Here's The Thing!: Recent Episodes
Lesley Van Staveren
‘Here’s the thing’ is a fortnightly podcast on finding the power and confidence in your voice. To know your voice, you first have to know yourself. This podcast guides you through turning other frequencies down and turning yours up. I will cover many aspects that shine light on speaking up ranging from the beliefs that make you feel stuck or unable to draw boundaries for yourself. We will discuss moving pass fear of judgement and comparison, owning who you are and embracing relationships including the one with yourself. These areas take you on a journey to feeling comfortable with speaking up in areas that you may have put aside. Having the inner grounding builds your ability to stand tall and present yourself with confidence in social occasions or even filming videos or presenting at a meeting or on stage. It all starts with you. Episodes: •Get off the merry-go-round. •Don’t dilute yourself. •Being in the moment – How to tell if you are in your heart or head. •Understanding what lies beneath. •Whose voice are you listening to? •Fear of judgement and comparison. •Having the hard conversations. •Ignoring the red flags. •Speaking up on experiences that have hurt you and coming to a place of acceptance. •Beginning again and learning to trust yourself. •Behaviour vs the person. •Owning who you are. These are bite sized episodes designed to provoke thought that enables you to see your unique gifts and build confidence in knowing your voice and using it. This podcast is written and delivered by Lesley Van Staveren. NLP Practitioner', speaker and published author of 'Be Your Own Hero. She is a coach specialising in mindset, self-confidence and communication.Note: some topics cover challenging life experiences such as relationship breakdown and pregnancy loss. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
Have you ever come to a road block in your life or had to start over from the ground up and wondered how you would get by?
Or perhaps how you would be able to trust your judgement and gut instinct?
Sometimes you reach a point that feels like a rug pulled from underneath your feet and you wonder how you can not only ensure you learn from the past but also develop an internal strength and faith in what you are capable of.
In this podcast I cover:
- What lack of self-trust looks like
- Extreme ownership and accountability (different to above blame)
- The perspective that you are not your circumstance
- Past experience can taint how you feel
- Lessons will keep coming up until you learn them
- Staying true to yourself
- Top ways to build self-trust back up.
This takes time, consistency and being honest and patient with yourself.
Thank you for listening.
With gratitude
Lesley
Note: some topics cover challenging life experiences. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
Episode 9 – Speaking up on difficult experiences and coming to a place of acceptance.
The more you push down experiences that have hurt, the more they will build up and come out in other forms.
In this episode we go through:
· Why you need a support system around you.
· The importance of seeing things as they are. Not how they should have been.
· Avoidance and it’s impact.
· Allowing yourself to feel the good and the bad.
· How to move forward and define what is within your sphere of control.
Always be kind to yourself, be patient, find healthy outlets and seek any professional help needed.
With love
Lesley
Note: some topics cover challenging life experiences. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
Episode 8 – How to see the red flags and listen – lean into your intuition.
There are so many times in life the way things turn out leave you wondering how it got to that point and wishing that you could have known.
In this episode we cover:
· How to become aware of red flags.
· Your own red flags and those to be aware of from others.
· Building trust in yourself.
· How to maintain this skill.
What’s interesting is if you google it the majority will be about relationships. But there’s so much more. You have to be aware of yourself before you can tune in enough to see it elsewhere.
It may be a conversation that turnout out very differently to how you expected.
Perhaps a relationship that turned out to be destructive and you didn’t see it coming.
It could be your health where you reached a point that caught you by surprise.
There are so many examples that this list could be endless. But essentially there is one common thread, the signs are always there but we don’t listen. It may be because we don’t want to, it feels too hard or you really want it to be different and you think if you ignore it long enough it will be.. It may be because we are not in tune enough to pay attention.
Note: some topics cover challenging life experiences. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
Welcome to episode 7 - Having hard conversations from a place of dignity and respect.
It’s these conversations that have the potential to make you feel uncomfortable based on how you perceive it. It’s so common to want to shy away from delivering bad news.
But here’s the thing, if you are just thinking about yourself and how this is going to make you feel, you are making things uncomfortable before you even open your mouth.
In this episode we cover:
- Know the outcomes you want and creating a safe space..
- Active listening and presence.
- Delivery method - not by text or email.
- Getting to the point with humility and compassion.
- Being honest and not hiding truth that others are entitled to know as it involves them.
- Awareness of your body language and theirs.
These aspects honour the other party and play a large part in being able to process what you are saying.
It is being strong in yourself and centred that enables you to face situations that ordinarily you may have wished to avoid.
Thank you for listening.
