How This Scientifically Proven Method Can Help You Achieve Your Goals with Joanna Grover [Episode #843]

This week’s topic is: How This Scientifically Proven Method Can Help You Achieve Your Goals with Joanna Grover

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Joanna Grover, who is an executive coach with two decades of experience as a cognitive behavioral therapist and author of the new book THE CHOICE POINT: The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals. Listen in as Joanna shares what the Choice Points are, imagery and overcoming past patterns of trauma, how sensory comes into play, and so much more!

TOPICS COVERED

• What are the Choice Points and how often do they come up?…
• Imagery and overcoming past patterns of trauma…
• How sensory comes into play…
• How to deal with strong pulls for instant gratification…
• The Slap Technique and how to use it…

FEATURED GUEST

About Joanna Grover

Joanna Grover, LCSW, is an executive coach with two decades of experience as a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in anxiety. She’s worked with the US Department of Commerce, Olympic athletes, and C-Suite executives, and she is a board-certified coach and member of the International Coaching Federation and the Harvard Institute of Coaching. Joanna lives in Miami. Her new book, co-authored with Jonathan Rhodes, is THE CHOICE POINT: The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals, published earlier this year by Hachette Go.

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Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Namaste loves and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I’m so excited to share my conversation with you today with Joanna Grover, who is the co-author of the book, the Choice Point, the Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals. She is a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in anxiety. She’s worked with Olympic athletes, many executives, and the US Department of Commerce, and I have to say that I loved speaking to Joanna because whilst the book and her work is very scientifically based, it also feels very holistic to me. It feels very spiritual and a lot of it is based on this idea of holistic imagery and using our imagination and using that to propel us into the future that we want. So I’m very excited to share the show with you in just a moment. Before we do, little reminder to check out our website, my sauna.com, where you can submit questions for the q and a shows where you can find more podcasts articles.

01:14 I’ve written thousands of blogs over the years that I think you would enjoy. There are also thousands of plant-based recipes that are simple and delicious meditations and more. Everything is over there, so please be sure to check it out. Alright, all that being said, let’s get into our interview today with Joanna Grover.

Interview with Joanna Grover

Kimberly: 00:28  Joanna, thank you so much for joining me here today. I loved your very interesting book, the Choice Point, and it’s been sitting in my living room for some months and I’m really excited that we were able to get our schedules work and for some time to chat today. So first of all, thank you so much for coming on our show.

Joanna: 00:57 Oh, thank you. I’m delighted to be here. And as you pointed out the choice point, it’s a book that takes some time to sort of percolate because it challenges our daily routines.

Kimberly: 01:10 It’s interesting when you even boil it down to these moments, these choice points. Do I do this, do I not? Because sometimes, as you know, Joanna, we get so many thousands of thoughts. We don’t really think about the ones that are truly impactful in our future and moving our lives forward. So can you talk a little bit about defining it more clearly, what these choice points are and how often they come up in our days and in our lives?

Joanna: 01:39 Of course. Well, I’m glad you brought that up because the way we see choice points is there are these split second decisions that we make usually right before a challenge. Am I going to go for a run or am I going to stay in bed? Am I going to order dessert? So these decisions that either take us closer to the life we want or they derail us and take us further so we have them all day long. We don’t want you to think of one of these decisions, just drive yourself and the people around you crazy, but the ones that are attached to your goal and to your life, purpose and meaning. Those are the choice points that we’re talking about.

What are the Choice Points and how often do they come up?

Kimberly: 02:23 So we’re going to get into all the imagination and the imagery, which I thought was really fascinating. And it was also interesting that your foreword was from Martina nva. We know with athletes, this has been something that we’ve heard about before, but we don’t necessarily apply it to our lives of those of us who are non-athletes. But before we get there, Joan, I wanted to ask you, there’s this part in the book where you talk about spontaneous thoughts, and I think most all of us can relate to things coming in and like you said, maybe they’re aligned with our values, maybe they help us a lot of times they don’t. How much of that is informed by trauma patterns from the past? I mean, you hear a lot about neuroplasticity and there’s so many around trauma now with your work and going into the imagery again, which I’m simplifying here, but we’ll talk about in a second. Is that a tool for helping us to overcome some of these past patterns of trauma?

