How to Break Free from Fear: Embracing Change with Becky Vollmer
Have you ever found yourself staring out the window, dreaming about the life you desire? The one that feels distant? You know you're capable of greatness, but something’s holding you back.
How about having a real-life soul whisperer, a dream doula, and change maker by your side, guiding you and cheering you on through life's twists and turns?
“I think the biggest aspect of hope comes in when we don't believe that we are stuck and suddenly when we can say, I feel stuck. That's different than saying I am stuck. (Becky, (27:24).
Are you feeling stuck? So was Becky Vollmer, and once she finally took that leap of faith, jumped, then figured out what she really wanted to do with her life, and listened to her inner voice, she’s made it her mission to help you do the same. She’s helped 1000’s get “unstuck” and helps you, too, on this episode!
Journey Through Fear: Hear the common fears that paralyze us —fear of failure, judgment, and uncomfortable change. Learn insights into overcoming your fears.
Tools for Transformation: Becky shares the incredible role that yoga and meditation played in her personal growth and recovery. Whether navigating professional burnout or personal challenges like sobriety and divorce, Becky gives you practical steps and thought processes to reclaim your inner strength.
Embracing Self-Care: Tune in to understand why making time for self-care isn't just beneficial but essential for your productivity and mental health.
Beyond Limiting Beliefs: Find inspiration in Becky's own path to breaking free from self-limiting beliefs and discover how to start listening to your own inner voice.
“About 2 thirds of people said they felt like they needed to change. 40% of people said they were ready to change. I asked people how many of you feel empowered to change, and that number plummeted down to 14%” Becky, (11:30).
How does Becky help people get unstuck? She empowers them to realize that they don't need external validation to make a change. Many of us feel disempowered, lacking the agency to make our own choices. Learn how to reclaim your power and create a life that resonates with your true desires.
"I help them see that they don't need anybody else's permission to make a change " – Becky (11:12).
As a yoga teacher, Becky experienced firsthand the transformative power of this ancient practice. Yoga was her sanctuary during a tumultuous time, offering not just physical and mental benefits but also a spiritual awakening. It taught her to control her body, breath, and mind, leading to a deeper self-understanding and a realization of her potential.
"There was something about [yoga] that I couldn't quite name, but it was quiet, and I liked that enough that I was willing to sit through the discomfort of not knowing what the hell I was doing to try to do that again." – Becky, (14:46)
Tune in and discover why Becky's personal and professional experiences are a beacon of hope for many. Her insights on making guided choices from the soul rather than the ego, and the role of yoga and self-reflection in her transformation, are invaluable lessons for us all.
Remember, you are not stuck. You have the power to transform fear into freedom and to make choices that align with your soul's purpose.
“Maybe we have been doing what we're supposed to be doing for that period of time and maybe it's just time to do something different.” – Becky, (2:48).
In this episode:
[00:57] Introduction to Becky Vollmer
[01:21] Becky's journey and her book "You Are Not Stuck"
[02:34] Recognizing the need for change
[03:38] Becky's transition from corporate role to intuitive coaching
[07:21] Common fears and self-limiting beliefs
[08:32] Behavioral responses to feeling stuck
[10:04] Empowering people to make choices
[13:38] Incorporating yoga into personal and professional transformation
[19:51] Challenging self-limiting beliefs
[21:30] Facing personal challenges
[24:08] Grateful for Mental Health Support
[24:59] Empowering Choices through Yoga
[27:07] Offering Hope and Empowerment
[28:48] Finding Wisdom and Patience
Resources and Links
52 Weeks of Hope
About Becky Vollmer
Becky Vollmer is the founder of You Are Not Stuck, a movement empowering people to pursue the lives they dream of instead of the lives they feel stuck in. With a mission to inspire brave, soul-guided choices in jobs, relationships, and personal habits, Becky brings this vision to life through writing, teaching, speaking, and consulting. She is the author of "You Are Not Stuck: How Soul-Guided Choices Transform Fear into Freedom" and leads transformative programs at top wellness centers. Through online courses, workplace wellness programs, and one-on-one mentoring, Becky guides individuals worldwide toward holistic growth and transformation.
Becky Vollmer Social Media
If you're feeling stuck or in need of a hopeful perspective shift, this is an episode you won't want to miss!
