Compassion, Gratitude and The Power of Words with Dr Jane Tornatore PhD
I had a pleasure to interview Dr. Jane Tornatore PhD (Mental Wealth For Entrepreneurs Podcast Episode #19) to find out how compassion, gratitude and the power of words can help entrepreneurs beat the odds of succeeding in business. Jane is a therapist and speaker based in Seattle, WA and has over 10 years of experience working with clients with just this type of problem. Drawing on her extensive professional training and wide-ranging life experiences, Jane helps her clients convert old patterns and unnecessary stress into more self-confidence and peace of mind.
Dr Jane Tornatore passionately supports people as they convert old, outdated patterns and unnecessary stress into more freedom, joy and authenticity. As a recovering perfectionist, Jane knows the pain of being bogged down by old beliefs, feeling responsible for everything, and never quite measuring up to expectations. Through her ongoing inner growth work and exploration, Jane continues to discover the freedom and peace that come from questioning old beliefs, being gentler with herself, and living more from her heart.
Jane brings extensive professional training to our sessions: she has trained in CIMBS (awesome for anxiety), Lifespan Integration (powerful for overcoming trauma), and hypnosis (great for accessing inner wisdom).
Show notes
Katerina: Hi Jane.
Jane: Hello, how are you?
Katerina: Hello, I’m good. It’s great to have you on the podcast. Jane, you are a speaker, a counselling therapist… family marriage therapist, an author of a book — “Everything is perfect. Just not me” … I actually read the book... Why, why such a name?
Jane: Why such a name? Because it’s true… I, I’m a recovering perfectionist I will probably always be a perfectionist. But one of the things… and the people who are drawn to me are the perfectionists, and for a perfectionist it’s like you’re doing so well, you’re so awesome, that was done so well… I kind of sucked because I totally could have done it better. We tend to think we’re, we generally tend to be much kinder to others than we are to ourselves no matter how hard we work… or how it goes, no matter, no matter how much praise we get. It’s always just not quite good enough. So we never get that feel good of like, oh yay me — that is super awesome to feel. We can give it. We just can’t receive it. So, hence the title Everything’s perfect, just not me.
Katerina: So, where this drive for perfection comes from?
Jane: Oh, that’s a great question, Katerina. Most of how we… how we see ourselves in the world, and how the world is… most of our perceptions most of our beliefs are formed before the age of six. So many of our beliefs are pre verbal, we just kind… of because of how our brain works, actually. Do you want me to get a little brain geeky and talk about forming these beliefs.
Katerina: Okay. Yeah.
Jane: So around between the ages of zero and two our brains are mostly in delta waves. And delta waves we’re just kind of like, you know, you know little kids they’re just kind of looking around and experiencing. They’re just taking in the world. And they’re responding to the moment… if they’re wet, if they’re hungry if they’re scared if they’re no cuddle, they just they just respond there’s no thought around it, it’s just response to the world. Around the age of two our brain becomes mostly theta state. Now theta state is the state our brain is when we’re under hypnosis. So, under hypnosis in theta state the brain gets very quiet, our ego gets very quiet and we just kind of receive… we don’t critique so much. We just take in the information. So little kids are basically until the age of six under a hidden hypnotic hypnotic state where, what is seen to be true, or what is experienced is seen to be true, that’s, that’s how the world is, that’s how I am. If we’re told, you know, your bad kid...
Okay, I’m a bad kid. We literally don’t have the brain capacity, the brain capability to say, no, I’m not, I’m if I’m just making a kid, what do you call your bed kid for. So literally, we just received things is true. And then they become underlying beliefs. Now later our brain goes into beta state and beta waves in were mostly in beta waves and that’s kind of like, I gotta I gotta fix things I haven’t solved things I got to take care of things I gotta, you know, that’s the problem solving and always scanning very busy part of our brain. When we’re in beta waves, we can go — “What. It doesn’t make sense. That’s a wacky belief… What is up with that.” But, you know, before the age of six, we’re just kind of taking it and going, Okay, that’s how the world is. And in my case, my family, were not so healthy when I was a kid, and I decided that in my little unformed brain you know my theta ways if I were just good enough and I could make everybody in my family happy, and nobody would get hurt.
Now, as an adult I’m like, yeah, that’s not gonna happen. You’re the smallest you can’t stop everybody from, you know, being unhappy, and getting hurt. You just can’t do it. But in my little non fully formed brain that was the best answer I had, because it’s an unconscious belief, until I really became aware of that and really started practising to go. “Yeah, they’re better beliefs than the ones I grew up with.” They were just kind of an underlying driver. Is that, is what I’m saying clear.
