Episode #014 — Embracing Authenticity with Dr. Joy Bracey

Melanie Branch: Hello my neurospicy friends and welcome back to the Trailblazers Rising podcast today! I have a let me just put it nicely a doctor that I have been fangirling after for a very long time on the social medias you guys know that I am creeping on every single guest's social media before they come here.

So without further ado let me introduce Dr joy please Dr joy tell everybody who you are and what you do

Dr Joy Bracey: welcome hi thank you for having me Melanie I'm excited to be here I am Dr joy Bracey I'm a licensed counselor and I have my doctorate in executive leadership I've been a leader for a long time and I felt a calling and I'm now helping people discover self love and quiet their inner critics.

I feel like that's the way that we can change the world one person at a time

Melanie Branch: yes I love that I love that so much so let's dive in so that everyone listening can get a big nice dose of you first and foremost what sparked your entrepreneurial flame tell us about that minute that you realized I got to do my

Dr Joy Bracey: own thing.

Yeah so I've been a CEO and a nonprofit addiction treatment center and mental health treatment center for 11 years but I in this society and the way things are set up you know capitalism we can't I'm never going to retire I have four children I'm a single mom like whatever is going to be It's going to have to be something that I do out on my own but the job pays the bills but looking to the future there's just no security net for me.

So and then also there was a calling there was just a true genuine path that I went on of discovering self love and inner critic healing and how that changed my life and I'm a caregiver I love people I want to help people and I could not help but share the transformation that happened and sort of I was very mindful as I went along that this would be something that other people need and how what was working for me.

And I developed tools and did a lot of research to be able to present it in a way to people that works for them so it was partly and so far this hasn't led to any real financial change some but not but I just trust that it will because it's a calling and it's a passion and I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing the next right thing.

And I know that I'll be taken care of by the universe by the end of all this

Melanie Branch: oh don't talk about my business partner the universe I love that absolutely I love that yes the best business partner that is so fantastic so being a therapist what what's the correct term that you like to

Dr Joy Bracey: use therapist counselor.

I'm an LPC which is familiar to a lot of people licensed professional counselor but therapist is more commonly used now I think publicly general

Melanie Branch: excellent so who do you like helping the most because we know everybody listening on their entrepreneurial journey has has heard or will hear or is currently hearing you got a niche down you got to know who you're going after.

Right so who do you like to help the

Dr Joy Bracey: most well in my therapeutic practice I end up and it's funny the universe has brought addiction to me in my life I grew up in a home with addiction and I have spent my career helping people with addiction and what I love is that in my therapy practice I mostly help people who have loved ones with addiction.

So adult children of alcoholics people who have a current addict in crisis and they don't know what to do or how to talk to them that seems to be what my therapy has focused on and then in the Dr joy land of social media and my self love and inner critic healing practice I mostly work with women who are just at a point in their lives where they want to feel good on a daily basis about themselves and about their prospects for the future.

And I think there's this awakening that's happening for women and I love that I get to be a part of that that we can derive our value from inside of our own selves and we already have everything we need to feel valuable and important and worth listening to that we don't need anything outside of ourselves like societal validation or a partner or whatever the case might be because a lot of us.

Always feel like Oh I'll love myself when I finished this degree or find a man or do this or do that and really the truth is you have to love yourself as you are now today because tomorrow is not guaranteed and you're not going to love yourself tomorrow either if you haven't figured out how to love yourself today.

Melanie Branch: Oh my God yes yes

Dr Joy Bracey: yes yes

Melanie Branch: you're you're so right so your platform is really based on the idea of self love you know approval from within intrinsic motivation that sort of thing and as a as a woman as an entrepreneur as a neurodivergent human being and clearly a huge lover of makeup I'm a makeup enthusiast and have been since I was born my mom said that when I was little or when I was a baby if she wanted to get ready she would just plop me on the floor floor in her bathroom.

And I would just sit up there staring at her as she did her makeup the perspective shift that has really helped me has been who benefits from this right so every time I catch myself in a point of weakness and doubting myself and you know fearing rejection fearing success all that sort of stuff I think.