Imagery and overcoming past patterns of trauma

Joanna: 03:23 Absolutely. Yeah. The theory that behind the choice point is a body of science known as functional imagery training. And to boil it down to its essence, it’s basically what we elaborate on will shape our behavior. So if I’m going to elaborate on a negative event that happened to me in the past,

Kimberly: 03:46 Mentally. Mentally elaborate.

Joanna: 03:48 Yeah, mentally elaborate. So in our work, what we do is we teach people that you can’t monitor the thousands of thoughts you have a day, but you can monitor the images that come along with that, the imagery, and you can actually learn to change the channel.

Kimberly: 04:11 So moving away from this, going down this road, so to speak, sometimes it feels like we’re having these conversations in our head. It’s very audio based. So you’re saying we can create a new picture, an image and move somewhere else.

Joanna: 04:30 Exactly. And before I did this work with choice points and with imagery, I was a cognitive behavioral therapist for almost 20 years. So I dealt a lot with, my specialty was anxiety. And what I’ve found with this is, yeah, instead of all the talking images are powerful, they’re emotional and emotions drive our behavior. So it’s a really quick way into the mind.

Kimberly: 05:01 So one of the things you talk about is the mental mutiny versus cognitive control. What’s in alignment with my values and my long-term goals? And so I think about if I had access to your work, Joanna, how I would’ve used it. I healed my own eating disorder years ago when I was in high school, I was bulimic and I just went on. And then I remember one day I said, I just don’t want to do this anymore. And it was really that battle of will and it was hard, but I was able to overcome it. I think what you were mentioning here, this cognitive, the long-term goals, I don’t want to be this self-abusive person, but let’s say in that example, and I know eating disorder, there’s so many complexities. The mental mutiny was this is an easy way to self-soothe. This is my pattern. How might imagery have helped me or in your work with the choice point? I mean it’s like that moment. Am I going to binge and purge or am I not? I mean, this kind of a dark example, but when I was reading your work, I thought it was a pattern I was in for over a year. So I think about all the many patterns that all of us have, whether it’s abusive self-talk or self-doubt or whatever it is going into having unhealthy relationships, so on and so

We go over one of my personal traumas and how I could have used the imagery

Joanna: 06:17 Forth. Well, the first thing, it’s great that having that awareness that you have a choice, you can do this or you can do that, and through your imagination we take you, the first thing we do is we take you to a future where you continue this behavior. And what would it be like

Kimberly: 06:37 Seeing yourself in the future

Joanna: 06:39 And your future self, but not just seeing, but what does it smell? What does it taste like? What sort of things are you telling yourself? What emotions are there? And that’s usually for most people, a pretty heavy experience. So then we contrast that immediately following with, okay, let’s imagine that you did tackle changing this behavior and little by little you got better and better. And we take that future and that future, it feels for most people, a lot less heavy. It feels lighter. They feel a sense of satisfaction or success. So now we’ve created a choice point with imagery. Again, it’s not words because words we can lie to ourselves all day long, right? Yeah. Talk is cheap, but the imagery is very powerful, and that’s really how we shape human behavior. I mean, advertisers know this, but now we’re for improving our own behavior.

Kimberly: 07:50 And it also sounds, you’re saying imagery, Joanna, but it also sounds sensory because it’s not just visual. You’re talking about smells and tastes. So it’s more like a full body.

How sensory comes into play

Joanna: 08:03 Yes. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up, Kimberly, because it really is, it’s not is it is sensory. In fact, it’s seven senses, so it’s a five. That plus emotion and motion, seeing yourself moving in the future, how will you handle this? How will you handle this? Whether it’s a relationship with food or a person or yourself, it’s really up to you. What I love about this work is it gives someone a sense of agency, so they have control over their life and it takes hold really quickly, which is amazing too. Yeah. It’s not something that, oh, you’re going to have to stick with this therapists for a long time. What we see is in six sessions, it takes hold.

Kimberly: 08:50 Really?

Joanna: 08:52 It’s quick.

Kimberly: 08:56 Another thing my mom used to do when I was starting to read your book, I thought, oh, is this related to back in the day, Oprah used to promote these vision boards. Do you know what I’m talking about? Where you cut out pictures and magazines of the house you’d want or the shape of your body or whatever you want. And then so you’d see these images every day. Is that a kindergarten version of your work in research or complete?

