112. Learn to Love Your Story with Dr. Natalie Marr

Lori: Hello and welcome to Fine is a 4-Letter Word. My guest today is Dr. Natalie Marr. Welcome to the show.

Natalie: Thank you. I am so excited to be here, Lori.

Lori: Well, I'm excited to have you here. I was going to say to have you back, but we actually did a podcast interview where I was a guest on your show. So this is our second time talking, but your first time on Fine is a 4-Letter Word.

Natalie: That is correct. And I had such a good time interviewing you. I can only imagine what we're going to get into today.

Lori: And that's how this all came about, because we had such a good time, we were like, “We should do this again.” “Great. Come on my show. We'll do it again.” But with a little bit different twist because our shows have a little different flavors. So stay tuned if you're listening because we'll give you some information about how you can go listen to Dr. Natalie's show in a bit. Let's start out with the question that I love asking all of my guests, which is what were the values and beliefs that you were raised with that contributed to you becoming who you became as a young adult and even into now?

Natalie: That is such a great question. What values? I would say that there is an element of hard work that came. I don't know if that's completely just a generational thing because I'm real smack dab in the middle of Gen X, but for sure it was a family thing for us. So just this idea of having your own integrity around work ethic. So you drive yourself and you are the responsible party for driving yourself has definitely been something that's influenced me in my lifetime for sure. I think also though, in my family, standing up for the little guy was really important. I'm a middle child of five in a culturally Catholic-raised family. Actually, it was religiously as well, which isn't a big part, but it does influence you. And there was just this air of it's our responsibility if we have privilege to be standing up for those that do not. And that definitely has influenced who I am as a person even today. So I haven't really thought about how my family raised me, but for sure, those are two big ones, is standing up for the little guy and having this just powerful work ethic behind me.

Lori: And then as the middle child, did you or do you try to make sure everybody's okay on either side?

Natalie: Absolutely. I don't know if you know anything about the Enneagram, Lori, but I am a solid nine. I can see all sides of all things and I also am a big peacemaker. And that certainly came out of being a middle child for sure.

Lori: I can see obviously how that would be of benefit. Has it been a con also?

Natalie: Everything is a double-edged gift of sorts, so there's positives to it for sure, but the negatives are things like I tend to be more other-oriented, got myself into the helping profession largely because of that kind of philosophy or that viewpoint that I have. And if I'm not watching it, I neglect myself. So I would tell you that my entire program, Learn to Love Your Story, kind of is generated out of that life experience, and also, that was who I loved working with most, was helping people on the journey of recognizing that the fly in the ointment here, the flaw in your reasoning is the fact that you don't pay attention to you and what you need. And if nobody's taking care of you, then all of these great things you're trying to generate out in the world, they go down in value as well. So if we could just get you to ground back into the anchor that is yourself and making sure that you're cared for first and most, then really honestly, you're caring for all the things you care for at the same time. And that logic was not connected by my faith of origin.

So to go back to your first question, my family, that was like, “That’s selfish, you don't put yourself first,” middle child syndrome, all those things kind of evolved into this idea of I kept forgetting myself until I hit my 40s and I couldn't not forget. If you forget yourself, then everything gets left behind. The margins get thinner, I think, in our midlife for sure.

Lori: Absolutely. So that leads right into the next question. At what point were you finding your life to be fine, but not fine?

Natalie: It was certainly my second divorce. My first divorce happened in my late 20s and I had a little infant, and I thought that I knew what that experience of divorce was going to be. But divorcing in midlife and I was in my early 40s is no joke at all.

Lori: Was it easier when you were younger?

Natalie: Absolutely. It was not easy. So I don't want anybody to be like, “Super easy.” But I had a little bit of hubris around like, “Oh, I can do this because I've done it before.” I didn't have any margins at all. And all of these old tracks that I have in my mind of how I'll just muscle through this, I'll work through it, none of that was working on my side. It was actually wearing me down more. So I would say that that fine is not fine was when I was like, “I can't do this. We have to name a thing a thing, so we're going to have to part ways.” And then now I'm in my 40s and a single mom for the second time. It messed with my ideas for myself in so many other places in my life. Now I have to be the therapist that divorced twice. Who the hell wants to go see her? A lot of stuff that I had to reckon with because it impacted me and reverberated into so many parts of my life I never expected it to.

