What if resistance wasn't just an obstacle but also a catalyst for growth? Join us as we unravel how confronting resistance can unlock your true potential. In this episode of the Mindset Artistry Podcast, we share personal stories—Amanda's transition from New York to LA and Janel's journey back to her fearless younger self—to illustrate how resistance can both hinder and propel us forward. Through heartfelt discussions, we explore the dual nature of resistance, offering insights on how to harness it as a tool for personal and professional growth.
Discover practical techniques to navigate mental health challenges such as anxiety, OCD, ADHD, and depression. We delve into the power of mindset and body awareness, discussing box breathing, journaling, visualization, and neurodynamic breath work to manage dysregulation. Learn how gratitude practices can rewire your brain to focus on the positive, shifting your mindset from chaos to clarity. This episode is a heartfelt guide to embracing self-love and overcoming self-sabotage, inspiring you to recognize the good in your life and use it to conquer resistance.
Take advantage of this chance to transform hesitation into resilience and achieve your highest potential while staying true to yourself.
Follow us on IG @MindsetArtistryPodcast @AmandaDeBraux @JanelKoloskiOfficial. Follow us on YOUTUBE @mindsetartistry
What if resistance wasn't just an obstacle but also a catalyst for growth? Join us as we unravel how confronting resistance can unlock your true potential. In this episode of the Mindset Artistry Podcast, we share personal stories—Amanda's transition from New York to LA and Janel's journey back to her fearless younger self—to illustrate how resistance can both hinder and propel us forward. Through heartfelt discussions, we explore the dual nature of resistance, offering insights on how to harness it as a tool for personal and professional growth.
Discover practical techniques to navigate mental health challenges such as anxiety, OCD, ADHD, and depression. We delve into the power of mindset and body awareness, discussing box breathing, journaling, visualization, and neurodynamic breath work to manage dysregulation. Learn how gratitude practices can rewire your brain to focus on the positive, shifting your mindset from chaos to clarity. This episode is a heartfelt guide to embracing self-love and overcoming self-sabotage, inspiring you to recognize the good in your life and use it to conquer resistance.
Take advantage of this chance to transform hesitation into resilience and achieve your highest potential while staying true to yourself.
Follow us on IG @MindsetArtistryPodcast @AmandaDeBraux @JanelKoloskiOfficial. Follow us on YOUTUBE @mindsetartistry
This is the Mindset Artistry Podcast. I'm Amanda DeBraux, an actor or actress per your reference, and an inner voice life coach, and I'm Janel Koloski, an actor and career and mindset coach.
Janel Koloski:
We're your hosts and we're here to flip your mindset, to teach you the artistry of what we learned, to keep your mind in check Over the course of our lives.
Amanda DeBraux:
we've taken on the journey of healing, living and being authentically ourselves, as we successfully built our individual careers in the entertainment industry.
Janel Koloski:
This podcast is designed for you so you can discover your goals and courageously reach them at your highest potential, while being a hundred and thousand percent yourself.
Amanda DeBraux:
What you'll get from us is real dirty and okay, a little more like a lot of quirky, along with special elite guests that nurture empathy and create a safe space without judgment.
Amanda DeBraux:
So get ready to build a mindset that is unapologetically you and excel beyond the stars. Welcome to the Mindset Artistry Podcast. That's good, okay, welcome back to another episode of Mindset Artistry. And the reason why I'm laughing is because I'm very excited about this episode. This episode has taken four times four times to do because of my resistance, technical issues and all types of things and so here we are recording an episode about resistance. Now again, this has been four times since we've tried to record this episode and we made it right here.
Amanda DeBraux:
So I wanted to jump into resistance because this is something that I have been dealing with for a few weeks now in various areas in my life that has slapped me in the face and that I had to confront fear, anger, shame, guilt and I thought I worked through it and guess not, but I did so. Here's where I wanted to share my story. So let's backtrack here. We're going to dive into resistance and I love looking upwards and finding out what they mean, because to me, how we move through life and how we use words is very indicative of how we feel and what actions we take and what actions we don't take, and moving through the world. So I decided to look up the word resistance, and there are two definitions for resistance.
Amanda DeBraux:
The first one we're very familiar with right. This is the hesitation around acceptance or the downright refusal of something, and we all know that. We've all been there where we're like no, I don't want to do it. Or, out of fear, I don't want to jump off that cliff because I may die we all will but in that moment you never know right. And so we hesitate to make choices out of fear.