Visualization versus imagery

Joanna: 09:19 Well, it’s interesting. We just had a conversation the other day with Dr. Hacker, who is an Olympic coach, mental skills coach, and she said, if anybody says visualization, someone’s going to get hurt. That’s her visualization. And vision board is different than imagery because imagery, as you said earlier, is multisensory, right? So there’s a difference. And in the research, what’s is if we engage, the more senses we engage, gauge the better the outcome.

Kimberly: 09:56 But then why Joanna is it? It just seems like when you have an image, it’s tangible, but what you’re saying is all the senses in your brain together is more powerful than because sometimes we put so much you’re having a bad day or you want to be reminded. Then you can look at that picture and sort of say, okay, calls me back. What you’re talking about is entirely formless in our minds.

Joanna: 10:21 Yeah, I mean, a picture may be a cue. We use cues too. So that picture may be a cue to put yourself in that image, in that imagery. So I’m there, I’m in that house, or I’m in whatever it is, I’m in that experience. So the picture can queue up the imagery in your head.

Kimberly: 10:42 Wow,

Joanna: 10:43 Itself won’t be as powerful as putting yourself in the experience.

Kimberly: 10:49 And then how long do we stay in that experience to enact real shifting over. I know there’s old chapter here about commitment and yeah,

Joanna: 10:58 The interesting thing is not long, not long is the answer. So 30 seconds.

Real life example of a client using imagery

Kimberly: 11:05 30 seconds. So let’s use a real life example. Will you given us an example with a client who had a goal, she wanted to create something different. I don’t know if it’s sports, maybe that doesn’t relate to as many people in our audience, but something that’s more widespread, I don’t know, a work goal or a family goal, and how you took them through the steps that you mentioned in your book.

Joanna: 11:32 Sure. So this client that comes to mind is a very high performing executive, and she found that she was taking her work home with her.

11:45 So she would walk in the door and she had a stay-at-home husband, and it was like everyone had to fall in line, but she little kids, but she was walking into her home as though she was the boss and it was causing problems in their relationship. And also just in her own, she didn’t feel great about it. She didn’t want to be that kind of mom. So when we work with imagery, we work with cues. Athletes use cues all the time. So her cue was her front door, and when she saw that and when she touched the handle, the doorknob, she just for a split second went into the kind of mom that she wanted to be. And then again, it doesn’t take that long. And then she’d cross that threshold and after taking a deep breath, and then she’d developed rituals like, well, I’m going to hop in the shower first and change my clothes, get on my work clothes, really be present with my kids. But that cue and that imagery was really important to like, okay, how do I want to show up for my family?

Kimberly: 13:01 And it was all the senses. So she would feel it was tactile and smell,

Joanna: 13:07 And there was a certain bush outside of her home that was fragrance. So when she was imagining the front door, she could smell the fragrance, she could feel the temperature. Again, the more senses we involve, the more powerful it is because we’re wired to resist change. No one really wants change. We say we do, but it’s temporary. But if we can actually be in an immersive experience, in our mind’s eye, it’s almost as if we’re tricking the mind and body to believe that change happened.

Kimberly: 13:45 Wow. I research you mentioned about obesity and how this was used with how we can make choices because as you said in the book, we all know we’re supposed to exercise and drink water and eat healthy, but those choices come up. Am I going to eat this? Am I going to eat the box of cookies?

Joanna: 14:03 It’s true. No. We have a member of our team who she just through osmosis, she’s, she doesn’t work in coaching on the team, but she does support work for us. And she shared that for the first time ever, she usually is so tempted by Halloween candy, it’s in her freezer, she’ll open that door. And then she said, now, because she’s been using our method, she said, she opens that freezer and she has no desire. She’s really dumbfounded by it, but she has no desire to eat it because she’s elaborating on what she wants to fit into and how she wants to feel. And so the chocolate, whatever bar, Snickers bar isn’t nearly as enticing.

Kimberly: 14:59 So in your work, Joanna, would you say that elaboration happens as she opens the door and she’s staring at the candy? Or is it happening before she opens the door and exposes herself to that very, you’re on the edge of the decision. Do you know what I mean? Versus a couple seconds before?

Joanna: 15:17 Yeah, both. We’re always elaborating the earlier you can do it. So if she basically has trained herself, she’s rewired her brain in a way to, I’m not going to, because when we hear or smell or taste something, we’re elaborating on it. If someone’s eating a pizza or we see a box pizza, we’ll start to elaborate on, well, how good that would taste or what’s on that pizza. So we’re in that experience, but we can change to anything else that we want. The decision is ours. The choice is ours, but the cue for a lot of people is the refrigerator door handle. That’s when they’ll begin elaborating. But the truth is, we’re elaborating all day long.

