Episode 74 Universal Laws & Connecting To Who Your Are: Interview with Michelle Boulé

Chris McDonald: Welcome to the holistic counseling podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

Does the thought of ethics and potential legal ramifications in holistic counseling? Cause you worry and unease, you are not alone. There are some things to consider and put into place in your practice before diving into holistic counseling strategies. In my upcoming webinar, we'll explore how to protect yourself against liability.

As a holistic therapist, you'll learn more about scope of practice versus scope of competence. What informed consent means for holistic strategies, the ethics of using new modalities, what to. And the role of values also addresses how you can expand your therapy practice ethically into the holistic realms and where to draw the line.

Welcome to today's episode of the holistic counseling podcast. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm excited to introduce today's guests. And I think you'll learn a lot from her. Michelle Boulé is a transformational life and business coach dancer and healer. Her work gives creative leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals all over the world.

The clarity they need to manifest their visions and align with their truth. Confide. She offers online group programs, private coaching speaking, and in person retreats with over 25 years of practice and somatic therapies, energy medicine, mindset, psychology, and spirituality. The heart of her work is love.

Welcome to the podcast, Michelle.

Michelle Boulé: Thank you so much, Chris. It's great to be here.

Chris McDonald: Can you tell my listeners a little bit more about yourself and your work?

Michelle Boulé: Yeah. Well, thank you for the introduction. I would say in general, that the way I landed, where I am now with helping people and just exploring holistic ways of living and working is because.

Started dancing when I was about five years old and I got injured at 13, I had surgery on both of my feet. At 16. I was told I could no longer dance, uh, that I didn't have the right body for it. By the time I was 18 and in college and had no idea what to do because. You know, when I was in high school, I was dancing like 20 hours a week outside of going to school.

Wow. That's what I wanted to do. And so, you know, being told that I couldn't do that. When I look back at those pictures of myself at that age, I can see there's no light in my eyes. I didn't know what to do with myself, but I ended up at a university, the university of Illinois, which had, I didn't even know it had a dance program, but I walked by the building one day.

And within a short period of time, I was a dance major in the program with a scholar. And that program had an Alexander technique well associated with it, because if you know that technique, it's a, it's a somatic therapy where you work on the alignment of your head and neck and your, and your spine. Um, and you're constantly inhibiting patterns that are not in your best interest in your alignment.

So I just got this introduction to looking at and working with my body in a holistic way. And. Within a week after I graduated from that dance program, I moved to New York city. I was able to have an award winning international career performing in countries and teaching and choreographing all over the world.

And during that time in New York also, I started ex. Flooring energy healing. And because of this experience of being injured and told it wasn't possible. And then seeing that it was, I just kind of nerded out on human potential and possibility and how that happens through the body and how that's connected to our mental, emotional states and even our spiritual states.

So it's, it's my ongoing journey for myself. And also for those I help, I just totally nerd out on the information. I love sharing it with people and I love seeing other people also step into their fullest potential. So it sounds like you wanna give back to what you had to learn on your own. I do, you know, it's that thing when you learn something and it improves your life so much, it's absolutely, it's hard not to share it.

And I'm definitely a teacher by nature and I, I don't have kids. And my dad said this to me once he's like, because I had a relationship end. This person. And I were, had been talking about having kids and he said, well, Michelle, just think of all the kids, you know, the kids being like the college students I was teaching or my clients, like all the people that, you know, you wouldn't be able to help if you had one child.

And I think there's some truth to that, you know, I that's so interesting. Isn't that. Yeah. I mean, I, I love the people I work with and I know I do have a very strong maternal energy, but it goes into my work and my nieces and nephews . Yeah, but I don't have kids either. That's why I think there are other ways that we can mother people and use that energy to help people.

Chris McDonald: And, but I love your background. Cause it sounds like you have a lot of holistic things that you've learned with. You said somatic therapies and energy medicine and spirituality. I love the combo.

Michelle Boulé: Yeah. You know, it all came from the function of wanting to be able to continue dancing. And, you know, they say like form follows function.

I remember in college I was in a kinesiology class and we had the option to study the insertions and the attachments of all the muscle groups, you know, and take a quiz on that. Yeah. That was kinda. I don't. Why, why do I wanna know that? Like I don't so I asked my teacher, I was like, can I do, can I do a paper on imagery instead in using imagery with dancing?

And so I just found that as I wanted to dance more and more, and let's, you know, in my early twenties, I'm in New York and I get a back injury and my, uh, practitioner at the time was like, okay, Michelle, we really need to work on your anger. He didn't work on my back. And it shifted things. And then.

Sprained my ankle. Gosh, when I was about 28, pretty badly. I went to a body talk practitioner, which is one of the modalities I'm certified in and she didn't even touch my ankle, but I walked outta there and my ankle was better. And I was like, wait a second. Wow. This, this reality is beyond what we've been told.

And I knew that in, um, when I was injured, when I was 16, you know, I was told, put these insults in your shoes, do these ankle exercises. None of that. The only things that helped were when I expanded to see the holistic picture of what was going on. So I constantly do that when I'm working with people, you know, it's, it connects directly to that Einstein quote, where he says, you know, if you approach the problem at the same level or awareness of the problem, you'll never solve it.

