#139 Lessons from 5 Years of Melissa Parsons Coaching - Part 1

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Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Well hello everybody and welcome to today's episode. 

This episode drops on May 27th, 2025, which happens to be my mom's birthday. So happy birthday mom. If you know my mom, wish her a happy birthday. It is also the birthday of Melissa Parsons Coaching. So today my business is five years old. This is truly exciting when you consider the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that says that as of 2024, 20% of new businesses fail within the first year and 48% of businesses fail within the first five years. So we are odds beaters here at Melissa Parsons Coaching. So first I want to congratulate myself on continuing to have a strong business five years in. And this of course is thanks to all of you, my listeners, my clients, my fans and followers. I know for sure that I would not be here without all of you. 

A special thanks to all of the mamas who loved me as their child or their children's pediatrician and then followed me into my coaching business and became my clients. This is still one of my biggest flexes that so many of you have made the leap with me and continue to support me by continuing to work with me or referring your friends and family to me. Thanks too to all of the women speaking my name in rooms where I am not present. 

I love the idea of people talking me up when I'm not there to hear about it directly. I started coaching after receiving coaching for about two years. I was sure, and I still am sure, that coaching is the secret to the universe and that I should share it with as many people as possible in my lifetime. 

I saw how my life benefited, how I started to thrive instead of just surviving, and I wanted every human to have that same experience. I was in the enviable position of having one career that I had wanted since I was a child and still loved most everything I was doing in that career. I'm looking at you prior authorizations with insurance companies and peer-to-peer reviews to argue to get the things covered that my patients needed as the things that I didn't love about being a pediatrician, but I digress. 

So I was in the enviable position of leaving my first career while still loving being a pediatrician and a physician. I didn't leave because I had to. I left because I had a new dream that I wanted to follow and follow it and I have. 

This episode is going to focus on the lessons that I've learned from both being coached and coaching so many amazing women over the past five years. The very first coach I hired in 2018 was also a pediatrician who became a life coach. 

Her name is Katrina Ubell. She had a program called Weight Loss for Doctors Only. I worked with her in a group with 49 other female physicians over a six month period and really started to change my relationship with my body and with food. 

I saw what she was doing and thought, hmm, I could do this, but that's all the further that my brain went at that time. It was just a whisper of I could do what she's doing. When I was done working with Dr. Ubell, I asked her who I could hire to help me with my thoughts about my marriage. She mentioned my next coach, Maggie Reyes. I read about Maggie on her website and had a phone consultation with her. 

Jon was all for me working with a coach to make our good marriage even better than ever. So I signed on to work with Maggie for what ended up being a nine month engagement. At this point, remember, I was still a straight A student and I was also going to be a straight A coaching client. 

At that time, I knew the power of journaling and doing cognitive work to change your way of thinking and your entrenched patterns. So I committed to sending sweet Maggie my thoughts every day for nine months. So when I say that Maggie knows my brain better than I know my own brain, this is not really an exaggeration. Maggie coached me daily on my written journals, and then we also met on Zoom every week. 

I was so committed to making those coaching calls that I did them for my car on my way home from work. I would finish work, drive as close to home as I could get to before our call started, and then I would find a random parking lot with good Verizon service and sit in that parking lot for the hour of our call. 

So I like to think I transformed my marriage from my car in random parking lots. I've mentioned before, and I will say it again, that my sweet hubby Jon was a very active participant in all of the homework that Maggie offered to us as a couple. We were a team fighting for a better relationship with each other. So although I was the only one on the calls, he definitely took ownership over our relationship, and I'm so grateful for that. 

Once Maggie and I were done with our coaching arrangement, she offered that she didn't think that I still needed a marriage coach. She was happy to keep coaching me on my life, and she thought that I should consider becoming a coach myself. 

She said something like, I know you already have a job you love, and I think you should consider becoming a coach. I considered it for about six months, and then the Life Coach School was offering another round of coach certification, and I signed up pretty quickly. 

My classes to become a coach started in February 2020, right before the COVID pandemic started in the US. At first, when I started the business, I was working three and a half days a week as a pediatrician, and then I was coaching in the evenings, on the weekends, and then on my one and a half days off. 

My sweet hubby pointed out that this was not the point, and if I kept it up, I would surely burn out. He, of course, was right, so I spent some time deciding what I wanted to do. Eventually, I decided to go all in on my entrepreneur journey and put all of my love, sweat, and tears into my coaching business. 