How to deal with strong pulls for instant gratification

Kimberly: 16:11 How do you deal with such a strong pull for instant gratification? Let’s say it’s someone’s like, oh, I really need this glass of wine after work, or the cookies or whatever it is, because the imagery, and I know you talk about this and training ourselves, but it’s kind of not tangible or versus this is here right in front of me.

Joanna: 16:36 So I’ll give you another story. When I was the first person trained in this method in the US and I came back and I from, where

Kimberly: 16:47 Were you trained?

Joanna: 16:48 In the United Kingdom? Yeah. So functional imagery training was born in the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. And as a therapist and a coach, I read about it and I was like, this is what I’ve been looking for. I want to help people change. And so often as coaches and therapists, people get only so far, and the research here is they continue to get better. They continue to achieve. There’s incredible resiliency. So I came back from my training and I asked for some volunteers that I wouldn’t charge for my services and they’d know that I’m learning this. So one of them was a neighbor of mine who wanted to quit smoking. No, I had never helped anyone quit smoking before. It wasn’t my jam. So I was like, okay, I’m going to use this method and see how it goes. And I can tell you it’s been almost five years and he’s still not smoking. And what it came down to is a sensory experience of eating a strawberry. And that’s going to sound so weird.

Kimberly: 17:57 I mean, when the choice came up,

Joanna: 18:00 And this is his own imagination, we never know where someone’s imagination is in a go. As coaches who work in this realm, it’s not like you have a script because people go to different places, and in his imagination, he went to a strawberry and the taste of a strawberry after a cigarette was really ashy and kind of like, it just was a terrible texture, and he couldn’t smell the strawberry and without a cigarette, the strawberry was, it brought up a childhood memory and he could really enjoy the taste. So that’s as simple as it was for him.

Kimberly: 18:41 And she used that over and over again. It strengthened with the one image becomes even more

Joanna: 18:48 Powerful, and he forced it with other things. He started to watch other videos about quitting smoking, but over and over again, he’d come back to the strawberry, and I was his neighbor. So when I dropped strawberries off at his front door with a little note, so he was constantly using his imagery around this and being reminded. So that blew my mind. I was like, wow, how simple was that? I didn’t have to say, if you don’t stop smoking, do you know what your chances are for lung cancer? Do you know what your chances are? I didn’t have to give him any data. None of that simply gave him a sensory experience his own that was very compelling to him.

Kimberly: 19:36 Wow, that is amazing. So Joanna, what if someone has, and I know you talked, this is not visualization, but let’s say someone has their limiting beliefs, whatever they’re projecting out in the world, they want a relationship, for instance, right? Let’s say someone has been single and they’re struggling to meet somebody. Can they use this work to visualize themselves in a relationship and the kind of person they would be, and they could call that in? Or is your work more based on the decisions that are here and now, which of course would help you feel empowered in any case, I think, to be the kind of person you want to be, which would help with that. But do you know what I’m saying? Visualize that?

We discuss if you can create a different future-based reality of what you would want

Joanna: 20:18 Yeah. So I think maybe in part what you’re asking, will it help you manifest that relationship? Or is

Kimberly: 20:25 This Yes, yes, exactly. Can you create a different future-based reality of what you would want, whether that’s work or in relationships or whatever.

Joanna: 20:32 Now, here’s where we get to my co-author who’s a scientist would be like, you can’t measure that. So no. Yeah, and that’s why we’re a good team because he brings the science and I bring more of the human, complicated human, and dare I say, spiritual, you don’t know. You don’t know where this journey will take someone. So we do start small. I wouldn’t necessarily start with a relationship. I’d start with something. What I’ve found is that when people realize that it works, then you get their buy-in, and now it’s like, wow, what else can I apply this to? And we see that time and time again, there’s a great couple that a husband and wife team that trained with us and their imagery was to go on sabbatical and travel around the world. They didn’t start there, but that’s where it ended up. And they are traveling around the world now.

Kimberly: 21:29 Wow. Well, that makes total sense to me because you’re almost, as you say, it becomes a reality and you shape your world, your actions. You have to take inspired action, but then you work towards that.