Lori: Yeah, I can totally see that. Somewhat relating, when I shut down my first business, it was like, “Okay, I'm a marketer who can't market my own business.” That's what it felt like.

Natalie: Exactly. Yeah. I think that in our youth, we have some idea that those things stay in their own lane. And in our midlife and beyond, we just have a better appreciation for, ain't nothing in its own lane. It's all interconnected. So if I'm not doing well over here, I'm just not doing well. Like the whole thing goes down a little bit. So you're going to have to figure out a way not to lean into the things you think are working, because what you'll end up doing is kind of burning yourself at both ends, so to speak. And that's not good for anybody.

Lori: Right. And oftentimes, we're terrible at doing the thing that we do for other people for ourselves. And that's not unusual. And we need to stop beating ourselves up for it, because there's nothing wrong with that. We can see other people's situations from an outside perspective. And that's why we can be good at helping them with their marketing or helping them as a therapist.

Natalie: Exactly. And I would go one step further as a clinical psychologist. And given the training that I have, oftentimes, we find ourselves out in the world doing a thing and delivering a service to somebody else that is the very thing that we need ourselves. So if you're really good at something and then you find you're lacking in that, it's not an uncommon experience to have to reconcile. And I think that there's just something about like hitting those late 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s where that stuff slapping you in the face right and left.

Lori: For a lot of people, I think they may have given up some of the vices that allowed them to not see those things. When you're young, you can get away with it. Also, now is the time when people are going through so many other transitions, like kids are growing up and moving away, not needing you, or parents are passing away, or friends are passing away. And now you're looking at things from a totally different perspective.

Natalie: Yeah. That was very powerful when I heard your story and going through what you did in losing your mother. I think it's those kinds of life events where we've just had some magical thinking. “Oh, death will never touch me, I'm in my 20s, I'm in my early 30s, that's never going to be a thing.” And then it's a thing. It's like, “Oh my gosh, it's not just a thing, it's a thing with the people I love and care about most.” Those are the kinds of tear in the universe kind of stuff that really gets us paying attention. And I loved hearing your story and how you went into COVID, too, because I think COVID did that for a ton of us. I think it was this fabric in the universe ripped moment, like, “Oh shit, we don't have control over anything. I better really reckon with what are the things I do actually have control of instead of putting all of my eggs in the basket of, if I just stay in this routine, my life is going to be perfect. Because that routine can be gone in a moment's notice, and not just for you, but for people everywhere.”

Lori: Yeah. And when you stay in that routine and not paying attention to what's going on in your life, around you, whatever, that's how you end up at 85 if you're lucky enough to live that long, 85, 90, 100, going, “Wait a second, where did my whole life go?”

Natalie: Yeah. Right. It feels like a blink, but it wasn't. The days are long and the years are short. But yeah, you can end up on that side if you never had an interruption like that majorly shook you, never having really reckoned with, “Shoot, I really wasn't in my life. I was kind of doing the program of life, but I wasn't really in it.”

Lori: Yeah. They talk about—I don't know who they are, but about the biggest regrets of people at the end of their life. And it's that they didn't take the risks. And I talked about that in a recent episode, a solo episode about people regret what they didn't do, the risks they did not take, as opposed to the things they did do or the risks they did take, even if those risks didn't turn out the way they expected or anticipated.

Natalie: Right. Almost no one is disappointed in putting themselves in the position of taking a risk when you look at it in hindsight. They might be disappointed in the outcome if it didn't turn in the fashion that they wanted, but people are never really disappointed in their taking action, their choice to do it

Lori: What's something that you have taken action on that you are scared to do?

Natalie: So I would say that one of the biggest—I thought it was just like going into coaching or going into private practice. I would have said that to you a few years ago. But just recently in my private practice, I reduced my caseload down to 25% of what I used to do. And the way that I did this is I took all the insurance panel off the table. I was like, “I won't play with insurance companies anymore.” I have a lot of ethical and business reasons for that, but I just do not agree with how they treat the mental health field and undervalue our services. So I went to fee for service. You pay out of pocket, essentially. And in doing that, a lot of people just take you off the list. If they see that you won't take insurance, they immediately write you off. I'm a single parent. So to reduce to 25% of what you expected out of that business line's income is significant. And this coaching business was not making any money for me at that time. It was still just being generated.

