How to Escape Victim Mentality (with JJ Flizanes)

[Dana] (00:01)
Welcome to Phoenix in Flame. We have an amazing guest with us today. Her name is JJ Flizanes. I’m going to say that again because that’s fun to say. JJ Flizanes. That’s an awesome name. She is an empowerment strategist and the creator of the Empowering Minds Network. JJ works with spiritual truth seekers

[JJ] (00:16)
Thank you.

[Dana] (00:29)
who want to remove emotional blocks to success. She helps people identify sabotaging patterns and transmute struggle into joy. JJ, welcome to Phoenix in Flame.

[JJ] (00:45)
Thanks Dana, looking forward to our conversation.

[Dana] (00:48)
This is great. I’ve already run across several things that I want to wrap back around and make sure we have time to really unpack. But I did want to add that also in your bio, you said that through a series of clarifying exercises you can curate a personalized roadmap to emotional healing, that you’re passionate about empowering people with knowledge and awareness of how they can live the life of their dreams. That sounds amazing to me. I don’t know one listener out there that’s not going, oh my gosh, well, what is JJ going to say about all of that? So start wherever you would like and we’re going to kind of just weave around together, and I’ve already got questions. So tell me, what does this mean, to be an empowerment strategist, and how you got to be in this place, and tell us about your journey wherever you would like.

[JJ] (01:40)
Okay. I guess I’ll hit the empowerment strategist piece first, and maybe you’ll appreciate this more than other people have asked me this question, because when you’re looking for your brand, when you’re creating your, you know, your calling cards, so to speak — and I come from a line of sort of health and wellness, personal training, and before that entertainment, acting, singing, dancing, performing, speaking. The difference is, it’s a kind of coach, so I’ll just say that’s kind of a coach. But here’s where I’m different than a coach, and I’ve actually — I have other coaches who are other empowerment strategists. I like to help people create neural plasticity with every single thing I do. So for those who don’t know what that means, it means we are activating new parts of your brain. We are opening up new parts of your brain, because we are all whole-brain beings. But most of us, based on our upbringing, our childhood, our astrology, our wounds, end up favoring one side more than the other, or being a little bit more dominant on a right versus a left. And we get praised or, you know — and so for me it’s opening up both parts, because I think in the healing journey you need — you have to have both parts. The first part would be the right part of the brain, which is that emotional side, and everything we do, everything, everything, everything is about how we want to feel. Every choice we make is about how we want to feel. Our feelings are the reason we’re here. We are here to explore feeling. We are here to feel good, to have a good time, and to have contrast in order for us to grow into expansion more, to feel and to experience. Okay, that’s my opinion about why we are here. We are here — and I think it’s a fact, maybe not the expansion piece for anyone listening, but I think it’s a fact, because I can take you down each rabbit hole of why you’ve chosen anything you’ve ever chosen, because you want to feel something. You want to feel love, you want to feel connection, you want to feel relief. So the empowerment part

[Dana] (03:09)
Ha ha ha. Hahaha!

[JJ] (03:35)
is about uncovering where you feel a lack of freedom, a lack of power in feeling good. Because what most people — in no matter what stage of life I was in, no matter what I was doing, especially with personal training and wellness and things like that — there’s always relationships with business, whatever you’re doing, there’s a place that we have a victim story going on. And we have a point of view that, most likely, yes, it’s a point of view that has accurate data that happened to us, but it’s probably wrong. And what I mean by wrong — not that you’re wrong for feeling those feelings, but that you have one side of the story. And there’s more than one version of that story that you haven’t even uncovered yet. So the truth is only as you see it, which is valid, of course, but it isn’t necessarily “a” truth, it’s just a story that you’re telling. So I like to get people out of victim mentality and feel empowered in every area of their life. And again, that’s a feeling. But on the other side, in order to do that, you have to have a plan.

[Dana] (04:30)
Mm-hmm.

[JJ] (04:33)
So you need a strategy, you need that left part of your brain. If you’re creating patterns and repeating patterns that cause a certain belief and strengthen a belief and a habit and a pattern, well, we have to have a plan for how to get out of that and do something different. We want to create a new pathway, creating new neural pathways for your brain — it’s like going to the gym, you’re going to exercise new muscles, you’re going to activate new muscle fibers, you’re going to strengthen and change your body composition. Well, we want to change the brain, we got to do something outside of our comfort zone. So we need a plan for that. And I think those two things are equal. I want people to be more even — not that you have to be even-brain, but to use both parts of your brain. If you’re a right-brain person to create balance, you probably need more structure, left brain. If you’re a very left-brain person, you probably need more emotions, you probably need to tap into your physical body and into your feelings, so you probably need a little bit more right brain. So that’s kind of the point of how I think I’m different, and the model, and what I do and what others with me do when we’re looking at people and coaching, versus just sort of — there are a lot of coaching certifications out there, and a lot of them will say, oh, I agree that people have the answers within them for many, many things. Sometimes you can’t see what you can’t see, so you need maybe another point of view sometimes. So someone wants to teach you something, someone wants to show you, give you a tool that you didn’t have before. If we stay stuck in the same story over and over again, we never change, you never grow from that, because you never added anything new to the equation.