Katerina: Yes. Yeah, so did… was being a perfectionist kind of hindered you during your adolescence years or young adulthood. How did it affect you?
Jane: It both helped me and hindered me. It’s a really good question, and helped me because, you know, working really hard is a great trait, especially when you’re in a working hard kind of world, right. I have ADHD, and dyslexia, and I got a PhD. Like, that doesn’t come without going, I’m going to make this happen. The problem is, it wasn’t just the drive. But no matter how well I did — it was never good. Like I never got the pleasure for the work. So while it gave me a drive of like, I will be perfect. I will show people, I will rather better than whatever. I did it with great stress. I was just very stressed all the time great anxiety great stress.
So while it enabled me to get a PhD on unmedicated ADHD. I also wasn’t happy, the entire time I was a student. So, one of the, one of the things I frequently tell my clients is every tool, eventually becomes an impediment. Like, we learn these things because they work at the time. And then when we become bigger than our than our, our fears our beliefs, then they hold us back. Because if I keep being a perfectionist, I never going to try anything new. Well, I will… it’s just so much harder for me than… People who are like “No. Awesome. I am gonna learn something new.” And I’m like “Oh, my god, I’m gonna fail.” Right. And I do it because I’m driven to, but it’s just not as happy as I could be where.
Katerina: Yeah. So what are your strategies today to… I guess you’re still kind of dealing with this… What are your strategist to do… to kind of overcome this? Or maybe kind of paying attention to when when you start doing it again… but what are you doing today to stop you being perfectionist?
Jane: Right, that’s a great question. I do many many many many many things. One of the things I’ve learned is that it’s helpful to have a toolbox versus a tool. Because if I just have one tool perfectionism — I have to use it all the time, whether it’s appropriate or not. But if I’ve got a whole toolbox. Sometimes perfectionism is super awesome, it gets me prepared for things I’m not sure about. But, so, honestly, a lot of what I do is just, it’s a lot of self soothing “I’m like, Oh, I’m being perfectionist again.” And I literally I got this from a woman named Tara Brock, who’s just wonderful about meditating and and she literally puts her hand on her heart, and says “Oh, I’m hurting.”
So the first thing I do is basically give myself some compassion, because I’m hurting, I’m hurting myself right it’s just in my mind nobody’s saying “Jane you’re not perfect, like, that’s not coming for anybody else it’s coming from me.” So I first have some compassion for myself, always, always, always, that is my first step. And the beautiful thing is, is I, the more I do it, the more it grows, and the easier it is to create. So that’s the first thing I do, honestly.
The second thing I do is use a lot of humour. Like when I make a mistake… one of the things my friends know I say a lot is like when I’ve done something kind of really stupid. It’s not bad. It’s just I made a mistake it was stupid, or I’m having trouble like you know I got this new mic. I don’t know how to set it up to my computer yet I just don’t. So one of the things I will say is “I’ve had a PhD, you know”… so it’s like, super smart, and I can’t figure this really simple things out so this humour brings lightness because perfectionism has this harsh taskmaster feel to it. So as soon as I laugh. It lightens it and it doesn’t have the same power, it’s like “Yeah, I don’t do everything perfectly because I’m human.”
And that’s one of my favourite things I say my clients constantly it’s like well you can believe you can do that too bad you’re human right, because, because we are inherently as human beings fallible, we make mistakes all the time, we, by definition, cannot be perfect. So those two things are my go to, as always, is self compassion and humour.
Katerina: Yeah. So, in your book you talk about dealing with negative emotions. So what is the biggest sort of issue here for entrepreneurs?
Jane: Oh my goodness. So I was listening to some of your other podcasts and I’m like, this is the comparison monsters like they seem like natural entrepreneurs, they just know how to do this stuff and I suck at it, I’m not a natural entrepreneur. And so I did that comparison. So, one comparison is super not helpful so two especially I think with entrepreneurs like we’re always doing stuff out of our comfort zone. We by definition, well, I’m kind of an entrepreneur by like by happenstance versus by temperament. But we are always doing stuff that we don’t know how to do, and therefore we can be afraid. Right. It’s like, oh, I’m gonna, I’m I don’t know what I’m doing so I might fail, and we frequently do, because we’re trying new things, it’s great. If we aren’t failing — we kind of probably aren’t trying enough new things, you know the definition.