So that was a big risk for me to take, but I couldn't have done what I've done so far with Learn to Love Your Story had I not taken that risk, because this needed my time and my focus that I couldn't give to it when I was putting all the time and effort into the business. But I didn't have capital behind me. I didn't have anybody's back. And ultimately when you're the only adult in the house paying the bills, they don't get paid if you don't get money that's coming in. So I had to take a huge risk with that. But while it has been very challenging, it has been very rewarding to watch myself manage all of my anxious feelings around that and really put into action the kind of stuff that I teach other women to do.

Lori: Yeah. There's a great lesson in there because you said, one, you were following your values that you don't believe in the way that the insurance companies are doing business and you didn't want to be a part of that. So you stood for your value there. And then just having that faith and having that trust that, yes, this is scary. And secondly, I don't have like a trust fund or anybody else backing me up here. Because I hear that from a lot of people a lot of times. They're like, “Well, I can't take that risk because *insert your excuse here.*” You had that excuse and you said, “Well, I don't care. Fuck that. I'm still doing it.”

Natalie: I'm still doing it. It was a legitimate excuse and it had fueled why I wasn't making that choice for a long time. And I made a lot of people that love me dearly very uncomfortable when I made this decision. They were like, “Ooh. Are you prioritizing this business venture over your kids? Your kid is going off to college.” And I'm like, “I'm still paying off my college school loans. Hopefully, we're both going to pay them off with whatever this becomes of.” There's ways of dealing with that. I didn't have parents that could pay my way through. So I'm teaching him the same way I was taught. Like, you’ve just got to figure this out. Get your grants, get your scholarships and then get loans for whatever else you've got left, and we'll finance and figure that out later how we'll pay for your education.

I don't think that this is not in alignment with my values at all. I think it's very much in alignment with my values. I was looking up for the little guy, which in my cases both the clinicians and the end users are clients. I don't think it's served by how health insurance decides and dictates what prices are for different types of therapy. In fact, specialty therapy and getting specialty therapy doesn't get really paid for through insurance. There are a couple of exceptions to that rule, but for the most part, you get paid for your time, which means somebody with 20 years’ experience in a doctorate gets paid the same as a graduate school clinical supervisee that I'm supervising. That doesn't make any sense. It just makes no business sense.

So I'm like standing up for both of us that you should get the quality of what you want. If you want to see somebody that's a specialist that's been doing this a while, then go pay for it. It's a higher price. Or if this is your first time in therapy, go and try somebody new and see what that does for you. But I was really standing up for that little guy. And I would say just to tie it all back to your first question, I was looking out for myself with my work ethic, because I knew I could do this, because ain't nobody going to stand up for me like I'm going to stand up for me. And I like to overwork maybe too much. So I do have to kind of watch that. But I was like, no, anybody can do this, I've got the perseverance to put in the work, do the time, build the relationships, give the creative work what it needs and have the systems in place to make this go.

Lori: Yeah. And the other thing that you said earlier was that you made everybody else uncomfortable. But I don't know that that was exactly the best phrasing of the word, because you didn't make them anything. I go after this all the time. People are like, “Well, he made me angry.” No, he didn't. You chose to accept to be angry. We choose how to feel. So I can see how your actions could have contributed to their feeling uncomfortable. And that's on them. Again, that's not a reason to not do the thing that your heart is telling you to do.

Natalie: Yeah. In fact, I think in my program, I talk about it like it's a rumble strip back. You're on a new highway, you want to take this new road. And when you try to drift off that road to your old path, you'll feel that rumble strip. So sometimes it comes in the form of things like everybody else is uncomfortable with the decision you're making, which means you're still on the new road, because they would be comfortable if you were on your old road. So you're hitting a rumble strip and it feels itchy in the moment. But you can take that information as validation that you're actually on the path that you've designed for yourself. It's a new path. Other people don't know what to expect or see of you in that path. But that's okay. They'll learn. They'll get comfortable over time once they see what this is bringing for you.

Lori: Right. I love that. They will get comfortable. They'll adjust. We’re very flexible as humans to adjust to things. But nobody likes the initial change. That's uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. I love that you said that it shows you that you're on the right path.