[Dana] (05:43)
Mm-hmm.

[JJ] (05:59)
So it’s not just life coaching, where I’m just listening and reflecting back what you say, and then you’re gonna find your own answer and be on your merry way. You only know what you know. And in order for us to change, I believe we have to grow and learn and do different things.

[Dana] (06:08)
Mm-hmm. I love all that you’re saying, because so much we run into people, particularly women, but not always women by any means, that struggle with that sensation of feeling powerless. And so I love the word that you created for yourself, the empowerment strategist. Both of those words — number one, so that we as females can try to find a sense of power for so many that don’t — but also, like you pointed out as well in some of your descriptions so far, is how do we strategize to do that? Because it’s one thing to know, okay, I know that I need to feel more powerful, I don’t feel powerful, I feel impotent, I feel scared, I feel unsafe, feeling all these feelings that you were saying earlier, I feel all these icky things from traumas, from this and that and the other, I don’t want to feel these, I want to feel more powerful, but then, okay, that’s interesting, how do I go about doing that? And then I had a question I was going to toss out to you. I’m sure you’ve run into these individuals before, and I have, where they are absolutely steeped up to their eyeballs in the victim mentality, but they don’t seem to want to come out of it, because it works for them, because they’re using it as a manipulative — they’re using it to control people around them, staying the victim, casting other people as the hero or the villain, you know, the whole triangle and all that. So I’m curious what you would do, and when you run into people like that, they’re complaining about being a victim, but if you watch their behavior, they seem to have some kind of secondary gain or hidden agenda where they’re not interested in the strategizing part of actually doing something to come out of it. What would you suggest to people like that, or the people that know people like that? What would your words of wisdom be?

[JJ] (08:11)
Mm-hmm. So I have the pleasure of, at this point in my career, only working with people that listen to my podcast. So what that means is when they finally are ready, they understand victim mentality, if they’re in it, then they’re willing to change it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have reached out. I’m a pretty intense, like, give-you-a-hug-and-slap-you-in-the-face-at-the-same-time kind of person, to wake you up out of your stupor. But people who are attracted to that, who resonate with that, who know that I — you can want to get to the point, let’s do the fastest path to healing, let’s do it, which might be uncomfortable and that’s okay, that’s kind of why you’re here instead of trying to avoid it. So I don’t try to negotiate or convince anybody in a victim mentality that I might meet outside of my very small bubble of my show to want to change that. And I’ll use the example of my ex-husband and my mother. Okay, now my mother — doesn’t understand it because she’s where she is, like, there’s — I think there’s a certain level of consciousness and soul levels also that people have, and I think checking in with what their true desire is — I had a client years and years ago as a trainer, and she was very — she was sedentary, very, very overweight, like clinically obese, couldn’t really walk around, like disabled obese. And it took me — because I’m a great problem solver, so if you don’t like this way, I’ll find 20 ways till Sunday to try to get you to do the thing, and I will work within your psyche, with your astrology, within your whatever your frame — I will come up with — I am brilliant when it comes to finding a new way to get someone motivated to do something. Until I did that, and then I realized, and it took me a minute, because she had everything she wanted. She was like the queen. Her son had paid for the personal training sessions, her husband literally waited on her hand and foot. And I thought, oh, she doesn’t want to get better.

[Dana] (09:38)
You

[JJ] (10:06)
She thinks she wants to get better, but she doesn’t want to get better. She’s not conscious of that. Had I said to her, I don’t think you want to get better, she’d say, of course I do, who wants to live like this? But it’s a subconscious manipulation that’s happening. It’s realizing that who I am, what is the price to pay for changing this story? And the price to pay would be — who would pay attention to me? I’m feeling so much love from my son and from my husband for being disabled. If I got better,

[Dana] (10:15)
Mm-hmm.

