliefs in a nutshell.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:05:12

I love that. I love that. And I know that our topic today was going to be awakening after the dust settles. So I think that's a perfect intro to that. And, again, I think so many women, when they go through divorce, there's a lot of, you know, even if you've been divorced years ago, like I was divorced when I was in my 30s, I'm way past my 30s. Now, I'm almost double that now. So but there's still that sense of I've been divorced, like, it's, and it's not overwhelming, and I dealt with it. But I think the closer you are to when that's happened, the more those limiting beliefs are likely to come in. You know, maybe, maybe you were and this drives me crazy. When women say this, I was just a mother or I was only you know, people don't say housewife anymore. That's a little dated. But you know, I stayed at home and looked after the family. Like, that isn't a freaking job. Excuse me, that's your CEO of a company if you're doing that. So tell me a little bit about about your take on this and what you think women need to do to maybe start breaking those chains.

Jen Ingram: 00:06:14

Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly that's, that's exactly it, you know, we kind of get into those scenarios where we, we make ourselves small, I'm just a mom, or I was just a wife. Um, first of all, being any kind of stay at home mom or housewife is the toughest job in the world. I freely tell people, I stayed home, the first year, my son was born. And it got to that point, I was like, I need a job. I need a job. Because I need to get away I need the structure. I needed a job. That was the hardest job ever. Um, and so you know, really, when when I think about kind of that journey, yes, immediately following that divorce all those thoughts of like, only just been a stay at home mom, if that was your case, or, you know, whatever other limiting beliefs that kind of grew up, I like to use personal stories, because I think it makes it more relatable. So I will share a little bit about my own. You know, one of the things that, that we didn't in my relationship that I think, at the time we thought was great. was we really sat sat down together, and we said, Okay, well, what are what are our goals, obviously, it's to present our child with the best life possible better than what we had, hopefully. And in doing that, we kind of made the decision that we would have him have my ex go through college first get get a better job first, like everything was kind of focused on getting him going. And then eventually, it was going to be my turn. And what kind of happened was that really set set ourselves up in a way where he was almost more important, if you will, right. And I didn't see it at that way. At the beginning, I don't think that was either of our intentions. Um, it was truly a strategy. Um, but long story short, so you know, he continued on in his career path and schooling and education. And, and I always had this sense of, even once I was starting to get a career, his career is more important. He's smarter he has, the more better education. And so those limiting beliefs for myself, I just kept getting smaller, and smaller and smaller. And so at the point in which the relationship was toxic, and it did come to an end, I had these beliefs of all these things I couldn't do and all these things I didn't have. I didn't have the education done yet. I didn't have this great career, I didn't have you know, all these things that I thought I needed to be validated of what I was capable of. Right. Um, which is so not true, right. We're constantly kind of seeking that external validation. But that really played into you know, I think initially, I would say that first year to post divorce that really plays into the whole Well, this isn't fair. It's not fair. He gets to easily move on and you know, he you know, whether we talk about income discrepancies and what have you, it, you kind of get stuck in that. So what I like, really the pivotal moment that became for me was the moment all that dust settled, we were done with the hearings, I was done being angry, was really at a point where we were like, Okay, let's, let's just make this work for our kid. This is what we're here to do. Um, and that took a little bit of time and I sat with that for a while, because I still sat in that moment of what have I done, I've failed, right? I've failed at the relationship. I don't have a booming career I failed as a stay at home mom, I fit right all like inside kind of sat in that woe is me for quite a while. But eventually did make it to the point where I kind of sat up and woke up one day. And I realized what I had really done was created a life for myself, that really wasn't even mine. The career choice I had made, wasn't something I ever intended, it was something that was promoted to me by my ex. It was part of our plan, quote, unquote, if you will, and I started looking around and going, You know what, I'm not doing what I want to do in my my career, I'm not making the income I want to make. I'm I'm in debt still up to my ears, because I didn't even want to have to think or look at my credit post divorce, that it was terrifying for me.