Natalie: You're on the right path. That's a rumble strip that's like, you're trying to get off this and you don't want to get off. You want to stay in your lane here that you've set out for yourself. But sometimes, it shows up in ways that we formerly would have thought, oh, well, everybody should be on board. If everybody's on board with me, then I've got my support. And that doesn't always show up the way that we think it's going to show up. I'm thinking of it like, yeah, they're supporting you. They're telling you you're still on this new path. They don't know that's what they're saying. They think what they're saying is don't do this. Do the old thing. But if they're saying, don't do this, go do the old thing, we know where the old path goes. It goes to that old life that you didn't want that wasn't in alignment with your values. So let's bring you back.

Lori: Yes. I love this way of looking at it. That means you're on the right path or you're on the path that you should be on at the moment, which is, again, the right path. There's no wrong decision.

You're talking about when your friends, family, community is not supporting you. This is another reason why it's so important to have a coach or a peer group that does support you. Who did you have when you were going through your transition that made people uncomfortable?

Natalie: That's a great question. I found groups of people that could help me be in alignment with this new scary thing. One of them ended up being—I'm writing the book that goes along with my online course, and it was a writers’ accountability group. It was a small group of women that just decided we needed a little extra. We had paid to be in a program that was coaching us through the writing process, but on the side had this communication, like, “Well, it'd be nice to just meet for an hour or two, maybe once a week, maybe once every other week or something, just to cheer each other on.” And I always find value in those types of communities. I create those communities, so of course I was like, “Yes, I'm all in. Where do I sign up?”

And I joined this writers’ accountability group, which really became kind of more of a mastermind for what we were all writing our books for, what we were in pursuit of. Some of us were doing it for business, some of us were doing it for other reasons, but the mastermind of just coming together as a group and being able to say, “Man, this is tough when your sister and your friend are really worried because bills are tight and they want you to go back to a salary job and you just know it's a high price tag to pay things like premium for your health insurance out of pocket. And to you, that seems really scary, but to me, it just signifies like I'm in charge, like I'm buying that product and I want it to be that premium, and I'm going to make sure that I have that dollar sign at the end of the month with this other pursuit because I want to be in charge of what I'm doing. That's what's more important to me, is that I'm running my businesses in the way that are in alignment with who I am as a person. And if I go back to a salary job, even the best of jobs might hit that 70% of the time, which means I've got to deal with that 30% that I don't want to anymore. I just don't want to do it.”

Lori: Yeah, that's so good. And then do you have an ongoing group or peer group now?

Natalie: It has dwindled over time. I still do that writers’ accountability group, but two of us have been having conversations about making it a truly a mastermind group for those of us that have businesses that go with our books around how do we help build our businesses. Because if we derailed into too much of that conversation, then that wasn't really great for the people that were there just for the writing. So she and I have had a couple of conversations. So that should be coming in October, November-ish for me to do that. But I was there every week. I might not have written a dang thing, Lori. Writing accountability group. I might not have written anything for the book. And yet I showed up because having those women just tell their stories and me listen and then tell mine and just feel like, “Oh yeah, okay, I feel good. I'm right in the right place where I need to be, feeling this discomfort from my friends and family because they don't see what I see ahead of me. They're not visualizing what's coming for me yet.”

Lori: Yeah. It's so important to have that support. I've been interviewed in a lot of places too, and one of the questions I've gotten in the past is, what would you recommend to a new entrepreneur? And it's not just for entrepreneurs, but what's the one piece of advice that you would give somebody who's just starting out? And it's always get yourself around people who will support your success and celebrate your success with you, which is a whole other—not just supporting it, but celebrating it. Because I am guessing—I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you may be just as terrible at celebrating things as I am, just from what you've said already.

Natalie: Totally. What woman do you know that was taught to celebrate the small things? Like none of us. We were all told if you have your better homes and garden house or your HGTV house, then you can celebrate, but you can't celebrate if you went out and bought some throw pillows and made the couch look nicer. So we're always in this chase with where we want to be. I don't know a lot of women that are taught to celebrate those small steps. So you're absolutely right. That is one of the facets of community, whatever that community is for you, that you need people around you that are saying, “Good for you. You held your own in that. You haven't arrived at the goal yet, but you held true to whatever this value is or this goal, pursuit is, and that's worth celebrating too.”

