Healing from Burnout with Michelle Gauthier: Reclaiming Joy, Rest, and Enoughness

[00:00:00] Welcome to Hard, beautiful journey where we embrace vulnerability as our superpower and let courage light our path. I’m Tiff Carson here to share heartfelt stories of healing, grief, and resilience. Each week I’ll talk with guests from experts to everyday heroes about their journeys through adversity.

Together we’ll uncover the beauty that emerges from life’s challenges and how each experience can spark profound growth. Join us on this courageous journey of connection and transformation.

Tiff Carson What happens when everything looks perfect on the outside, but inside your body is breaking down, your spirit is exhausted, you’re not sure how much longer you can keep faking it. Michelle Goer that place. She spent years in a high level corporate job juggling motherhood achievement and the pressure to keep it all together. Until one day, her body and her intuition called her to stop, walk away, and to start all over again. Michelle is now a transformational coach who helps high achieving women heal the root causes of their burnout.

Perfectionism. And over-functioning. She helps ’em come home to themselves, body, mind, and spirit. Today we’re walking through that turning point and the healing that came after. Through the lens of the Healing Heart journey, we’ll talk about what it means to use your voice, honor your body, rewrite your story, and build a sustainable soul aligned life. Welcome to the podcast, Michelle.

Michelle Gauthier Thank you so much for having me.

Tiff Carson I am so grateful that you are here. So, I am curious, what was that moment for you when you finally said, enough is enough, and when did that unraveling become impossible for you to ignore?

Michelle Gauthier Yes. I really successfully, unquote, ignored it for a long time, but as you know, if you’ve been through something hard, our body and our mind won’t let it go. So it started off being like, this just doesn’t feel really aligned. I’m not sure I wanna do this anymore. This isn’t what I was hoping for. And then it just got louder and louder and louder.

And what I can remember about, I don’t remember like an exact moment where I thought, I can’t do this anymore. But I remember the direct aftermath of that was basically me lying on my couch watching Sex in the City reruns while my kids were at school during the day for like. A week. I mean, I could not get off the couch.

It’s like once I decided I can’t do this anymore, my body was like, oh, thank God. Can we just rest for a minute? So that’s when you asked me that question. That’s what I pictured was myself just lying on the couch to try to figure out what to do next. But I couldn’t even do that yet. It was like I just had to be comforted by Sex in the City and lie on my couch.

Tiff Carson Okay. That this is bananas because one of the things I, I’m gonna tell another story later, but Sex in the City. I had that week as well,

And 

Michelle Gauthier You did with the same show?

Tiff Carson The same show and for, well, you know how long it is, right? And it

Michelle Gauthier Yeah.

Tiff Carson and I took a week off of work.  I was actually going to school to get my CPA and working full time, and I was in the later stages of the program and I was burnt out, I couldn’t even deal anymore.

And I needed something to numb me. And I chose Sex in the City. And I laid on the couch for an entire week. I ate in between and slept a little bit, but know that theme song and then you hit go and then like you didn’t skip the theme song. That theme song was in my brain for probably three years after because it was just a full week of numbing. So Wow. I had the exact same thing. 

Michelle Gauthier Oh, that is so funny. Thank you. Sex in the City for being our therapy. The start of our therapy. It worked. It worked and there’s a lot, are a lot worse ways to numb my figure, you know, than lying on the couch watching Sex in the City. So, yeah, it was the first step in my journey, that’s for sure.

Tiff Carson So what were you most afraid of at that time of changing, and how did you find the strength to honor your truth anyway, even though you were scared?

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, I was really scared. I mean, it literally, my body felt like as if someone, like a murderer was chasing me. That’s how scared that I felt to just, um, let go of everything that I was pretending to be. But just to give you context for what I was worried about. I. at the same time, during that Sex in the City moment, I was separated from my husband, who I’m now divorced from.

I had two little kids. I had quit my corporate job ’cause I just couldn’t take it anymore and I really didn’t know what I was gonna do next. And then I got a puppy to just throw a little more chaos into the situation. Ah.

Tiff Carson same here. Did the same. I actually got three, so.

Michelle Gauthier Oh my gosh. Wow. We’re very similar. I’m, I’m, she’s lying under my desk right now. I love her to pieces, but at the time everyone was like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, it’s gonna be great.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can take on one more thing. So I think the number one thing I was afraid of was being seen.

