When discipline becomes destruction. Balancing mindset with emotional healing, with Kirsty Holmes

Hi!

I’m excited to share an enlightening episode featuring our special guest, Kirsty Holmes—a remarkable health and fitness coach and graduate of the Mind School Method.

In this episode, we cover  Kirsty's remarkable journey in the coaching industry. Here’s what you can expect:

✨ Running a successful coaching business: How Kirsty broke into the coaching world and what has kept her thriving for over a decade in an industry known for its high churn rate. 

⚖️ Discipline v Flexibility: Kirsty dives into the balance between discipline and flexibility—how a strong mindset can sometimes become a double-edged sword. 

💥 How emotional embodiment can lead to physical changes and release tension.

🧠 The link between mindset, shame, and weight loss 

🎯 Identifying the emotional triggers behind coping mechanisms like overeating or skipping workouts.

🔑 How to be a safe space for clients dealing with body shame and emotional challenges.

🌈 Transformation Through TMSM: Hear how Kirsty’s business and personal life have been profoundly transformed since embracing The Mind School Method. 

MILESTONE INCOMING

As we approach 200,000 downloads of The Mind School Podcast, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your support—every download, listen, and share makes a difference! If you enjoyed this episode, please tag @kirstyholmes_pt and tag me @iambreannamay!

BIG NEWS:

The Mind School Method for 2024 has SOLD OUT. 

If you'd like to get on the Waitlist for 2025, you can put your name on the list HERE. 