So, that failings model that you talked about and I’m so happy you got to read the book — I love my book. But basically, when we can just feel our feelings and let them go. They don’t have to rule us, they don’t have to rule our decisions like for me being an entrepreneur, I faced fear, a lot, because I can’t do it perfectly. Cuz I’m doing a lot of new stuff. So, we are humans do three things with our feelings, we either repress them, saying “Oh, I can’t feel angry. I can’t feel scared, I got to work now I can’t feel scared.” So we repress it, which keeps it around, or we feed it, which you know we things say things like “Well, of course I’m scared I don’t know what I’m doing, you know, of course, I’m gonna fail” because… I don’t know … we feed it we keep it around.
The way to actually let him pass is to simply feel it. We know we’re simply feeling when our brainstem is super busy having thoughts about… If you just focus on what’s happening in your body, like the physical sensation, your brain quiets and your feeling just processes through. There’s research that says, our feelings, our reactions to our thoughts or happenstance or circumstance or events are done within 90 seconds to two minutes. Right. So if I hear a loud noise. And I get startled. If I’m not going “Oh my god, what was that was that a gunshot was that uh oh my, what was it was an earthquake what”… I’m keeping it around.
So I’m adding to the stress of I’m just like, Wow, my heart’s beating faster I’m kind of shocked my muscles get tight, it’s done within two minutes. Our body is naturally set up to let these things go very quickly. Our mind keeps them around. So, if you know as entrepreneurs we’re feeling afraid where we feel disappointment, anything…. It’s just like, sit down and let yourself feeling, and almost always within five minutes it will be gone, because as a perfectionist, I want to be down to that two minutes. I’ve never gotten to two minutes, the fastest I’ve gotten to is five, because it’s hard to shut down these patterns and it shouldn’t feel it. Of course they should feel like because they’re jerks or I’m a jerk or whatever.
Katerina: Yeah, yeah. So since you’ve opened your practice which was what 2005… what, what is the biggest sort of challenge you you you faced as you opened your practice?
Jane: Oh my goodness, nobody’s ever asked me that that’s a great question. So, before yesterday before this interview I went back to look at my income statement between the first and second year of business, I raised my income fivefold.
Katerina: Okay.
Jane: That sounds super impressive until you realise my first year, I made $3,000 went from 3000 to $15,000, because one of the beliefs I have I’ve had instil have this is what I’m working on is, I don’t know how to market. So I sat in my little office. I had a very minimal website. I basically didn’t tell anybody. I was just like, how people find me on the internet and call me. That was my marketing strategy. So I’m really lucky actually that I made $3000 but one of the things I realised, is you know you talked about feelings I, because I’m not a natural entrepreneur, I was gripped in fear for the first five years right… The first five years I’m like “Oh no, I won’t be able to make it. Oh no, how am I gonna make money. I can’t market. I don’t know what to say.”
So I was literally afraid, and when we are afraid our brain shuts down. When we’re afraid it makes our limbic system in charge, which takes our frontal cortex, which is the, I can make decisions, part of our brain off line right. So when we act out of fear, we’re always going to make the decision.. well, not always… But most of the time, we’re going to make the decision that is not the best one right? So around…. I don’t know when did I have my jump year 10… I finally made over $1,000, or $100,000, a year. And I don’t know when it was in there, but at one point I’m like this fears totally getting in my way. Because each year I was making more money like each year I made a lot more money, but I still never had enough money. Like, I was paying down debts, I was making more money and still at the end of the month I’m like, Am I gonna make rent, maybe I won’t eat a whole lot, maybe I won’t buy that shampoo yet, so I was just so gripped in fear.
So I decided to do a small action to help me. So I did two things. I decided to buy a cup of coffee a week, whether I could afford it or not. I mean that’s how scarcity minded I was, I’m gonna buy a cup of coffee right. And then the second thing is I started a gratitude practice, instead of being so anchored in fear like, what happens if that client and oh my god they’re getting better they’re gonna leave. Then who’s gonna who’s gonna pay me, right. There’s just like, I would just be grateful every morning when I woke up in every night before I went to bed — I just felt grateful. I decided not to make a list… many people make a list.
I’m a perfectionist. I kept thinking that my lists weren’t good enough. Oh, you said your…, every single time come on, come on. That’s not important. That’s so every critique my list so it wouldn’t put me into gratitude. So instead I literally, and for me when I feel gratitude my heart just kind of feels all warm and expanded. So every morning and every night I would feel gratitude. Now what’s really fascinating out of those two things they were very powerful for getting me out of fear.