Who benefits from this mindset right so if it's capitalism and you know quote unquote the man that benefits from me feeling like shit about myself I'm gonna stop doing it immediately

Dr Joy Bracey: yeah and that's most often the beneficiary

Melanie Branch: absolutely so the

Dr Joy Bracey: thousands of dollars that we spend on hair products.

Making ourselves look skinny or whatever to be more consumable to others we consume all of this stuff

Melanie Branch: absolutely so when it comes to masking which is a hot topic in the neurodivergent world and on social media because everybody neurotypical or neurodivergent puts on a mask to some degree and puts on a show to some degree because we don't want to let everybody know all of the moments you know so.

When it comes to unmasking which I'm sure you have been actively doing as part of your self love journey do you have any tips or tricks for you know women that have really played that nurturing role especially if you are helping in your therapy practice people that are connected to addicts is there any sort of tips that you can give us to you know safe and healthy unmasking?

Dr Joy Bracey: Well I think self love is the foundation of all of it so if you are trying to unmask be your authentic self be true to yourself and you're doing that without a foundation of self love that is going to be a really difficult bumpy process but if you have this foundation of self love first then you can build things like for example I say one of the big tenants of self love is trusting yourself and whenever I'm feeling doubtful or scared to be vulnerable or to do something that goes out on a limb I say to myself I trust you to handle whatever comes of this.

You've always handled it before and you're going to survive this so if this is what you feel is the right thing to do on masking in whatever form that takes and you can say to yourself you know this is scary but I trust you if someone doesn't like it I trust you to handle that I trust you to take care of yourself through that whatever those things that might come up are.

If you can trust yourself then you'll you're going to be okay that's

Melanie Branch: beautiful I really do love that I love it self love really is the foundation of everything so once we've started building that foundation of self love how do we as business owners and women and caretakers and all the other roles that we have to play how do we stay motivated?

When we're facing setbacks or roadblocks or obstacles what do you do to stay motivated

Dr Joy Bracey: well okay so first of all I think that staying motivated is really important but I think it's okay sometimes to not be motivated like Last week I didn't post a single video I just Was lost in my own life and lots of things good and also some challenging complicated things were happening.

And I didn't feel motivated and I felt motivated to just take care of me and so that's what I did so I think going with those ebbs and flows and accepting yourself is so important I think as far as trying to keep your eye on the prize and keep yourself moving I mean because especially if your business involves and the social media aspect which most of them do now it can be really discouraging.

So I think keeping that big for me keeping that bigger picture in mind of what is my purpose here my purpose here is to help people right that is like my guiding principle why I'm doing this at all and if I help one person you know if the video gets you know 10 views and one like that means that somebody resonated with it and it it helped them.

And so my purpose has thereby been served and I'm just doing what the universe asked me to do I'm not you know trying to judge myself on all of these arbitrary rules that we set so instead of focusing on what you didn't accomplish or what's not going right think about what is going right and the bigger picture just keep that guiding principle of why you're doing this in the first place instead of getting lost in the metrics of you know maybe you didn't make as much money at your business this month as you wanted to or whatever the everything is so organized in such a way where you can see when something worked or didn't work or videos views or whatever.

And I think keeping that guiding force of why you're doing this in the first place at the forefront for me helps me stay motivated

Melanie Branch: you know you brought up a really good point of stop looking at what you didn't do and what you don't have and there is this metaphor that keeps or whatever the other one is analogy whatever it is that keeps coming into my my frame of mind and my frame of reference in shows that I'm watching and videos that I'm seeing on TikTok.

And that is if you are focused on like skiers for example when skiers are skiing through trees they are thinking follow the path they are not thinking don't hit the trees because your brain your subconscious doesn't hear don't or no or I don't want your subconscious just hears the main part of that message which is hit tree hit tree hit tree.

So the same thing in your life when you are shifting your mindset right and you have to do mindset work if you're an entrepreneur I'm sorry I hate to tell you there's a reason why I took up in this industry and thank God I'm a natural addict because you need a mindset adjustment frequently when you're the one running a show and you know staying focused on I'm so thankful that I have this I'm so thankful that I have this.