Love & Laughter,

Breana & The Team 

Transcript

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Music. Welcome to the mind school, the classroom for your mind and soul, where we design our lives from the inside out. Here you will find a human first approach to life, business and relationships, to create freedom, growth and constant evolution through mindset, emotional intelligence, leadership and connection to self. I'm your host, Breanna may educator, CEO mindset and business mentor, and my mission is to teach the things we were never taught at school so that no dream is left on the pillow and no purpose left unfulfilled. Here, you can expect a lot of laughs and thought provoking conversations as we squeeze every drop of juice from this beautiful, precious, crazy thing called life. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the mind school podcast. I am so excited to introduce to you this guest, and I'm also so excited to celebrate that this podcast, my little baby, has almost hit 200,000 downloads, which I know that that sounds like. I guess it depends on perspective, right? And perception. To me, it sounds like a small number, because, you know, I listen to podcasts that have 10 million, 20 million downloads, but I feel like that is just such a win and something that I celebrating. And I wanted to say the biggest thank you to anyone new, anyone who's been here for the last few years, as this grows and evolves and being here for the journey, I just wanted to say the biggest Thank you. It means so much. And thank you for sharing. It means the world. And if you feel like you want to share again today, it helps so much to grow the message of this little love child of mine. So thank you. And speaking of my love children, my love children, my other love child is the mind school method, which is my certification for coaches and also for humans. Anyone who identifies as a human is what I've put it down to tell you what. It's the most difficult thing for marketing and messaging, because while it is a coaching certification, we've had so many people come who are not coaches, some who may want to be in the future, but many who are just mothers or want to do better in their corporate roles, or want to do better leading their team in their business, or have more profound relationships, we've had all sorts of people, lawyers, teachers, all sorts come to the mind school method, and it really is like the method of humaning. If that's a word, it's about emotional intelligence and meeting our shadows and accepting all parts of ourselves and learning how to communicate and influence others and influence ourselves so that we can break old patterns and behaviors and cycles, and then when we can do it to ourselves, we can do it to others. It's something that is really close, really, really close to my heart. It's been absolutely insane to watch these women transform and to see the impact it's having on their not only their businesses and their coaching experiences with clients, but also their income and their relationships and their their kids lives. And I just, I could talk about it for days, but I'm not going to, because I'm just going to let you know that the mind school method has sold out for 2024 which means that we have locked in dates for 2025 and we will be releasing enrollment, opening enrollment very, very soon. So please keep your eye on your inbox. If you have me in your inbox, if you don't just go to the link in my show notes, or you can DM me on Instagram to say that you would like more information about 2025 keep your eyes on Instagram. Keep your eyes on your inbox and on this podcast, there will always be links in the show notes. But today, I would actually like to introduce you to a mind school method graduate who is not only a graduate of the mind school, but an incredible health and fitness coach, Kirsty Holmes came to the mind school as a PT who is already just a gun the goat she is on top of all things nutrition, fitness habits and helping women to feel confident in their bodies. But Kirsty wanted to take her clients just a little bit deeper. She wanted to understand about how the emotions impact our behaviors, and she wanted to have the tools in a toolkit to be able to help transform her clients even more. And we had a conversation about what her takeaways were and how it was as a PT who is so strong in mindset and so strong with habits and so strong with routine and discipline to lean into that more, quote, vulnerable space of expressing emotions and letting emotions be felt and knowing when is the time for discipline and when is the time for just being and to actually not be so disciplined. And there's a really cool conversation around duality, and this conversation is relevant to anyone who is maybe interested in coaching. Interested in health, fitness, or any of those things I've just mentioned, or just want to understand a little bit about what goes on at the mind school and what kinds of takeaways and summaries people have and how it transforms their lives during and after. This is going to be a great conversation to listen to. And if you are looking for Kirsty Holmes on Instagram, we have all of her links in the show notes. Like I've said, I will stand behind and support this coach 1,000% I back her so strongly before she even did the mind school, I knew she was an extremely, exceptionally talented coach. And so if you're looking for someone in that space with fitness training, loving your body, all of that stuff, look Kirsty up in the show notes for now. Enjoy this conversation. Okay, I am joined by one of my I'm not going to say one of my favorite, but one of my favorite humans. It's so funny when, when you're a teacher, everyone's like, you don't have you can't have favorites. You don't have favorites in the classroom. And I'm like, you always have favorites with your clients, Secretly, secretly, but actually, every single human that was in the mind school method was just like my favorite human ever, and I've been missing you ever since we finished. So let's talk about, first of all, what is your role as a coach and what brought you into this space? So I am a women's health coach, and I've been in the industry for 10 years as a personal trainer, and I do work specifically