The next year, I didn’t make any more money. However, I was eating out, I was saving money, and I was still paying down debt and I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense. I’m not making any more money yet now I have enough money. I think because my brain wasn’t in fear I was just making wiser decisions. So, that’s actually that was probably my greatest challenge was getting myself out of living in fear as a solo practitioner there.
Katerina: Because you, you’re also saying that you are not a natural intrapreneur. How do you define, being the natural entrepreneur?
Jane: You see this title, everything’s perfect just not me. Anybody not me.
Katerina: Who are the natural entrepreneurs?
Jane: Actually, I would love to ask you that because that’s your whole focus…
Katerina: I’ve got no idea. Everyone is just trying their best and you know they do a little bit every day but you saying I’m not natural. Natural. How do we spot natural entrepreneurs. Some of my students they I teach, they say oh well, cuz I’m teaching on entrepreneurship programmes and, and they say “Oh well well why do I need to learn entrepreneurship because I’ve done this test and I’m not an entrepreneurial to start up a business.” And I’m thinking “Well, what what what are these tests, who’s there to tell you whether you can do entrepreneurship, or not.
Jane: That’s a great question. You… I’m so glad you said that and I’m going to stop saying that because maybe there aren’t any natural entrepreneurs, maybe we’re all just… maybe other people are scared as I am, I don’t know, do you think that’s true?
Katerina: I think so, yes I think we’re all have fears and limiting beliefs. Because I’m also kind of practising cognitive behavioural therapy as well and I just it’s helped me a lot to actually to spot why I’m thinking what I’m thinking.
Jane: Yes.
Katerina: Why I feel what I feel.
Jane: Exactly…
Katerina: Helps you to monitor your your your your thinking, you know, process and stuff like that but you know you mentioned gratitude you took quite a lot about gratitude in your book. And so.. you practice this every day?
Jane: Twice a day… and what’s really interesting you know you talk about cognitive behavioural it’s really just training your brain right. So because I practice gratitude in the morning and it’s just for like 30 seconds it’s not very long in the morning and at night. I remember about two weeks after I started it in the middle of the day I just started feeling grateful for something I’m like, what, it was just spontaneous because I was building neural pathways of gratitude. So, those who are more likely to fire when I see something I’m like, “Oh, I’m so grateful for my for my flowers out there” and it’s just natural versus me “Now I feel gratitude.”
You know anything we practice any belief any thought pattern we do it enough becomes an underlying belief. So now my underlying belief is oh there’s so much to be grateful for… even though I’m still not perfect.
Katerina: Yeah, so, entrepreneurship, it can be stressful right and it probably is stressful for a lot of people, especially solopreneurs before they get the right team on board to help them out. But how can entrepreneurs reduce stress and anxiety?
Jane: Right. There’s one tool that I have that is so powerful for anxiety. It’s the circle of power, and the circle of control, that it was originally from Steven Covey of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People … he had a different name but it kept names for the circles, but my clients were kept being confused so I renamed it. So when we’re anxious, when we’re stressed, when we’re frustrated, when we’re stuck, when we’re helpless, when we’re hopeless — we’re always in that external circle of control.
The internal circle of power is basically two things, our thoughts and our behaviours, that’s actually what we actually have control over what we do and what we think. Everything else is in that circle of control which includes the weather, which includes the corona virus, which includes you know whether people buy our product or not whether, which includes how people think about us. So anytime we’re feeling stuck helpless, hopeless, anxious, afraid. I always myself and tell my clients I like I said, I usually go “Where are you?” … “I’m in a circle of control” because we’re worrying about stuff, we actually can’t do something about.
So when we’re worried if you’re concerned about something, stop and ask yourself, Is there something I can do about it. And if there is great if you can make a plan for when to do it, do it because clearly if you’re anxious and afraid and stuff, it’s bothering you — so it’s important to take action. So that’s, that’s really helped me one because it brings me back to what I can actually do versus spinning my wheels, but when this happens and then what if this happens which I can’t control right? The second thing it does is if we’ve if something feels out of control, we decide an action to take. And it doesn’t work. Like, if I can’t think… when my brain is totally blanking on an action that’s business oriented. I’ll say, I’m so used to in Seattle, we’ve got these on ramps onto the free way and when the free way is busy it has a red light so you have to wait right but there’s a lane for people who have two or more people in their car they get to go right..
Read the full interview
Originally published at Katerina.Thomas.com
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About the Author:
I help entrepreneurs to build their emotional and business resilience. My mission is to teach business owners the critical action steps for building entrepreneurial resilience, surviving business challenges, and using powerful strategies to review, reinvent and relaunch their business.