[JJ] (10:33)
they would leave — not necessarily leave her and divorce her and move on, but they wouldn’t be around her waiting on her hand and foot 24 hours a day. So we get addicted, victim mentality is an addiction to the story, and what you said about manipulation — but most people don’t understand the power that it has, because again, they don’t realize what they’re getting from it. Now, if someone is truly wanting to change your situation, what I recommend people do — because again, a lot of people ask me this question in my communities, because they’re at a level of wanting to understand, learn, deconstruct, take responsibility for, and they have family members and friends and co-workers that are in victim mentality — and I always say, well, if they’re going to complain to you, ask them before they start to complain. Say, hey, yeah, I’m here for you, and I want to know one thing: are you just wanting me to listen because you’re wanting to vent and feel validated for your feelings, or do you actually want a solution to feel better? Asking that question to somebody is probably going to, even if it doesn’t change them in the moment, will plant a seed. It will plant a seed that they’ll sit with, because they’ll go, huh, why did they ask me that? Well, of course I want to feel better. But I do tell the story a lot, and let that seed maybe start to sprout and grow, and maybe someone will go, you know what, yeah, no, I do want to feel better, and it may not be immediate. But if you at least just ask the question, you get to be clear, and then you also get to say later, especially if you don’t want to continue

[Dana] (11:43)
I’m sorry.

[JJ] (11:59)
being — what’s the word when you’re an addict, someone is helping you to stay an addict? Thank you — no, there’s — yes, thank you, that’s what I was — we’re enablers, sorry, when you’re an enabler.

[Dana] (12:08)
Codependent, enabler.

[JJ] (12:14)
Because you’re basically an enabler when you continue to let somebody tell the same story 50 times, because literally it’s a way for them to get a response. They’re doing the story to get a response, they’re doing it to get love, they’re doing it to get attention, they’re doing it to get you to change, or getting to know whatever it may be. So I think people also have to realize they have the influence and decision and boundary — I know you love to talk a lot about boundaries — they get to say, let me ask you, because I think where we’re going to go with the story, you might have told this a couple more times, and I — I understand it’s a terrible situation, but do you want me to listen again, or are you looking for some help to make this better? And if they say, well, I just want you to listen, and you say, okay, I think that this time I will listen for five or ten minutes, but do know I’ve heard the story, and so past this, I’m here for you if you want some help, but I’m not gonna be here anymore to listen to the story like — you have to kind of give some tough love sometimes to reflect back, and it’s not in a mean way. You just get to say, look, I have heard the story, I know you struggle with this, I’ve heard it a lot, and I’ve been here for you, and I’ve listened to it, but I’m the kind of person that wants to help you find the solution. I think at some time, if you have a problem, let’s make it better. And telling the story 10 times, 20 times, and feeling terrible about it each time isn’t helping you get any better or change the circumstance. And if that’s all too confronting for everybody,

[Dana] (13:33)
Mm-hmm.

[JJ] (13:36)
which I understand, then find a loving way to listen and leave. I practice law of attraction, I teach law of attraction. If you’re in a frequency that is much different than the person who you’re talking to, law of attraction won’t put you two in the same situation for long. Like you’ll zig and zag, you’ll miss each other. You literally won’t be in the same frequency, so you won’t be in connection. They’ll find someone else to complain to. So you can just send some love, do some ho’oponopono to that person, and then, you know, wipe your hands of it. What’s the other phrase in Al-Anon about letting go, or letting God, and — or detach, lovingly detach, lovingly detach from having to be involved in this pattern and this spiral, in whatever way feels comfortable for you and respectful of both of you.

[Dana] (14:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this sounds fabulous. I have a story, I’m not going to get into it right now in this particular podcast, where a person I was in a relationship with, very, very close to me — sometimes just walking away or doing this with your hands is not an option. And so you have to figure out what else you’re going to do. Yeah, it got pretty bad. So that’s one of the reasons why I know so much about boundaries, because I had to — it wasn’t something I went into thinking, I’ll just learn about boundaries today, no, it was to save my life. Yeah, it got kind of nasty. So I’m wondering — because you seem so energetic and creative and on fire for your craft here, and as I’m listening to you I’m wondering where you started, like where did you — you mentioned earlier about the seed that’s planted, let’s rewind your story a little bit, because I’m really curious about when, along your journey, did you begin to think about this, what you’re doing today. When did that seed start for you?