Joanna: 21:44 Yeah, yeah. But it’s amazing how simple it is. We all have this ability, but no one ever taught us to tap into it. We’ve worked with a number of athletes and high performing people, but it works for everybody. You don’t have to be a champion in a sport. The interesting thing is a lot of these champions don’t use it in their life. They’ll use it to prepare for a game or a match. Then I’ll say, have you ever used it for your relationship with your partner? No,

Kimberly: 22:21 But this is where I think we’ve always heard of imagery with athletes saying, imagine you getting the shot or getting the goal, and that feels natural. You know what I mean? Okay. We want it to perform the best. But your work is more this holistic imagery about more sensory. So it’s making it much more powerful for the athletes, if I’m understanding it correctly.

Joanna: 22:46 Yes, yes. So they are in that moment rehearsing, and it’s not just, this is, imagine positive things happen and you make the point, we invite you to imagine difficult things happening, challenges happening. How will you handle it? So no matter what’s thrown at them, they feel prepared.

Kimberly: 23:13 And so fundamentally, we’re trying to shift our limiting beliefs. We all have different limiting beliefs. One of the things that you talk about resetting is this slap technique because it’s like, oh, I have this image. And then suddenly you mentioned dealing with anxiety that little inner voice says, oh no, that couldn’t happen. Or What if this happens? Or what if this, and it sort of can collapse that beautiful imagery work to create. So how do we combat all of those patterns? That’s a good question.

The Slap Technique and how to use it

Joanna: 23:50 Well, so slap is a reset thing. So that’s like when you need to stop, even if you’re top performing athlete, musician, whomever, you’re going to have negative thoughts come into your head. And one of the things we do with these acronyms is we have them stop, take a deep breath. They’re going to locate their cue, they’re going to activate their imagery, they’re going to park unwanted thoughts, and they’re going to persevere. Now, the park is really important. There are two P’s in the slap, and the park is like, I’m going to visit that thought later. And that’s really important. It’s important that, and we tell people, if you say you’re going to visit it later, visit it later. Because if you don’t, it’s going to become cumulative. And as one person said, who hadn’t trained with her, she had heard the park method and she was like, my parking lot’s full. We don’t want that to happen. We want you to keep, because these negative thoughts, if you ignore them, they get worse. So just park it. It’s not serving you now and you’re going to revisit it later.

Kimberly: 25:09 That’s a real skillset, but it’s breaking that pattern of ruminating.

Joanna: 25:16 Yeah. But it works. One of the leaders that we coached was in a board meeting, and actually it wasn’t a board meeting, it was an executive committee meeting, but someone had triggered him and he wanted to let this person have it because they sort of came ill prepared. I mean, we can all lose our temper. But instead, he took a deep breath. He located his cue, he activated his imagery, he parked his unwanted thoughts, and he thought about the bigger goal, the kind of leader he wanted to be, so he didn’t lose it. And the meeting wrapped up. And then later that day when he was calmer, after he’d walked his dog, he called this person and said, how do you think the meeting went and did you get what you want out of it? And then that individual took responsibility and the outcome was totally different than being strict by your boss. So that’s the sort of thing that takes major self-awareness and control, but you cultivate it. Just like in meditation, you cultivate these things over time,

Kimberly: 26:29 What you’re describing, what’s interesting about that, Joanna, is it’s happening in real life. It’s not saying, okay, let me go and meditate for 10 minutes here and calm down. So let’s say that boss is running this board meeting and he’s talking people, does your work show that you can simultaneously carry on work, a conversation looking after your children, and in your head it’s like you’re splitting your consciousness and doing the imagery work so that you bring it into that moment without pause?

Joanna: 26:59 Absolutely.

Kimberly: 27:00 Wow. So let’s say we’re talking, but part of my brain can be forming a picture of, oh, we’re going to have this great conversation and it can be happening without taking my focus away from present moment life.

Joanna: 27:17 As long as what the mind can’t do is hold two opposing images at once. So you can’t have one foot on the gas and one on the brake. It has to have synergy.

Kimberly: 27:28 Right?

Joanna: 27:29 And then that can absolutely happen simultaneously,

Kimberly: 27:34 And it happens pretty quickly.

Joanna: 27:36 Yeah. Oh yeah, very quickly.