Key Takeaways
“I've learned that there are some pretty tried and true proven steps to take that inevitably get me to the place where I wanna be” – Becky, (09:44).
“Other people's expectations aren't something that needs to guide my life.” – Becky, (12:23).
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Becky Vollmer [00:00:00] And I think where the biggest aspect of hope comes in, is it comes in when we don't believe that we are stuck. Like when we can say, I feel stuck. That's different than saying I am stuck.
Lauren Abrams [00:00:17] Are you a burnt out overachiever buried in responsibilities? Do you miss laughing with your friends just laughing from the gut? Do you feel like life's passing you by? If you've been wishing for some kind of shift, you're in the right place. Welcome to 52 Weeks of Hope the show where we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching your to do list for the to don't list. This is where you get to learn how to make that lonely ache vanish. Learn self-compassion techniques and to give yourself grace. I'm Lauren Abrams and I get to help you feel that magic again. Since going through my own dark night of the soul, so you can learn from my experience and the mentors and experts I meet along the way. And today we're talking to intuitive coach, speaker, author, and your heart center to empower Becky Vollmer. Do you sometimes feel jealous of what others are doing? Do you wish you had a soul whisperer, a dream doula, a change maker by your side, guiding you with exactly what you need? You do. And she's here right now. And she sees the divine badass in you, charms it out and cheers you on. The author of You Are Not Stuck. Welcome to 52 weeks of Hope, Becky.
Becky Vollmer [00:01:21] Oh, it's so great to be here. And what a lovely introduction. You have so much energy in the way you describe what I do, which when I describe it, it doesn't sound nearly that exciting.
Lauren Abrams [00:01:32] Oh, yeah I like it. I help people, which I so wish for a dream doula. I change catalyst. You bring out what I mean. My thing is always say, well, what brings you joy what fills you up? Yours is way better. And I love this book. I'm holding up the book. If you're not watching on video and you're just listening, you are not stuck. Also, guided choices transform fear into freedom, which I love. Yeah, walk through that fear. Get free. I don't usually say so. What your story, but you have such an interesting story that I kind of want to hear it. And it's such a boring first question, I know, but I want to hear because you are this yoga maven and you are, reporter. And like so many people who are feeling like they're not doing what they're called in here to do, or maybe they were for a while, but they want to make the shift and they're like, I don't know how or I'm not sure and I'm scared or whatever it is. You took that leap of faith and you're doing what you love doing now.
Becky Vollmer [00:02:34] What you're getting at is, how do we know when it's time to move on from something? And, you know, sure, so many of us ask that question like, oh, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing for that period of time, and maybe it's just time to do something different, right? Just to have the grace of like, okay, been there for a while, done that for a while, and now what am I ready for next? What is calling to me not just from a a head space perspective? Like what do I think would be a wise next step? But what is calling to my soul? Like, what would I be really pissed if I ignored? And then to move forward from that perspective? So yeah, my story in as much of a nutshell as I can cram it into. I'm somebody who thought she would spend an entire professional lifetime as a crusty old newspaper reporter and editor, went to journalism school, spent several years working in small, medium sized newspapers. I got an offer to work in move for a political campaign. I hadn't felt that calling, but when they said, we'll double your salary, I was there. And so you think, okay. Yeah. So to kind of put my media background to work from another perspective was fun. I did that for a couple of campaign cycles and then found my way into public relations and public affairs. So all of those were very closely related, kind of one step. And then the next step made, a whole lot of sense in the long run. After that was just another natural extension of that altogether. It was about two decades in communications, and that's where I reached a point of just after my two young kids had come around, I got fried, I got super fried. And like so many working parents, you know, trying to juggle the pressure of a job that doesn't ever stop with the pressure of, you know, little ones and their needs don't ever stop either. And then somewhere, you know, in our spare time, we're supposed to also be taking care of ourselves and our friends and our families, our loved ones, our communities, our passions. And I just found if I had tried to continue to make. That work. I was going to lose more of my mind that I already had. So I had reached the point where it was just time, where something had to give. And I knew that that something was the corporate role. And so after a whole lot of, I mean, years of self-reflection and self-flagellation and just a whole lot of hand-wringing. I