Jen Ingram: 00:11:06

I was overweight, I wasn't taking care of myself. And I kind of had, I really refer to it as the awakening. I remember sitting at work one day, and I said, I cannot be here one year from now, I cannot be at this job, I can't be sitting at this desk, I can't look like this, I can't make this income, I can't have all these things on my credit where I can't find a place to live with my child, because every time they run a credit report, I got an issue. Um, I was in at that point, the accounting field, any kind of accounting jobs you apply for they run a credit check. Yeah. Right, you see the building, it just went on and on. And it just felt like I was drowning. And I none of it was something I had created. For me. It was not I was not even living my life, I was living the life of society of still my former relationship. Sure, all these things. So I really had to sit down. And I kind of I knew I went searching for a coach. And I sat down and I, I did not find one. Believe it or not, it was a struggle. You know, I looked for my employee assistance program. And they offered me a therapist, and I said, you know, thank you, I went through therapy post divorce, which I strongly recommend. And I was so grateful that I did get to take advantage of something like an employee assistance program. They offered like free five free sessions a year to start with. So I use those happily. Absolutely, I strongly. I do recommend that if you have an opportunity at that kind of it's for that kind of resource use it. But I really reached the point even in therapy where where she had said, Hey, I no longer have a treatment plan for you. I don't have a medical diagnosis at this point. You've made such great progress, right? I really needed somebody who could look at me and call me out. And whenever I was entering an opportunity, and I was still showing those limiting beliefs and holding myself back, I wanted someone to go, Hey, you just did it. Yeah, you just limited yourself right there. And I wanted to get that clarity of what did I want? What? This was finally a time I had been putting my kid first I put my old relationship I put on everything and everyone first. I was like, I don't even know what I want. Who am I? Oh, that was the other thing.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:13:46

Oh, am I exactly what what are your defining terms? It's, you know, when you ask when you ask women most times, tell me about yourself. The first thing they say is Oh, I'm married to so and so when I have three kids, like that's it right? So if you're not married, and yet you're still gonna have your kids but you're, you know, you're co parenting now. And it just yeah, I get that. I get that.

Jen Ingram: 00:14:08

Yeah. And we do that. Well, I'm just a mom. Well, now I'm a divorcee. Right? And so we start defining ourselves of who we are with these other things. And I had to really sit down and get real about, Well, who do I want to be? What do I want to be doing? And so I was very blessed. I asked for a mentor at work because I knew kind of the route that I wanted to go. I had already been dabbling for several years. I pretty much always had some type of side hustle, right? I knew I wanted out of corporate. I was very clear on that. And I've always been someone I've always wanted to help people and help better their lives. Before my son was ever born. I was a foster parent. To me this was just teaching people You know, in that foster parents scenario life skills, but as we get older, I guess I could still say life skills. Yeah, higher level, right? Yeah. Um, I knew that was one of my passions. And, and I got a little bit of it, you know, during my corporate career as a trainer, I was a corporate trainer for a while. And so I got to experience a little bit of that. But I sat down with that mentor and I came up with a five year plan to really take my life back, as I like to say, take it back from the stigmas take it back from defining myself by my relationship, or whether or not I was a mom or a sister or, or a wife or whatever. And, and I sat down, and I got really clear on where I wanted to go, who I wanted to be, and what I wanted to be experiencing in my life. And, and started to create it. And I have to say, probably the most important piece was starting with taking care of me first, the very first goal that I had in my five year plan was to lose weight. And really, my intention wasn't to like get skinny, per se, it really was just to build confidence. I remember telling my mentor, well, I want to be able to walk into any room and speak confidently to somebody and know that when I tell you, I'm dedicated to a certain mission, I appear that I know how to be dedicated to something that that was important to me. Um, and so I went down this weight loss journey. Long story short, I lost like 120 pounds over a year and a half. Yeah. And yes, it was I never intended for that. But once I started that momentum, it just went. And what happened was all the other things I didn't even think were possible. That five year plan suddenly shrunk. And I did it in two and a half years. Sure. Because that I was taking care of me. Finally, my kid, and this is the part I love to tell he didn't necessarily go work out with me. You know, sometimes I just take him to the gym simply, you know, for babysitting purposes, whatever. He was old enough, he could stay home alone. But what started to happen was his habits started changing. Sure. Yeah. And I was suddenly raising a better kid. Yeah, not to say there was anything wrong with my child to begin with. But a child who was seeing things differently as well. And I wasn't telling him, I was just doing me. Yeah. And I think the epiphany of becoming a better person for myself, made me a better parent, and helped me raise an amazing child. Um, you know, he didn't need to go on a diet or anything like that. But I tell everybody, those first three years that I started in my fitness journey, each year, we would go to the doctor, and the doctor was like, he lost another 10 pounds this year, and he's still growing. And I said he lost Andy's crawling. Yeah. I said, Well, we're just more active. Yeah, our whole life changed, says,