Kimberly: 27:39 So then that lure or that feeling, the sensory imagery, the holisticness takes us over and the decisions follow. Let me just wait and not scream right now.

Joanna: 27:51 Exactly. Exactly.

Kimberly: 27:54 And you said it takes, I mean, it sounds like it takes, and you talk about this in the book, it takes some practice because these patterns can be very deep.

Joanna: 28:04 Yeah, it takes practice, but it’s worth it, right?

Kimberly: 28:08 Of course. I mean, if you can really change the trajectory of your day, we all know if I’m going to eat that food or this is going to happen, I know the outcome and it’s not going to be great. But somehow we do it a lot anyway. Why do we sell sabotage, Joanna, in your work, do you think it’s just

Why we self-sabotage

Joanna: 28:30 Familiar? I think that a lot of people run around on autopilot, and I think that they’re worn down by many things, and they just reach for instant gratification, or they let things build, and they’re just looking for a release, whether it’s a drink or whatever it is.

Kimberly: 28:54 Well, I think a big part of your work is leading people, as you mentioned at the top of our show, to see that this awareness that there is a choice because so many people give up and they’re like, well, I guess this is what my life is like, or I guess this is how heavy I’m going to be, or whatever it is. It’s like living half dead almost.

Joanna: 29:17 And I think they also set these unrealistic expectations and then give up. And then ang.

Kimberly: 29:27 So in your work, you mentioned starting small. Do you think it’s better to say gain confidence with these smaller goals?

Joanna: 29:38 Yes, absolutely. That executive that I mentioned in a meeting, what he started with was his golf game,

Kimberly: 29:51 Like performing better in his golf game.

Joanna: 29:54 He would lose his temper or get frustrated on the golf course. So we worked with him on that.

Kimberly: 30:01 Oh, not his actual game, but his emotional reactivity.

Joanna: 30:05 Well, it was his game because he would lose focus because he got frustrated by a bad shot, and then he’d elaborate on that and then prepared for the next shot. So we worked with him on it, and when it worked in the golf, he was like, wow, will it work in other areas? And we said, of course. So yeah, start small. Start with something that gives you feedback immediately, and then you can see that it works.

Kimberly: 30:31 Can you do this work with children?

If you can do this work with children

Joanna: 30:34 Yeah. Yeah. I think that kids have, they have a great imagination and they’re not as layered with defenses as

30:46 Well. I was thinking your example with the golf. Sometimes when we go golfing with our 7-year-old who loves miniature golf, if he hits a bad shot, he really does the child version of what you’re describing, get really frustrated and just go off. And of course, other things in life at school or whatever, it’d be amazing to be trained in this earlier in life, I imagine. Then use it all through all the stages.

31:14 Her bigger goal is to bring this into the schools.

Kimberly: 31:20 That would be so impactful because all these negative patterns, and there’s such low confidence sometimes that stems from that.

Joanna: 31:31 Yeah. One of a colleague of mine who we trained, and she’s in a school, we trained her in the method, and she got the best teacher of the, she was voted by the students, got the most out of her class. She sort of does a life skills kind of class. And when they asked the students, what was your favorite part of her class, they said the imagery work. So I think that kids, we have to be able to give them some refuge from the constant deluge and realize that they have some control over their mind.

Kimberly: 32:21 Well, it seems like a great time to teach it. I know my 7-year-old spends a percentage of his day in imagination games, and he’s jumping over the couches and he’s making noises, and he’s in his own world entirely. For an adult that may be disconnected from being in imagination land, it feels like children would be a really ripe subject.

Joanna: 32:46 Totally. Again, they have this active vivid imagination, and the more vivid your imagination, the better you’re going to be at this. The problem with grownups and some kids now unfortunately, is the more stressed you get, the less you’re able to access your imagination.

Kimberly: 33:08 So in that moment,

Joanna: 33:10 Well, it actually changes the brain. So when you’re stressed and you’re constantly thinking about A to-do list, let’s say, and you have constant, I got to get it done. I got to do this, I got to do that. Your creative part of your brain, part of it happens in your hippocampus, and that actually shrinks under stress. That’s your imagination. A big part of where imagination happens, the good news for everyone listening is you can expand it because of neuroplasticity. It’s not fixed. It doesn’t mean, oh, but think about it, when was the last time you made time to imagine? When was the last time you made time to really be playful? That’s the other thing we can’t tell people, you must imagine this way, or you must do it that way because the brain just shuts off.

