Break Free From Limiting Beliefs (with Yvonne Trost)

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First aired May 4, 2025

Limiting beliefs are the invisible walls we build before we’re even old enough to know we’re building them, and my guest, happiness coach Yvonne Trost, found hers out the hard way: in an actual apartment fire that took everything she owned.

Yvonne is the co-founder of Limitless You, and she’s lived the both/and of coaching: a devastating apartment fire, a marriage that turned mentally and physically abusive until her seven-year-old asked her to get a new daddy, and a corporate career that paid the bills and drained her soul. She walks us through her three-step framework (realize, recode, rewrite), the neuroscience behind why your imagination beats logic every time, and why she rewrote Einstein’s equation for her clients: mindful thinking, raised to the power of compassion and curiosity.

You’ll leave with her favorite tool for flipping “what if” into “why not,” and a reminder that the fear keeping you safe is usually the thing keeping you stuck.

Watch this episode

In this episode

  • Why an apartment fire that took everything became the moment Yvonne started asking “is this happening for me, not to me”
  • The warning signs she lived through before finally leaving an abusive marriage, and what her seven-year-old said that made her act
  • The “realize, recode, rewrite” framework Yvonne uses to help clients find and change subconscious limiting beliefs
  • Why your imagination beats logic every time, and how to use that instead of fighting it
  • The simple mindset shift, “what if” to “why not”, that stops fear of the unknown from keeping you small
  • Why self-health isn’t selfish, and how avoiding your own needs teaches the people you love to avoid theirs

Timestamps

  • (00:01) Welcome and meet happiness coach Yvonne Trost
  • (02:24) The apartment fire that took everything, and the lesson buried in it
  • (04:49) Leaving an abusive marriage: “Mommy, can you get me a new daddy?”
  • (07:06) Desperation vs. inspiration: what actually pushes people to change
  • (08:53) Why she named her company Limitless You
  • (11:39) Her Einstein-inspired formula: mindful thinking raised to the power of compassion and curiosity
  • (16:17) The fear of the unknown, and why it keeps us small while feeling safe
  • (20:25) Locus of control: why looking outside yourself increases anxiety
  • (22:38) The realize-recode-rewrite framework and how hypnotherapy fits in
  • (25:37) Why your imagination beats logic every time
  • (27:25) Shifting from “what if” to “why not”
  • (31:26) Neuroplasticity: rewiring the negative story
  • (33:08) Where to find Yvonne’s website and free resources

About Yvonne Trost

Yvonne Trost is the co-founder and happiness coach at Limitless You, where she blends neuroscience, quantum physics, and hypnotherapy to help people break free from conscious and subconscious limiting beliefs. She is a divorced mom of two who has walked away from both an unfulfilling marriage and a career that didn’t fit, and now helps others make the same kind of transformation.

Learn more at Yvonne’s website, or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Favorite quotes

“The fear of the unknown keeps us small, but we believe it keeps us safe.” —Yvonne Trost

“Your imagination will beat logic every single time.” —Yvonne Trost

“Self-health is not selfish.” —Yvonne Trost

Resources mentioned

  • Limitless You: Yvonne’s website, home to her free resources including a locus-of-control quiz and the “limiting belief lie detector” tool she mentions in the episode
  • Limitless Life: Yvonne’s five-week program for reclaiming the power of your imagination
  • Yvonne Trost on LinkedIn

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Read the full transcript

[Dana] (00:01)
Welcome friends, whether you’re out on a walk, running errands, or relaxing at home, it’s wonderful to connect with you. Joining us today is Yvonne Trost. She is the co-founder and happiness coach at Limitless You, where she empowers others to break free from their conscious and subconscious limiting beliefs and embrace their true calling.

[Dana] (00:31)
She blends ancient wisdom with modern science, including neuroscience, quantum physics, and hypnotherapy to guide people toward lives filled with fulfillment, joy, and purpose. Yvonne, welcome to Phoenix in Flame.

[Yvonne] (00:50)
I’m so excited to be here.