[JJ] (15:51)
Well, I’ve always been — so, astrologically, I’m a Pisces, Pisces are very feeling-based, we’re the toilet bowl of the signs, I’m kidding, someone said that to me once and it really pissed me off. And she, of course, was an Aries, because she said, what are you, I said, I’m a Pisces, she goes, oh, you’re the toilet bowl of the signs. And I was like, well, what are you? And I think that stimulated me learning astrology, so I teach astrology, I have two astrology classes, I use it in all my work, because I love it and it makes sense of people’s behavior, how they look at the world, how they interpret information, how they communicate, how they interpret and process or don’t process their emotions, if they’re in their body or in their head, it just gives so much information. I was a Pisces with a lot of Sag, that’s the fire, so I’ve got a lot of Sag, Sag is about truth seeking and just learning. And so I’ve always been the kid that, from, you know, like going to church with my ex-boyfriend or asking, like, why do they do that, and we do this, why do you do this, and why do we do that? Like I’ve always just been curious about why people do what they do. I even asked myself in junior high, why did I feel that way, why do I feel this way, why did I react that way, why did that person say that? I’ve just been curious about human behavior from the beginning. And going into acting straight away was actually really educational. Well, going to NYU was educational, some of the things I learned at Syracuse, not so much.

[Dana] (16:56)
You

[JJ] (17:08)
But NYU was awesome, Carnegie Mellon was pretty good, but NYU was the best, because I got to learn from a teacher who taught a kind of acting style where you live the day in the life of your character. And what it taught me was how to look through someone else’s eyes in a different circumstance, in a different time in history, in a different body type, in a different circumstance. And that in itself is psychology to me, that is when you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes to look through their eyes. And that wasn’t including astrology, of course, at the time, but I’m looking, like, oh, okay, I see that this person would interpret this situation different than me. Now again, I’m Pisces, so I already have these levels of depth of processing anyway, but that took on a whole new way of looking at things. So then when I moved into, after college, into New York, and I wanted to act and sing and dance and had an agent, all the things, I also simultaneously have been a dancer my entire life. Of course I’m a woman, so I’m in this society, so I care about how I look, but not completely out of balance. But being a dancer I had this really strong muscular lower body and my upper body was kind of thin. And my ex-boyfriend in college was a gymnast, so he was very well proportioned all over his body. And one of my girlfriends, we were working retail, she said, let’s go get a job at the gym so we can get a free membership, and I said, great. So we go to the gym, and I immediately was like, oh, I want to do this, I want to be a personal trainer, I would like to look like that, and I care about my health. I’ve been on a diet since I was a teenager, of course, mostly not for your health, but how you look. But I do care about my health, because I have an Aquarius Mercury, so I see what happens 10, 20, 50 years from now. Like, I have that point of view of knowing that what I do now affects how I age. So I was — I mean, I was 21 as a personal trainer talking about joint integrity, I mean, who at 21 cares about your joints? Me, why? Because I understood that if I did use forces in a negative way against my body, doing stupid exercises, that I would wreck my joints and be in pain in 20, 30 years and not have any cartilage left. So that’s again, that’s how my brain works. And so then fast forward, I’m in personal training, but I’m still working with people who want to look better, feel better, what have you, and of course I’m always asking the why. And like I said earlier, I’m a great problem solver, so if there’s something I don’t know, I go learn it. So someone asks me a question, I don’t have an answer, I go learn it, I go find out — I don’t know how to answer this question, what else is involved? And I had a client who had back pain, and I was doing all the right things on the physical level, and in comes Dr. John Sarno’s work on healing back pain. I’m like, oh, back pain is repressed rage, oh, that makes a lot of sense. And again, the Pisces part is also extremely spiritual, I’m all about spiritual energy, I understand that we are energetic beings before and more than we are physical beings, so none of this was new for me, it fit, it made sense. And so I was like, oh, because emotions to me might as well be a physical thing, you feel it like a physical thing, when you have grief it weighs on your chest like a boulder, when you have emotion is energy, and that to me made complete sense. So I just started to dive into all the emotional pieces with my clients and doing my own work. And then I, with law of attraction, manifested my husband in a couple of weeks, definitely my soulmate, we got married. And in my viewpoint, when you get married, that’s kind of when the work starts, because now you have someone to mirror you all the time, you have someone who is going to reflect back to you, and in my belief, you choose your partners to heal the wounds of your past. So I’m like, all right, let’s roll up our sleeves, let’s get to it, because I chose you for a reason, you chose me for a reason, it’s about to heal our wounds, let’s do it. And he was like, I don’t want to work that hard, I don’t want to work that hard, this is supposed to be the easy part. No, no, no, no, this isn’t the easy part, this is where you work, this is where you work on your stuff. So needless to say, I started my podcast to save my marriage, and the things that I learned

[Dana] (20:31)
Yeah. Hahaha!