Lori: Absolutely. It's even recognizing the small steps to celebrate.

Natalie: Yeah, right. Because we're not going to see it. They're going to probably see it before we see it. They'll walk in and say, “Those are new pillows on your couch” before we give ourselves credit where we've done a little thing here. That's just an example, but we've been given a lot of this socially conditioned of what a good life looks like. And we do try our hardest to be the best moms and to volunteer and do the best in our communities and be the best employees and be the best friend and all of that stuff. But we never are giving ourselves credit for the journey. We're only thinking that we'll be able to give ourselves credit at the end of that journey. Well, most of life is the journey. So we're missing out on valuable time that we could be celebrating.

Lori: Exactly. There really is no end point until the very end. You don't get to a place where you're like, “Okay, now I'm just going to coast.” I don't know. We have this idea that this place exists.

Natalie: Yeah. Well, I think we've been taught that that place exists. I think that's the premise on which things like perfectionism are built, is this idea that there's an arrival and it's the destination. But then we're just constantly under that destination fatigue, under the fatigue of being in pursuit but not giving our ourselves for the pursual.

Lori: Right. And there is that saying. It's not the destination. It's the journey. And I'm always like, “But no, I just want to freaking be there. I don't want to spend six hours in the car.”

Natalie: I know. I spent lots of hours in the car this summer, so I have like a visceral response as you say that.

Lori: So have I. That's why I said it.

Natalie: But I think that there are some people that enjoy just the trip itself. So the beauty of the human brain and the human psyche is it can evolve all across our lifetime. There isn't a point at which it can't learn new things. So if what you found is you were doing it that way for a long time, it's kind of my premise for women, is that's fine. And it might've even worked for you for years and years to do it that way. It isn't now. It doesn't serve you now. So is there a different way? Is there another way that we could help you try on where you celebrate being in the car for six hours instead of just the destination being the endpoint?

And I do think that there's some places we can lean into with that, because we did get good at trying to prepare for something, trying to prepare for a party, trying to make sure our kids were the best kids by being good moms or by trying to be an employee that was the team player. So we have some gifts where we are actually pretty good at staying in that process. Now we just have to learn to reward ourselves for the process itself instead of only what the process gets us. That's the shift. So you're not rewriting the whole thing. We can anchor it to stuff we already do. But there is a shift in how we view it and take a perspective around it.

Lori: Yes. The process, rewarding yourself for sticking with the process. That is the true celebration.

Natalie: That's the true celebration. Absolutely.

Lori: That is the key takeaway right there.

Natalie: Cool. Awesome.

Lori: What are the things that you do on a regular basis to keep yourself in the right headspace?

Natalie: Sure. I meditate daily and I tell people there's kind of a point of diminishing returns at about somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes a day. The research shows, it gives you the same value as those of us that'll do it for 30-plus minutes a day. So if you can just work yourself up to that time. But that is a practice I would not give up at all.

I am a zealot about the right kind of self-care. So not self-care that's an indulgence, like a reward for things. Not self-care that is only meant to help you manage stress. Those are good forms of self-care or components of self-care, but I'm talking about the kind of things you do for yourself on a daily basis. Sometimes there's things you do weekly or monthly or whatever, but what is it that you're doing that makes you want to stay in your life, to be here for all of it, for the good and the not good? That self-care. So I have a pretty robust self-care plan and I work with people to create those for themselves. So if you're not doing those two things, it's really hard to get by in life. It's like asking yourself to run a marathon with only training for a couple weeks versus asking yourself to run a marathon when you've been running your whole life. It just makes it that much harder to do life. So daily meditation and some form of self-care that you've got a routine around regularly that helps you want to stay in your life. Those are my two that are not negotiable.

Lori: Yeah. I'm just writing this down because that is another brilliant point. What is it that you're doing that makes you want to stay in your life?