I'm so thankful that I am helping the aligned people with the thing that I'm really good at right so keep the focus on you know if if you're if your goal is to find your first 10 clients you know the the goal is not you want to keep that in mind of happy fulfilled clients happy fulfilled aligned clients not I need to get this like you know we if you stay positive you get so much more out of it which can be hard to do when you're a neuro spicy and you struggle with.

Imposter syndrome

Dr Joy Bracey: hmm big one

Melanie Branch: so I have done a lot of research into imposter syndrome because my special interest is research yay and you know imposter syndrome was coined and found and figured out and designed well not designed but noticed by two women at a university in Georgia in the late seventies who were studying academic women high achieving women which you know it was a small handful back in 1978.

And how they all struggled to accept awards and accolades and promotions and stuff based on their own merit and They had to say Oh well I guess everybody else wasn't as good or you know it's just because I studied real hard or I worked real hard dah dah dah dah dah whereas their male counterparts got an award and said thank you.

So when it comes to imposter syndrome and it is something that affects all I'm not going to say that it doesn't but I do like to frame it as you know imposter syndromes like breast cancer it can affect women women or it can affect men but it's primarily a woman's issue so my imposter says who the fuck do you think you are?

What does your imposter say because I have found with working with hundreds of women that it's all a specific message and it changes person

Dr Joy Bracey: to person well actually mine is the same as yours my inner critic I call it my inner critic my inner critic loves to say who do you think you are I think that from a little child I had a lot of chaos at home.

And so at school I was kickin butt I was like you know getting picked for things winning awards getting A's well like I mean I was kind of like a little powerhouse like doing all the things I was supposed to do following all the rules I was a good girl right and because there was this dichotomy of like at home things weren't so smooth and I had no control over how things went I think there was just this thing like I'm here at school like that was all pretend.

The success at school and socially was the mask and who I really am is a mess who has no control over anything who can't fix her family and therefore who do you think you are going to school and thinking that you are somehow smart or going to be successful or worthy of having dreams or any of that stuff.

Like that's all just bullshit and it's not really going to happen for you so I think that's where mine began but that who do you think you are message has just been consistent fortunately I've been able to do away with that over the last few years but it really stuck with me for my whole life

Melanie Branch: how do you get yourself out of that thought loop when.

That imposter and that critic rears its ugly head

Dr Joy Bracey: so it goes back to self love Now I think it would be impossible for me to even give that thought still pops in but now it's like oh What are you doing here you know I I talked to my inner critic Because I feel like it's an invitation to healing like or to notice what's going on or honor my feelings Like so if I hear that Nobody is going to listen to this.

Who do you think you are I think well what are you really worried about I always ask myself two questions what are you ashamed of or what are you afraid of when that inner critic voice comes through with who do you think you are or whatever the imposter syndrome voice is you can say what are you ashamed of?

Or what are you afraid of like usually there is some trigger of shame or fear that sends that inner critic rushing in to try and save you from whatever catastrophe it thinks you're going to make or to save you from further embarrassing yourself or whatever those somewhere in the afraid or ashamed category.

And usually I'm afraid of embarrassing myself or people not liking me which being that people pleaser growing up I really needed to be liked by everyone and make everyone happy and my value was derived from what I could do for others and so once and and I always thought I loved myself too that's another big piece of this is that I think people aren't taught what self love is or how to do it.

And they they're told to do it and they think they've got that conquered because we take care of ourselves so to speak every day we eat we shower we get jobs we do the things we need to do but when you really have self love like once you really have it you know that you didn't have it before and it's unmistakable.

And that self love foundation again helps quiet that thought loop it helps you get right on top of it like cause before self love my thoughts would run me I mean I if if a thought like that popped in my head it would occupy me and occupy me and occupy me and now it pops in my head I notice it I address it immediately and then it can be dismissed.

Because once it's dismantled it can be dismissed like this is a false belief like get out of here you know where before it could keep me going or it could paralyze me into not doing the thing that I was trying to do

Melanie Branch: yeah the one of the foundational concepts of mindset of you are not your thoughts.

