Transformational Lessons from 2020 with Lisa Hatlestad

Rebecca: Before we get started with our fun interview with Lisa Hatlestad, I want to tell you that I have a new workshop coming up. And this is a workshop about how to use Human Design to create more flow in your business. So if you are a female business entrepreneur, please go to the link below to check out all the details. It is rebeccatervo.com/flow. All right. Let's get started.
Welcome to Beautifully Bloomed, the podcast where we explore how to break you out of the box of rules and beliefs that are holding you back from the life that you are meant to live. I'm your host, Rebecca Tervo. Join me as I share mindset tools, coaching conversations, and Human Design to help you uncover your unique gifts and create the life, relationships, and business you desire.
Lisa is a master certified life coach who specializes in helping creative, sensitive women in or approaching midlife connect with their own intuition, inner wisdom, and wholeness so they can free themselves from insecurity, heal their spirit, and trust themselves. Thank you so much for joining me, Lisa. I'm actually feel like I'm in the population that you serve. How exciting.
Lisa: That's great. Thank you so much for having me, Rebecca. And I am actually in that population, too.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And continually doing this work for myself, as well.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: So before we get started, how did you find out about me? I know you came to me first.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: And I knew you, of course, through Life Coach School. I've seen you teach your part of Life Coach School program. I'm just curious how you found out about me.
Lisa: In a little bit of a roundabout way, I think we were Facebook friends. Like it's not unusual to have just tons and tons of coach Facebook friends that you don't know really well, but you know of them.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: So you were in my universe. And how I found you was one of my dear, dear clients, her name is Stephanie, was telling me about how learning and understanding her Human Design had really helped her. And we have been working on confidence together, and at some point in our work together, something had seemed to come together for her. Like there was more peace where there was anxiety before, and I was really curious about that. So she started telling me about her Human Design journey, if you will. And I was super interested and wrote down a couple things, and she sent me a book as a gift.
And then, oh, I can't think of the word that it's called. It's not synchronicity, but anyway, auspiciously, around the same time, I was playing around with Clubhouse and came across a Clubhouse room where you and another coach were talking about Human Design. And a lot of it sounded like foreign language. But you said something in there about surrendering to your type. And that just felt like a heart pull. Like I didn't even know what it meant, but I immediately looked you up online and signed up for a session.
Rebecca: That's amazing.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: You know what's funny? Sometimes we say things. We have no idea even where it came from when we say it, and then someone was like, "Ooh, that's what I wanted to hear. And that's what drew me too." So thank you for sharing.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. Glad to.
Rebecca: When I talk about surrendering, I feel like I talk about surrendering a lot. That's so fascinating. But yeah. So Human Design became a little bit of an interest, and then we had a session. And you and I clicked really well. I found that. I was like, you know with some people you just have a instant chemistry with? And I felt like that happened with us.
Lisa: I did too.
Rebecca: And that was super exciting. Because then we had a chat after our session, and we talked about things we can do together in the future. And, ugh. I am excited about all of it.
Lisa: I am too. And I think it's so great how whatever that rapport is, how it can just lift you up to a different level. Like it's still you, but I so enjoyed our conversations because I felt really energized. I felt seen, heard, understood, and I kind of got my idea generator going.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And my what's possible going, so it was amazing.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, and you and I are both emotional manifesting generators. So I feel there's a little bit of a kinship there.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: Understanding who we are. And there's a lot of differences, right? Because Human Design is so particular. Right? There's so many differences. But it's so fun when you find somebody that you resonate with and you click with so quickly. So yes, I'm excited. And I'm all about collaboration, and interestingly enough, right? When you put something in the universe, like I intend to collaborate with more people because I found out through my design and teachers and mentors that hey, you're here to collaborate with others. I'm like, really? That sounds so fun!
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: You're one of the people that came after that. It was so funny, right? How that works, so.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Anyways, I want to talk more about you and why did you feel, because my podcast is called Beautifully Bloomed. Here we are. I love to talk about transformation stories or people who have bloomed more into something. And I feel like if I look back over my life, there seems to be all these transformations we go through. And it seems like a constant process.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: And some of us are much more aware and conscious, I feel like, as we're doing it. And you are, right? Maybe life coaches in general. But I just love to talk about those stories. So you brought several things to my attention. So what would you like to talk about in the form of like, how have you transformed or what are you blooming into? What have you bloomed into?