finally left, and I would love to say that I did it from a place of empowerment. I absolutely did not. I did it from a place of complete, full on fear, but feeling like I didn't have much choice because as much as I had tried to exercise my own choices in that corporate environment and never seemed to be able to make my voice my needs heard in the way that they needed to be. And so it was from that place of being kind of backed up against a wall that, I mean, I say I left, but I really feel like I just kind of fell out of a window, you know, and I was lucky enough to have the support of my then husband. We've long since divorced, but my then husband, who, you know, against his better judgment, was able to, you know, support us financially until whatever my next step was going to be came to pass. So that's a place of privilege. Most people actually do not have. But I count myself among the lucky. But what was really interesting and how from that place, I transitioned to. The work I do now, and I'm putting work in air quotes because it doesn't feel like work at all. But so many people came to me as, oh, you're so brave, I wish I could do what you did. I wish I could just, you know, go without a plan B, and it's like, sister, you've got it wrong. Brave, was not it? But it got me curious about asking the question of other people and really trying to understand the issue. Why do we stay stuck in circumstances and situations that we fucking hate? Pardon my French, when ostensibly we could just make another choice. I got to put my strategic communications hat back on, put some research in the field, try to synthesize all the responses. And, you know, from that research that I did, I was really able to see a pretty clear picture, you know, not just the anecdotal evidence, but there was, you know, there was enough statistical, reinforcement there to see that picture of the fears that hold us back because they're really pretty universal. Once I could see those common fears and the culture, well, for a lot of people, it gets down to not having the financial resources to be able to make a change.
Lauren Abrams [00:07:54] Yeah. People that can afford it. What are their fears?
Becky Vollmer [00:07:57] Fear of change and fear of failure. And you know, we think like. Oh, well, thanks, Captain Obvious. I never could have figured that out on my own. When you kind of peel away at those answers. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of not succeeding. By whatever definition they use. Fear of being ridiculed. Fear of being judged. There are so many deep layers to this, but it all comes back to how we perceive ourselves. But then beyond that, there's also the behavior piece. So in addition to asking people, you know, hey, what's holding you back? What are you afraid of? I really wanted to understand, how do you feel when you say you feel stuck and what do you do about it? There are so many common threads through those answers. The responses that jumped out were people feeling like, I'm going to withdraw, I'm going to isolate, I'm going to procrastinate. I'm just going to sit and cry. But essentially it was I'm not going to do anything.
Lauren Abrams [00:09:01] I got to stay stuck.
Becky Vollmer [00:09:02] That's right. I'm going to stay stuck. But if I am going to do something, it is definitely more likely to be something. We'll call it unhealthy and unproductive. Yes, than healthy and productive. So, you know, people are much more likely to, you know, turn to drugs and alcohol and, you know, all the other isms that we have that, you know, scrolling and sex and gambling and you name it, all the things that we do just to try to change the way we feel and the way we think that we can't ever escape feeling. What I've learned from kind of going through this process of feeling stuck and then working my way through to not necessarily the other side, but am other side. I've learned that there are some pretty tried and true proven steps to take that. Inevitably get me to the place where I want to be my work again, putting that in air quotes. My work has been trying to empower people to feel like they can go through that process too, since.
Lauren Abrams [00:10:04] Everybody can't go through the process. But you can get the book. The fact that you were a communications major and you were a writer for so long explains why the book is so easy to read and fun. Your personality definitely, definitely comes through in reading the books. So yeah, I knew it would be fun to be talking to you today. You help people ask the questions of themselves that need to be asked, and then you don't answer them for them. Oh God, think the answers are for everybody. Have some within themselves. They know. I remember seeing some post some time, like, you know, you don't need to go to all these different coaches and this and that and everything else, like do the work on yourself first and then at least you'll know where to go. Don't buy all these programs and have 20 have finished programs and everything. That's right. Like if you get this book, see why you're stuck, see what you're stuck with or what you want to do. Then you could get the correct coach or whatever if you need one, or just follow the footsteps of somebody because you don't have to invent the wheel. So how do you help somebody get unstuck?