[JJ] (20:58)
that I would not have learned otherwise happened because I had a need to, just like with you, with your boundaries, in order for me to understand and be compassionate and figure out tools, figure out what to heal, figure out what’s my part, what’s your part, figure out a way to do this. So within our 12-year relationship and 10-year marriage, I was super 150% committed to doing everything in my power to learn anything I could learn in order to save my marriage. Now, what ended up happening, of course, was that I got to the place where I realized — and I’m hard-pressed, show me someone who did more than me, I’m like, I’m going to take that, like I worked really hard, blood, sweat, and tears. And at some point I thought, okay, I had a client at the time and he was on his second marriage and he loved his wife and he was buying her flowers, and I was like, oh, I deserve that, I worked really hard, like I was allowing myself to be punished for like a year and a half. Like I knew I was being punished, but I was determined to say, it’s okay, you can punish me, you’re in a bad mood,

[Dana] (21:47)
Heheheheh

[JJ] (21:55)
you’re going to see that I’m not going to leave, I’m not going to leave you, like I’m going to be good, I don’t need you to make me happy, that’s the other thing. So most people live in a reality where they want to control their circumstances because it affects the way they feel. So I’ve transcended that 10 times over, not necessarily all the time, I’m human, I’m still going through it today, but the teaching and the understanding that you’re the creator of your own reality and it’s no one’s job to make you happy, it’s yours. So understanding and unpacking all of that is what I lived, nobody knew. And my marriage wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t good, I wasn’t getting what I wanted, he wasn’t getting what he wanted, we weren’t connected in the way that I knew we wanted to be. And sometimes we were, but I was still a happy and, you know, happy person with not like a ton of stress, other than, you know, money, in my marriage of course. So, so I learned how to use law of attraction, I learned how to live in a different frequency other than what my reality was, and it would work, I would — he would elevate at times and we would connect in really beautiful ways, and we got better. And then at some point, after he was punishing me, I just said, okay, I think I can forgive myself. I think I’ve done everything a human can possibly do and then some, I think I’m okay. Plus my goal wasn’t necessarily divorce, I thought, what else do I have in my toolbox, what else could happen. I realized most people, not just men, but most people get stuck in their patterns and their environment, and they don’t have the perspective to change their patterns in their environments, very hard. That’s why people love going on vacation, because it’s a new — you’re a new person in a new — empty, you’re not attached to anything, there’s no story, there’s no relationship or expectation. So I said, because he’d wanted to move out maybe like six months before this, and I was like, I was crying, I’m begging, don’t leave. And then finally I thought, no, actually this would probably be good for him, he’s a different person when he’s on vacation or not in a circumstance that has any history for him. Yeah, okay, you can leave. And that was my Hail Mary, I was like, okay, you can go, go live with your aunt up the street and date, and let’s separate for six months or a year, I was hoping that giving them that freedom to sort of recalibrate and then really figure out — then maybe I could go date and I could feel free and then see what would happen, because I’d heard other stories of people who had been separated for a year and did this and then it kind of got them straightened out and they got back together. But the minute I let go, the minute I — because I was gripping, and the minute I let go, my hands were open, the universe literally plopped in my hands the person I was supposed to be with. And I kept saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on, no, no, no, no, no, I went from that guy. And the universe was like, no, no, no, it’s not about that guy, you want these feelings, you want to live in this way, so it doesn’t matter who it is, you’re not gonna get what you want from that guy, he’s not in alignment with the things that you want to be living and experiencing. So yeah, I went from being shamed, thinking, like, I wrote a book called Fit to Love, and my podcast was Fit to Love, how to get physically, emotionally, and spiritually fit to attract the love of your life. Now, love of your life is you, I wasn’t saying attract another person, you have to love yourself first, that’s what this whole game is. But I had a shame of like, okay, now what, well talk about manifestation, and I wrote a book about manifestation. And here I manifested my husband, three weeks about ready to like separate from him and possibly get divorced, well, geez, then I don’t know what I’m talking about. And then when the universe put Doug in my lap within two hours of the conversation of us separating, not divorce, and I said to him, are you seeing someone, he said, no, are you, I said, no, and I wasn’t. And then two hours later, universe went, boop, here, this guy, and I’m like, what, no, no, no, no, no. And yeah, so I was like, okay, I do know what I’m talking about, is fine, yes, law of attraction works, I’m on — I’m on to this. So all of this, and I’ve saved plenty of marriages, just not my own, but it wasn’t supposed to be, I believe in soul contracts, without the contrast of my marriage I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now, I wouldn’t be helping people in the way that I’m helping them now, and how I’ve moved into this, because I’m not a clinical psychologist, I don’t have a degree in this, and I did get a lot of kickback from that. But I’ll tell you where I decided to be brave and step out anyway, was because people listening to my show would have two sessions with me and say, oh my god, my whole life has changed, and I’ve been in therapy for three years, five years, 10 years, seven years, and it happened so much, Dana, that I’m like, okay, I’m going to claim this. I’m not saying that all therapy is ineffective, but there are definitely better therapists than others, not all therapy is equal, not all therapists have the same tools. So the people who were listening to my show had been in therapy with bad tools, or just traditional talk therapy wasn’t enough for them, and they were in it long enough and frustrated enough that they were like, okay, I want to work with you, what do you got? And then within two sessions I’d flip victim mentality, I put responsibility back on them, and then they would feel empowered, they’d be like, oh,

[Dana] (26:14)
No.