That's a paraphrase, you know, being holistic and expanding our sense of vision and perception allows us to see beyond what we're perceiving as the problem. And I have found. Just taking on that mentality has been such a help in my own life and in the lives of the people I work with. I love to hear that.

Chris McDonald: I know you mentioned body talk, so what, what is that?

Michelle Boulé: So body talk is a form of consciousness based or energy based healing, which. You know, I had already studied a lot of modalities and received a lot of different kinds of treatments for different things in my body. Once that door had been opened, like, you know, if, if you hurt your back, it's not just about your back and in body talk.

The basic premise is that when we experience. Trauma or stress or injury or repeated belief systems that are damaging experiences, et cetera, the communication systems in our body break down. And I, I I'll say in and beyond, right, because we have an energetic body, we are in relationship to our environment.

So, you know, a com communication could break down between a person and their mother. Or a person and their child with body talk. The other premise is that you have an innate wisdom that is always guiding you to your best expression of health. And I like to say your highest potential, your best expression of you.

So what the practitioner does is uses muscle testing. And also there's a whole protocol chart of asking questions to find out what the priorities are for healing and what needs to be addressed now, what wants to come into awareness and back into connection. And once that, um, that information comes up, you know, and when I do that, I'm following a very specific protocol chart to ask for the information, cuz it could be like a body part wants to link to a memory from when you were 16 years old.

Still charge in your body or your digestive system wants to link to an active memory. We call it like of a time where, you know, your parents like always said, eat your food, or you're not gonna get anything else. You know, that's got, you know, really those things affect us. But once we build these formulas, we tap them in.

We tap them in just using gentle, tapping over the head, over the heart and over the gut. So these three brain centers, head brain, heart, brain, and gut brain. And once that awareness is plant. In the person's system, what happens is the, you know, the connections are made and resources are freed up to heal.

So I know this can sound kind of technical, but I, I just wanna share one more thing that I found so fascinating about body talk and using that as a premise is it's always a question. Like what it, what is the next. What is the priority for healing. So if someone comes in and says, like it, you know, I'm dealing with this, I don't say, okay, let's look at that.

I ask, okay, what's the priority for healing? And I ask, you know, not looking at the direct symptom, if that makes sense. It's like with my ankle injury, the practitioner did not treat my ankle, but when she treated everything else. I was more connected and aligned and out of a stress response that I had resources for my ankle to heal.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. That's so fascinating, but everything's connected exactly what I've learned with with all my holistic counseling and, and it's funny, cuz sometimes in therapy too, we get clients that come in and they'll come in with one thing. but then next thing, you know, as we get rolling, there's that, wasn't the issue really?

Mm-hmm, , it's an issue, but it's not, it's like there's other things that are really going on for sure. Yeah. It's kind of SIM similar to that. Yeah. But I like that question though. So what is the priority for healing? That's something to, I think, think about for a lot of healing modalities.

Michelle Boulé: Yeah. Because I think a lot of.

I can say that my sensitivity around this increased, you know, if I'm working with people now, I don't always use energy healing, but I can sense when someone's saying something because I've done enough of it with myself too, right? Like, is this really true? Yes. Is this, is this really what the person means to say is, or is there something underneath here?

You know, I think the beautiful thing within. A client practitioner practice, but also within our lives is that we really start to listen for the truth and let ourselves be navigated by that. And, you know, guided by that. And it's, it's a much more satisfying and rich and deep journey. And I think you're right, that there's often something deeper.

Chris McDonald: Isn't there with most of the things that we see that people are coming to us for help with,

Michelle Boulé: You know, and the, the other thing too, Chris, which I just feel like has so blossomed in my life recently is the deeper thing is really love. there's, you know, it's just like, there's so much love for us all to be connected, to, to receive and to give.

And I think once we start to crack that open within a person within ourselves, you know, that's when the real, I would say, you know, just beautiful, exciting journey starts to happen. Do you think part of that is that self-love too a hundred percent because yeah. You know, it's like I would have so many practitioners tell me, like, Michelle, you can't take anyone further than you've gone yourself.

I think we talked about this just maybe before we started that. Once you experience it once you experience and touch into how much love is available, it's hard to not give it away, you know, because you know, there's more, and the only way that you even access more is is you give more to yourself, right.

And then you're able to give it away. And it keeps us out of codependence and neediness. And it creates so much more freedom for everyone involved.

Chris McDonald: So I see that a lot with my clients is just, they struggle so much with loving themselves and getting to that place where they're not beating themselves up.

Most of the time is, is really difficult. It's hard for them to connect with. What does that mean to really. Love myself and show myself that self-compassion and kindness.

Michelle Boulé: Yeah. I mean, supposedly the statistics are about 95% of our thoughts, you know, are, are subconscious all day long and 70% of those are negative and self sabotaging.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Oh gosh. That's sad, isn't it?