Amanda DeBraux:
And that can come up in many different ways, and I'll explain a few of why. It arises when you're approaching a goal, when you're thinking about trying something new, or when you are crafting your art, whatever that may look like, whether you're an actor, a makeup artist, a model. Now the second, which I found very interesting and I didn't think about it, but we use it quite often is kind of like an iPhone being water resistant. Now it still potentially can get damaged over time if it's emerged in the water too long, but it was built and improved to be less affected by the water, depending on the circumstances, and I thought that was fascinating. I said okay.
Amanda DeBraux:
So there's a flip side to resistance. You can be resistant or, as other people have said, resilient to being consumed by the fear or the doubt or the worry or the unknown, or potentially what the outcome could be. There's also the opposite, where you can resist that change and put yourself in a predicament of being stagnant and not growing and not evolving. So I want to jump to you now, because we've been dealing with resistance in many ways and I want to talk about it. So tell me, in your experience, how has resistance come up for you lately?
Janel Koloski:
I've been in the process of leveling up in a real way. I would say that I'm reconnecting to someone that I was maybe as a kid, and also another part of me that I was like when I was 18, a lot more fearless, not really caring as much as what other people thought, not afraid to lose people, and not in a selfish way. I just hadn't been knocked around by life so much yet. So I just thought, well, this is what I want to do, so I'm going to do it, and so I'm almost there.
Janel Koloski:
But I've been very resistant to making some important shifts in my life that will greatly benefit me and kind of have to happy, have to have have to happen for me to be happy, and you have to be happy doing anything. You know that's what we talk about. Like I'm trying to do this visualization stuff, Amanda, I'm trying to do it, and like this morning thinking about being on a TV set, you know, and just trying to feel that again, but like when you're laying in your bed in your room and trying to feel that again, like that stuff is kind of hard, you can kind of so, I think. But that is is help that helps me move past resistance, because I first asked myself what is going on? You know, and you're going to get into this, but then I talk about like, what do I really want to? It's a weird balance you have to find um with resistance. It's like both answers are there and it's just like underneath all this stuff.
Amanda DeBraux:
I love that, and you nailed one of the things that I was going to talk about of how to overcome resistance, and I just want to backtrack just a bit of reiterating that resistance can feel like you're in a powerless state of mind, but it's all about perspective, because you can use that to master your mindset, and so I love that you decided and made that choice, like, okay, it's difficult for me. I want to level up and this is conflicting with your self-identity, your self-interest and same here For the past three weeks or even four weeks, because I moved from New York to LA. I wanted things to happen quickly.
Amanda DeBraux:
My life is shifting and looking very differently and I felt like I was losing a bit of myself. I kind of lost what would Amanda be like in LA, as if that mattered, and so I was kind of losing my intentional living and I would wake up and I wouldn't do my practices like journaling and mindfulness and setting intentions. I was just going with the flow because I told myself I would and not have expectations. And then, when I decided things needed to happen and make some goals and start planning some things out for my career and the podcast, boy oh boy did I hit the wall because I felt like I lost the creativity. And Danelle was talking about this. Something about me is that I need to find the love and the fun in things, and if I don't, I instantly lose interest. No matter how important it is for my career, for myself, if I don't find it fun, I just cannot put the energy and time into it.
Janel Koloski:
And Danelle was just talking about-. No pressure, gentlemen or friends of Amanda, remain fun.
Amanda DeBraux:
Make it fun, and maybe that's a fault of mine as well, but it's something that I know and I acknowledge. So I find ways to make it fun, and so, as I was preparing for this episode to record today, I said how can I make it fun? Let me do a bit more research about resistance. Let me dive into why resistance is coming up for me and what was it linked to? It was linked to my child feeling like I couldn't be the adult. I felt like the young Amanda had to look to other people to say that oh, you're doing great, amanda, you made the right choice, amanda, and specifically pointing that out. And so I kept looking around, going who's here to tell me that I'm doing the right thing? Who's here telling me that I got this? Who's here? No one but me. And so I had to look within and recognize why is this resistance coming up and what's the potential reasoning behind it, so that I can make choices or make a shift to either overcome it, conquer it or let it go. And that that was that. That that you know.
Amanda DeBraux:
Guilt, also shame that I don't think I was good enough to be here. Now, all of this is not true about and I talk about this all the time with my clients. About 99% of the time, the things we think or shame ourselves or guilt ourselves into thinking aren't true. They're just these thoughts that we're trying to fill in the gaps to keep us safe, or it's past traumas that are coming up that we feel like we don't want to repeat it, so we don't want to even get involved in the situation or create a goal, or fear of failure or fear putting ourselves out there so that we can be judged. My gosh, we constantly judge, but the worst judge that we have is ourselves.