You are the observer of your thoughts right and you can prove that by The fact that thoughts just float through the universe and then they pop into your brain you know it's like the book idea that you had ten years ago that you didn't act on and then somebody else wrote the book because these thoughts are gonna come to fruition and if it's not you it's gonna be somebody else.

So of course we can observe the thought that came in and say where do I think you came from it's like a dream you know like Okay so I dreamed about somebody that I haven't seen in 15 years they and I have not thought about them in the past 15 years or at least in the past day or so right cause there's some dreams as a as an energy healer and an intuitive human.

I do believe that there's some dreams that are just our brain you know cleansing the palate from the day and removing any extraneous observations or information that we no longer need and then our dreams are also the way that the universe and our spirit guides can get messages through to us.

Right so if somebody from your past for example me I had a dream about an ex boyfriend when I tell you I've been married for 9 million years very happily to the same man and I have not thought about this ex boyfriend that I had when I was like 17 years old and I'm just so everybody knows I'm 37 in three days.

And I had a dream about him a couple of nights ago you know just in a regular you know we're talking we're in passing it's always in a busy party or some shit right and when I woke up and I remembered it I was like oh time to call my power back because that person is thinking about me because when they pop into your dream out of nowhere from your past lives is what I call it it's an energetic cord that they have attached to you by being like oh you know it can be any sort of thing too.

It could have been I wonder if they're doing well I hope they're doing well or you know I hope they're doing shitty it doesn't matter but when you're popping up in someone's brain and they they're thinking about you that's when you're going to start dreaming about them so how do you handle or what's the word I'm looking for balance the creative manifesting mindset that fun stuff with the more boring You know strategic business stuff as an entrepreneur.

Dr Joy Bracey: So first of all I'm a creative so I am a painter I have dabbled in all kinds of visual arts and I love the creative aspects like the design things of you know making your logo making your website doing all that so I kind of thrive on the some of this tedious tasks I really feel are creative.

So I put those things in the category of creative like I had to make new business cards for myself and that seems like a tedious like strategic part but also for me that was a very creative process and I thrive on those things so I think where I can jam in creativity I do I don't just say oh well let me just use the automatic format for some business card.

And I really dig in and like have fun with it so yeah I find the creativity and the joy in the mundane tasks wherever I can and then I'm also a naturally strategic thinker so I feel like I'm I've integrated the creativity and the strategic thinking to where something has to be working strategically toward the bigger goal but also give me some creative joy.

And once those things are aligned then the magic happens but of course there are things that you have to do that aren't fun like doing your taxes your QuickBooks your you know the for me the math part is not fun at all but I just keep that overriding guiding principle at the forefront like for example I do not enjoy when I have to send out emails to my book club members for example.

I feel like that's a task that's like Time sensitive and I have to do it and it's not fun but I keep that guiding principle why am I here well I really enjoy the book club this is a way to connect with people and to help people and that is my guiding principle and so this is just something I've got to do.

So just white knuckle through and I'm also a procrastinator so if I just save it till the last minute it'll get

Melanie Branch: done so it's funny you should say that because as a neurodivergent business coach right business mindset for neurodivergent people only we welcome everyone but we cater to the neuro spices.

Oh my God I totally lost my spot the boring part I'm holding it hold on let me write down this other thought that I have too that I'm I want to I'm trying to hold on to this is another thing that I tell all of my clients and everybody at the neuro spicy Academy don't try to hold on to two thoughts at the same time.

Cause then you're going to lose both of them and we're going to be in a crapshoot Amanda

Dr Joy Bracey: you should see the notes app in my phone it's filled with a gajillion things oh

Melanie Branch: okay so I'll ask you the question that I was holding on to and then maybe the other one will come back to me what role does manifestation play in your life and business?

Dr Joy Bracey: Man you know 1 of my very dearest friends Andy page tells me you manifest like no other I tell you my dependence on the universe and the daily alignment or attempt or effort to be aligned with my purpose and with what the universe wants for me is so strong that on days where I'm not feeling that I struggle to even get out of bed.