[Dana] (00:52)
This is fantastic. Now I know also from your bio, in addition to everything that we just said, that you’re also a divorced mom with two children and you have also faced the uncertainty of walking away from both a marriage and a successful career that did not fulfill you anymore so that you understand the courage it takes to make those tough decisions and the transformation that follows. That sounds fascinating to me.

[Yvonne] (01:21)
Yeah, when I read what your podcast was about, I’m like, oh yeah, been there, done that. Let’s help other people rise back up because you only fly higher.

[Dana] (01:33)
That is absolutely true. You know, in Phoenix in Flame, I like to focus on kind of three different areas. One is that when we’re burning, when we’re on fire, what is melting us down, what is burning us, what was that like? And the second thing would be when we’re sitting in a pile of ash, what that feels like. When we feel like there’s no hope, we’re sitting in this big ash pile, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. and then the lovely and wonderful transformation into a phoenix that we couldn’t have done if there hadn’t been the fire and there hadn’t been the ash pile, there wouldn’t be the phoenix. And so I really like to tune in and listen to each guest’s story in finding those three elements in their story. So start wherever you would like and we’ll just kind of ping back and forth.

[Yvonne] (02:24)
Yeah, I mean, I’m open book. So whatever you are, the listeners want to hear when you were saying the three things, I’m like, well, I actually literally went through a fire and it’s such a analogy. Like when I lost everything, I thought what a time to move and start new. So I used to live in St. Louis. Now I live in Arlington, Virginia, and I was working in Chicago, had an apartment fire, lost everything. And I was like, well, now’s the time to move since I have nothing to move. And I think that I never really put two and two together, but it’s such a powerful literal analogy of how it is with other things, right? Yeah, sometimes have to burn down and feel the fire. And you you’ve heard the phrase and sometimes we’re like,

[Dana] (02:59)
Oh wow! Mm-hmm.

[Yvonne] (03:21)
That’s just positive woo woo talk. Things happen for you, not to you. Once you flip that mindset switch and you can see that those flames are happening for you and through the flames comes the growth, through the challenge comes the growth and like it’s being put there for you so you can learn. Then you get excited and the flames are like, oh, this is kind of like a cleansing opportunity and this is kind of a way to start fresh.

[Dana] (03:25)
Mm-hmm.

[Yvonne] (03:51)
And I’ve gone through that several times in my life. So we can talk about whether it’s through a failed marriage, which actually it was a failed forward, right? Because now who I am is totally different. So maybe we start there. You know, if you’re listening and you feel stuck, or if you feel like you feel on fire, but it’s not quite hot enough to do anything about it, right? Or maybe you don’t even feel it. anymore because you’ve normalized it. So many times people are like, well, and my kids tell me all the time I’m weird. I’m like, I’d rather be weird than normal because normal is boring and number one, normal is usually not healthy. So be careful what you normalize. Be careful that you’re, you know, what I used to do. You’re not binge watching Netflix and drinking a bunch of wine to not feel the flame because the flame is your mind and your body and your spirit telling you

[Dana] (04:23)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

[Yvonne] (04:49)
or something more. There needs to be movement. There needs to be transformation. So the universe kept telling me that over and over again, and I won’t go into all the ways. But then when it came down to my divorce, that’s when I felt like I was what? Hugely on flame and in fire. I had two kids. My seven year old, I had a seven year old and four year old. My seven year old was asking me, mommy, can you get me a new daddy? Because he was definitely mentally abusive.

[Dana] (05:15)
Oh wow.

[Yvonne] (05:19)
and started to be physically, like I won’t get into it, but there was physical aspects of it. And then I began to feel unsafe. And I thought, I don’t know if this makes sense if you’re listening, but when I was growing up, there wasn’t all these things to stream. There was an afterschool special on Lifetime or something. And it was usually something dramatic, some story that you could never imagine happening to you.

[Dana] (05:41)
Yeah.

[Yvonne] (05:46)
And I was like, Dana, when did I show up in the lifetime after school special? I’m not supposed to be being abused and worrying what’s happening to my marriage and what am I gonna do with my kids and how am I gonna get out of this. But I knew when I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life and I knew it wasn’t good for my kids, that flame had to get that hot, Dana.