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:18:23

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I

Jen Ingram: 00:18:24

was gonna say so all the other things. Follow. Yeah.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:18:29

And I was gonna, that's what that's really interesting, because I just want to I want to come back to something you said, one of the first things I work with, when I take on clients as a divorce coach, divorced transition coaches, the first thing I say is, we need to set out where you're going to be six months, one year, two years, five years, and they're like, My clients were like, What the hell are you doing? We need to get through this divorce? And I'm like, no, no, no, you can't. If you don't know where you're going, you don't know how to get there. So if you don't know where you want to be, how do you know you're making the right decisions in your divorce? How do you know that you're, you know, if you if you want to live in California, rather than Kansas City, you don't need to argue over who gets the house, you don't want to give it to him, give it to him, take the cash, go buy another house. So there's, you got to have that plan in place. And that is the hardest thing for me to convince people to do is to say, yes, the divorce is here. You're you're doing this, but you've got to be planning for the future. And you've got to set those goals. And the other thing I wanted to say is, would you say that that just listening to your story, it was fascinating. Do you think that that weight loss was a way for you to show yourself that you could break those limiting beliefs because I think a lot of us have big limiting beliefs, especially full disclosure, women past the age of 50, who are being told by society by doctors by everybody. Oh, it's your hormones. It's your you know, you can't lose weight after you go through menopause. You know, and that's crap. That is just literally crap. But anyhow, so do you think once you work one limiting belief. They start it's a domino effect, or how does that work? Yeah,

Jen Ingram: 00:20:05

what do you that's exactly what happens. It's that domino or snowball effect, whatever you want to call it, right? You start proving to yourself. And I love sharing the story that on day one of my fitness journey, I showed up to this boot camp, and they said, Okay, we're gonna do jumping jacks, and I realized it. 38 years old, I couldn't do a jumping jack. And I remember thinking to myself, as a child, I did cartwheels in the front lawn, I can't do a stinking jumping jack, that seems so simple. Yeah. And it was that and then pretty soon, I could do a jumping jack. And then I could do this thing called a star jump. And then I could do this thing called a burpee, which I'd never heard of, I now despise.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:20:46

Oh, yeah. Burpees are guaranteed to get you every time.

Jen Ingram: 00:20:51

Right? So it created once you see what, wait, I can do this thing over here. And that is a hard thing, right? And you start to realize, you know what, I've done some other hard things, I made it through that divorce. I achieved through that. Mmm, that's so important. And so that's exactly what happens. those limiting beliefs little by little start breaking those patterns and those automated thoughts start, you start asking yourself questions.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:21:21

And I'd like to another I think another thing that you brought up is, you don't when you're starting, when the dust settles, you're not an infant that has no knowledge, no experience and no expertise. No. So Todd, can you talk a little bit about how you, maybe how you or how you help your clients tap into their talents, gifts? And, you know, the wonder of their knowledge, their expertise? How do you get them to reconnect with that part of themselves and kind of use that to propel themselves forward?