with women who are wanting to feel more confident in their bodies. So I focus on fitness and nutrition and training, because that's a big aspect of my you know, education. I went to uni for sports science, Exercise and Health, and then did my personal training cert. So I wanted to pull all that in, and I've done that to death over the last 10 years, and I absolutely love helping women with that. But I've been so, so interested in the mindset aspect of coaching and training and nutrition for many years, actually. So I've done a lot of work on myself with it, read books, you know, everything like that. And I've started working with you about, oh, how long ago, probably nine months or quite a while now, just working on my own mindset and business and how that all ties together, and everything new coach is exactly what I was looking for to help my clients to the next level. Because I talk a lot about goal setting and habits, and setting in place habit loops, making sure that you're working your environment so that your mindset is going to be nice and clear. But there's always something underlying all of that. There's some emotional piece there is the deeper self belief and limiting beliefs, and that's always fascinated me, and I've always noticed it come up with my clients. So when you started talking about the mind school. I just signed up straight away, because I really trust you and love everything you teach. I didn't actually realize it was in person event. I didn't realize what it was. I just read the mind school. I was like, Yes, that's what I need, that I'm in for it. So I signed up. But I'm so stoked I did, because it helped me so much and everything you were coaching over those six days was pulling out all those things I was looking for to help my clients and myself on a deeper level. So I'm really excited for how I start weaving this into my own coaching, because, like I said, the training, nutrition, I've got that pretty solid. It's so easy to coach someone how to get more confident in the gym. It's easy for me to help them with their nutrition plans and how to make sure they're eating balanced meals, but it's what keeps them continuously making progress over time and feeling more confident in themselves as a human, not just as someone who exercises that eats. Well, it's all about the mindset. So yeah, I'm really, really excited about everything you taught, and also we continue on with our group. Coaching at the moment is so, so fun. Keep checking in with the girls, so I'm absolutely loving it, and it's so interesting. What you just said, like you got the training and you've got the nutrition down, that's probably something that you have embodied for quite a long time. So it feels pretty seamless. I can imagine that you work with a lot of clients where the actual problem is, like you said, it's always a mindset thing when it comes to weight loss, when it comes to consistency, when it comes to a lot of the goals that your clients have, it's usually more of a mindset or a deep, deep, deep emotional issue going on, which is why we have emotional eating and binging and restricting and those cycles. So what are the main problems? Or like, how does mindset work help you and your business and your clients? What do you see as the main problems that mindset is the answer for? Well, a lot of women get into their exercise and nutrition, myself included, when I started out of a dislike for what they see in the mirror or dislike for themselves. And that's not everyone, but that is a very high percentage of women that come to me. They're like, I'm just not feeling comfortable in my body, like my habits have just slid me in. To this position where I don't feel fit, I don't feel healthy, I don't eat well, like they often have very, you know, ad hoc eating habits, like they don't eat all morning, hungry, find something for lunch, and then they just end up rolling into dinner and getting fast food and stuff like this. And that's very classic of just someone who is letting life happen to them and they're not happening to life. And again, that's what happened to me at the start. I remember I actually did start quite early, like I left school, but there was all this routine and structure, and you'd have recess and lunch and, you know, eat, you know, pack your healthy lunchbox, and all this jazz to the free reign of university. What a shit when you can buy like for lunch and a mocker coffee for free sale. No, it wasn't reset. It's like in between thing, in between classes. And it was just there's no structure and no nothing. And because when I hadn't developed that in myself, it was so interesting to notice how that slid downhill pretty quickly. But anyway, that started my journey. I was like, Oh, I feel shit, I feel uncomfortable, I feel little flabby, I feel not fit. I couldn't do anything anymore after almost unconsciously doing that as a teenager, because you play sport and you mum makes lunches healthy, because well done mums. So anyway, I got to that point, and I started my journey. I kicked it off the complete opposite way. I was like, Ah, you need to overhaul your entire life. So I went fully into everything and learn all about training. I learned that I needed to run, and so I started running a lot, and then I ended up doing longer, longer distances. I did end up doing like a 21k and eventually a 42k distance. But the reason that it was motivating me wasn't the fact that I wanted to challenge my body to do those things as like a exciting expression of myself. It was because I thought the more I ran, the more calories it burned, the more I could eat. So when I began, that was my issue. It was trying to burn all these calories and not loving who I was. So as that story kind of ties into underneath all of that, as you can probably see from a distance is a mindset piece. Like, what I really needed to work on was, why do you feel you have to do all this crazy shit to look a certain way, or go on this big journey, like, what actually is underlying that? Because that is what was driving all this insane behavior and also keeping me looking for new solutions in the wrong places. Until uni was like, stop doing that, do it the correct way, and then really tell. You can really tell how lit up you are. And I love