Carisa has found a way to use the understanding of personalities to build a framework of how to better interact with those around us to change the way we live our lives. She doesn’t believe we have to have it one way or another – and she focuses on helping women to have it all – the dream business, good relationships and taking care of yourself!
Maybe we can have our cake and eat it too!
Carisa Montooth, M.S. is an Author, Speaker, Educational Counselor and Relationship Coach who helps savvy female entrepreneurs create sinfully rich relationships and work-life balance. Owner of Carisa Montooth Consulting. She uses her Strongest Element Personality Framework™ to help people understand themselves and others on a deeper level and powerfully enrich their romantic relationships, businesses, and lives.
In this Shift Series, we will hear the story that changed her outlook on life and set her on a determined course to not let one dream overtake the others. Carisa gives us advice on how we can care for ourselves to make sure we have balance between responsibilities, energy and drive to express ourselves fully in the world.
I love Carisa’s outlook and tips on self-care and wellness and I’m sure you will, too.
Here’s to balance and happiness…
xo
Lindsay
Lindsay and Carisa talk about A Holistic Approach to Improving your Relationships (with yourself and others!)
Tell us a little about yourself
I’m a relationship coach specializing in helping female entrepreneurs create sinfully rich relationships and work life balance. I combine the science of personality psychology with powerful coaching techniques to help women business owners heal their relationships so they can give time and energy to building their businesses and enjoying their successes. I’m an author and a speaker as well.
I’m also a wife, a Mommy, a personality psychology geek and a Walking Dead fan. I should seriously stop watching that show…but I can’t look away!!! I mean, zombies! Argh! ☺
Tell us about your path to creating your business and your vision
I was always very close to my Grandma. After her marriage ended, she supported herself and her family as a nurse for over 30 years. A few months before she died, I asked her if she had always wanted to be a nurse growing up. She said she’d never wanted to be a nurse, she’d wanted to be a concert pianist, but when she got married she’d given up on that dream. She confided in me that she had always regretted that. I knew my Grandma was an amazing pianist. I’d grown up hearing her play my whole life. The idea that she’d given up on a dream like that after getting married was amazing to me…what could she have done if she’d had her husband’s support? I made up my mind that I would have a good relationship AND have my dream career.
While I was earning my Psychology degree, I learned about the powerful science of Personality and how by understanding personality types we could use our strengths to communicate and create in ways that change our lives. After I finished that degree and earned a degree in Counseling, I started coaching women on how to heal their relationships and resolve the relationship frustration and stress that was keeping them from being able to build their side businesses into their dream businesses.
It’s a myth to think we can’t have a good relationship and a dream business. I love helping women create that life for themselves that they want and deserve.
Tell us a little about yourself and your philosophy on wellness:
I believe that wellness is about balance and responsibility. There’s a balance between the drive and energy you use to move forward in the world and express your gifts versus the time you spend recharging and looking inward at what you need to receive. There’s also a responsibility we have for taking care of ourselves, which includes not blaming other people for not giving us what we need or want. It has to do with expressing ourselves in the world so we aren’t stifled or muted (which degrades our well-being) and also making sure we take responsibility for getting what we need.
What was the catalyst in your life to fuel your commitment to wellness?
Besides my experience hearing my Grandma’s story, which fueled my commitment to emotional wellness, it would be my daughter, Cadence, who is three and a half. When I was trying to conceive her, I had some health challenges that were really impacted by job stress. I remember wondering if I was going to have to choose between having a job so I could financially contribute to my marriage or having a baby.
It turned out that I had PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), which is like a kind of “sub-fertility.” My doctor said I’d have to take tons of hormones to conceive, but I didn’t want to do that, because taking the pill for 14 years was what had masked the PCOS! So I poured myself into researching and created a regimen of supplements, yoga, massage, acupuncture, meditation and organic, good carb eating instead of going on the hormones.
And thankfully, she was conceived and she’s healthy.
Later, I started thinking about emotional wellness and how I wanted to pass that on to her. It was things like not insisting that she hug other people. I came from a background of sexual abuse as a child so it is important for me to teach her that her body is for HER, not to please others, so I don’t make her hug other people if she doesn’t want to. And things like, choosing to wear my hair in it’s natural texture, because besides it being healthier for me, I wanted her to see that and know that her hair is beautiful. She likes to do yoga with me sometimes in the living room and I want her to see me doing that. I became very intentional about emotional and physical wellness when she was born.
How do you stay healthy, resilient and vibrant?
It’s so strange, but all the things we know we need to do to keep ourselves together so we can function under stress are the first things that go out the window when we’re stressed! So, I would say that I’m constantly working toward the vision I have for my physical well-being. We all have those 10 pounds we still want to lose.
That being said, I do meditate in the morning and do visualizations as well as listening to positive, powerful thoughts every day. And I’m a huge proponent of forgiveness. Not for the sake of other people, but really for my own emotional AND physical health. (Guest Blog Post: http://www.carisamontooth.com/blog/2014/12/30/3-ways-to-forgive-when-you-dont-want-to).
My favorite exercise at the moment is the Bar Method workout, which is a killer, but a fast toner and makes me feel super strong and accomplished when I finish it. And on days when I get enough rest (rare now with an energetic toddler), take my vitamins and drink all my water, I feel a big difference.
I’m working up to taking a 21 day juice cleanse to see if it helps with my energy levels, but when you don’t get enough rest it’s hard to convince yourself to give up coffee.
If there was only one thing a person could find the energy and resources to make a priority what would it be?
I would definitely say to just meditate for 5 or 10 minutes a day. It’s such a small investment but the benefits are HUGE. About 95% of the time, we are just working from subconscious patterns; we’re only choosing our behavior intentionally about 5% of the time! When you meditate, you make a space so you can hear what you really need to do or to know.
People don’t like to mediate because they think it’s super complicated to learn and there is some rigorous formula they need to master or they think meditating means thinking about nothing, so they’re afraid they won’t be able to do it. Meditating is just a fancy way of talking about being quiet and listening to what is really going on in your head.
Louise Hay had a great description for it that really got me into doing it easily. She says just sit quietly and ask yourself, “what do I need to know today?” and then be quiet and see what comes up. You don’t force anything. You just ask, shut up, and listen. The thing that WAS tricky for me in the beginning was learning to trust what I was hearing when I listened.
What is your favorite inspirational quote for wellness / awesomeness / thrival?
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
– Helen Keller
Carisa Montooth, M.S. is an Author, Speaker, Educational Counselor and Relationship Coach who helps savvy female entrepreneurs create sinfully rich relationships and work-life balance. Owner of Carisa Montooth Consulting, she uses her Strongest Element Personality Framework™ to help people understand themselves and others on a deeper level and powerfully enrich their romantic relationships, businesses, and lives.
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