#139 - Holistic Therapy with Chris McDonald

In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Chris McDonald about her morning routine, yoga, holistic versus traditional therapy, getting through tough times and more.

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Announcer 

Welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote, where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.

Ryan  

Hey, Chris, welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How are you?

Chris   

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Ryan 

Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. It's gonna be fun. 15 minutes. Let's kick this off with you telling my audience of morning upgraders who you are, what you do for a living, and then something you're grateful for at the current moment. Sure,

Chris  

I'm a licensed therapist, and I own a virtual private practice. And I'm also considered a business owner with that two since I'm the owner of that and have one person that works for me. I'm also a podcaster. I have um, host the holistic counseling podcast. And I'm also a yogi. So I do yoga every day, every day for for how many minutes? Depends on the day. So today, I went to the gym. So I did only a few minutes at the gym. But on Mondays, I   take a class or I do an hour class. And then most days, I do like 15 minutes or so. Is that your main form of exercise? Yoga? Oh, no, no. I am very excited to spin class and I do cardio and weight. Oh, wow. That's part of my morning routine. Yeah,

Ryan 

very fit individual. That's impressive. Okay. Well, you mentioned morning routine. So what are your mornings look like?

Chris   

So most mornings, I get up and I do some yoga, meditation, I do some reading, I like to do some kind of reading something I want to learn more about. And I like to variant. So sometimes I might do some pranayama. And yoga is what breathwork is, and I might do some breathing. Or I may do some journaling. For me. I like the flexibility. I used to do the miracle morning but I found it was too many things to keep up with. And I was just kind of going through the motions. Let me affirm now. Let me do this. And it was just, yeah, it has to be too much. So I like to narrow that down. And if sometimes I don't feel like doing yoga, I will just read What do I feel like doing this morning? What will what am I connected to this morning? And let me

Ryan  

do. So how long is the retaining? Typically?

Chris  

Depending on how much time I have? It's usually 30 to 45 minutes.

Ryan  

Do you have a family and kids they get to structure that around? Or?

Chris  

No, I have cats and a husband. So I feel fortunate to have that time. Yeah, I put into that and, and get myself together. So I like to get up earlier. And then if I'm planning on the time of year to see the sun sunrise into my backyard and see the sky and just kind of connect to nature as well.

Ryan  

You're in North Carolina, right? It's beautiful there. Yeah.

Chris  

Yeah, it is. It's nice. We have woods in our backyard. So it's just nice to see the change of seasons. And I watch the birds and kind of get some nature especially because I'm working from home and on the computer all day. So I need that, that time and I go outside when it's nice and just connect with the Earth and the trees and just try to be present in that mindfulness.

Ryan 

Yeah, I'm from practice then as well. So you with the yoga for someone that's thinking about doing it. Is there an easy way to get started with it? Like what's what's your best advice there?

Chris  

Well, and the cool part of yoga is it's not just most people think it's asanas, which are the postures, the movements, right? There's more to yoga than that there. There's breathwork or meditation. So some people may want to start with one of those if the thought of doing the physical part is intimidating. But the Yoga I teach is more about calming the nervous system. It's more slow, mindful, gentle yoga. So I recommend starting with that if you do want to do some of the yoga movements because it's hard to go to a fit-power class. jump right in and do I had this one lady that I went to class with I was gonna die. And I'm an experienced yogi, and she just did all the sun salutations like so fast, like you barely get the pose out. And I'm like, for me, that's not yoga. I like to take my time to do the slow mindful movements and that can be very calming to the nervous system. Or I also teach them energizing poses as well. I have a vivid memory

Ryan  

on him many years ago. This is This was before I kid. So it was at least 12 years ago. 13 years ago, I went to my wife and I went to this we're going to the same gym, and there was a yoga class that she wanted to try. So I was like, I'll try it with you. And it was an hour long. I think I lasted about 20 minutes. I was like I'm out here listening stuff.

Chris 

Yeah, it's tough, like doing Power Yoga is really tough. So I highly recommend just starting with more gentle movements and you know even doing something now that we have so much virtual now you can go even on YouTube and get a free class and just Google that gentle class gentle yoga and start from there and you can do seated yoga. That's what people don't realize is it's not just on the mat. You can also do chair yoga, which is good if you sit in you know a lot during the day. You can do it seated or standing with your chair for balance. So there are many different options out there.