Amanda DeBraux:
And so now I want to pass it back to you on the fact that you talked about visualization. I love visualization. It's something that I've been doing and had to develop, as I am a creative being and believe that my thoughts can become my reality, and then my thoughts have to become the feeling that I want to experience in my life. What other recommendation or other tool would you offer someone who is coming up head on with resistance or fear, around going after reaching out to the casting director or that director, or meeting that fashion designer and saying, hey, I'm the, I'm the model that you've been missing?
Janel Koloski:
Yeah, I tell my clients to pay attention to where they feel tightness in their body when they have those thoughts, because I don't know how long we've had this podcast at this point, but if you watch or listen from the beginning, it's probably pretty cool for people to see the evolution. It's cool for me to watch, right, because I've been in EMDR therapy for two years and it's all body-based and it really makes you get out of your head and into your body. And if you're a super analytical person that's hypervigilant, like me, because I'm always working through anxiety, ocd and ADHD and also I can fall into depression and I'm not saying this because it's cool and popular now, it's just feels safer now to have these conversations about mental health and mental health awareness and so paying attention to my body is the only thing that will save me, because even box breathing is something that I'll do. So if I feel myself getting dysregulated and you might have to do some Googling after listening to this episode but essentially it's when you're all spinning out and it's like you're in a tornado and you can't come back down to earth and you can't think straight or see anything clearly and then you start to feel uncomfortable in your body. That's when you need to regulate, and so I'll usually breathe in for four breaths, hold for four and then breathe out slowly and then breathe out slowly, and that will, like bring me down enough where I can tune in. And Amanda's really great about this. She's going to talk about this all the time, empowering you with your inner voice. Then I can finally hear my inner voice and that little kid in me is seven years old, that wants to be on TV and it's like send the email, she would not care. She would walk right up to any adult and be like this is what I want. So that's another thing I'll do is I'm still working on the visualization. It's not so easy for me, but many times it doesn't mean you're not creative.
Janel Koloski:
You might just need a little more meditation or regulation stuff to feel calm and safe enough in your body to be able to try to feel joy, to be able to feel peace or safety around things that you want. I'm going to pass it back to you here, amanda, in a second. But essentially, your ego is comfortable with being uncomfortable in your present state. So right now, amanda and I, we have this resistance and we're feeling super uncomfortable, but we don't want to go there. We don't want to try to feel comfortable by working through the hard stuff and Amanda did it, obviously, as she was saying, and I'm working through it too. So it's a very complex thing and I don't want anyone to ever feel shame Like why can't I just get this? Why am I feeling resistance? I hear all the time from my clients, I know what to do, I'm just not doing it, and these are all the reasons why.
Amanda DeBraux:
I love that I was actually talking to one of my clients as well and they were coming up with this resistance when it came to their auditions. It is something that I also dealt with when I was in a state of mind where I couldn't connect with my true north, my inner voice, that sense of empowerment within and connecting to my purpose, and we talked about it and how, when I was going through that moment, I was self-sabotaging, I was attached to specific emotions that felt comfortable, because I didn't want to risk not living or actually basically risk being like my parents or being like other people that didn't pursue their dreams. So it actually contradict what I wanted to do, because I was so fearful of not being this that I put myself in a place, in a mindset that was unhealthy and I hesitated to these auditions like, oh well, no, they wouldn't do that, okay. And then I overthought things. I started, the hesitation was there. I wasn't true with the work, I was being very in the state of mind of perfectionism and it has to be this way, because that's what they say and I can't be unique about it, because these are the things that other successful people have done. So I'm looking at and admiring the people that I love in the career that I want, and I'm going, I want to emulate that. And then I lost my inner truth. I lost my inner creativity because I was so emotionally attached to not attaching. But what we don't recognize is we're trying so hard to emotionally detach that we're attached to the thing that we're trying to get away from and so it's kind of like, oh well, you're trusting that you distrust something that makes sense. It's like, well, I am worthy, but in your subconscious or your unconscious mind you're saying you're not worthy because your actions aren't supporting the worthiness. So I love that you brought that journaling and visualization.