I had made myself that my whole enoughness was from my job. I think I had a long history of doing that as far as like getting good grades and people liking me and all that stuff was really, it felt like who I was. And then in addition to that, we had a really hard time getting pregnant. In fact, my kids are both adopted, so I wanted to be a mom for a long time. So most of my friends and women who we socialized with, you know, like my husband’s coworkers and stuff, were all moms. And so I felt like I didn’t have anything. To contribute and that I wasn’t like, I don’t know, in the club somehow. And so that just made my work the more important. Like when people would see me at one of those parties, they wouldn’t be like, how are the kids?

They’d be like, how’s work? You know? So I was really afraid to let go of that. I was also super afraid to get divorced. I just, thought. Like I mentioned, my kids are adopted. Someone chose us to be their parents and now we are gonna get a divorce. My parents have been married for like 50 now, they’re on 57 years. My husband’s parents have been married forever as well, and so it was just like family doesn’t do that. So I was really afraid of that too, and like being seen as a divorced woman.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. Okay. A couple more similarities. Trouble getting pregnant. All three of our kids are IVF babies and I also wrapped my worth up in my career for a very long time. I remember when I was in high school and thinking about what I was gonna do with my life and my career, and all I kept remembering saying to myself is, I want the corner office. I want the corner office, and I want to wear the power suits, and I want to be a badass businesswomen.

Michelle Gauthier Me too.

Tiff Carson Yeah. Yeah. 

Yes. 

Tiff Carson And 

so when we were having trouble getting pregnant, there was a lot of guilt around, am I focusing too much on my career that that’s what’s causing this to happen, right? So there was a lot of guilt in that as well for me.  It was a tough thing to navigate, wanting to have both worlds and the stress of that. It was a lot of stress.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, it definitely was. It was awful and like you said, people will give you helpful advice. Like maybe if you just relax more, maybe if your job wasn’t so stressful or maybe if you worked out less or countless things like that that people said to me. I also think that being a really ambitious woman and being a mom, no matter how you got there, is a really tough situation.

It’s hard anyway, but add in like infertility and adoption and IVF and all that stuff. I mean, I did IVF too. That’s like a full-time job when you’re in the midst of that.

Tiff Carson It is a full-time job. Yeah. It takes every ounce of your physical body, but more so like mental and spiritual ’cause it’s like, it is hard.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, and I had no mental health tools at that time. I had, I was just like my usual method, which was work harder, do more, and so I was just like gunning my way through it instead of actually feeling anything or allowing myself to be upset or sad or any of that.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. What were some of the signals that your body was giving you that it was not well and that you needed to make a change?

Michelle Gauthier I had consistent lower back pain for two years that’s kind of my, in fact, even now, usually completely gone. But even if I have one day where my lower back, I feel a little twinge of something, I’m like, Ooh, I need to immediately journal about what this stress is. I feel like that is where my body puts the stress or when something is out of alignment, but I think without knowing it. had this life that was totally out of alignment with my authentic self and my body was trying to tell me and that’s how my body tells me. I know everybody’s is different, but that was mine.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm.

Michelle Gauthier I also started having like tons, I’ve never had anxiety. I mean, everyone has anxiety, but not like an anxiety problem.

But I started having tons of anxiety, like waking up in the night thinking, am I having a heart attack? Not being able to sleep, physical problems and mental health problems that I had never had before. And I feel like now I can look back and see, oh yes, I was just shoving everything down and my body was like, I’m just gonna keep telling you, so it’s gonna get worse and worse.

And finally my blood pressure was so high, I started taking it at home. My blood pressure was so high, I looked it up one night, which, you know, it’s a bad idea to look up metal conditions online, but it said like, you’re having a cardiac event, call 9-1-1. And I was like. Oh my gosh. This is serious.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah. I didn’t call 9-1-1 by the way. I called my aunt who was a nurse, and that was good, but it was really scary and I was thinking, oh my gosh, I’m a single, I’m here with these kids by myself. They’re both little. I’m gonna like, you know, have a heart attack in the middle of the night. It was terrifying.