when you get, like, animated. I see it in your eyes. You get so she gets so animated. But what I found really interesting, there was something that, and this is something we spoke about before you joined the mind school, you actually said to me, I really want to bring in more mindset tools. I really want to go deeper with clients with mindset. And I kind of joked to you and said, Kirsty, you don't need the mindset work. And this is why I got so excited that you joined the mind school method, and that lots of PTS are now joining the waitlist, because what I find with PTS is that you've got very strong mindsets. You can override your emotions. You've got high levels of emotional intelligence. You can sort of just stick to the program, be consistent, look at your habits like a lot, a lot of the time. And I'm generalizing, obviously, there's all sorts of people in the industry, but oftentimes PTS have very strong mindsets. But the other side of the spectrum, and this is what we talk about inside of the mind school method. We've got the mindset, the NLP, that real, sort of masculine approach, take make a goal, get things done, take action. Align your habits, align your beliefs. All of that, like, get rid of limiting beliefs. Change your state. It's all very like, bam, bam, bam. Coaching and PTs are incredible at this, and that's often why people who want more of that, they get a PT to help them learn that, however, a lot of food related issues comes from a place of extreme self loathing, like you mentioned, comes from a place of not liking ourselves. Comes from shame about our bodies, and that's a real emotional problem that's more of like it can be trauma. It can be unlocking emotions that are stored in the body. And it was very cool to have you inside the space as somebody who's so in tune with your body and so interested in how the emotions impact the body, it was really cool to see and hear your reflections as we started working on both sides of the spectrum. So what was your experience? Because I would say you have a very strong mindset where you were coming into like, learn lots and practice other things. Was more of the emotional embodiment. How did you find that, and what was the impacts on your body? Yeah, so yeah, you reminded me of why it was so exciting to be in your space, and why I like you so much as a coach, is because you practice duality, which is that concept of both sides tying together like you know, nothing is good and bad. They are opposites of each other and equal and. That's the power, or the problem with getting too strong in mindset is you can get yourself into a corner, because you put yourself up with so much strength and yeah, that masculine energy of doing and going and doing and going, that you get into a corner where your body starts not being able to handle it anymore, because we're also repressing a lot of that emotional intelligence. Because if you don't want to go to the gym today, yes, you have to use discipline, and that's useful in most situations. But then in some situations, if you're not allowing yourself space later to work through those emotions or give those emotions space, what do they do? It's squished right down, and then they turn into this big old bottle inside of you that explodes one day or OWL shut down. So when I shut down, that's when everything stops, like I'll go into that emotional freeze mode, which is a fight or flight response, or it's actually beyond the fight or flight response, like you taught us. You got fight flight, then freeze and fawn. Such a good student. Yes, I love them. The freeze and the fawn are probably my most obvious examples that would happen when I've pushed myself so far into the discipline, the mindset, and I have to keep going. Have to keep pushing until I get to this point where the emotions, they've just gotten squished right down, and they are so so repressed that they start coming out in certain ways. Like I notice it's the locking up of my trap muscles up here, or your shoulders start to get tight, or you feel your pain all down your back. And because I am, like you said, very in tune with my body, I train it every day. I feel it. I move it. You notice these patterns showing up. They can't just be stretched out like you do. Use a yoga or movement. They all feel a little bit better. They just lock back up again. That's an emotional and neurological response that's happening in the body. And so when we got into like, we started learning about all the NLP stuff at the first which was fabulous. And I was so excited what tools you were teaching us. But then we locked into the shadow work and the emotional embodiment, and it was just like, oh, this is what I'm missing. We did so much stuff that I would not have done on my own because I thought, this isn't the answer. This is too Woo and flowy and lame, and this isn't the answer, but it really is, because that's the side of myself I'm repressing, which is what Shadow Work is. It's like you can't you, and that's what's changed me in the last couple of months. Well, month and a bit so much is you have to accept both sides, even if it's someone that you're not wanting to love and see, you have to have both, because that doesn't make you weaker, it makes you so much stronger. I used to think that if I accepted the vulnerable or the weak or the tired or the you know, soft parts of myself, that the strength would disappear that I'd worked so hard on building. But it didn't. It exploded, because all of a sudden, that's a complete version of you. It's not a half version of you. And so all the emotional body weight, a lot of it was embodied movement. So moving your body and letting the energy flow around you and not getting so stuck in the head. And I'm someone who's very into my body, and I realize I'm getting stuck in my head so much. So moving the body around was absolutely a relief. It felt so good to actually experience that, and see where the energy was moving around, and then having physiological ways to release it, breathing and and, like I said, movement. And we did it practiced, a few like practices where you actually let out a specific emotion, like we do, one on rage, which is really exciting, because you could let out rage, which doesn't turn up much in my general