Ryan   

I feel like being flexible is sort of like a secret weapon. I feel like there was some basketball player I was reading about. And he was talking about how he stretches for like, laughs You know, well, that is true. You search for like an hour a day. But then, if you listen to David Goggins talk, and he's like, this crazy athlete is out of his mind kind of athlete. And he stretches every day for two hours at the end of his day, is doing it. There's something to it, you know,

Chris 

that's a lot. Yeah. But is that mind-body connection just tuning in with your body and being present?

Ryan  

We'll switch to a different topic after this. But I don't think we talked about yoga much here. So I have one more question about that. So for my audience that's thinking about starting, you said, go into YouTube and search for gentle yoga, that's the best place to start.

Chris 

And beginner to myself, and I'm very experienced, I've done some yoga online, but unfortunately, I can't do headbands or any of these crazy poses, and some of some of these instructors, they'll jump right in with some of these more difficult poses. So I don't recommend that. It's just doing more gently even starting with Cheerio, though. That can be a good starting point. I

Ryan 

didn't know that was a thing. So perfect. Yeah, exactly. Well, I know what the title of this podcast is going to be Marie Marie thing about, you know when we edit it and stuff, it's all about yoga. So let's talk about your business. How long have you had the business for how long have you been a business owner for?

Chris   

Since 2015?

Ryan 

What have you had the most success with in terms of growing it?

Chris  

I think, for me, I came from a WT job. And so this was extremely difficult to figure out how to do business and learn all those business skills as I think it is a connection with other people. So once I started connecting with other therapists in the field, we all refer to each other, and we all help each other out. And that made the biggest, oh my gosh, the biggest growth for my practice and in connecting with people who have the same niche as me. So I'm a Holistic Therapist, and finding other people who are holistic, it's helpful, because then we attract some similar clients. And of course, we get full-time. So we still can just refer to each other in those moments. And that's been probably the number one thing that's been most helpful. And I also do SEO for my website, and working on that's been extremely helpful in helping me grow. And honestly, the pandemic health business because we all switch to online virtual. And fortunately, in this field, we're able to provide counseling through the pandemic, and of course, more people needed mental health care. So that opened up a whole new world for the counseling field. And, now a lot of people have transitioned to full time virtua, like I have,

Ryan 

just for those that are curious, me being one of them. What is holistic therapy? Like? How does that, how does that compare against, like regular

Chris 

therapy, as we call it more traditional therapy. So most people think about, like, traditional therapy as just talk therapy, or like Freud was somebody laying on the couch. And, you know, that's more of the psychodynamic. It's called approach. But holistic incorporates lots of different modalities. And sometimes it's just treating the whole person. As an example, I might talk to someone who has depression, but ask them to go to their primary care doctor to figure out if there could be a physical cause, which has happened with a lot of my clients that they might have a thyroid issue, or, you know, to make sure they get physically checked as well, that's part of holistic counseling, but also spiritual. So if people want to talk about spiritual practices, or ways to cope with that, we can talk about that, or I use yoga in sessions with clients. So sometimes I incorporate the body using what we call the somatic approach is using the body. And, that's another way to work through trauma or anxiety, and depression so it's a it's a little bit different perspective. And I use meditation too. So that's more of a holistic modality. But there are so many different kinds of modalities people use that are different from the traditional norm, you know, I'm just sitting and talking. Oh,

Ryan 

good to know, something new here today. So as well, yeah. What habits do you have like in terms of your mental health, like how do you protect it? What happens to you relying on

Chris 

one of those is to schedule things in my practice around my workout routine. I don't start till later so that I can get workouts in or do my yoga. I prioritize that and I try to prioritize setting an end time which can be a struggle when you have several things going on, but, okay, this is six o'clock because my time that's when I'm going to end doing a transition from that which may before me just listening to a fun podcast or do listening to music Sometimes I do like trash TV, something that's not counseling related, something just to escape from, and I try to schedule on the weekend, just time that's fun with friends. And totally no work because it's easy as a business owner to get caught up in. Well, let me have some I have some time today. Let me go ahead and respond to somebody's email. No. So I make Saturday is my one day they don't respond to any email, they don't do anything and just totally try to have fun and connect with people. It's gonna

Ryan 

be tough because you're not professional, or I'm assuming some of your call them do you call them patients or clients, I call them clients clients. So I'm assuming some of them are requesting night hours because if they're working during the day, they can take 30 or 60-minute calls during the day. They may have time hours, let's be hard to set those times. And end times.