Tiff Carson Okay, so time for that story I alluded to. I was in a management role in an oil and gas service company, and I walked into a mess, I guess you could say. I just came off maternity leave with our twins, so we have, a daughter, before the twins, and then we hired a live-in nanny to take care of our kids while I went back to work. So I left my kids and I went to this nuts of a job, like it was insane. It was such a disaster. I’m an accountant and my job was to go in and fix everything that was not good so that they could get investors to come in, and I was there for nine months and near the end of the nine months, I remember driving home from work and screaming out loud in my car at nobody. But it was actually towards like my boss or to somebody that I was working, but it was, insane.

Michelle Gauthier Hmm.

Tiff Carson I could actually feel my brain, I call it breaking, like I could feel it and I was having a mental break. And it was because I was so exhausted. I was so stressed, and also was mad that I was spending that time in my kids’ lives doing something as horrible as that, But also had to contribute to our family and pay bills. And so there was this mix of guilt and anger.

Michelle Gauthier Mm-hmm.

Tiff Carson And we also had a live-in nanny, like I said, taking care of our kids. So I was mad that I was doing this and she was getting the time to enjoy with our kids. It was just this messed up feeling.  But not long after that I ended up going to have a hysterectomy, and it went…not well. And afterwards I was sitting at home, my mom was there helping me and she said, I think we need to go to the hospital.

My face started drooping. And so we went to a walk-in clinic and they’re like, no, no, no, no, you gotta go to the hospital. I ended up being in the hospital for almost a week. But it turned out they were doing a bunch of tests for stroke, but it wasn’t a stroke then it was ruled Bell’s Palsy. But it was one that wasn’t normal because it was happening on both sides of my face. So, this was all due to the extreme stress that I put myself under. I recovered from that and I went back and I got laid off.

Michelle Gauthier Oh my gosh.

Tiff Carson And I remember being so, first of all, angry that they let me go while I was on medical leave, which they shouldn’t have done, but I was so grateful and I knew that it was my angels saying, it’s time. If you don’t have another sign other than this, we don’t know how to help you.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, exactly. This is it.

Tiff Carson This is it. Get out. So I was so, so grateful for that kick in the rear end, literally to get out and start over. 

Tiff Carson if somebody today is hearing maybe a whisper, not like a kick in the rear end, but doesn’t know where to start, what’s one small shift that they can make today to reconnect with their body?

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, that’s a great question and I think there are some easy ways to do it. One thing that I find really helpful is just to notice, so if what Tiff just said resonates with you where you’re thinking, I do feel like my body or my mind is trying to tell me something. See if you can identify the feeling.

So for example, I found myself to be really angry too. And so if you just get out a piece of paper in a pen or type it in your notes in your phone and just ask anger, what are you trying to tell me? And just sit there for a second and see what comes up and just write down whatever comes up for you. You will probably find some of the things that are there, and I think just allowing that, it’s like taking the cap off of a soda or something where if you just let that out, it will be the start of understanding how you’re feeling, because it’s quite possible, even if you’re in a miserable job, it’s quite possible to feel a ton better while you’re still there just by using mindset tools.

Tiff Carson So you left a powerful career, and you felt like you lost your identity. How did you navigate that space between who you were at that time and who you knew that you were becoming? 

Michelle Gauthier I think it’s such an interesting question because had I gotten just a different corporate job, I don’t think that I would’ve struggled with it. I think where I was allowed to have this struggle, which I now think was a major part, a major shift in my life, was because I chose to start my own business and to be a life coach. I had done training for that with Martha Beck, who’s like a very well-known author and life coach person, so that gave me credibility, quote unquote.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. 

Michelle Gauthier But that was it. I didn’t have any experience. I’ve never, you know, I had a corporate job. I’ve never been a counselor or a therapist or anything like that, and so it was very hard for me to switch careers midlife, I think I was 41 or two. 

And then to also not have a successful business yet. So those two things combined and I thought, what is going on here? The way that I really noticed it is people would say, what do you do? And I would say, oh, I’m a life coach, but I used to be. And then I would explain like what I used to be so that they would, that was my attempt to control what they were thinking about me, which is, wow, she’s a uber successful person.