I made the decision very early in my business that I wanted to coach people like me, so high achieving women who have the life they've been dreaming of for years, but at the end of the day, they still feel like something's missing. 

I have loved this decision from the get-go and love coaching the amazing humans who have reached out to me for help. My coaching has definitely evolved over the years. It is continuously evolving, as I learn more about how our past influences are present. 

I have become more trauma-informed, I have learned more about how the body and the brain work together to keep us alive and keep us safe, I have learned more about how society at large creates our beliefs and our experiences, and I have learned the importance of me staying present in my own life and when I'm coaching my beautiful clients to help them make deep and lasting changes. 

Okay, so enough about the background. Onto the lessons that I've learned over the past five years so far. And of course, this too is also ever evolving. The first lesson is the power of telling the truth. 

Vulnerability with just one person creates freedom, saying the things that you've been keeping secret about yourself because of embarrassment or shame, and having that person not change how they see you or how they feel about you. 

Saying these things out loud to another human, to your coach, creates freedom for you. It unleashes something within you. I'm going to give you some examples. One of my clients, a C-suite executive in her late 40s, projected flawless confidence in her professional life. 

During one of our early sessions, she revealed the crushing impostor syndrome she'd been hiding for decades. Despite her impressive accomplishment, she constantly feared being quote unquote found out as inadequate. When she finally voiced this fear out loud as something she'd never shared with anyone, she broke down in tears and said, I've been carrying this alone for 20 years. By naming this truth, she could finally recognize the disconnect between her objective success and her internal narrative. 

Our work then focused on challenging these beliefs. And she later shared that just having someone witness her vulnerability without judgment in itself was transformative. She said, for the first time, I didn't have to be the person everyone thinks I am. 

Another example of the power of telling the truth. I had a woman who had three young children who maintained an exhausting facade of maternal perfection. Her home was immaculate. Her children were well behaved. Her social media presence was pristine. In one of our early sessions, she finally admitted that she was constantly overwhelmed and frequently resented the demands of motherhood, something she felt was utterly unacceptable to voice out loud. 

When she shared these feelings with me, she was shaking with shame. The relief on her face when I normalized these feelings was immediate. She said, I thought I was a terrible person. I've never told anyone how hard this is for me. 

That truth telling moment allowed her to develop a more authentic relationship with motherhood and with herself as a mother. And of course with her kids. And it eventually led to her creating supportive connections with other moms experiencing similar struggles. 

My last example for this one is a woman in her fifties who appeared to have an enviable life. She was financially secure. She had healthy adult children. She had a healthy long-term marriage. She seemed to have everything yet she experienced persistent dissatisfaction and a feeling of emptiness. 

She felt like a ghost in her own house, she said. And after several sessions building trust, she revealed that she spent her entire life following expectations set by others, her parents, her husband, society, and she had never made a life decision, a major life decision based solely on her own desires. She said, I have everything I'm supposed to want, but none of it feels like it's actually mine. This acknowledgement was terrifying for her, but also liberating. The truth sets you free. I'm here to tell you that for sure. 

Having someone witness this truth without dismissing it as ungrateful or trivial allowed her to begin the process of discovering her more authentic self, her favorite version of herself, and something that she had postponed for decades. 

In each of these examples, and probably hundreds more now at this point that I have from over the years. The relief that each of these women felt nearly immediately comes from no longer carrying secrets alone. It comes from telling the truth. 

I was at an event recently with Mark LeBeque and Liz Gilbert, and they said, if something sets you free, it's probably the truth. And then conversely, the truth will set you free. 

The second lesson is the power of staying in the present moment. Now, this is easier said than done for most of us for sure. Our brains are programmed to ruminate on the past, thinking that if we spend enough time ruminating, we can prevent history from repeating itself. 

And our brains are programmed to worry about the future, thinking that if we control everything that we possibly can control, and a lot of us also think that we can control the things that we have, absolutely no power to control, but we think that we can prevent ourselves from feeling any future pain. 

So of course I have examples of this too. So I had a high powered attorney, mid-40s, come to coaching trapped in a cycle of constant worry and anxiety. Her mind was perpetually spinning with what if catastrophic scenarios about her cases, her children's futures, her potential future health concerns, and despite her external success, she lived with persistent tension headaches, terrible sleep, and a basic inability to enjoy her life. 

Our work centered on present moment practices, starting with simple breath awareness for two minutes each morning. We gradually expanded to include worry containment periods where she would fully acknowledge her concerns during these designated times, then practice returning to the present throughout her day. 