Becky Vollmer [00:11:08] The fundamental answer to that is that I help them see that they don't need anybody else's permission to make a change, and that's what's most fundamental. You know, in that research that I did, asking people questions about how they viewed making a change in their life. This is the most heartbreaking piece of it. About two thirds of people said they felt like they needed to change. 40% of people said they were ready to change. I asked people, how many of you feel empowered to change? And that number plummeted down to I think it was 14%. A minuscule number of people feeling like they've got the agency to make their own choices, to have the lives they want to have. And, you know, I don't know about you, Lauren, but I have certainly spent a lot of time in my life making decisions based on what I thought other people wanted me to do. Parents, employers, romantic partners, you name it. Other people's expectations really drove a lot of my actions. But once I realized that other people's expectations aren't something that need to guide my life, that opened a whole new horizon for me in so many of the big changes that I've made. And as I talk with people in the workshops and the retreats that I lead, that's where they begin to see the most opportunity for freedom is when they reclaim the power of, well, how do I feel and what do I want to do? I think that's the first set of questions where I help people begin their thought processes. How do you feel? What do you need? What's the culture of your life that you want to create? And then give people something to work toward, as opposed to something to run away from? You know, so often we feel like, oh, God, you know, it's like I'm so stuck and I hate this, and I hate that my job sucks and I'm ready to leave my marriage. It's like I've got to blow everything up. I've got a Thelma and Louise my way to freedom. When the truth is, if we just shift the ownership of our own lives back where it belongs to us, that path to freedom gets a whole lot easier to walk.
Lauren Abrams [00:13:38] Now you're also a yoga teacher. How does that come into play? Were you doing yoga back when you were still working with the press or. Yeah. She's nodding your head. Yes.
Becky Vollmer [00:13:50] Yeah I started doing yoga about at this point. It's been almost 25 years ago. I was going through my first divorce. I've had two. But the first one, I it's like I don't count. I don't claim that one is 25 years old. I got married when I, you know, I knew better and I got married.
Lauren Abrams [00:14:09] That's right. Okay.
Becky Vollmer [00:14:10] Yeah. That's right. The starter marriage. I was, you know, just trying to sort of restart my life at, you know, the ripe old age of 25 and realizing I needed something to keep me company as I was just regenerating in this little teeny tiny apartment by myself, I just threw in a VHS tape and, I was like, damn it, I can't touch my toes, damn it! I can't sit here that long and try to empty my mind. But there was something about that. And I was like, you know what? I'm breathing a little more deeply. I'm feeling a sense of something that I couldn't quite name, but it was quiet. I was like, I like that enough that I'm willing to sit through the discomfort of not knowing what the hell I'm doing to try to do that again. I practiced for years on my own, and then after a while I went to a yoga studio. Actually, I take that back. So I went to like a Bally's and took a yoga class there in the big gym. And I was like, well, this isn't so bad. And then I went to an actual yoga studio. Why? Well, this is getting better and better. And then one of the teachers whose class I attended on a regular basis, I was like, wow, if she can do that, maybe I can do that too. And it wasn't too long after that that I did my first yoga teacher training, and that was almost 20 years ago, was while I was still in the thick of the corporate world. I just did it, you know, on the side. I trained on the weekends and practiced on the weekends, and it's been one of those lessons in you never know what little seed that you might plant today will, over time, become your whole garden. You know, I never could have envisioned back when I did that first yoga teacher training that, you know, some day it would be my full time job to lead yoga based retreats all across the country. Never could have envisioned that. But what was cool about adding a yoga practice to my life was not just that, you know? Of course it feels good in your body and you learn how to breathe, and that also feels good to your nervous system when you learn how to quiet the mind, that really is the ultimate goal of yoga. Well, my teacher put it to me an unforgettable terms, which is, you know, you learn how to control the body and you can control your breath, control the breath, and you control your mind. And it's like, oh, that's what I want to do. And so adding that practice into my life gave me, of course, all of the individual benefits that one might experience from practicing yoga. But more than anything, it absolutely blew open my spiritual perspective of life. And it gave me, as a human being walking this earth. It gave me a whole different perspective about who I truly am and what I'm truly capable of, and what the real rules are that I'm supposed to follow. And I think it was through that deepening practice of yoga and studying yoga philosophy was how I came to a place of recognizing that, man, we are not here to be walking, talking revenue generators, right? Like we are here to actually live and experience and connect and feel love and be loved. And I know at the time people kind of looked at me like I had two heads. Here was one part of me in power heels in a great suit, you know, managing multimillion dollar portfolio of business and counseling C-suite executives. And then over here, there was like this barefoot, curly haired, patchouli wearing, chanting spirit they felt in the beginning like they were such polar opposites of being. But what's been the coolest part of my evolution these last couple of decades is recognizing that it's not A or B one or the other. You know, it can really just kind of bring it all together for our higher good.