Michelle Gauthier And at first I was embarrassed to even say that I was a life coach because I thought people might think it was weird, which you know, spoiler alert, I thought it was weird. I was the one who was thinking that 

and I just didn’t have a chance to really, you know, take the time yet to appreciate what it is and how much value I can bring, and that I am so much more than how much money I make or what kind of job that I have.

Tiff Carson How long did it take you to drop that disclaimer?

Michelle Gauthier I would say a year.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. 

Michelle Gauthier It took me a long time to realize it that I was doing it, and once I did it, and then I did the work, which I can explain a little bit about what I did, if that’s helpful.

Tiff Carson Yes.

Michelle Gauthier I did the work on that, then it started to drop fairly easily.

Tiff Carson I’d love to hear because like I told you off camera, I am also doing something similar and I’d love to know how to drop the disclaimer when it’s time.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah. So I think the first question that I had to ask myself is, why am I doing this? “Why” am I saying this? And my answer was basically, I want people to know that I’m successful. So then I went another “Why” do I need people to know I’m successful? So they will think that I am enough as a person. “Why” do I need other people to think that I’m enough? And that was like, Ooh, a lot of question marks there. And the answer was basically because that’s the way that I was socialized and brought up. And I think that’s true for most women.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm.

Michelle Gauthier We’re really taught to think about what other people are thinking, how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking about us. And so then I was able to just ask myself. Do I still want that? Do I still want that to be my own narrative? And I did not. And then when I dropped the other people part of it, then the question became, am I enough right now without my corporate job? And in investigating that, what I came to is the fact that it was never the corporate job. It was, I’ve always been enough, I’ll always be enough. And coming from the place of enoughness then, and just knowing that I am, no matter if I make $0 or if I work at Starbucks or if I have this million dollar business, whatever it is, I’m always enough. And so realizing those shifts and I just summarized, a couple months of like thought work and things like that. But one really important in it is to, for example, in your case, if you notice yourself saying that, and then you try to drop it, just notice how you feel when you do, then keep an evidence journal of evidence for reasons why you are enough. Without that, like I am enough as, for example, one of the things that I would write down a lot is the people who really love me don’t care at all about what I do for work. So like my kids aren’t like, oh my gosh, our mom’s a life couch. Isn’t that so cool? They don’t care. They just love me ’cause I’m me. Same with my parents, same with my best friends. Same with all the people who truly love me. And when I got to the bottom of, who am I trying to impress?

It was my old boss at my corporate job who I really loved and respected and I wanted him to think that I was really doing a good job, which he may or may not think, I don’t know, but I came to the point that that doesn’t really matter.

Tiff Carson Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I love that. And I am going to incorporate that into some of my journaling that I do already, and I love the asking why and digging deeper.

Michelle Gauthier Yes. If you can go five whys, ask yourself why Five times you can usually get to the bottom of an issue.

Tiff Carson Yeah. You think you say it’s five?

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, that feels like the magic number.

Tiff Carson Perfect. So you have talked about on your social media and your website about building a sustainable life. What does that look like and how do you get that sustainable life to feel good, not just look good?

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, yeah. First you’ve gotta drop caring about what it looks like. So that was what I just described, one, and then step two, because of course my immediate response when I had my own business was just to recreate what I was used to in the corporate world. And so what that meant was working a ton of hours.

So when my kids would go to bed, I would come back to my office. And the funny thing is, I didn’t have anything to do. I had one or two clients in a week. There’s literally nothing for me to do but it was just the habit. So then I got really proactive and thought, what kind of life do I actually want to have?

That’s the question that I would ask myself. For example, if someone out there is trying to create a new business or switching to a new job or somewhere where you have a chance to really define what you want it to be. So that’s what I do. I have several tools to do that, but one of them is a to don’t list.

So one of the things that I don’t do is I don’t see clients on Tuesdays so that I can do things like this and do marketing. So I see clients four days a week. I don’t work before nine, I don’t work after four. I don’t work in the evenings or on the weekends. And so what I try to do is fit as much as I can into that timeframe without making myself feel overwhelmed.

My number one priority in life is to live a life that feels good and not overwhelming. So that’s sort of the question that I ask myself. Even with clients I’ve tried taking on more clients, and when I do, it takes the fun and the calm presence out of it and makes it feel stressful and overwhelming when I have six clients in a row as an example.