Amanda DeBraux:
One of the things that worked for me and I love that you talked about the breath and box work is I had to get back to my neurodynamic breath work, whereas I spent an hour of listening to music, laying down and connecting with my body to release the tension that clearly I was holding onto, whatever that emotion was and there are many different things that you can do. These are just a few things that Janelle and I have used and worked. And so for me, I spent two hours laying down, doing breath work and literally allowing the emotion, like literally spazzing, because the emotion was trapped in, like my shoulders and my gut, and I was going against my intuition, I was going against my truth. I didn't have clarity, and then I was letting the emotion of fear, doubt, anxiety, failure all those things consume me rather than help motivate me help motivate me to actually do it. And so those are some of the things and what I would say.
Amanda DeBraux:
One last, like two points that I would say that are really helpful when you are coming across, resistance is try a gratitude journal every day. If you're not big on writing, that's cool, that's totally cool. But saying three things every single day, in the morning and at night something that you're grateful for, regardless of how bad you think the day was, what you're doing is reprogramming your brain to look for the good in your life instead of the bad, because we get caught up in thinking of the bad all the time. We feel comfortable living in the bad and living in the chaos, because that's all we know. So you have to tell your brain that is not all we know. Because that's all we know, so you have to tell your brain that is not all we know. What we know is the good, and when we start acknowledging the good in our life, more good comes in naturally because we see it, we see it.
Amanda DeBraux:
And then the last thing would be seeking out help. Right, janelle and I have been through situations. Clearly we're talking about it and obviously we would talk in depth and make this a whole two-hour episode. And, yeah, we'll get deep into it. Honey is seek the help. So have a supportive network that you can reach out to to say, hey, I'm thinking about having a difficult time, can you help me? It is okay to ask for help. It does not make you weak, it does not put you in a space of vulnerability. It actually puts you in a space of strength. It puts you in a space of recognizing that, oh, I need to change this in order to elevate, to get to the next level or to overcome this hurdle, because anything in life, with the belief that you can overcome it, you will, because there's nothing that you can't overcome. As I'm saying, overcome three times. There's nothing that you can't overcome or conquer.
Janel Koloski:
So now any last words on resistance and overcoming it, and yeah, I love the gratitude journal and something else I started that was super helpful for me and maybe for other people. Listening is I'm supported by. This is how I was supported today and you know, I was supported by Amanda because she spoke to me. I was supported by Melissa because she danced with me. I was supported by the random person at work because they saw I was cold and gave me a sweater. You know, it's these funny things.
Janel Koloski:
The train conductor said a kind word because wherever you put your focus, that's where you're going to put your energy, and I personally had a really bad habit of looking at all the ways I'm not supported and there's reason for that, and you all have reasons for why you're stuck in these resistant patterns, but it's up to you to get yourself out with the support of people around you. But you know, it's just really the resistance. I think, to recap, is we're just like shifting that energy and finding the way that works for you and and and I love that you started out the episode by talking about intention. I've also been lacking some intention and it's it's okay. You're not going to be perfect every day, but just have awareness. Like it's great every week to just check in what went well this week, what didn't go well and how can I pivot? It's my favorite thing to ask myself and my clients because, um, you know, as a person that doesn't feel accomplished until it's done, I'm working better at being like I'm in progress.
Amanda DeBraux:
I love that. Thank you for sharing and, yes, spreading the word of. At the end of the day, it really is also linked to the self-love and the self-image you hold for the me, myself and I, in anything that you do. And if you're not connected with that, if you're not recognizing that you are more than what you think you are or you are more than these challenges, these hardships, these sadness, these heartbreaks everybody goes through it. No one is out of dodge when it comes to heartbreak. It's the truth, whether your hamster died I had plenty of hamsters died my dog passed away a few months ago and I literally was bawling and I'm about to bawl down, bawling and I miss him to this day. But what I recognize, instead of resisting the acceptance of it, I've honored it. I've honored that it appeared, I've honored that that feeling exists and by honoring it, I don't let it consume me. Because, like Janelle said, what you put your focus on becomes your primary. Storage becomes your primary how you make your choices, it becomes your primary thought. In anything you do, whether it's your love life, whether it's your career, whether it's family, whether it's your mental or physical health, that focus will derive where you put your energy and how you approach life. That focus will drive where you put your energy and how you approach life. So all that to say is instead of being resistant, be resilient. Or, if you're going to live in the resistant, be an iPhone and be water resistant.
Amanda DeBraux:
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Mindset Artistry and I can't wait to see you again. Join us next week. And that's a wrap on this episode of Mindset Artistry, and I can't wait to see you again. Join us next week, and that's a wrap on this episode of Mindset Artistry Podcast. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Catch us every Thursday for a new episode to help you master the art of your mindset. Got it? Yes, okay, cool.