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Some of that.
Lisa: I think there's been a transition for me. And it's not that I didn't intellectually understand this, but when you were saying we all go through different transformations, immediately, my brain tends to grab other people's words and make a picture of them. I think in pictures. And what I saw, so to speak, metaphorically, was seasons. And throughout most of my life, I've experienced a lot of frustration because it's like I have spring, summer, fall, winter. And then of course, spring rolls around again, and I think that I thought that there was some terminal endpoint where you get to a season like spring or summer, preferably, and it stays there.
And so, I'll just give you and your listeners a little bit of background for me. A few different things. I have this mother, sometimes I call it a mother wound, but I really think it's a mother theme throughout my life. I was adopted, so my teenage mother had me and gave me up for adoption because she wasn't in a place to take care of me. And then my adoptive mother died when I was four. And it was very sudden, she had an aneurysm, so literally I went to bed and everything was normal, and then I woke up the next morning and the world had turned upside-down. And then later my dad remarried and I had a stepmom, and her parenting style, she was very uncertain of herself. So very hands-off. She wanted my dad to do all the parenting, and she just supported us in different ways.
So I've always gone through life feeling like because I didn't have this, this mother archetype in my life, I don't really know how to be a woman in the world. I've always felt really uncomfortable, historically, with other women because it felt like, and sometimes still feels like, I admit, they have some secret.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: That I don't know and have no access to. And that's shown up in a lot of different iterations in my life, including insecurity and also a lot of just not trusting life. And really holding things close to my chest and blocking out emotions and trying to push through, which depression and anxiety often come along with that kind of dichotomy. And I think at different levels of my life, I've worked through these things and then have always been surprised to find that I circled back around into a season of that again.
And as I've gone along and gotten older, I'm 53 now. And especially since I've become a coach and become really focused on this kind of work, I've just started to understand that we never really complete the work that we're meant to do here, that's meant for us. And maybe part of that is for other people, but so much of it is working out things for ourselves. If that makes sense to you.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: That was a long ramble.
Rebecca: Well isn't that kind of like a life journey?
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Of working on your things. Right?
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: If you've worked on them all, then you're probably dead. I mean, I hate to say it that way, but this is how I think of it.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Like, well if you worked on all of it now, there's nothing else to work out, so.
Lisa: Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I think a lot of us, I don't think it's just me, go around thinking if I do all this work and I get to this place, then I'm just going to stay there and I'm going to stay in this happy place. And it's not like we don't stay happy.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: But I think there's just different levels of the work, if that makes sense.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And I think 2020 was a year for everybody, and I kind of think about it as a collective trauma. Some of us may have in our genealogical history some sort of trauma like that to work through. But most of us, how do you encompass and hold a worldwide pandemic? And then it's not just the illness and all of the social distancing, sheltering in place. It's also all of the feelings and opinions and whatever that come up. So I think, like a lot of people this year, my mental health had really struggled through that. And I didn't even realize it. On the surface, everything was fine. My business has never done better. I was relatively happy.
But I found myself feeling really tired, really, really tired emotionally, physically. Really resistant to continuing to do things the way I normally do, confused, sad and not understanding why I was sad. I recently read an article someone passed along online. I think it might've been in the New York Times. But there's a word for this. It's probably, could be termed as depression or something else. But they called it languishing. And that felt-
Rebecca: Yeah. That is an interesting word.
Lisa: Yeah. And I think I hated it when it was going on. And I've invested in so much help this year, just working through it and really kind of pushing into what some people call shadow. Like that underworld of the harder, deeper, darker emotions. And I think the upside of this languishing or of, if we want to stay really literal, just the kickback from a difficult year of new things and a lot of conflict and et cetera, has been that I've needed to understand myself and have so much more compassion for myself. And to the point of Human Design, surrender is something I've always struggled with. I'm kind of a pusher-througher.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And letting go of trying to make things happen. And letting go of trying to power through extreme exhaustion where you just feel like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel to get things done and continue the status quo. I've had to let go of a lot of that. I want to say I didn't have the choice. I did have a choice, but it felt like I just had to. And I think that's what moved me to do it. And the shift that takes place in that, at least for me, has been, wow. Just really, it's been amazing. It's been wonderful. It's been scary. It's been everything.
Rebecca: Yeah. And it sounds like, I mean, something I've thought of during this past year is we've all had expectations of how things are going to be.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: All of us, right?