Jen Ingram: 00:21:52

Yeah. Well, there's there's a few different exercises that that we do. But, you know, one of the things is, just as I'm describing is tapping back into what did you used to enjoy? What were you really good at? You know, for a lot of us, we do think we're starting over and I had to kind of ask myself, you know, hold on, I moved out of the house at 18. When my now ex and I met, I had my own place. I had my own car, I was established, I was in a in a decent place. I did that. Right? It's kind of like you have to go back a little bit and go, Okay, hold on. Again, I can do hard things. I'm not starting from scratch, my brain already knows how to do you know, maybe the how isn't coming right away? You know. So I know immediately upon separation, I moved back in with my parents for a while. And so when you talk about you need to know where you're going. I remember that first year, I thought my only goal is getting out of my parents house.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:23:03

Just like when you're 18 Again, right? Yes.

Jen Ingram: 00:23:06

That was my exact No, I was like, Okay, what did I do is it is a teenager? Well, I remember for my 18th birthday, you know what I asked for? I asked for house goods, pots, pans towels. So what did I do post divorce, when my birthday came around, I said, I need everything to rebuild a house, a home. And I. So I really like taking clients and saying, Listen, you've already got all this knowledge and all these skills, you may not have used them in a while. And or you may even have skills that you don't even you don't necessarily realize, you know, when we say we're just a mom, just a mom, we're we're a project manager. We're an accountant, or a therapist, or a caregiver, so many things at once. Yep. So many things. We have so many talents.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:23:57

Absolutely. And I think that's I think that is such. You know, that's, that's such a powerful framework to come at something is to get people to recognize all that they bring to the table because I think we all and I think women and men do this, I think women do it a little bit more. It's almost like, you know, they don't like to brag, they don't like to look at as coming across as boastful. But there's nothing wrong with stating dammit, I am really good at whatever it is. You know, like, I'm really good as a divorce coach, I'm really good as a mediator. I think I'm pretty good as public speaker, but to be able to get out and just have the confidence to say that. That is that is a limiting belief because I think we think, Oh, I can't say that, you know, oh, that's a societal limiting belief, right? I don't want to look boastful. I don't want to look this. So I think what you're doing is amazing. And it's and it's such an important thing, Jen. So thank you for Thank you and, and like I say you are the one of the most inspiring people. I love your your Facebook posts, I really, really do. So with that being said, what, what is it kind of the one takeaway thing? And I know, I know we could go on for longer, much longer and I would love it. Maybe we'll have to have another another session later on down the road here. What What, what, what is the one thing you want people kind of top of the mind takeaway to remember from our conversation today,

Jen Ingram: 00:25:25

I would say the number one thing to remember is that you already have everything you need to move forward. And really lead your life the way you want. within you, you you have everything you need. And it sounds so superficial. I know some of you might be rolling your eyes listening to that right now. But I'm telling you, it's there, it just needs awakened. And you get to create your new path. So that's it.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:25:55

I love that. And if you are, if you are sitting there rolling your eyes, you need to talk to Jen, because she will smack that right. I'm just kidding. But Jen, if people do want to reach out to you, if they're sitting here thinking, maybe I'm doing some of this stuff, and they would like to connect with you learn a little more about what you do, or maybe even have the opportunity to work with you. How can they get ahold of you? What's the best? Absolutely.

Jen Ingram: 00:26:17

So my, my website is www.HerLifeUnchained.com. To go with those chains I've been talking about that weigh us down. You can also find me on Facebook under Jen Ingram, or on Instagram as well. Perfect, perfect.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:26:37

And all that information is going to be in the show notes right down here below. So Jen, thank you so much. This has been my pleasure. My pleasure to have you on the show today. And I'm really going to encourage people to reach out and talk to Jen. If you're a woman that's kind of struggling with cash, what do I do now? Where am I going? Feel like you're maybe spinning your wheels, and it doesn't matter whether you're going through a divorce or not. Jen works with everybody. So I'm going to encourage you to do that. And Jen, thanks again for being on the show.

Jen Ingram: 00:27:02

Thanks, Mardi.