[JJ] (26:35)
well shoot, I can change this. And that’s the whole empowerment piece, it’s like, if I feel like I’m a victim in my circumstance and it’s because of him and her and them, then you’ll never get out of that victim mentality, will never feel good. Long term it is a temporary relief, because you think you’re not at blame, but it is not a long-term solution for happiness, joy, or peace.

[Dana] (26:56)
That’s absolutely right, and I’m aligning everything with what you’re saying, and plus I’m a Pisces too. But it’s like the boundaries piece for me is that owning — like I talk about our yard, and in our yard are our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and they belong to us, we’re responsible for them, and that’s good stuff that we get to change. And so I know that when I talk to my patients a lot, we’re like, that’s the juicy bits, that’s the good stuff, we don’t want to be like — as long as you’re blaming somebody else, you don’t have any power over that stuff. And so the more we can own — that’s the stuff that’s in our own yard that we get to change. And so that’s really, that’s where that victim mentality just, like, if we’re going to be a victim, then we’re giving all our power away. So that’s just, that’s amazing, I’m so glad that you kind of came into your own and sort of — I, you know, you went through pain, but I’m hearing you say that it was for a reason, and you kind of got to that place where you were feeling empowered yourself, and you were able to pass that on to other people, because you were right in that you’re authentically you, you just kind of stepped into that, and other people felt that, they resonated with you, the frequency, they could feel that when you finally got to that place, at least that’s what I’m hearing you say.

[JJ] (28:17)
Yeah, you mean a place of stepping out and saying, I do this for a living.

[Dana] (28:21)
Yeah, when you kind of went through everything and you kind of were able to say, oh my gosh, I’ve, you know, accepting the other — the man, the new man that came into your life — and coming into your own with your being an empowerment strategist, and people coming to you and having that experience of, oh my gosh, I’ve been in traditional therapy with this therapist or that therapist for three years and didn’t really experience anything, and they came to you and experienced success. I just think that’s fabulous, because I think we all need to

[JJ] (28:30)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

[Dana] (28:51)
we’re all different, right? There’s — like you said, there’s all different kinds of therapists out there, there’s different therapy strategies out there, there’s different people out there, there’s different personalities, and so to have so many people that offer different things, so that we can reach out and find, like the law of attraction, we’ll attract the people that we can resonate with and we can help out. That is absolutely amazing.

[JJ] (29:12)
Can I share a really funny story about that for a second? It’s short. I, so I — I’m not a fan of traditional talk therapy, I don’t know if you can get that, but again I recognize, because my last therapist — she’s awesome and amazing — but I went to her for specifically EMDR and hypnosis, because I knew about EFT, but I didn’t know — I now use EFT and I use EFT with some core wound exercises to get sort of as deep as we can possibly get with EFT, but because I didn’t know I could do EFT

[Dana] (29:15)
Yeah.

[JJ] (29:41)
like EMDR, I thought, okay, well, I’m gonna go to somebody because I need that person to do this with me. And then the hypnosis piece, I wanted both of those. And so again, she has tools that are different than just traditional talk therapy. But, and so I loved her, but there was a therapist right before her that I went to for EMDR, that someone said, oh, I’m doing EMDR and it’s just on my insurance, I’m like, great, I’m gonna go do EMDR because I wanna experience it. So I go to this therapist, and she — this is another reason why I came up with Empowerment Strategist — because she’s super right-brain, super right-brain, and I walk in and I’m super left-brain, I mean I’m both, but I walk in and I tell her I wanna do EMDR, and she goes, okay, well, you know, we can’t do the first session because I need to get to know you, I’m like, okay, that’s fine. So we do the whole talk thing. And then the next session comes and I go in and I’m ready to do EMDR, and she asks me a question and the whole session goes on, and then again didn’t do EMDR. So after the second session I send her an email, hey, I really wanted to do EMDR next time, okay, come in a third session, I think on the third session I ended up handing her a CD, an Abraham CD, because I don’t know that she knew about law of attraction, and I like — while I know it’s not always possible and I don’t need it, but you like when somebody shares the same language you share, or some of the same information, so that you can use your information together to find a solution. So I gave her this Abraham CD, this law of attraction CD, that was like on week three, come into week four, okay, and she’s like, oh, this CD is really, really good, I said, okay, great, so I’m glad you enjoyed it. And then I’m waiting to do EMDR, and again, four sessions we have not done EMDR. So I go home, I send email once again, and I said, I really am coming to you to do EMDR, can we please do EMDR? So fifth session, I think it was on the fifth session that we actually did EMDR. But when I had come, but in between that, I think she had said to me, this law of attraction stuff, it’s amazing, it really works, and that’s when I was clear, I’m like, oh, this is not about me, this is about me introducing her to law of attraction.