Chris  

It is it but yeah, so I've kind of cut back on the actual evening hours that a lot of my clients either are students, I work a lot with young adults, or they're they have work from home, so they have more flexible hours. So it's worked out for me a lot. Because if people only request they can do weekend sessions or late evening, then I just refer them on to do gratitude practice. Oh, yeah, for sure. That's something that I'm learning to do twice a day. Now, I learned this from my yoga teacher that to start your day with gratitude. And I do that before I get out of bed just once I wake up just being thankful I'm here thankful for whatever opportunities are coming my way. And then before bed, I started this journal that's called The Five Minute Journal. I don't know if you've heard of these, but just has the Yeah, I love it because it has the prompts about gratitude and what I can't remember all the questions, but there are several questions, and it only takes five minutes. And it's been very helpful to kind of zone in on it. Because sometimes I might sit there and think on my own like, I don't know, what do I want to write. So it just kind of helps me to kind of tune in a little more about the day.

Ryan  

Yeah, I'm very similar to you in that regard. I do it for singing when I wake up. And then yeah, I've got a journal that I write like a recap. And at the end of the day, like what went well, and all that stuff. And yeah, I find it very helpful. Let's go back to business before I asked you about the meaning of life, Inspiration will help me with this compensation. So before we go to that question, let's talk about your business. You said you started in 2015, you were WCW. To before? So you said there are a lot of challenges, how did you get through those challenges? Does anything stand out?

Chris  

As a rough man, certainly difficult in building your confidence, too, I think because I'm a totally different person from when I used to work in the school system as a school counselor. So, you know, that was, I go to work, and I do what I'm told. And I see my students, and it's totally different. But now it's like, everything's on me. But man, that's a big shift. But I think it was getting mentored by other people researching and as time has gone on, there's more resources available for counselors and therapists, through podcasts or things. I mean, I had a book that I would use, it sounds old-fashioned now to have a book that's in your hands that I use to help me get started. Because we have to have these other people that have done this and been there to get information from them and hired a coach at one point. So getting all those resources together with your support team, I think was what made the huge difference, because you can't do it by yourself.

Ryan  

No, no, you're making me think of a friend John Clark, who is in who was in one of my masters Yeah, well, you know, John Clark, yeah. Okay. He's a good friend of mine. And he's got, he's a therapist himself. I don't know. He's a ballistic therapist. But he's a therapist. And he's got a mastermind for therapy for therapists. So I figured you might know.

Chris 

Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Ryan  

My whole world that

Chris  

it is, we're all connected, everything is connected. That's part of yoga theory.

Ryan 

Yeah, I believe that I do. Well, then I can have that, on that tone. Or around that, you know, that topic was talking about the meaning of life. Let's, this is my last question for you, then we'll wrap up with you telling everyone how you can, and how they can learn more about you if they want to reach out. And so what is your experience through your lens? What is the meaning of life,

Chris 

think it's multiplayer, and I don't think there's one meaning and I think it might be different for everybody. But I think I'm universal that it's to love and to be loved. I think love is a universal thing that we all can connect with. But I think that we're all brought to this earth to learn certain lessons, and I believe in a past life. And if we don't get it this time around, guess what, you get to do it again, in  the next round. So I think trying to whatever those lessons are and I think individually is going to be different for everybody that meaning finding that meeting through the lessons we need to learn spiritually, whatever comes up for us, that we keep struggling with right from life to life and coming to that place of building our sole purpose and then I feel like my meaning now is just Being able to help other people who are struggling and to be able to find the joy and peace and that's how I find meaning in my life.

Ryan  

I love that answer. I think a lot of it also comes down to like, trying different things and experiencing different things and going down different paths. That's how, you know, that's how you're going to find those things at your meeting. You know, I just trying new things. Yeah,

Chris  

exactly. opening up opportunities and connecting with people. Yeah,

Ryan   

like when I started morning upgrade I never do. I'd have a podcast talking to people like you. And so you just never know where the journey is gonna take you.

Chris 

Yeah, no, that's so cool.

Ryan 

Well, this was great, Chris, thanks for everything you shared. If someone's like, I want to learn more about Chris, where should we send them?

Chris  

I welcome you to come to my podcast, holistic counseling podcast.com, as an episode that your listeners may be interested in. And I just had my 100th episode last week, it was about finding balance in your life. So if that's of interest, I highly recommend listening to that one.

Ryan   

Okay, perfect. We'll link to that in the show notes. Thank you, Chris. Great job.

Chris 

Thank you.

Announcer   

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