And so I just said, I’m not gonna do that anymore. So I’m willing to sacrifice anything to say, I’m not gonna take on that many clients, or I don’t care if I make any more money so that I can have this life that feels calm. And I’m a single mom, so being able to be free in the evenings and take my kids places and have with them and all of that is really, really important to me.

Tiff Carson So that is interesting too. When I first started this podcast about almost five years ago, in that first year because I was doing something new and I wanted to prove myself, I thought I needed to do things a certain way. Oh my goodness, it still makes me laugh when I think about it. I booked in one month’s time, 17 interviews with all authors.

Michelle Gauthier Oh wow. 

Tiff Carson Yeah, with the intention of, I need to read all of these books. I’m a speed reader by the way, just so that’s clear. Like I actually can read a book in about four or five hours.

Tiff Carson But I also had three children, and a husband and all of those things, and a job. But it’s funny how our brain is like, Hey, well I need to prove myself.

I’m doing something new and I need to prove myself and I need to be really good at it. And about the fourth or fifth interview, I saw the other 12 and I was like, I’m not doing this. I cannot do this. I will have another mental breakdown.

Tiff Carson I reached out to all of the guests and I rescheduled over a very long time because I actually did want to talk to them and read their book, but I wanted to give myself that grace and that time to actually read the book and reflect.

Tiff Carson So yeah. It’s interesting how that achievement thing comes up.

Michelle Gauthier Yes, exactly, and especially if you’re not used to which I also was not used to doing this kind of work that you and I both do now, which is being in fully present. Holding space for people. Truly listening to what they’re saying. I could do nine conference calls in a row with my eyes closed. Giving objectives, taking people’s opinions, sending out the notes after. It was like, no big thing. But this is not the same. And I feel like the people who I’m sitting on the other side of the screen from deserve my full attention. And I want that. That’s how I wanna live my whole life, be fully with the person who I’m spending time with, and feel relaxed and calm so that I can be a great listener.

Tiff Carson I think that’s where you build more trust with the people that you’re working with, is that they know that you’re listening and that you care about what they’re going through.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s what I needed. That’s probably what you needed. And that’s just what people need and I feel like it is my soul’s calling to be that person, and I’m not going to make it a frantic, overwhelming life. I’m just not willing to do it anymore.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. So we just talked about over-functioning and perfectionism. What’s one core belief that often keeps people stuck, and how do you help them rewrite that?

Michelle Gauthier I think most women who are overachievers, like you and I, when we have a problem, our default solution that we’ve learned is just to go harder, to work harder, and that everything needs to be done to an a plus level. And so one thing I really work with my clients on is backing down to doing B minus work sometimes where it’s possible and appropriate.

And when I first say that to people who are like me, they’re like, what?  Do what? No, there’s no situation in which I could do that. So sometimes.

Tiff Carson B plus.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, exactly. So sometimes we have to start off with like, how about a solid A, how about an A minus? Then we just have to move down the scale as we practice. But I think that’s the biggest thing because people don’t identify that they have that belief until we start investigating it, and then they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m going all out in every area of my life. No wonder I’m so exhausted. 

Tiff Carson So one of the big things that I didn’t feel in those moments of exhaustion and overwhelm was joy. It honestly felt like a luxury when I did feel it.

Michelle Gauthier Mm-hmm.

Tiff Carson Whe did Joy start returning for you, and how do you help others reconnect with joy in a real grounded way.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah, it’s interesting because one of the things that I ask my clients right at the beginning is what brings them joy or what do they enjoy doing, and almost always they say I can’t think of anything. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I know I used to like to do things and then they say, I must be the only person who’s like that. Have I gone over the deep end? 

I’m like, everybody says that. Everybody says that and it’s okay. So if that’s you, if you’re hearing this question and thinking, I don’t know that I have any joy in my life, or I don’t remember what I like to do for fun, don’t worry. It can come back.  Give it time to come back. So I would say for me, all along the way, even when I was feeling really miserable, my children brought me joy. 

Michelle Gauthier You know, not 24-7. They are kids and they fight. You gotta feed ’em dinner and clean up their messes and stuff. But there was a consistent theme that they would always bring me joy. So even just doing a little something with them for 20 minutes and just being in that joy and then going back to, this is hard. I don’t know if I can do this. So I just would say if there’s anything you can think of right now that brings you joy for a lot of people it is something like reading. 