Like I can't my functioning really depends on that so when you say I mean everything that I have I manifested I came from a background of extreme poverty I had a very young mother and I grew up in moderate poverty everything that I've achieved everything I've done has been by following.

That inner guidance that inner a connection to the collective conscious to the universe and really feeling that very powerfully so manifesting is a super important part I just as a quick aside like I had this it's a long story that I won't go into but one of my children is being half siblinged out and was denied a trip to Europe because of his he wasn't blood related to the other family members if that makes sense.

And Mama Bear woke up and was like how am I going to get this child to Europe so I started learning French and Just planning a trip that I had no idea how I was going to afford and in 30 days I leave for a month in Europe with that child so I don't know how I mean I can't even tell you how I've been able to make that happen in my life except for that I was determined that it was going to happen and I manifested the fuck out of it Yeah so how important is it extremely important?

Melanie Branch: Yeah absolutely Oh no

Dr Joy Bracey: I think you're back I

Melanie Branch: lost you for a minute Oh okay I'm here damn you Mercury retrograde we'll just wait you're frozen that question that I had that I lost midway is not coming okay I'm here are you here I'm here I don't know what happened okay we're just gonna keep this train moving.

I don't care this I've been screaming at Ever since you left all right So again everybody let's get this let's keep the show on the road so we've talked about a lot of things That are very important to neurodivergent entrepreneurs manifestation absolutely 100% whether you think you're doing it or not the energy that you're putting out is the energy that you are attracting all the time.

That is just a scientifically backed fact of the universe so when I think of the success that I'm aligning with the success that I'm attracting right the ultimate end goal and how to enjoy myself every step of the way I know and I know that this is very important to you too that self care is number one on the list.

And in fact if we could come up with a better name than self care because self care has such a reputation for you know Oh do you go get a massage once a month and you know all this other kind of bullshit when in all actuality You are on this planet to take care of yourself nobody else is on this planet to take care of you.

It is your responsibility to make sure that you feel as good as possible that you're as healthy as possible that's nobody else's job right so I take my self care very seriously when it comes to your self care your systems your routines your strategies what would you say is like the top three that everybody listening can really learn from and benefit from right now?

Dr Joy Bracey: Oh that's a great question well first of all I like to say that taking care of yourself and making yourself happy as a full time job and everybody else on the planet is already employed so you have to put yourself first first and foremost I think for me the thing that I've learned is the most important self care thing that I could possibly do is letting myself feel my feelings.

I spent the majority of my life trying to run away from feeling quote unquote bad feelings the negative ones frustration overwhelmed anger sadness if I felt those things it was like an immediate alarm to go running to not go running I don't like going running but I mean run away from the feeling.

So I would eat or over shop or over clean or over work or overly focused on other people instead of myself to avoid my own feelings and that has led to a clusterfuck of problems in my life that I can untangle now that I'm focusing on myself so that's the 1st and most important thing is letting myself feel my feelings understanding that they're temporary.

They don't require immediate action and it's okay to just feel sad for a little while or feel overwhelmed and just to sit with it and that doesn't seem like self care because I think like you said people have this idea in their minds that self care means happiness or peace all the time it doesn't always mean that it means allowing those darker sides of yourself to have their moments too.

Without judgment and without hating on yourself for it and to make space in your life for that if you are feeling miserable you can't be giving out things to other people like good energy or you know successful entrepreneurship I think we have to take that time and be like okay well today's a day where I'm in a funk and let me just.

Embrace that I'm going to watch some TV or do whatever you know can make me feel better and and address these feelings instead of running from them yeah my second most important self care thing is that I would say a focus on me having four kids being a single mom also being the leader of a nonprofit where my agency is very much like a family and I care very much for everyone that works with me.

Instead of worrying about everyone else's problems and putting my focus outward I put my focus inward and I've seen an amazing shift in how that actually helps me that allows me to be a better helper because I'm more aware of my own stuff that I bring to problems and issues that other people are having.

But just a focus on me what do I need from today what do I need to feel good right now or to survive this feeling moment where I'm not feeling good so a focus on myself would be the second thing and for my third self care thing really paying attention to and figuring out what I like and don't like what I do want in my life and what I don't want in my life.