The transformation that she achieved was remarkable. Within a few months, she reported that for the first time in decades, she could sit through her daughter's recital without mentally rehearsing case arguments. 

She described the experience as actually being in the room with my child instead of just my body being there while my mind was in tomorrow's courtroom. Her physical symptoms diminished as she learned to catch herself projecting for the future and gently redirected herself to the present. 

The most profound shift came when she shared that I realized I've been missing my actual life because I've been living in an imaginary future that never happens anyway. I finally understand what people mean when they talk about peace. It's been here all along waiting for me in the present moment. 

My next example of the power of staying in the present moment is a woman in her early repaying. painful conversations and perceived failures. Her past relationships, her career setbacks had become defining stories that she revisited almost daily, reinforcing beliefs about her unworthiness. And she described herself as stuck despite external changes in our circumstances. 

Throughout our coaching, she learned to recognize when she was time traveling to the past and developed a practice of gently asking what's happening right now. We created some sensory anchors, so the feel of her feet on the floor, the temperature, the air, feeling the air move against her skin, sounds in her environment to help her return to the present moment. 

And of course, as with most shifts, it began subtly. She noticed colors seemed more vivid, food tasted better, conversations felt more meaningful. And several months into our work, she had a breakthrough during a simple walk in her neighborhood. 

And she said, I realized suddenly that I had never been fully present for 20 minutes, not rehashing that argument with my ex or reliving that presentation that went wrong five years ago, just walking just here. 

And I felt light. This ability to inhabit the present gradually transformed her relationships as she became able to respond to the actual person in front of her rather than to her memories and patterns. 

She eventually shared, I used to think happiness was something I had to find or create. Now I understand that it's what's naturally there when I'm not dragging around my past, fucking dragging around your past, it's heavy. 

I want you all to be able to put it down. Okay, my last example for this case of the power of the present moment is another successful entrepreneur and mom of many children prided herself on her ability to do multiple things at once. 

So she was constantly planning the next task while executing the current one, checking emails during her kiddos activities, mentally composing to-do lists during conversations, and never fully engaging with any single experience. 

Her initial resistance to present moment work was strong. She was like, I don't have time to just be present. That's a luxury that I don't have. So we started with micro-practices, just 30 seconds of full presence with her morning coffee, one fully attentive conversation with an employee each day. 

And of course, the transformation began when she realized that her quote unquote efficiency was actually creating inefficiencies. Task took longer because she divided our attention and that led to mistakes. 

Conversations had to be repeated because she wasn't fully listening. And she came to a session saying, you know, I think I've been skimming the surface of my entire life. As she practiced presence more consistently, she reported deeper connections with her children, deeper connections with her team members. 

Projects that previously felt draining became engaging when she gave them her full attention. And the most significant shift was her sense of time. She said, ironically, by slowing down and being fully in each moment, I feel like I have more time, not less. 

I'm not constantly checking the clock, rushing to the next thing. And she shared, I used to believe that my value came from how much I could juggle. Now I understand that depth matters more than breadth. 

And when I'm fully present with one person or task, I bring my whole self. And that's when my unique contribution happens. These transformations warn about ignoring the past or the future, but rather about choosing when to consciously plan or reflect rather than being involuntarily pulled from the present by habitual thought patterns. 

Okay, the third lesson. Are you guys ready for it? It's the power of uncovering our limiting subconscious beliefs about ourselves. So many of the women who come to work with me speak negatively about themselves when they first start. Some of them are aware of this, and it is completely overt and intentional. And many more of them are unaware of the negative way that they speak about themselves. And it is mostly unintentional. My job as your coach is to point this out to you every time that you use your words against yourself, help you question if this is how you really feel about yourself. 

And if so, to help you find the root of it. If it's not really how you feel about yourself, the coaching is more to remind you that the words that you use about yourself matter, and that you are listening to your own words and acting accordingly. 

If these women are parents, like many of my clients, I also point out that their children and their grandchildren are also listening to how they talk about themselves or to themselves.

So I have two examples that I want to share with you about this third lesson. The first is a woman in her mid-40s who came to coaching because she felt constantly exhausted and overwhelmed despite having achieved significant professional success. During our sessions, I noticed that whenever she described a new accomplishment, she would immediately follow it with a disclaimer. 

I got lucky with timing. Anyone could have done it. It's not really that impressive. If this is you, you know this is you. In our fourth session, I created a simple exercise. I asked her to share three recent achievements, and after each one, I repeated back her exact words to her. 

