Conversations with Healers, Helpers, and Guides: Stop Your Inner Child From Running Your Business. Go from Self-Doubt to Self-Confidence with Nicolette Tomaszewski, LPC-MHSP
Conversations with Helpers, Healers, and Guides is a monthly blog series from Holistic Healing and Wellness with Sabrina LLC to spark conversation with other wellness professionals to share perspectives on different ways mind, body, spirit health can be supported.
Today, we are talking with Nicolette Tomaszewski, LPC-MHSP, she helps high-achieving, burnout people pleasers go from self-doubt to self-confidence with her signature Freedom Forumala in 6 months. Nicolette is incredibly passionate about her work and a true inspiration for female business owners.
Sabrina: Tell us who you are, where you practice, and what you specialize in.
Nicolette: I’m a licensed clinical psychotherapist and mindset coach for high-achieving and entrepreneurial women. With over ten years of experience, I help women overcome burnout and heal trauma so their business and careers support their lives and not the other way around.
Sabrina: What led you to specialize in working with female entrepreneurs?
Nicolette: My biggest focus and passion is women and trauma. From a young age, I was a feminist out of the gate. I recognized at a young age, that I have always been a girls’ girl and passionate about supporting women. We are so powerful and often society creates barriers to push us down. So much of my work is empowering women, through the lens of trauma. From my own experiences, I know how painful, scary, and difficult it can be to get there. But there is so much healing on the other side. Society can push us down and coming together is beautiful and the best thing ever. Working together with women entrepreneurs in coaching and therapy for trauma is a reflection of my journey.
Sabrina: What supported you with mindset shifts in your own business?
Nicolette: Working with mentors, working with fear, learning who I needed and who was looking out for me and had my best interest in mind, not reflecting their fears. Start of COVID, I became critical of how archaic therapy can be. I wanted to step into coaching to expand and branch out. I moved into coaching and mindset to be able to work with others where it felt like a good fit and we could do incredible work together. We can connect all over.
Sabrina: What collective threads do you see for female owners with trauma history?
Nicollete: To help women stop letting their inner child run their business. Five-year-old them is making business decisions and helping them pinpoint where it’s happening in their business, but zoom out to where we see this is similar to dynamic mom. I often hear “I wanted so bad to get mom and dad’s approval” We reenact this dynamic in a new venue.
We see a lot of scarcity and fear-mongering. A lot of our work is noticing what is our stuff and others. Things I invite clients to explore include: how do I honor my needs and business? How do I show up for myself so I can show up for clients? Some needs I often see are:
Overworking, working every day. No time off, working until midnight
High achievement - academics, excelling at school, need to be perfect = constant reenactment of constantly doing everything in business
Struggling with boundaries/direct communication = don’t want to upset others. Thinking someone might not come back or say something mean. We are managing others’ emotions
Hesitation to acknowledge what you experienced is trauma - if you are unsure if it’s trauma or not, it still deserves support, validation, and recognition, it’s okay to acknowledge this.
I help women recognize these things by asking my favorite question, “How old do you feel right now?”
Sabrina: What are some tips you recommend for someone wanting to meet their inner child?
Nicolette: Rebuild and re-learn your inner child. She has been making decisions to take care of you. Now we are trying to gain their trust . A big piece of work is that we have to earn their trust and show her continually we do got this. Lots of resistance can come up because it’s really scary for your inner child to give up that control and trust that she’ll be kept safe.
If struggling to rebuild trust - find safe ways to ease in. Go back to what you enjoyed as a child and no longer doing. Think about what you didn’t get the opportunity to do, then try to reconnect and give them opportunities for play and a lighter side. This can take some heaviness out and a little bit of trust.
Sabrina: Where do you start with a new client who wants to make big changes in their business and life?
Nicolette: I ask clients to create a list of who they want to be. Maybe this includes saying no to clients, closing the laptop at 4 PM, taking a vacation, etc, and writing it in the present tense. Then we explore, how do I from here to there? What would future me do? Can I take one step towards it? How? A big part of trauma work is choice and noticing your default trauma response. Even if you choose to do the same thing, it can be energetically different than on autopilot.
Sabrina: How do you define overworking and what do you believe causes it?
Nicolette: It’s a roller coaster - some seasons where we work longer. We have to make sure there is an end date, find a pause, and let things go slower. Always asking, how do you make sure you are honoring yourself? Keep it balance. I often ask clients who struggle with overworking, “Who said all of these things have to be done today?” Generally, it’s only them recreating it. This can be due to fear of success. To bring it back to inner child work... peace can be triggering, it can be the calm before the storm and a heightened waiting for the other shoe to drop. If you don’t have experience trusting it can last, there can be a belief of “I don’t deserve good things.”
Sabrina: If the reader is resonating with this, what are some things they can try to further support their inner child:
Nicolete: Talk with your younger self and get an insight about past and present experiences. Journaling on that and bringing awareness to start. If spending a lot of time intellectualizing and stating the facts, can you notice what’s showing up in your body? Having professional support from a therapist or coach can further support you with this exploration. Therapy can be helpful for processing and coaching can be helpful for building on skills. Both are a dance and art form.
Sabrina: Do you have any special offerings available for clients?
Nicolette: My Freedom Formula helps entrepreneurs stop their inner child from running their business and instead embrace creativity in 6 months. If you’re ready to stop people pleasing and feeling burnout, you’ll receive:
2x 50 minute 1:1 sessions,
Monday to Friday Voxer Support
Weekly Checkin Forms
individualized care from my 10+ years of experience as a trauma-informed therapist and mindset coach.
If anyone finds me from this blog post, I will offer $500 off my signature package.
Read more about Therapy with Nicolette here and book a free coaching session here.
Follow them on Instagram here.
This blog post is co-authored by Nicolette Tomaszewski, LPC-MHSP, and Sabrina Cruz, LCSW, RYT-200.