[Dana] (06:12)
Mm-hmm. You know, let…

[Yvonne] (06:13)
And I talked to so many people that they same thing. They’re like, it just had to get like, I couldn’t even imagine or I felt like I couldn’t live anymore. If you’re listening, just you don’t have to even have the flame that hot to start your transformation to something that’s better.

[Dana] (06:32)
Listening to you talk, reminds me somewhat of the frog in the pot, how we’re living our life and the flame is turning and the water is getting hotter, but it’s getting incrementally hotter. And like you said earlier, it’s like white noise. We’ve been used to it so much that we don’t really even feel it. We don’t really even see it. It’s just there. And then what’s it going to take for us to reach that pain threshold where the pain of staying the same is worse than the pain of change. What’s it going to take? And what was your experience with that and also with the people that you work with, what helps to push them to the point where they’re willing to do something to move forward, to view something a different way or to realize there’s another way of another out or anything like that?

[Yvonne] (07:06)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s cliche to say, but so true. People change from desperation or inspiration, right? Mine was desperation, for sure. And then we could go into the career thing too later if we have time. What I find is like it’s either desperation or, you know, before last year, I was never even on social media because I didn’t look like the Facebook family. And it made me feel like crap when I went on there, right?

[Dana] (07:54)
Yeah.

[Yvonne] (07:55)
The good thing, there’s lot of bad to social media, but the lot of good is like there’s so much inspiration out there. Like you don’t have to feel like you’re not enough. Don’t compare yourself. Don’t judge yourself. Be inspired. So for me, I didn’t know that you could have a deeply connected, happy relationship that didn’t involve constant bickering because I didn’t see anything else growing up. My parents are still married, 61 years. I love them both. They fight a lot. And I was just taught, you know, be a good German work ethic small town girl from town of 2400. You make it work, right? And you make the relationship work. You make work work. Work’s not supposed to be fun. They call it a job, work for a reason, right? Like all these messages, all these things we’ve been conditioned with either from our parents or from society or social media, stop listening.

[Dana] (08:36)
Ha ha ha.

[Yvonne] (08:53)
and stop believing it and start tuning in to yourself. So that’s why I called our company Limitless You because I believe everybody is limitless. We just don’t see it. We haven’t practiced it. So just like you go to the gym to flex your muscles, right? And you build strength there. We need to flex our mind, body, spirit connection. And we do all sorts of things to help teach people that, whether it’s meditation, or we guide them through hypnosis. I call it like a subconscious safari. People are like, I don’t know about hypnosis. That’s kind of scary. Like I didn’t either before I met my partner. I thought, oh, just help me stop binge watching Netflix and going to Starbucks too much. But then Dana, what it did is it helped me realize I didn’t go into trance. Some people do, some people don’t. I didn’t go into trance. I didn’t remember anything new. Although I’ve had people remember things from when they were in the womb. I’ve had people remember things from when they were two and three. The thing that happened for me that happens for almost the hundred clients that we served and the thousands that our teachers have served is the awareness with the truth, the story, the limiting beliefs that have been programmed in our subconscious mind. It’s not our fault, right? We had to make sense of things when we were little, right? I love Dr. Gabor Matej’s school video, which she talks about kids have two needs. They need to feel attached, right? Because we can’t survive without a caretaker. But the piece I was never taught, the second one he talks about is authenticity. and we don’t know who we really are. Authentically, we know who we’re conditioned, who we’re supposed to be. We know what grades we’re supposed to get. We know what we’re supposed to dress like. We know what clubs we’re supposed to be in. We know how good we’re supposed to be at, all these things. But we’re not taught, how do you know who you are? And how do you believe that that’s enough and then start living from that authenticity? And so what we do at Limitless You is we help you understand where you veered from that. why you created those beliefs as to why you had to veer from it because you weren’t enough for some reason. You’re not smart enough, sexy enough, handsome enough, successful enough, rich enough, you name it. And then realize that’s all just a lie. and we help people find their truth. And so your question was, do you get people to realize? Well, we have to stop telling and we have to start providing experiences. So I believe in experience, right? Don’t believe everything that I say. Listen, be open to receive it, experience it, test it in your world, and you will find your truth.