Lauren Abrams [00:18:23] Oh, absolutely. I work from home now, but we used to meditate it. My law practice wasn't required, but it's like, no, everyone has time and you'll see the rest of your day will be so much more productive. We just come and sit and breathe. That's right. In the afternoons. And everyone felt great afterwards, like, no, I don't have time today and it's my practice. It's not like the boss is going to get married like it's I suggested. So it's an amazing thing that like, well, come on, let's do 20 minutes to it, like, you know.
Becky Vollmer [00:18:57] And so fast forward, you know, 20 years, I never could have envisioned that it would be, you know, like a legitimate professional endeavor to try to open people's eyes to their own inner stardust and help them feel empowered to make choices from the place of their soul, rather than choices from the place of their ego brain. Right. Who would have thought that was a job opportunity?
Lauren Abrams [00:19:25] Yeah, right. And here you are with this huge community. I don't know if it's open to everyone. If anybody's listening, Becky has this open circle get unstuck. I guess it is. Everyone say just go to our website. We have links for everything of yours, and you have so much to offer, which it's really beautiful that you can learn all about. These are you have a huge community. How did you break free from your own self limiting beliefs?
Becky Vollmer [00:19:51] Oh. I mean, talk about a lifetime pursuit. And isn't that something that we all are doing on repeat a little bit every day? You know, trying to remember that we're not the thoughts that we have. We all have that inner voice. And I love the different names that that it can go by. You know, Michael Singer, who wrote The Untethered Soul, he calls his the roommates that never shut up. I call mine the pipsqueak twerp just because I really wanted to take away its power. But we all have some version of just that nasty, lying, bullshit voice in our head. I want to give the poor guy some props because it's just afraid and it's just trying to keep it safe. But man, the nasty, nasty things that that voice says all the time. It can feel like a full time job to talk back to it and refute it so that we can remember who we really are. But for me, that was an important first step in learning how to grab those limiting beliefs by the shoulders and and shake them loose and say, you know, you're not real. And so when I come back and remember, oh, I'm not just a human being, walk in this earth like I'm a meat coated skeleton made of stardust. Oh, okay. Well, then all of a sudden, my opportunities open up in a different way. So for me, it's about remembering who I am.
Lauren Abrams [00:21:18] Yeah, I love that. I was always taught it's the committee their their work. Thanks for sharing. You sit down now. Okay. So what's the hardest thing that you've gone through and how did you get through it?
Becky Vollmer [00:21:30] Oh my gosh. I don't know about you Lauren, but I feel like the older I get, the more I realize that it's kind of a never ending stream of challenges to get through. Yes, we all have sort of the big defining milestones. You know, there was something huge that sent me into a spiral of grief. There was this, you know, big, unexpected change that knocked me off course. And I've had those. And there are the small, everyday occurrences that make us challenge our habitual ways of thinking and responding. If the cumulative effect of that isn't as great as a big tragedy and a big trauma, right? So the hardest thing that I've ever gone through, I'll point to two kind of big things, but but then to put it into perspective, I think the hardest thing I've experienced so far was having a marriage that I thought was completely rock solid, just kind of crumble underneath my feet in a way that I didn't see coming. It was certainly painful for me as an individual, but I think even more painful because I had two young daughters at the time and I had grown up a child of divorce, and that was something that I just never wanted for them. But right as we all that's that's what's interesting, though, is that I was the first generation child of divorce, and so I didn't want my children to repeat that. But, you know, when our children, they're going to be the second generation, the third generation of divorce, what we're seeing is that typical nuclear family where the parents stay married for 50 years. That is much more the exception than the rule now. And so the thing that so many of us had feared and dreaded for our children, yeah, by the time they are having children and inevitably divorcing, it's going to be an easier road for them to walk, in part because it's becoming more normalized, less stigmatized, and in part because I think people are recognizing the beauty of their own agency, where they don't have to stay stuck in a situation where they didn't want to be for 50 years. They can choose something different. It doesn't have to have all of the horrible side effects that we anticipated it was going to have.