With gratitude
Lesley
Note: some topics may cover challenging life experiences. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
In this episode we go through how judgement can affect you and the importance of breaking this fear down and owning who you are.
Fear of judgement and comparing yourself against others will hold you back from living a life that is true to what you want, you'll keep playing safe to avoid attention.
Years later, you’ll look back and wonder why you are in a place where you are not happy.
And you know what? It's not worth it!
When you build a life based upon other people’s opinions of you, you put their perspectives of you above your own. You then start living your life to fit in with approval from others and constantly seeking external validation and lets face it, that's exhausting.
When you know you are enough in who you are, you release the need to compare or worry what anyone else is doing or what they think. You move into a space of accepting and loving who you are and living your life true to yourself.
This episode focuses on all those thoughts in your head, where they come from, how they impact you and how to break this down in a way that allows you to see what is real.
Negative self talk or the inner critic is a habit and one that is so easy to keep feeding, but the question is...what are you feeding it with?
It’s not about silencing it. It’s bringing awareness to what it is, where it comes from and redefining a new thought pattern. You gain more positive change by striving to be the best version of yourself and accept who you are.
This episode contains a method to break the thoughts down to begin to identify if the things you tell yourself are actually yours or have come from someone else and you have reinforced it over time.
It's time to unravel what is not serving you.
Episode 4 – What lies beneath – what makes you scared of speaking up.
Have you ever had the feeling of knowing you wanted to say something but the fear of actually verbalising it becomes physical and literally brings you to a halt. You end up staying quiet and are then frustrated with yourself for not just going for it.
This does relate to public speaking but it’s also about how you experience the world if you are someone who suffers from lack of self-esteem and self-worth.
In this episode we will go through:
- Top fears of speaking up.
- How that impacts you.
- What to do to grow confidence in this area.
Developing your skill in speaking up when it counts is a gift that enables you you make your voice heard in the moments you need.
What you have to say matters.
With love
Lesley
Welcome to episode 3 of Here’s The thing.
This podcast is dedicated to the principle of knowing yourself before your can know your voice. This skill set is to benefit you in communicating yourself in social situations, on camera or in front of an audience.
Episode 3 brings awareness to when you are in your head vs in your heart.
I will be taking you through:
- What does it mean and how to identify it
- Why it matters
- What to do to come back to being present and fully engaged.
Its about connection and an exchange of energy. When you are locked in your head you can get into panic or build your own discomfort. Other examples are when you are so focused on getting a sentence right you forget you are there for other people.
You can even sense it in conversation…you know when you’re talking to someone and you can see they are thinking about something else.
It comes back to the feeling that you create in others.
Note: some topics cover challenging life experiences. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
If something is diluted it can mean it is weaker and less effective. But what about as a person?
When a person dilutes themselves it is their identity, their confidence, their values, beliefs and energy that is impacted.
In this podcast I cover signs you may be diluting who you are personally and in business.
You may be toning yourself down for fear of what others may say or to 'fit-in' with people and worried about being accepted for who you are. Living your life not being true to who you are and will lead to you denying yourself a life where you feel comfortable in your own skin and appreciate all parts of what makes you unique.
Begin to appreciate the full-undiluted version of yourself and just how many benefits this can bring such as stronger relationships, self-confidence letting go of fears that have held you back until this point.
You are exactly who you are meant to be and are remarkable.
Note: If you are experiencing emotional or mental distress, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.
Get off the Merry-go-round.
Definition – a continuous cycle of activities, especially when regarded as pointless.
Visualise the merry-go-round, on it are horses on their poles. It is endlessly going around and you keep hanging on as you are uncertain what will happen if you let go.
Then you realise you can get off the fixed pole and the merry-go-round keeps turning without you needing to force things. You are in the midst of it and still watching things go by.
What if you looked beyond the turning, the noise and the distractions and leapt off?
Before you can start to see you and what you want and what you stand for, you need to clear the noise.
You could see life as a whole as the merry-go-round, struggles with parenting, relationships, ongoing exhaustion or work overload.
Until you find your own centre things will continue to spin.
What if you think you can’t stop it or can’t get off?
You realise you have a choice, you take a breath and a leap of faith. It may be bumpy when you first hit the ground but when you stop rolling and first sit up and look around you may feel the impact but you can finally see things as they are. Then you gain strength and stand up.
It is the ability to have faith in yourself, see from different angles. It’s hindsight in action.
Note: some topics cover challenging life experiences such as relationship breakdown and pregnancy loss. If you are experiencing emotional or mental difficulty, please ensure you seek professional guidance. The information in this podcast is not intended to replace professional medical or psychological advice. The content is based upon the author’s personal and professional experiences, opinions and qualifications.