life, being a human being, you have these emotions, and accepting that they are part of who you are and they're an acceptable part of who you are, is so invigorating. To actually experience giving myself the safe space to let it out. I felt so much more centered and so much more myself. And then, you know, no one the insecurities started disappearing, because once you don't shame or hide something like you don't really care if someone sees it, because you're not shame, you're hiding it anymore. And feeling that was such a, I say, a relief. It was so relieving to feel, Oh my gosh. I'm not repressed in that side of myself. It doesn't make me weak to showcase these emotions to other people in this room or to myself. It makes me feel secure and strong, and that was just exciting, because I'd never experienced that side before, and that's why I think I'd back myself into a corner with mindset, because that's all I knew mindset to be, is discipline and habits and pushing yourself beyond the point that you want to stop and like that's useful to a certain degree, then you need to go around and start working on emotional work. They work together in a regular cycle to help you move forward. And that was really, really unlocking for me. And so now it's so nice to have a little, a lot more respect for myself and emotions that turn up inside me and I'm not judging them anymore, because before I would feel the bad emotions, the more lower vibrational emotions. All right, let's amp ourselves up. Let's go. Override put a cough. Override it. Chuck a Red Bull in. Keep going. Can pretend that it's not there, but now it's nice to just honor that I'm allowed to have some space where I feel a bit flat and just give it the space that it needs. I mean, I can obviously have to show up my clients, so I am there for them in my full self, but when I come home, I'm allowing myself to have that space. And if I do need to let it out, I love doing it in the car, because it's very private there. If I need to, like, let it outrage, I could just go, like, cloth, and I feel good. Yeah, it fully does. And I get so excited, like I said that you and that PTS, because there was another PT as well. Ash was there. It's so what's the word? It is, just so it sounds almost revolutionary for PTS to be doing this kind of work, because, like you said, it's very mindset, discipline, habits, etc, etc. But like most of you, you're dealing with humans who they have shame around their body. They feel all of these horrible feelings around their body, and so food is their coping mechanism. They might soothe themselves with food. They might look in the mirror and really hate what they see and not and not share that with anyone, because they think they're the only one that binges. They're the only one that let food control their day. They're the only one that's going through this, experiencing this on their own. And when you've got a PT like yourself who has gone to the depths of the emotions and can actually understand and meet a client in that and help them to transmute shame and to be a safe space for clients to actually have these conversations, then all of your education around training and programming and nutrition is actually going to land. But we can't add the mindset, the habits, the practices on top of shame and this really low vibrational emotion that cannot be expressed. So like I said, it's just so exciting for me to see PTS learning these skills and integrating it into the lives of women that you help. Because I really do see that most of the women who come to PTS are actually dealing with body shame or some sort of emotional issue, not necessarily, like, yes, of course, some people just want to get fitter and stronger and all of that. I am the same as you. My journey was because I hated my body and I started through loathing, not love. So it's just very, very exciting. And what have been that, obviously, I remember you saying after the emotional embodiment day that your traps were really loose, and you were noticing, yes, my physical changes were really exciting to notice, because you could feel them in your body. My traps were just so much loose I didn't have the tension up my neck and my back could move so much more. And I was like, Oh, wow, all this, I mentioned that at the start, all this tension that's in my body I knew logically up here was neurological, because I literally stretched it and wouldn't move, and it felt so much more released from the emotional embodiment work. This is so powerful, because how many people are sitting there with back pain and shoulder pain that we've done the exercise work, and it's still there. Well, it's got to be neurological. It's got to be in the body, in the, you know, emotional systems and the subconscious systems protecting you from something. And so it's so exciting to have that next key to unlock people, to help them on a deeper level. Because not everything is physically, just an injury or an ailment. Obviously, most, some are but some general postural work is all emotional, and that is so exciting for me. And going back to what you said about having that deeper understanding for people, when they come to me, I don't want them to ever feel like I'm a personal trainer and I'm going to judge you for your habits that you're doing bad. I want to be the safe space to say, I've been through all these emotions too, in my own way, I'm here to listen to yours, and let's remove that shame from the table, because there's a reason why you're going through these coping mechanisms. It's not your fault that you're just constantly going for these coping mechanisms. Let's dig down and see what that deeper layer is that's creating them, because once you can dissolve that shame and work through that. It will level up through the other layers of who you are as a person, to stop the coping mechanisms, and then we can start using the mindset and the habits and the improvement and the NLP, but it's just going to hold you there where you feel safe. Because if, like one thing that you taught me, that was revolution, is every behavior has a gain, either an obvious gain or a secondary gain. So behaviors we think are negative or bad, like binging or overeating the chocolate at night just because we said we wouldn't eat