Then, I asked her to imagine her 12-year-old daughter, who idolized her, standing behind her absorbing every word. She became completely silent for a while, and when she finally spoke, it was with a trembling voice, and she said, I would never want my daughter to hear me talk about myself this way. 

I would never want her to dismiss her achievements like I just did. This was her breakthrough moment. For the first time, she could see the pattern that had been invisible to her. She realized she had inherited this habit from her own mom, who had constantly downplayed her own worth and contributions. 

In that moment, she connected how her quote-unquote harmless self-deprecation was reinforcing a core belief that she didn't deserve recognition, a belief so deeply embedded that she hadn't recognized it as a belief at all, but as just being humble. 

In subsequent sessions, she began catching herself in real time when she would diminish her accomplishments. And of course, within months, this awareness extended to noticing how this belief affected her business decisions. 

She'd been undercharging her clients. She'd been avoiding visibility opportunities. She'd been taking on projects that underutilized her expertise. This transformation wasn't just in how she spoke about herself, but in how she experienced her work. 

And as she consciously replaced self-diminishing language with accurate acknowledgment, her energy levels improved and she described feeling permission to fully occupy her life without apology. 

Okay, my second example for the power of uncovering our limiting subconscious beliefs about ourselves is a physician that I worked with who sought coaching because she felt perpetually dissatisfied despite excelling in her career and having a loving family. During our early sessions, I noticed her using some absolutist language, some all or nothing thinking. So I always mess up during important presentations. I never have enough patience with my kids. Everyone else manages their time better than I do. 

In our work together, I began gently highlighting these statements and asking her to examine the evidence. At first, she defended these perspectives as I'm just being realistic. And the breakthrough came during a session where she was describing a recent family vacation that she felt she had ruined by checking her work email twice during the week. 

So when I asked if the entire week-long vacation was actually ruined by two brief email checks, she paused and then began to cry. I think I understand now. She said nothing I do is ever good enough for me. I'm holding myself to standards that are impossible to meet. This recognition opened the door to exploring the origins of these standards. And of course, she was able to trace them back to her early schooling where her dad had responded to an A- with what happened to the plus. 

This pattern of looking for flaws rather than celebrating successes had become so automatic that she applied it to every area of her life. The most powerful moment came when she realized how this affected her kiddos. 

I'm teaching them that happiness is always just out of reach, that nothing is ever good enough, she said, and that's not what I want for them. Of course it wasn't. Over the following months, she developed a practice of consciously identifying good enough thresholds for different activities and celebrated when she met them. 

She began to recognize the gap between her actual performance, which was objectively excellent, and her self-perception. And as she aligned her self-talk with reality, her satisfaction with both her work life and her mama life dramatically improved. 

She said, I used to think that my impossibly high standards were what made me successful. Now I understand they were holding me back from enjoying that success, and more importantly, being fully present with my family. 

So these breakthrough moments illustrate how unconscious negative beliefs operate below our awareness, yet powerfully shape our experiences. In both of these cases, the women didn't initially recognize their self-talk as problematic because these patterns had become so normalized. 

And the coaching relationship, I was able to provide a mirror that they needed to see these patterns clearly, and understand their origins, and recognize their impact, not on just themselves, but on those they cared about the most. 

What makes these insights so transformative is that once these women could see their previously invisible beliefs, they couldn't unsee them. This awareness created choice where before they had only automatic reactions. 

Their new conscious relationship with their thoughts allowed them to align their self-talk with their deeper values, of course creating ripple effects across all aspects of their lives. Now, I have talked for far too long and I have so much more to share about these lessons. 

I have two more to share. I have to come back. I'm going to break it into two episodes of the podcast. So I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger. You have to come back next week for lessons four and five after five years of Melissa Parsons Coaching. 

I'll see you then.

Hey - It’s still me. Since you are listening to this podcast, you very likely have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes but you still feel like something's missing! If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to tiptoe into putting yourself first and treating yourself as you would your own best friend, I'm here to support you. As a general life coach for women, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges as you start to get to know and embrace your authentic self.

When we work together, you begin to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You learn effective communication strategies, boundary-setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can't guarantee specific outcomes, as everyone's journey is brilliantly unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. With humor and a ton of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

You're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, so head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com, go to the work with me page, and book a consultation call. We can chat about all the support I can provide you with as we work together.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and, of course, I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching soon. 

Thanks for tuning in. Go be amazing!