[Dana] (11:11)
Hmm.

[Yvonne] (11:39)
And we have so many different ways and methods and tools and not one fits every single person every single time. So you use different ones. And so I think my biggest message, easiest way to remember it, I changed, I don’t think Einstein would mind, but I slightly used his equals MC squared to help people simplify it. The energy you want in your life, Dana, the energy, if you’re listening that you want in your life, You are a powerful creator. You can create it. You have everything you need. The formula is mindful thinking raised to the power of compassion and curiosity. compassion for yourself and for others because our subconscious minds are that of little mini-me’s. You know this Dana, probably even better than I do. Most of the beliefs that we have were formed before we were 10. So when you look at somebody, even if they’re being really mean to you, you can look at them with compassion and be like, oh, not like you’re condescending, but compassion. That’s just a little scared individual in there.

[Dana] (12:28)
Yeah.

[Yvonne] (12:50)
And whatever they’re doing saying, feeling has nothing to do with you, don’t take it personally, has everything to do with how they feel about themselves. So that’s the hack to first like break out of that like fight or flight, right? Is the compassion. Like see yourself as a kid, see somebody else as a kid, because you can love little kids sometimes easier than you can love adults, right? And then curious, oh, I wonder what happened to them.

[Dana] (13:12)
Yeah.

[Yvonne] (13:18)
or I wonder what happened to me that makes me interpret what’s happening to me or what they’re saying to me in this way that doesn’t make me feel good. Gosh, once you really tune into that equation, mindful thinking raises the power of compassion and curiosity and you practice it, you become very powerful and you don’t have to wait until everything’s on flames and you’re in the ashes. Just start practicing it now wherever you’re at. Whether you’re a frog in the pot and you don’t know how hot, I like to rhyme, how hot it is. or whether you think you’re fabulously happy and successful. We were built to grow. You are limitless. Start using the powers you’ve been given. Learn more about what they are.

[Dana] (14:13)
that I like that a lot. It makes it easy to remember. A couple things are coming to my mind as I’m listening to you. One of them is because I, I’m a huge, have a lot of passion for boundaries. It’s what I’m known for. And when I’m listening to you describe this, I’m thinking it also makes it so much easier to have that compassion with someone. and to view them as a toddler or even kind of having compassion for our own toddler. When we’re acknowledging what belongs to us and what does not belong to us, then we don’t need to be as defensive when we’re understanding this is coming from someone else’s thoughts, someone else’s feelings, someone else’s background. Really, they might be talking to us and they might be talking about us. But if it’s dysfunctional in some kind of way, that’s their issue.

[Yvonne] (14:50)
Yeah.

[Dana] (15:09)
And so that makes it even easier to be able to have that compassion instead of getting upset and defensive and trying to fawn and please and keep the peace and all that because that’s when we’re getting all the boundary lines all confused. And I was also wondering, in doing a lot of what you’re describing, it requires that we face our fears, you know.

[Yvonne] (15:35)
Yeah.

[Dana] (15:36)
afraid of why are we acting this way? Why do we feel like we have this expectation? Why is there that imposter syndrome? Why is this, know, why do we not believe in ourselves? And I think a lot of times coming along, it’s we’ve developed, we were afraid, we’re afraid of certain outcomes, we’re afraid of certain things. And I was kind of wondering what your experience has been personally and also with your clients and What’s been most effective? What are the common fears that you run into? And what’s been most effective in helping people to acknowledge those out of curiosity and to face those as well?

[Yvonne] (16:17)
Absolutely. So my biggest one, the thing that I in that experimental hypnosis that then led me to become a certified hypnotherapist was the fear of the unknown. Most of us have, so our subconscious minds are intended to keep us alive. And for us to stay alive, we think that we need to be a part of some kind of tribe or there needs to be some kind of safety mechanism, right? And so we’re always looking for things outside of us until we realize that we have everything that we need inside of us. And when you give away your power and your safety by putting it on something outside of you,

[Yvonne] (17:01)
we get scared to your point of things changing or things not being in our control. And so our subconscious mind believes keep everything the same because you’re alive, at least you’re alive. It could be worse instead of thinking it could be better.