Kimberly: 34:02 You mentioned worrying anxiety to-do lists. A lot of people think about that, Joanna, at night when they’re trying to fall asleep. Can you use this work sitting there? I can’t sleep again, to imagine yourself falling asleep and actually put yourself in that sort of state.

Does this help with sleeping better

Joanna: 34:20 Sure, well, sleep is an interesting thing, but yeah, you can imagine different things that will relax, will actually bring your heartbreak down and relax you enough to fall asleep. For a lot of people, it’s about anxiety around the next day. So we have them run through in their imagination, what’s the next day going to be, potential challenges. And when they run through it again with another executive who is running through it, and you realize, oh, I didn’t check to see if the slide was in the presentation. He was doing a major presentation and he couldn’t access the slides. It had already been uploaded, and they were in the auditorium ready for his speech. So he used his imagery practice in a few seconds to just be like, okay, if that key slide is not there, how will I handle it? And he heard the audience, he could hear his voice. He felt his heart rate go up when the slide wasn’t there. This is all in his imagination. And then the next day, the slide was not there.

Kimberly: 35:28 Intuitively, he knew it,

Joanna: 35:31 But he said, had he not, first of all, had he not done that, he would’ve been up all night worrying, is this slide not there? Instead, he was like, I’ve got this. I planned for it. I know my play. Right? So the next day when the slide wasn’t there, he totally, no one even knew he didn’t lose composure. He said, had he not done that, he could have lost his temper. He definitely would’ve lost his tempo and as a result, could have lost the crowd. So that’s the sort of thing sometimes just running through your next day in your mind’s eye can help give you a better night’s sleep.

Kimberly: 36:11 Wow, amazing. Well, I am a huge fan of your work, Joanna, and your book. I think it can have a big impact across people’s lives, of course, but definitely on their wellness and the choices that we make for our own wellbeing, which is a big focus here in our community. So thank you for, and I also love the science part of it as well, because I think sometimes we want that the discerning mind likes to see the solidity of the evidence as well. We talk a lot about spiritual things here as well, and this feels to me there’s this spiritual quality to it as well. Energy and creating things in your mind that is both science, as we mentioned, human, spiritual. It’s empowering. So thank you so much for sharing some of your amazing wisdom with us. Is there anything that we didn’t touch on or cover that you love to share with people?

Joanna: 37:12 Well, because of your audience, I would just say part of the work that this does, when you really are in alignment with what you want and your behavior and your choices are lining up with that, it brings the head and the heart and alignment, and I think that that makes life easier to navigate.

Kimberly: 37:34 So say that again. When we imagined this holistic sensory way, it brings the head and the heart, the thoughts and our true self, our deepest

Joanna: 37:44 Come in alignment. A lot of us are, our heart and head are in an argument most of the time.

Kimberly: 37:49 Yes.

Joanna: 37:51 And that causes stress, that causes fatigue. Some will say it causes illness.

37:58 We can really bring, if we really do this work, and this is why I feel so honored to do it, if we really do this work, whether with kids or any age, we bring the head and the heart into this beautiful unity, and then life doesn’t have to feel so overwhelming. You already know what you’re going to do before you get to that. You don’t get derailed by people or what they say or what they do because you, you know who you are and where you’re going, and even if you don’t, parts of it and the things that are important to you.

Kimberly: 38:38 So we know triggering situations like being around certain relatives or in-laws a cue. Okay, I parked in front in the driveway. I’m about to go in. We can imagine ourselves staying centered, holding to our values, staying kind, no matter what other people are saying or doing.

Joanna: 38:58 That’s right. And breath, we didn’t get into it, but breath is a big part of it. Taking a deep breath is a cue for a lot of people. Imagine how many less fights would ensue if someone really took a great big breath and elaborated on what do I really want at the end of this dinner or the end of this evening? Do I want to get into this? Now, one physician we trained, excuse me, who’s in Rochester, New York, an amazing doctor, a surgeon, and he’s using this in five minute interventions with patients. And the first patient he used, the first patient, he taught the imagery practice to, she lost 10 pounds in a month.

Kimberly: 39:45 Wow.

Joanna: 39:46 Blown away. And he was like, I wonder. So now he has a pool of six people who’s in a sea, and then eventually we’ll see if we can use it in a very short intervention. Will this work?