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: And you get used to the way of living, and you get used to your daily routines and who you hang out with and going to church every Sunday. You just get used to these things, and all of a sudden, you can't do any of it.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: It's like, what? Like the weirdest thing.
Lisa: It's really strange.
Rebecca: I hear that in your story a little bit. That's where that, what did we call that? I don't know.
Lisa: Dissonance?
Rebecca: Something, yeah.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Dissonance, or you get combobulated. I was thinking of this word, combobulated.
Lisa: Oh, discombobulated, yeah.
Rebecca: That's what it was! Discombob, it's like your whole life feels like it turns. Like now what? Oh my gosh. Can you believe this?
Lisa: Yeah. It really was. And I had a financial goal. I had goals for my business. I had a path all laid out about how I was going to get there.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And to be honest, the physical conditions of the external world did not impact any of that. But I just found myself questioning all of it.
Rebecca: Yes.
Lisa: A lot. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: Well that's what I think was the gift in 2020. The best gift. If anybody took advantage of it, which I tried to, it's like we have more space to think. I mean, I did. I had more space. Like I wasn't driving places.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: I wasn't going. It was weird. I didn't spend a lot of time in the car. And so, there's less travel time and more time to think and consider things. And I did a lot of that in 2020.
Lisa: Yeah. You make it sound so pleasant though, Rebecca. And for me it was like, ooh, I really got to know the person that I was living with.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: Always myself and really saw how disconnected I was from that and how surprised and shocked and angry and impatient I was when. Because you're totally right. There's not the daily distractions. I didn't get to run to Target.
Rebecca: Oh my gosh, Target.
Lisa: Or spend time with girl. Yeah, I know, Target.
Rebecca: That's like my daily run, to be honest. And when this mask thing comes out, I'm like, "I don't want to go anywhere and have to wear a mask. But I'll go so I stop going to Target." [crosstalk 00:14:51] Target.
Lisa: I know. That's like, Target has been a tourist destination for me forever.
Rebecca: Oh my gosh. Oh yeah.
Lisa: We live in the middle of nowhere.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: But yeah. When you can't get away from that, you really do meet yourself. And I think that it was so good for me, because I saw where I hadn't been tending to myself. I saw where I was working against myself. I saw where I didn't trust myself.
Rebecca: Yeah. Totally. That's amazing. So I mean, how do you feel like you're going to take this? Even when we go back to, I don't know, is there a normal anymore? What is? When we go back to being able to go back to doing all the things we used to do, then what?
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: Like how is this going to impact that for you, do you think?
Lisa: Yeah. I just feel like. And one thing about COVID and all it encompasses for me is, as much as I miss, just like you said, quote-on-quote normal life, it's also given me an excuse to just sit back.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And I don't have to be out with people putting on my social face or anything like that. And so, I have been thinking. I'm getting ready to go on a retreat next week, and I'll be with other women. And really, how do I want to be in the world now?
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And I think that's where a lot of, because even though I'm skillful at pushing through and making things happen, I see really clearly what a toll that takes on especially my emotional and creative energy. And so, with manifesting generators, knowing that I need to respond to invitation. Like that is my natural way. And I know you have a much more eloquent way of talking about this, but what does that even look like? And I think just letting go a finger-hold at a time on just old ways of thinking about myself and being open. I think that's my word for this summer, is just being open and ready to respond.
Rebecca: Yes.
Lisa: Without needing to.
Rebecca: Exactly. And when I say respond, I usually talk about it as responding to signs. It could be an invitation. Right? It could be a literal invitation. Like I've gotten a lot of those. But also, just what's coming up in your life at this moment, in your world? What's going on? And can you see things that you are feeling drawn to respond to? Rather than pushing and just figuring out in your head what you're going to do. Right?
Lisa: Right.
Rebecca: We call it the difference between initiating and responding. And there is a difference energetically. Like can you just surrender? I thought, oh my gosh. What if I don't need? Like isn't there always this pressure, right? We have to create it. We have to do something. We have to, right, have to have. Right? All of this pressure.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: And I'm like, but what if you didn't have to do any of that? What if you could just get up and live a life in response? I love that. And to me, it sounded like a really cool experiment. And so I started trying it.