[Dana] (17:16)
Hmm.

[Yvonne] (17:19)
And when I went through my transformation, I realized I had more to be afraid of by not becoming more of myself and staying small than I had to try.

[Dana] (17:33)
Nice.

[Yvonne] (17:35)
So the fear of the unknown keeps us small, but we believe it keeps us safe.

[Dana] (17:45)
I like that.

[Yvonne] (17:45)
But really, if you look at it, it’s very ironic, right? The very thing that your subconscious mind and you believe is a solution.

[Yvonne] (17:58)
right, is actually the problem. So I went into career that my parents thought would be safe in business and make money in, right? So my subconscious mind says, make money, save money, don’t explore, then you’ll be safe.

[Dana] (18:02)
Nice.

[Yvonne] (18:19)
but I was unhappy. And then I started drinking wine and then I rushed into a marriage and I was not safe and I wasn’t the best person that I could be. So therefore I wasn’t the best mom I could be. So please, if you’re listening and you have children, don’t stay in a bad marriage. Don’t stay in a bad relationship. Don’t not take care of your health. One of the biggest things that I learned and I’m getting off the fear topic, but this is very important. Self-health is not selfish. You begin to fear that you won’t take care of others enough, but actually you’re teaching them not to take care of themselves. You’re not being your best self for your kids or for your spouse or for your colleagues, right, at work. The only way you can be your best self is to be your authentic self fully. I would make a crappy Dana. But I make a really good Yvonne. Right?

[Dana] (19:23)
la

[Yvonne] (19:25)
So if I try to be Dana all day long because somebody wants Dana, I’m never gonna actually be good for them.

[Dana] (19:26)
Oh.

[Yvonne] (19:34)
Right? If you’re listening and you’re like me and you’re like, well, I don’t have time to work out or explore or to whatever. I gotta take care of my kids and I gotta pay the bills and you’re afraid you’ll let them down. That very thing you’re afraid of, you already are doing. Ask yourself, do I want my kids to be unhappy in a career? Do I want them to be unhappy and settle in a relationship that doesn’t align to their fullest desires? If the answer is no, and you’re doing that, the very thing you don’t want for your kids is what you’re teaching them. The fear of the unknown I thought was keeping me safe, but it was actually progressively keeping me unsafe.

[Dana] (20:25)
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, when you explain it the way you did, that is, it’s just so helpful. And it kind of made me think you were talking about where we view our control, whether it’s inside of us or outside of us. And it reminded me of research that was done on internal versus external locus of control. And it’s ironic that when people have their control center, their locus of control outside of themselves in like wine or, um,

[Yvonne] (20:26)
and unhappy.

[Dana] (20:55)
working a lot or buying things or sex or fill in the blank, when it’s outside of us, it actually increases our anxiety. That’s what research indicated versus when we view our control center being inside of us, that reduces our anxiety. I think that’s interesting and I feel like that’s what you were saying.

[Yvonne] (21:01)
Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. If you’re like, I just still quite, we have, created all these little fun tools. Like this is the other thing. I used to be like very analytical and a driver and a la la la la, but I’m a creative. So if you’re like, I don’t even know, we have really fun things. If you go to unlock limitlessu.com, so unlock limitlessu.com, in the resources section, there are many things. But the first thing that I would tell you is to go to unlocklimitlessu.com forward slash quiz. It’s a fun quiz. Well, I think it’s fun because I think anything that explores who you are is fun. It’s only 12 questions. It’ll take you less than five minutes. It starts to ask you and help you think about what is your way of being with yourself and what is your way of being outside of yourself with others. So like you were talking about, Dana, your locus of control. talks about judgments, talks about fears, talks about different things like that. And then you’ll get results and you’ll be able to see like, oh, it gives you insight into that. The other thing I would say that based upon what we’ve been talking about is super fun and helpful. like, like, you begin to, add levity to everything. It’s called the limiting belief lie detector. So when you’re asked like, how do I help my clients?