I have a client right now who says, when I go outside and I walk and I look up at the trees, I feel peace and joy. I’m like, great, just five minutes a day, try to go out and do that. So I think that I just slowly built my tolerance for joy because I believed that during the time when I was just working so hard, that was the number one priority, and that’s not joyful. And now I’ve realized, oh, you can create a life. Like for example, when I’m working, I feel joy now, that was not really an option. I maybe felt joy when I finished a really hard task or something. But now every day, sometimes at the end of the day, I think, I can’t believe this is my life. I can’t believe this is my job and I get to do this all day. So as you start adding in little things and more and more and more, and it’s not like you have to be at an amusement park all day or lying on the beach all day to get that kind of joy, you can get joy from having you, I’m looking at my desk, having your perfect coffee. I only write with these certain pens ’cause I love them and they bring me joy. I have lots of colors in my planner ’cause that brings me joy. So I just have all these little things in life that bring me joy.

Tiff Carson And I think. What brings you joy can change too.

Michelle Gauthier Totally. 

Tiff Carson I say that because, I’ve talked about it on my podcast before, but I started playing my drum kit again after many years, because I remember I went back and I journal and I was like, what made me so happy as a kid? What did I love doing? And my dad’s a musician and they had their rehearsals at our house. And I remember when they weren’t playing on them, I would go and bang on those drums like a mad woman. And I remember being so happy and laughing and giggling and so that’s when I was like, you know I’m gonna do this, and I had so much fun. And I realized I don’t want to keep doing that. I’m going to now do something else. And so it can change. 

Michelle Gauthier Yes, and once you drop the perfectionism thing where you don’t have to be good at everything, for example, I really wanted to do yoga, but I wasn’t good at it, which, how do you even measure that? I don’t know. But I wasn’t good at it in my mind. And once I let go of that, I started really finding joy in doing yoga as an example. So there’s so much more potential when you’re just willing to try things and suck at them. And I’m still not super flexible or anything, but I completely can enjoy a yoga class. And I’m imagining you weren’t like a world class drummer when you first started, right?

Tiff Carson No, I was just doing it for fun. Yeah, just doing it for fun.

Tiff Carson The part that I loved, was my instructor. I actually went and got, I think it was six lessons or something from him and he’s the funniest guy. And I just loved going and laughing with him. 

Tiff Carson Like I was not good. I had a little bit of the beat, but I had more fun just laughing and seeing what song he was gonna get me to try?

Michelle Gauthier Yeah.

Tiff Carson But then when I felt it in my body that I wasn’t excited anymore to go, that’s when I was like, you know what? I am gonna listen to this. I think that it’s time to now move on. And I did, I felt peace around that.

Michelle Gauthier Yeah. Yeah. And it’s fun to think of new ways to fill that fun gap, right? If that one didn’t do it for you anymore, it’s fun to think about, what did I really like doing creative things. And I am always thinking, like last year I did this whole big project where I bought just plain white postcards and I drew on the front. I like to do lettering, so I wrote the person’s name and then on the back I just wrote all the things I loved about them. And then I’d just drop ’em in the mail and it was the most fun project because I loved doing the design. And then it was like joy bombs all over the place.

You know, people would text me and be like, oh my gosh, what an unexpected. That was so fun. So that was really fun too.

Tiff Carson That’s awesome. I used to enjoy, coloring as a kid. I called myself a professional colorer and I was pretty sure that that was gonna be my career. 

Michelle Gauthier I love that. Oh my gosh. Did you have the big crayon box with like the 64 colors? I always wanted that.

Tiff Carson I had that and I was good. Like I had solid lines and shading was next level. So I went and bought all the coloring books and all of the stuff right as an adult, but after the drumming lessons, I actually went and started doing diamond painting.

Michelle Gauthier Oh, what’s that?

Tiff Carson Oh, you should just look that up.  It is mind numbing. Like you can do it while you’re watching tv, but it’s so, it’s my version of coloring now. I get to do the thing with the colors and everything. And it’s just brought me so much joy. 

Michelle Gauthier I’m gonna check that out. I would love that.