[Dana] (31:31)
I’m sorry.

[JJ] (31:32)
This whole relationship is really not about me, and that’s okay. So on the sixth session, when we didn’t do EMDR again, and I said, I’m coming to you for EMDR, it’s been five sessions, we’ve done it one time, and she says, well, because I ask you how you’re doing, and then you go off and tell me about, you know, my ex-husband or what he did. I went, because you asked me, I said, this is your room, I’m not going to come in and control your room, like she couldn’t lead me, I was like, I’m telling you what I want.

[Dana] (31:40)
God.

[JJ] (31:58)
You asked me a question, you know what I want, and I’m going down and I’m telling you, but you’re never stopping me and you’re never telling me, well, let’s get to EMDR, like she was too right-brain for me. So I walked out of there so crazy, so nuts, that that propelled me to find somebody new, which was the last person I was with, who I said, here’s what I want. And I even broke it down, I said, here are the beliefs, the negative beliefs that I have,

[Dana] (32:05)
I’m going to go ahead and close the video.

[JJ] (32:22)
and here are the positive replacements that I want to replace it with, and I gave her all the — I mean I wrote this big long thing — and she, the first session we did EMDR, she’s like, okay, well let’s get started, and we did it that day, it was amazing. And, but you know, when you said law of attraction, like, it was me realizing, like, that was so ineffective for me, that was — she was not the right person for me, and I don’t believe that that was why I was there. I was there to help her with law of attraction, because she was getting more out of our relationship than I was.

[Dana] (32:44)
Hahaha!

[JJ] (32:48)
I was like, okay, well great, I’m glad I’ve changed your life with law of attraction, I’m still waiting for you to do EMDR with me, but it’s fine.

[Dana] (32:58)
That’s a long time to go five or six times and you’re like, I’m still waiting, I’m still waiting. You seem to be so good at being direct and saying exactly what you want. I’m kind of, I’m seeing where you could really be very helpful to people that come to you — do you work with women that struggle with being able to do that? Where they either don’t really even know what they want, but maybe they know what they want but they’re having trouble saying it, they’re having trouble communicating, they’re having trouble telling people that they’re in relationships with — male, female, whoever — what they want. They’re like, it’s like they’re like somebody’s got them around the throat, like they can’t get it out.

[JJ] (33:41)
Yeah, well, again, I have had people who have listened to my show and say, oh, my whole life has changed because I listened to your show, and I’m like, cool, I don’t know them, I’ve never met them, they didn’t pay me, they’re not in any groups, they haven’t stepped forward. Like I share a lot of free tools on the show, and the one that comes to my mind right now, when I teach people how to communicate with or talk or be direct about what they want and they need, I use and I love, and I’ve sort of personalized Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication work into a feelings and needs list of showing people. And that’s really where I start everybody, because while it’s a very simple exercise, it is not easy, because people have to take responsibility for understanding what their needs are. And we don’t talk in the language of needs, people hear “need” and they think victim, needy, weak, dependent, and like, no, no, no, we have 86 basic human needs, we all need air, we all need sustenance, we all need shelter, we all need safety, we all need joy, we all need ease, we all need peace, we all need play, like, these are needs. And when we don’t understand what our needs are, subconsciously we manipulate others to try to get that need met. But when you can know what that need is, you can strategize how to get that need met without involving anybody else, or even asking anybody else to be different. And when you let that person off the hook for having to make you happy or change, that you don’t feel fearful, and you can really get to the root of what your need is — like that exercise alone, if there was one exercise that I would tell — if you never did any exercise other than this one, this is a life changer, because it makes you become aware of your true feelings, like what am I really feeling, and then what need is not being met that’s creating this feeling or perception of a need that’s not being met, and then what are some strategies that I can take to get this need met that don’t require anyone else to be different. And if you can get that down, if you can use the tool, because I tell people to print it, and I tell people to print many copies of it and have it with you everywhere you are, so that way when you’re feeling negative emotion, you can identify it, you can figure out why you’re feeling it, and then you could do something about it, and you can get the need met, and then it won’t happen. But that’s the problem with, I think, sometimes when people just focus on sort of the right-brain feeling part, you know, about how — feeling that I feel sad, I feel sad, I feel sad, I’m so sad, I’m so sad, and then you never deal with why you’re sad, so you never fix it, so you’re always sad. So yes, I’ve expressed my emotions, I might feel lighter in the moment, but then I’m going to go back to that situation and I interpret it the same way I interpreted last time, I’m going to feel sad again. There has to be a change in interpretation and awareness and an uncovering of what this need is, it’s not getting met for you, or this perception of the need