[Dana] (22:20)
Nice.

[Yvonne] (22:38)
I help them see the lies that they’re telling themselves and how they’re harming themselves and what they really want. A lot of people know what they don’t want. Not very many people can tell you what they do want. They want to get rid of a lot of stuff. And anything they want to add is usually conditioned. Like, I need some more money or I need some, I need this relationship. I’m like, well, why do want that relationship? What kind of relationship? They don’t know. So we have these tools, but the limiting belief lie detector, right? I want you to go there and fill it out. I gave you my example, but you go there and you say, okay, well, what is your problem and what do you really want? And then what the limiting belief lie detector helps you see is that the very thing that you want or you think you’re avoiding, creating. And the first step Dana and how we help our clients in our community, there’s three. One is to realize, the second is to recode. And the third is to rewrite. The realize, you’ve heard awareness is the first step. The challenge most people face is they’re only using their prefrontal cortex. So you’re only using your conscious mind and your conscious mind by the time you’re 35 only knows 5 % of what is really going on and only has 5 % control at the board table, right? So that’s why we leverage memory, consolidation and hypnosis and other tools and they’re not scary. It’s just a way to quiet your conscious to get you deeply relaxed so that you can understand from your subconscious what’s really going on. so that you can then recode and rewrite and embody the change. Not just know what you, oh, I should be doing this, but I can’t seem to make it happen, or I shouldn’t be doing that, but I can’t seem to stop it. Like how many people do that, right? It’s because they’re not dealing with the whole deck of cards that’s in their head. They just don’t have access to it.

[Dana] (24:31)
Got it. Oh my gosh, that reminds me Yvonne of, you know, I take a lot of people through cognitive behavioral therapy. There’s a lot of research behind that. But I started noticing years ago that someone would say, Dana, I hear you and I know that my belief is irrational and I’m trying to change to rational beliefs and we would change their verbiage and all this kind of stuff. but there is this huge elephant in the room that I was like, what is going on? And it was the traumas or the past things that they had gone, that was emotion-based. And if you’re gonna pit emotion, like what’s in our amygdala and hippocampus, if you’re gonna pit that against the neocortex, no contest because the emotional part of our brain,

[Yvonne] (25:13)
Yeah.

[Dana] (25:31)
is gonna win every time. It is so much faster and it is so much stronger than the logic.

[Yvonne] (25:37)
Absolutely. And I think one of the things I tell people, it’s similar for, I get all into this and I’m like, I’m a wannabe neuroscientist, but not everybody does. So think of it as simple as this. What Dana just said is your imagination will beat logic every single time. And then I’ll have people say, well,

[Dana] (25:57)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

[Yvonne] (26:02)
I don’t have a very strong imagination. I was taught not to use my imagination and to be very practical and la la la la. And I said, well, what causes your suffering? And they get to the answer of their thoughts. And I said, where do your thoughts come from? And they’re like, oh, my imagination. So even if you don’t feel like you have a strong imagination, you do. You just aren’t in control of it.

[Dana] (26:24)
Ha ha ha. Well, I mean, of course, that’s it. I mean, if somebody is saying what if, I mean, how many questions that are anxiety-based and neurotic-based start with what if? And almost always what comes after what if is something horrible. mean, Joe, you talk about levity. Jokingly, I have yet, I’m still waiting, Yvonne. I’m waiting for a client to say, you know, what if I go home today after I leave your office? and I pull into my driveway and there’s those publishers clearing house people in my yard with that great big check and balloons and I’ve won five million dollars. I’ve yet to hear someone finish a what if question with something good. It’s always something horrible but we’re asking ourselves what if because why? Because we don’t know and we don’t know we’re having to fill it in with what imagination like what you were just mentioning.