Lisa: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). It literally gives me chills. And I still have to bring myself there, because for me, that just feels so good.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And scary.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: And I think it's just, in a coachy way of saying it, allowing the fear. Because the fear has just been shaped by a long history of believing that I have to make things happen and that it's only me. Like I'm only depending on me, and I don't really know how to put that.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: But I think that that's part of the whole mom thing, maybe, for me. Maybe not. But it is a whole different way of perceiving and just experiencing life, because when my brain isn't engaged with how do I get this to work, or what's next or doing this, then my eyes open up. And I see things, like I start noticing things. And it's so interesting how when you let messages in from those things, if that makes sense. I don't want to get too woo-y here, but.
Rebecca: That's exactly.
Lisa: Like what's the meaning in this? Why am I drawn to this right now?
Rebecca: Exactly.
Lisa: Like what is it telling me?
Rebecca: Yeah. So I feel like being open, too, because we have an emotional wisdom, you and I do in our solar plexus, our emotional center. That is where we're super wise. If we can just be open to what am I feeling, what am I drawn to, right? The sacral, also. We have that sacral energy of pulling us places.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: So I love thinking about that, that yes. It's important to pay attention to our feelings about things because that's where our wisdom lies. We have a very deep wisdom there. And most of the time, we're like, well, feelings are bad. There's bad feelings. Many people think of this, right? And like actually, they're really wise for us if we can look at the wisdom of them. That emotionally, that we have. So I think Human Design does a lot of that. It teaches us how to surrender. There's so much wisdom in the way we're designed.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: And can we surrender to that, instead of trying? We spend so much time. I know Ra, who was the creator of the Human Design or he synthesized, let's say he synthesized it. He had a quote that said something. I might butcher the quote, so I won't say it exactly. But he said something about, we spend a lot of time trying not to be ourselves.
Lisa: Oh, yes.
Rebecca: And I'm like, oh, that's so true. And no wonder it feels hard.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: Because like, why don't we just show up as ourselves? Wouldn't that be a lot nicer?
Lisa: Yeah. It is. And it's not just like, oh, you surrender once and then everything just comes. I mean, for me, anyway, it's surrendering every day and reminding myself. And to the theme of your podcast, I think what's been blooming in me is just, it's really interesting. So I'm not a thought work coach, but I also love beauty, I love emotion. But what feels like is blooming in me is something so much more wild. And oh, I can't even think of the words. It's like wild and magical. And reminding myself every day, I don't need to grab this and stuff it into a form and make something happen.
Rebecca: Exactly.
Lisa: And instead just, you know.
Rebecca: Get flowing with it, right?
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right.
Rebecca: And flowing. And that is a fun way to think about how easy it could feel. Right? And how much more adventurous and fun life could be if we could just flow with it. Yes. So the idea of blooming into yourself and being more you, and I was thinking. Oh, there was one other thing that came up for me when you were talking about your story. And about 2020, because I had this conversation recently with one of my coaches about how interesting it is to step back into the world. Because I just went to a wedding in a church for the first time last weekend. I haven't been to a wedding in a church for like, well I don't know, at least a year, maybe a year and a half. Maybe. Right? It's been a long time.
And it felt like stepping into a different world. Right? And then I'm a new person. A lot of these people who I used to hang out with a lot in community, in church, whatever, haven't seen me for over a year.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: They haven't talked to me for over a year. It was super weird, and it was a very interesting thing to bring a new me. Because like you were saying, I feel like I've had some of this experience as you, growing over the past year. Who are we? Who do we want to be now? So I really took the opportunity to explore and experiment with that, with showing up as me instead of the wallflower I usually was. Where I'd nod my head and just say, "Oh yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative)." And pretend I agreed with everything. Because that's exactly what I am. I'm very agreeable. And I'm like, but what if I don't have to be agreeable? What if I can literally be myself and see if people can like me as myself, right?
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: It's super interesting.
Lisa: I love that.
Rebecca: I dropped the people pleaser thing, and I'm like, what if I could just have real conversations as myself? Talking about things that are uncomfortable sometimes, even.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, 100%.
Rebecca: Super interesting.
Lisa: And I mean, that actually comes more naturally to me. Like I'm agreeable too.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: I am a born people pleaser.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: I know how to. I learned from a very young age to read temperature of the room and people's faces and all these, as best I can. I'm not saying I'm a psychic. But we pick up on these little things, and what comes more naturally to me is just really natural interaction that, it's not conflict and it doesn't always have to be agreeing, either. And while you were saying that about being away from people you knew, this retreat, I only know one other person, who is the person who's facilitating it, pretty well. Not even that well. The rest are all strangers to me. And so, I almost feel like I have this really nice container to kind of play.