Tiff Carson Yeah, it’s awesome. It went from drumming to diamond painting. So it can be pretty different.

Michelle Gauthier Great. The world’s your oyster. You could do anything.

Tiff Carson Yep. So if you could sit across from your past self, the one that was pushing and pushing and pushing through that pain and proving yourself and performing, what would you say to her now?

Michelle Gauthier Hmm. To try to spare her from all of that, or when she was in the thick of it.

Tiff Carson All of it.

Michelle Gauthier I feel like you’re already enough. You have nothing to prove. You’re already enough.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. 

Michelle Gauthier I feel like if I had that core belief, I would’ve approached everything in life in a completely different way.

Tiff Carson What is the ripple effect that you hope your work creates in our world, and what kind of healing are you most passionate about?

Michelle Gauthier I love that question because I actually think about this all the time. So most of the women who I work with are moms, not all of them, I work with a few men too, but I like to think about how the mom is like the temperature setter in the house. So if I can help a mom. Feel like she’s already enough and feel calm instead of overwhelmed and feel present instead of flustered. I like to just picture her in the home with her family and how that affects everyone else. That everyone else is feeling more calm and more present and sees her as an example. And then I think about her being at work and having a team of people and modeling that for them, and then those people go home to their family.

So I like to think about just having a present calming effect on everyone that they come into contact with. And I think that’s so powerful because, as an example, had I been a frantic mom, I think about how different my kids would be right now. So are they gonna grow up in an environment where they are used to having peace and calm?

And then how, what kind of parents is that going to make them? 

Michelle Gauthier So I love to think about that and I think that’s really, an important piece of working with moms is how it affects the rest of the family. I think I’m just most passionate about sparking the idea that you don’t have to do it all, be it all in order to be enough, and that you can without changing your life. ’cause sometimes people hear my story and they’re like, so you quit your job and you got divorced and then you were happy. But I just wanna offer that you can not quit your job and stay married and feel much, much happier just by changing your mindset. So I feel like we have, there are so many problems in life that need outside help, right? Like you have to go to a doctor or you have to go to physical therapy or whatever. But this is one where all you need are the tools and the healing can be inside your mind in the way that you’re thinking. So I’m really passionate about that.

Tiff Carson Mm-hmm. Well, I know that people are going to run to your website and your Instagram, because you are doing such powerful work with people. So if you wanna check out Michelle, this is her website, michellegauthier.com and Instagram is @michellegauthergauthier.com.  So people go and check out Michelle. 

Tiff Carson I end every episode asking my guest what they are grateful for, because even in the hard, there is always, always something to be grateful for. What are you grateful for today?

Michelle Gauthier So many things. Last night when I was falling asleep, I was thinking how grateful I am that I have a comfortable house and a comfortable bed. And we have been having crazy weather here in the Midwest where I’ve had the air conditioning on and I’ve had the heat on and we had some really bad storms.  And I was just thinking how my little house has literally weathered me from the storm of life. And I’m just really grateful that I was able to get this house, make it exactly what I wanted it to be. You could see all the colors and stuff behind me, it’s a very bright and colorful house, and I really am grateful for it, like every day.

Tiff Carson I am grateful for the same thing. I was actually just upstairs in my house before we got on and the sun, I’m normally gone to work by now. But I went upstairs and the sun was shining into my kitchen and it is so beautiful in here right now.

Michelle Gauthier And if you hadn’t had that moment of just stillness to notice that that same sun would’ve come in the window and you might not have noticed it. So yeah that’s great. Kudos to you for just slowing down a little bit and appreciating that.

Tiff Carson So before we wrap, I want to invite you to take a moment to really check in with yourself and ask yourself how your body is feeling right now. Is it tight or is it tired? Is it trying to tell you something? 

What have you been holding on to that needs to be released. Michelle’s story is a powerful reminder that we don’t have to wait for breakdowns to start choosing ourselves.

You are allowed to rest, and you are allowed to breathe. You are allowed to change your mind. And your life. Start by getting curious and start by listening. Your heart already knows the way. Thank you, Michelle. I am truly grateful for you being on the show today. 

Michelle Gauthier Thank you for having me, and I just wanna say an amen to everything you just said. Right on. Great job.

Tiff Carson Thank you.