Kimberly: 39:58 Wow.

Joanna: 40:01 I asked him in front of, it was a meeting of an athletic team who is going to use this? He’s also involved in sport. And I said, do you want to talk about the weight loss? And he said, actually, the bigger thing that happened to me by using this is it changed the way it changed my relationship with my wife. And everyone was like, what? And there was a woman there who’s married to an NFL player. I won’t say who, but she was like, why isn’t my husband here? And I said, well, how did it change? And he said, I no longer listen to be right. I listened to understand her,

Kimberly: 40:42 And he had imagined himself to be an understanding person or to have a harmonious relationship.

Joanna: 40:50 Yeah. I think part of it was he understood in this work that we have to be those of us who practice it and he practice it. Now we have to be really good listeners and understanding what listening is. It’s listening to understand not to tell your point of view, who’s like this program being trained in it changed my relationship. So if we can do that, it’s not just about am I going to eat the Snickers bar or am I going to, it’s much bigger than that. Life is so much bigger than our waistline or yes. These things that we obsess about that at the end of the day isn’t really what matters.

Kimberly: 41:32 Well, I also think that one of the things that I hear about a lot and I think across society is people really struggling with confidence and people trying to get confident by how they look or the surface, but I think we feel that real authentic confidence when we are living in accordance with our values and we’re living our truth and we’re showing up in life. So this can really support us in that. And the micro moments and the macro moments,

Joanna: 41:57 Once we have that alignment of who we really are and we’re acting and behaving from that place and imagining from that place, there’s a bit of magic that happens too. I know you asked me about manifesting, but I worked with a young man who, he was in college and he was imagining his perfect summer internship,

42:21 And he called me, this was months before summer. He was preparing his applications in December or January. So summer rolls around and he calls me and he is like, you’re not going to believe it. I’m like, what? He said, do you remember how I pictured the first day? And he said to the T, the way my door opens, the way the desk is situated, he’s like, and then he said, do you remember how I wanted a high five from the president? I was like, yeah. I thought that was kind of reaching. He said, well, I found an accounting error that saved them so much money that the CEO came and found me and gave me a high five.

Kimberly: 43:06 Oh my gosh.

Joanna: 43:08 He said, how did you do that? And I’m like, how did you do it? I just taught you something that was always there. But I hear these sort of things over and over again. There’s a bit of something that’s unlocked that we can’t begin to measure in science, so I’m going to give it to spirituality or the universe, but it’s so much bigger than what we can measure.

43:30 Yeah. Yes.

Kimberly: 43:31 Here it time and time again, yes, we have the science and we can tell you that this works because we’ve measured it, but once you start practicing it, you tap into something else.

Joanna: 43:43 I love that. A much deeper intelligence that can’t be pinned down to our scientific instruments.

43:50 Yeah, exactly. Precisely.

Kimberly: 43:53 Wow. Well, just magical. Amazing. Joanna, thank you so much again. So tell us where we can get your wonderful book, the Choice Point, the scientifically proven method to push past mental Walls and achieve your goals, and where we can get the book and where we can find out more about your work.

Joanna: 44:12 Thank you. So the book, they can get at a local bookstore if they order it, or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, target, all those great locations. And to find out more, if there are people listening who want to be trained in it, they can go to imagery coaching.com and we will soon, in January, we will have a course for users. So it won’t just be for coaches, but it’ll be for everyday people wanting to have something more than the book. It will be a digital course.

Kimberly: 44:43 Wonderful. We’ll add that to our show notes when that comes around as well. Thank you again so much. I enjoyed it so much, and I absolutely love the book.

Joanna: 44:53 Oh, thank you so much. This has been a really wonderful conversation, Kimberly.

Kimberly: 44:58 Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Joanna. As much as I loved learning about her holistic imagery technique, I loved learning about the choice point. So please be sure to check out the direct links over at on our show notes over at mysolluna.com. That’s S-O-L-L-U n.com, and as I mentioned at the top of the show, we will link to other shows that I think you would enjoy as well as information articles, recipes, meditations, and more. You can also check out our many incredible courses and our wonderful digestive focused supplements and more. We’ll be back here Thursday, as always for our next q and a show. Till then, sending you so much love. Have an amazing week. Take great care of yourself and always reach out to me to let me know how else I can support you. Lots of love. No must day