[Yvonne] (27:25)
Yes. Yes. And I love what you’re saying. So I actually do have people do that. Not the publishers clearinghouse, but what’s different about what we do? We have a five week program. We have a bunch of different things, but the five week program, I very quickly talk about whatever it is you don’t want the negative what ifs and your

[Dana] (27:33)
Hahaha

[Yvonne] (27:51)
deal with your conscious and then we get to the subconscious and then we start taking back the power of your imagination. So a lot of people don’t know or haven’t helped, they don’t believe they have enough time or they won’t hold space for themselves to imagine about those published clearinghouse people. I guide them, they don’t get a choice. We create a limitless life movie trailer. So we…

[Dana] (28:15)
Love it.

[Yvonne] (28:17)
because I believe they’re limitless. So the company name is Limitless You, unlock limitlessyou.com. But the program that I do is called Limitless Life. And I want you to start using the powers of your imagination, the powers that you have to create, right? And we can get into quantum physics and all that another time, but to create what is your limitless life? If you don’t know, it will never happen. If you don’t put… attention on your intentions, you don’t know what your intentions are, the energy is going to attract and go to places you don’t want, all those negative what-ifs. And so even people, like you said, they know that, but they don’t change. What we help them do, what’s really powerful is combining those steps. So the realize with the conscious and the subconscious, and then I help them come up with their recode. Because if you’re listening, you’re like, oh, I’m just very negative or oh I’m this or oh I’m that. Anything that you’re thinking or saying you don’t want to be true, stop right now because your mind is listening. What I would say is you have to not just stop at awareness, not just stop in your head, you have to begin to take action and embody. I’ve even had a client, Dana, she wrote a book on her motherhood trauma and she had been to a ton of therapists and she’s like, you’re never gonna get through. She’s doing it because her husband wanted her to do it with him. And so I do people individually and then as a relationship too, because I tell people like, You’re getting to know you. can’t expect your partner to all of a sudden know you. So there’s new ways to relate. She was like, oh my God, I had no idea. She remembered something from when she was three. And then she could start to imagine the publisher’s clearing house because she got out of the fight or flight, or maybe you’re in freeze. You have to get out of that state because you cannot be creative. That imagination. right, will work against you if you stay in fight or flight. Because if in your fight or flight, I call it, you know, like there’s convergent and divergent. If you’re in fight or flight, your brain converges. So if you’re listening, but not watching, think of the point of a triangle. And it’s like, I got to solve, I got to get to this point to stay alive. Right? Or to solve whatever problem. And you’re not allowing yourself to diverge and to go out. Right? So think of the other side of the triangle to see what’s out there. Just think about the possibilities of what might be better for you. What might be possible if you just started taking small actions or big actions?

[Dana] (30:59)
Mm-hmm. I like that in listening to you talk. reminds me of listening to a client sitting there, patient sitting there on the couch and they’re going, you know, well, I’m a people pleaser. And I said, I will accept you saying I have a history of being a people pleaser. I’ll accept that.

[Yvonne] (31:21)
Yes.

[Dana] (31:23)
but I’m not going to sit here and allow you to sit there and say you are a people pleaser because if you’re deciding that’s what you are, you’re wasting your time in my office if that’s what you’ve already decided. And so it kind of makes me think of shifting something from what if to why not, you know.

[Yvonne] (31:26)
Yes. Absolutely. Yes, and this is not, if you’re listening and you’re like, oh, I’ve tried all the positive talk and the mantras and they don’t work. This is not just, I mean, I believe in positive thinking and mantras, but they won’t create change if you don’t actually believe them and embody them. But when Dana tells her client not to say that, she’s helping that client rewire their brain. It’s called neuroplasticity. Like you actually have the ability to change your neural pathways. but you have to starve the neurons that have been glued together with that negative story so that you can feed the neurons and the pathways that you want to create with your positive story and your truth. And your brain only knows what you tell it and the pictures you give it. It actually doesn’t know how old you are and what’s going outside. So if you say, am whatever, it’s like, oh, well, my job is to make sure that that’s true. So you’re creating your reality with your words and your thoughts.