Natalie: Yes. Because life is hard. Let's be honest about it. Some parts of it are great and some parts of it are hard. And if you want to create a life that has less hardness, you're kind of in the wrong pursuit honestly. You want to just create a life where you want to be in it no matter what's coming at you because you, know you can handle it. And that isn't always that way. Part of my forms of self-care are doing kinds of meditation that switch my thinking around how I approach challenge in my life instead of thinking of it as failure, that I'm thinking of it as opportunity instead of you know thinking the hard stuff is somehow representing that I did something wrong, trying to see what is the universe telling me here? What is God, whatever your version of that is, what is it telling me? Because it is feeling rough, so there must be something to be learned here.

So some of my self-care is about how do I reframe those times instead of getting so bogged down in those times. The times are going to show up whether we want them to or don't. My self-care is a lot of how I reframe the tougher stuff for me.

Lori: That's what it is all about. It's about reframing it and not expecting that it's always going to work out the way you anticipated, because that rarely happens. But like you said, then what can I learn from this? How do I reframe the situation? It's not because you are a bad person or because you deserve it or whatever. That's just how it played out. One of the elements I have in my Staying Calm in Chaos program is that acceptance. Like, okay, stopping and going, all right, well this is where it is, this is what it looks like. Not what I expected, not what I wanted, but this is what is now. You can't go back, you can't hit reverse and drive backwards, but here I am now. Now what do I do moving forward? Because as soon as you can accept that this is where you are and stop fighting that you hate that this is where you are ...

Natalie: Yeah, then you're in a whole different position to show up in your life and do something about it.

Lori: Right. You have now the power as opposed to holding yourself as a victim.

Natalie: Correct. I would say that some people have gotten the impression that acceptance is kind of a passive thing. And it's not. How you're describing it is exactly how I define it. It's an active stage and you have to be doing the work to be accepting and open-minded about things. It is not a, “Okay, I accept it, it is what it is,” and then move on from it like it was this passive, “I just name that, I'm accepting.” Acceptance takes some elbow grease and it takes some real work from us psychically to stay in that open-minded, flexible state of agility.

Lori: Yes, it's powerful as opposed to victim mode and it's not complacency. Acceptance is not complacency. Yes, thank you for explaining that. Wow, this has been such a good conversation. I feel like we could continue talking all afternoon.

Natalie: We could. I knew it, Lori. I knew when I spoke to you the first time. I was like, yes, I like this lady.

Lori: Yes, thank you. Before we part ways though, two things. One, when you're having those days where you're like, “I need some extra energy,” what's your hype song?

Natalie: Yep. I'm horrible at the name of it. It's a Lizzo song. I sent it to you, but let me look it up again. My brain is full of lots of things. Can we talk about it?

Lori: That's the problem or the challenge for all of us. We think, “Oh, I just can't remember things because I'm getting old,” which means you want to jump out of my skin and strangle somebody. But it’s not. Age is not an excuse. It's because we have so much incoming information, it's hard for our brains to process it all and hold on to it. That's really the challenge. It has nothing to do with age.

Natalie: So I have a hard time remembering music lyrics and music song names, but it's Lizzo. It's About Damn Time would be my theme song, because I just love how the lyrics in that start, “It hits bad bitch o'clock,” which is just, that's just my style. But she talks right from the beginning like we're going to be getting into our feelings. And then she always takes everything in this kind of self-empowered direction, which ultimately is what I'm trying to help everybody do. But I try to help myself do that too. So that's my theme song. That's my pep song. If we're in the car and I need a little jolt of something, then it's usually Lizzo that I put on. And she's from Minnesota. So there.

Lori: Oh, I didn't know that.

Natalie: Yeah. She's an uptown girl here in the Twin Cities.

Lori: All right. Very cool. Yeah. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And then that leads right into empowering other women, which is, if somebody wants to continue the conversation with you, where do they find you?

Natalie: Find me at learntoloveyourstory.com. You can click on how to work with Dr. Natalie if you want to learn a little bit more on how to work with me personally. And then the other thing that I would direct them to do is just to find my Midlife Crisis to Centered-Life Thriving podcast, because I am really loving, enjoying doing that and have all sorts of free material already out there from my first season from 2023. And I'll be closing that out and starting a new season in the new year.

Lori: Awesome. And I will put a link to that in the show notes as well, because we mentioned that back in the beginning, that we were going to share how people can listen to my episode as well as all of the other cool guests you've had.

Natalie: Yes. Thank you.

Lori: Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Dr. Natalie, on Fine Is a 4-Letter Word.

Natalie: You're welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.