[Dana] (35:56)
Right.

[JJ] (36:17)
with this thing you’re interpreting, so you can change it.

[Dana] (36:20)
Yeah, 100%. Wow, this is — I love your energy and I love the fact that you get underneath at the why of something, because I agree with you 150% that if we can’t answer the why, then what are we going to do? How are you going to change anything if you don’t know why you’re feeling something? How do you know even what to do anything differently? That is fantastic, and I think this is a great place to have a platform for you to tell my listeners

[Dana] (36:51)
how to get more of you, because it’s very clear why you’re an empowerment strategist and how you very much empower people, and you know the steps, you know how to do that for people that are coming to you. So I’m certain that I have listeners that are listening to you speaking that are going, oh my gosh, she’s amazing, I need to get a hold of her. How do I get in touch with JJ? What I have here is JJFlizanes.com. Is this correct?

[JJ] (37:19)
Yes. Yes. Yes. And I’d love to give everybody — I know I didn’t really explain, like I have a whole podcast on it, it’s actually Fit to Love episode 118, anyway, that’s diving way back, Fit to Love has like 700 podcasts on it right now, but you have to go way back to the beginning, it’s like 115. But if you would just want to get the download of this feelings and needs list, I don’t have it on my website, I only share it when I’m doing podcasts, because

[Dana] (37:20)
Okay.

[JJ] (37:47)
again, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you don’t want to do with it. So you could go to JJFlizanes.com forward slash feelings list, so with feelings with an s, feelings list, and then you could download this list. And I’m going to give everybody a really fun exercise to try that doesn’t require any explanation. And just do it as a check-in, so download the feelings and needs list, skip over the feelings for a second, and under no story or any particular circumstances, I want you to just — so you’re neutral, you’re in a good feeling place, you’re in a neutral feeling place, not in a negative feeling place yet, because then that would be the do-the-whole-thing — go to the needs and just look at them and read them to yourself. And anything that stands out as a need that you’re not getting met, that you’d like to get met, like you have a physical reaction to it, like, oh yeah, I’d like that, circle it. And out of these 86 basic human needs, I’d be curious as to how many, because again we’re not — I want it to be outside of a circumstance or story, just you and your daily life, how many of these needs are currently not being met that you care about? Okay, because there might be some things on here that you don’t care about, maybe you’re in a time of your life where intimacy isn’t important because you just want to be alone, or

[Dana] (39:02)
Hahaha

[JJ] (39:05)
beauty, you feel like you have enough beauty, you don’t need any more beauty, right? So just go to the list, to the needs, and just circle — I mean, I’ve done that with a couple of clients and, man, do they come up with a lot of stuff, like, well, pretty much every single thing on this list I need. I’m like, okay, great, well then we have a place to start with how to get these needs met, right? If we don’t know what we’re aiming towards, how do we know when we’re there?

[Dana] (39:26)
That’s it. I love that. I love the exercise that you’re giving the listeners. Okay, so JJ, I appreciate your time so much and your energy, I mean, you brought so much authenticity and your energy and your experience and your wisdom to my listeners today on Phoenix and Flame. I appreciate that so much. Thank you for joining us here today.

[JJ] (39:51)
Dana, it was awesome, thank you so much. I really appreciate the ability to have this kind of conversation with someone like you, and that we had a good time, and hopefully it helped a few people.

[Dana] (40:01)
It absolutely helped a lot of people, no doubt. Now listeners, I know that you’re thinking, I have got a best friend or a relative or a coworker that absolutely needs to hear what JJ has to say. So take this episode, copy and paste it in texting and email, put it on your favorite social media sites, let’s spread the word, let’s build our Phoenix and Flame community so that we can continue to let people know they’re not alone. We’re in this together. I hope you’re having a great day. I hope the rest of your day goes fantastically. I’m Dana on Phoenix in Flame.