[Dana] (32:40)
I love this. And Yvonne, it’s so true. mean, because I have so many years of doing psychotherapy and I’m listening to you talk and I know what you’re saying is true. It’s research based. It works. And there is a way. And listeners, if you’re thinking, you know, I’m stuck, what Yvonne is saying is absolutely true. You don’t have to be. There is a way, but you have to…

[Yvonne] (32:40)
It’s amazing.

[Dana] (33:08)
put some things in motion to kind of pull out of that negative thought train and create something that’s positive. So Yvonne, let me ask you, I know that my listeners are thinking, oh my gosh, I’ve got to get more of this. I’ve got to get a hold of Yvonne. She’s fabulous. So what I have here, and you mentioned earlier, but I want to make sure I have it right, for them to go to the website, unlocklimitlessyou.com.

[Yvonne] (33:34)
Yeah, if there’s a button on there, but if you even just type in unlockLimitlessU.com forward slash call, I give everybody because I switched my careers not for making millions, but because I’ve freed myself. Like I’m a walking billboard. I freed myself. did this guys. I switched my whole career. I thought about switching my career for 25 years. I thought about getting out of my marriage for eight years. and it wasn’t until I started making these changes and then I switched my career in less than six months. because I let go of the fear of the unknown and I unlocked myself. So I want to give you that gift. I want to give you value. You can go to unlocklimitlessu.com forward slash call. You look at my calendar, you can meet directly with me. I’ll give you a free initial like discovery call. And if my intention in that call is to help you begin so that your mind, Dana, there’s a rule. This is a, I don’t have very many rules, but this is one of them. Only put energy or thoughts into things that are good to have done and possible to do.

[Dana] (34:46)
like it.

[Yvonne] (34:47)
And even if you haven’t unlocked or you haven’t gone through the hypnosis, just start trying that, guys. Ask yourself, can I change the past? Nope. So I’m not going to suck that energy, right? Is it good to have talked about myself negatively? Nope, that’s not good either. it’s just a really quick rule of thumb. But anyway, I will help you in that first call begin this journey. And then if you want to hear more about how do we continue on the journey together and you get the support, we can do that. And if not, at least I get you started to unlocking yourself, which is what I hope for everybody.

[Dana] (35:24)
That’s amazing. Yvonne, thank you so much for coming on Phoenix in Flame and gracing myself and my listeners with your knowledge and your wisdom and just helping and your compassion for others and helping us along our way on this journey that we’re all on this together.

[Yvonne] (35:43)
We are, like I say, skin is overrated. We’re all connected, whether we want to be or not. We are all connected. We all have the same thing, 99 % of what we’re made of, which is energy, right? But none of us, not none of us, probably 99.9 % of us weren’t taught these things in school. And our parents weren’t taught them either. So this isn’t about beating up your parents or beating up you. I wish these things were in school. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn about the most advanced thing on the planet, which is the human being, which is us. We are the most valuable asset we have, the most complicated. We haven’t cloned a human being yet, but we’ve made rocket ships and AI and whatever else. We’re more complicated than all of that stuff, but we didn’t even get the quick start guide, Where’s the quick start guide?

[Dana] (36:21)
Yes. I know. I’m

[Yvonne] (36:37)
Getting straight grounded if I didn’t get straight A’s is not the quick start guide. Comparing me to my friends is not the quick start guide. We just don’t know what we don’t know. So let’s learn together and grow. Rhyming again.

[Dana] (36:49)
That’s awesome. You’re so funny. Oh my gosh. All right, Yvonne. Thank you. Thank you. Listeners, oh my, I know you have heard multiple things. I’m sitting here writing down furiously as I’m listening to Yvonne talk. And you know of your best friend or coworker or a family member, you’re thinking, woo.

[Dana] (37:15)
I know exactly the person that needs to hear what Yvonne has to say. Take this episode, copy and paste the link in text, in email, put it on your favorite social media websites, those sites out there, get the word out there that we are together. We are connected. We are not alone. Let’s grow our Phoenix in flame community and reach out to one another. I hope you’re having a fabulous day and I hope the rest of your day goes wonderfully. I’m Dana. on Phoenix in Flame.

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