Rebecca: Oh, I love that. I mean, I love being in containers. I just ended a one-year container with a mastermind group, which was so beautiful. Never knew any of the women. Didn't even know the coach before I hired her, which was kind of funny, right? I had read her book, but I didn't really know much about her, but.
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: So that's a great experience for opening yourself up to really allowing yourself to grow. Because nobody knows you anyways.
Lisa: Exactly.
Rebecca: Like this is so great!
Lisa: I know. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
Rebecca: It is.
Lisa: And we're going to be out in nature.
Rebecca: Awesome.
Lisa: And just looking for what's calling to us, so it's right on theme with this.
Rebecca: That's awesome.
Lisa: And I think it's going to be superb.
Rebecca: Oh my gosh. So before we end this, I wanted to ask how. I mean, I know you talked a little bit about your Human Design. But what were one or two things that you really took away from our session, that you really have thought about since then? It's been awhile since our session, right?
Lisa: It's been awhile.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: I mean, I've thought about it all. But I think just knowing that what resonates for me, what I need to be paying attention to, is my emotional reaction to things. And I want to say living from that place of emotion, but I think it's really living from a place of emotional experiencing.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: Versus intellectual, has been really big for me. The other thing, literally, is the responding.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Lisa: Responding to signs. And using my emotions to help me form the response that I want rather than, as much as I love emotions and I think of myself as an emotional person, I do tend to live mostly in my head and always reasoning.
Rebecca: Yeah. So getting more into your body, it sounds like. Right?
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: I mean, that's what I feel like the overall theme is in Human Design. It's like, we're not here to be in our head all the time.
Lisa: No.
Rebecca: Like can we [inaudible 00:25:51] ourselves?
Lisa: Yeah. And I mean, I think I use my body. I use my body a lot in coaching by tackling my clients. But no. I'm always responding to what they're doing. I'm in a certain body state. But I think outside of that, in my own life, I honestly felt huge joy the other day when I was washing dishes.
Rebecca: Really?
Lisa: Yeah. It's the weirdest thing. I like small household tasks. I can't see me ever hiring somebody to do something like that for me, because I enjoy it. But I really like, why am I enjoying it? It was just because of all the sensual input. And I was just present with it and noticing everything, and my mind wasn't on what I have to do next or what I didn't do yesterday, or anything like that.
Rebecca: Yeah. I love that.
Lisa: And it wasn't a thought. It wasn't coming from the head. It was just this feeling of ease, and it was great.
Rebecca: That is awesome. So I think this has been a great conversation about all the things that you have discovered about yourself. And where would people go if they wanted to learn more about you or your programs?
Lisa: Yeah.
Rebecca: What would you show them?
Lisa: Sure. So I have a website, and it has the really original name of Lisa Hatlestad Coaching.
Rebecca: Yay!
Lisa: And it's just at lisahatlestad.com, and I'm sure you all have my last name spelled in the notes.
Rebecca: Yeah. Yes. Those will be in the show notes. Yes.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So that's my website. I'm also on Facebook. You can follow me or friend me. I'm just Lisa Hatlestad. And Lisa_Hatlestad on Instagram. And I also have a thing I'm just starting, and this is part of the wild new vision. And I don't know where this is going, Rebecca, but I'm excited about it. Called Prairie Visionary.
Rebecca: Oh.
Lisa: And that presence is on Instagram and just starting out.
Rebecca: Fascinating. I'm excited to see that.
Lisa: Ah! Yeah.
Rebecca: Yeah, we'll see what comes of it. Like you and your 3/5 life, right? We didn't talk about you being a 3/5, but hey. There's that experimenting and seeing what's going to happen.
Lisa: Exactly. That's something that I'm going to want to be working through with you, so.
Rebecca: Yes. Yes. We can talk more about that anytime.
Lisa: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rebecca: But okay, this has been super fun. So I'm excited to see what happens next for this, and we will see you guys later. Bye, everybody.
Lisa: Thank you.
Rebecca: If you enjoy listening to this podcast, please go subscribe so that you get notified of all the future goodies that are coming along. While you're there, please leave me a review and let me know what you think. So excited to share this with you, and can't wait to talk to you next time. Bye.