it, or not going to the gym, or, like all the behaviors we say are bad and we just need to override all the time, there's usually a protective mechanism underneath them that we are getting a benefit from in some way, and being able to see what that gain is, and ask ourselves, what could actually be, what are we actually looking for? And meet ourselves at that place was just another level of understanding that I didn't have before, and I can see how that plays out in lots of clients worlds as well. To dissolve that shame and that guilt. Around the behaviors and instead be curious, rather than criticizing, because it's so, so easy to be criticizing about a behavior. What does that do? Shame it right back down, back to the shadow, back to the shadows, and then we keep creating these subconscious, dark spirals. So I I'm just thanking you so much for everything you're putting out into the world, because it helps every human being understand who they are as a human. And I think at the end of the day, that's all we can really do, to be able to actually let out everything that we hear, to express whether we're personal trainers or actually mindset coaches or mums or people in business, there's so many people out there that we are so passionate about what we do, or just want to live our lives who we actually are, and this is what's holding us back, and I think it's what I've been looking for for a very long time. So I can thank you very much for helping me, and obviously we're going to keep going on this journey and practicing and learning it and how to apply it to my clients and also my own life. But thank you. Oh, thank you. I just feel so proud as you're talking, I'm thinking like a plus student, you have really taken all the content. It's like you really do. And I have my book. You were so great. I loved actually watching your summary notes every night you were sort of posting them to your stories. And I was like, bloody hell, she's such a good student. And honestly watching you, and I've said this to you before, because I've had the privilege of coaching you before. The mind school, your clients are one like they are very bloody blessed, because you are a coach who really cares and really embodies the work and goes deeper than what I've seen you know, is standard. You go, you hold a really high standard for yourself. And even though the PT industry is like, yep, here's your cert three, here's your cert four, off you go, go and train. You just don't stop learning. And you can tell it comes from such a place of care. And I do believe, having both sides of the spectrum, having both sides of the coaching toolkits in your toolkit toolkit, in your tool belt, you're going to have so much more transformations for your clients. So thank you for doing that. And if anyone, either in the PT industry or anywhere else is thinking of doing the mind school, what would be your suggestions or your words of wisdom to them? Oh, just do it. Don't read, do what Kirsty did. Don't read the sales page. The sales page, oh, shit, it's in person. I need to take a week off work. Yeah, I think usually your biggest challenge is your biggest lesson. So when you do that, because obviously for me being so in person with my business, it was a big thing to take the week off, but it was so worth it, because it was so immersive to actually have that experience like I've done lots of courses online. They're very good, they're very useful, but being there in person and having that immersive experience was just so much more embody. I'm just gonna say that embodied. You were there in person. It was in my body. I was experiencing it in person, and that, to me, made such and such a difference. So I think it's just something that every coach or person that's wanting to unlock that deeper level themselves needs to understand themselves. And yeah, it may seem like taking time off work is a hard thing, but it's only six days at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world. And obviously all of the support that you give us was absolutely incredible. So I think it was so so fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. And if anyone was listening to you get lit up and animated about training and confidence and nutrition and all of those things, where can people find you? So I am mainly on Instagram at Kirsty homes, PT with underscore in there. Put it in the link in the show notes. That's where I hang out the most. So you can DM me there or message me. And I work. My business is called powerful, so that's what I work on with women. Is P, O, W, H, E R for her, and then F, U L at the end. So that's where you can find me. Yes, and I, actually, I've had the privilege of being a guest on your podcast, and your podcast, we have a podcast as well. Yeah, your podcast is phenomenal. I love it. I just said to you, off air, I'm actually so excited to listen to your latest episode this week, which is so interesting. But you just honestly, guys, if you've listened to this and you're like, I actually do want a little bit of help with that deeper emotional work, or, you know, the body work, the nutrition, the training. I cannot recommend Kirsty enough. I've always said like I feel so proud to call you a mind school graduate, and I will stand behind you 1,000% I've always made a joke that I'm pissed off. You don't live closer. You're still miles away. I know you're so far away, I'm not driving an hour to the gym. I love you, but not that much. Sorry. Yeah. So guys go check out Kirsty, and if you want to join the mind school, go to the link in the show notes, and you can ask me any questions in the DMS as well. Kirsty, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for tuning in to the mind school podcast. It is a massive intention of mine to continue to grow this show. Because the more the show grows, the better the guests get, and I know that is going to be so powerful for you listening. So if I could ask this massive favor, it would mean the world if you could please leave a review, hit the Follow button, or leave a rating on Spotify, so that we can continue to grow this show and bring you the juiciest, most thought provoking and expansive conversations through incredible guests. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week. You.