Lauren Abrams [00:24:00] And how did you get through it?
Becky Vollmer [00:24:03] Yeah. Lexapro. I am so grateful for the mental health support that has become so prevalent in our society. And I know, again, you know, I'm saying that from a place of privilege where I have access to providers and I have access to quality care, I really don't know how I would have made it through that time in particular, and some other times, you know, past that without the right kind of support at the right time. And so whether that's pharmacological support or individual therapy, I don't think I would have made it through without that. So my hat's off to, mental health providers and mental health support systems. The other thing that I think has was very challenging for me to, you know, hard thing to make it through, especially in the beginning, was the decision to become sober. I grew up in an alcoholic, family. I started drinking at a very young age. I knew for many, many, many years that I did not have a handle on my drinking. My drinking had a handle on me, for sure. I see a lot of parallels with the decision to leave my old job. It took so much hand-wringing and mind fucking and really just self-flagellation before I could get the guts together to quit. And once again, it didn't feel brave at the time. It felt terrifying. It felt like I was at such a low point. Right? I look back on that time now from, you know, a vantage point that's ten years later in time. And I see God, what a brave decision that was. I can't think of anything braver that we do, honestly and maybe to anticipate your question, how did I get through that? That comes back to part of my yoga practice and remembering who I am, that I'm not just this broken down, suffering young woman who, you know, can't control herself, and she's just a piece of crap. Instead, remembering I'm made of stardust. It's my nod to love it, my soul. Or, you know, knowing that I'm oh boy, this one. I always feel like somebody is going to roll their eyes when they hear this. But, you know, recognition that I am God in the same way you are God like we are all just this magnificent, connected force of energy. But when I was able to remember that and then prioritize and really honor the the holiness within me, that's what carried me through those first weeks, months, years of quitting drinking and then, you know, later into this life that's this beautiful life of sobriety.
Lauren Abrams [00:26:57] Oh, I love that. I was going to ask you, and do you have a message of hope you want to give. I feel like you just gave one, but do you have a message of hope you want to give?
Becky Vollmer [00:27:05] And that's what this business of, you know, trying to empower people is all about, which is all about offering hope. Hope for themselves, hope for their future, hope for their choices, hope for. Every change they want to explore. And I think where the biggest aspect of hope comes in is it comes in when we don't believe that we are stuck, when we can say, I feel stuck. That's different than saying I am stuck. And so when we can recognize that stuck is a feeling and feelings are not facts and feelings are not final. And when we come at our feelings from a different, more grounded place, we can use that not as something that that kind of shuts the door on us, but that is almost like a springboard to finding and creating and cultivating that life that we really want to live. So if I have a message of hope, it comes down to choice and what I tell people all the time, especially when they're feeling so stuck and so afraid, is I remind them the opposite of fear. Isn't just courage the opposite of fears choice. We just have to be brave enough to make those choices.
Lauren Abrams [00:28:29] Yeah, it's such an open word. Like my arms open, like the open. Yet to walk. When you have a choice yet you go. You're not stuck, you're unstuck. See, you are not stuck, right? Is there anything that I didn't ask you? We're going to be done and you're going to be like Lauren didn't ask me this.
Becky Vollmer [00:28:48] Oh, my God, I could talk about this all day long. You know what? There is one thing people ask me a lot. But what if I don't know what I'm supposed to do? What if all I can see is what I don't want and I have no idea about what it is I should be doing instead? What if I don't know what I want to change? And my best advice is just keep asking the right questions and be patient enough to allow the wisdom to kind of bubble up within you when it's supposed to.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:18] Yeah. I love that. Do you have journaling prompts in here? I didn't see that.
Becky Vollmer [00:29:21] Oh yes. Dozens.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:22] Oh yeah. There they are. There's a ton of them.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:25] Oh my gosh, there's so many exercises. This is put together so simply for you guys. Anyway, I will have a link to this. Thank you so much for being a guest today on 52 Weeks of Hope.
Becky Vollmer [00:29:35] Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.