Michelle Boulé: I, I mean, you know, here's the thing though. Like, one thing I work with with my clients is, is the universal laws. And these are present in every science, every religion they are, they are the laws that govern how the universe functions. And one of them is the law of polarity.

And that states that everything is created as a whole. So there's good and bad. There's up and down. There's right. And left to everything. And it's available in the same time at the same place, you know, as a level of awareness. So when you say that so sad, I think because I'm so steeped in these laws and I work with them in my, with my clients.

I see that also as, you know, what. There's incredible opportunity there and incredible potential to overcome this and I, and, you know, change our own lives and, and change the direction of how the world is evolving and how we are evolving as a species. So, yes, it's, it's unfortunate and it's both size of the coin, huh?

Chris McDonald: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So how do we apply these universal laws then? So

what

Michelle Boulé: I do when I'm working with people is I just keep bringing them up. Like I just did, you know, there's a, yeah, there's that law. So what if you, and, and I think once a person starts to have that ingrained, they immediately like another, another way to apply the law of polarity is if you have a problem, there has to be a solution.

That's the law. And it's here in the same place, same time. So my clients know. I know there's a solution here. I know that if I don't see the money now, there's also a place where the money is available right now. And so like, that's a way that, that law is used. There's another law called the law of perpetual transmutation, which just states that energy is.

And it's constantly moving from non FORMM into form and back into non FORMM again. And what that essentially means. That all this energy that is available to us and moving through us is directed by what we think. So if a person can build their awareness about what kind of thoughts am I having, are these really true?

Also? How do I want to feel? You know, I would say this for, for people who are really stuck in negativity, like, okay, we can work on the mental level, but let's also get into your body. Like, what kind of permission are you giving yourself to feel even just the slightest fit better? Because that is, that's a cause set in motion.

That's another law, the law of cause and effect, right? Like a person starts to think a different thought. Okay. I'm in my problem. I know there's a solution. I'm just gonna focus on what is the solution. That's a cause set in motion. If a person continues to ask that question and stay in the trust that the solution is here.

They will be on a vibration, the law of vibration which another law, another law. Oh my God. I love these things. They'll be a, the, you know, they'll be in VI in the vibration with that solution and eventually it will come. It can't not come, but if a person is only in. The solution mind, you know, like 1% of the day or they, you know, for like only their 10 minutes of meditation in the morning, it won't work right?

Because the universe is it's deductive. If you're thinking negative all day long, you'll get more of that. So it's a deep retraining of those, um, of that way of thinking and being, and feeling. And, you know, that comes through repetition that comes through, you know, sudden emotional impact. And it also comes, you know, quickly through things like energy.

Medicine and consciousness, healing, where we can make that shift. And I like to combine that with mindset when I'm working with someone, they don't just come in and like, we do the magic and they're all good. They actually understand what's happening. So they can very consciously live into their new patterns and their, their new self and their new life that they're wanting to create.

Chris McDonald: That sounds like you'd have to constantly help them apply this as things they bring more to you about what's going on.

Michelle Boulé: Yeah, well as a coach, you know, if someone brings something else, I help them think about it. Okay. Let's look at this. What's really true here. And then, you know, I also give them what I call action steps.

Like here's, you know, if, if we're doing an hour long session, here's what we can gather from this. This is what I want you to apply between now and the next session. So they have something that they're practicing. And just like exercise it's cumulative. So I, you know, I feel like instead of them bringing more to the table, it's like, they're shedding, there's less to bring, unless it's like a higher problem that they've now reached.

And then they have an opportunity to grow into the next best version of themselves. So it really, it gathers its momentum. And I find that if a person is committed and committed past the point where they're like, I don't know if this is gonna work. It's like, okay, just one more. Just one more hour, you know, just one day at a time.

And that kind of consistency. What I see eventually happens is we just start practicing and we kind of let go of the goal. And then lo and behold, we've become a different person in that practice and the goals and the things that we want. Start showing up as

Chris McDonald: trusting the process. I know you said staying in the trust.

For sure. Yeah. That's that's the hardest part though. Isn't it?

Michelle Boulé: well, yeah. It's because, I mean, what's so cool about this though, is you're trying to create something that that is not in your current reality, right? Mm-hmm but I would say not in your current reality as you perceive it. That's just as you perceive it, right?

So it's here. You just have to become the person who's aware of it. And when, if you ever hear someone say, you know, it's already here, it's already here. You're like, what do you mean? I don't see the money. I don't see the partner. I don't see the happy kids. It's like, no, no, no. It's, it's within you. It's a perception within you.

And it's a knowing within you and to becoming a different person and then you see it, then you experience it. And I know it might sound, it's like. It's so backwards in, in how we've been trained to think, but of course, yeah. But I know it to be true. It's like, you know, they say like the happy person attracts the, the things.

Yes. The happy things. So we have to become happy first and then, and then we'll, then we'll have more to be happy about

Chris McDonald: because you mentioned vibration too. Cuz then we like attracts alike so far more on that vibration of happiness. We're gonna attract more.

Michelle Boulé: Exactly and, you know, in going there, like, I don't wanna, I know that people sometimes would say to me, Michelle, like, how are you so light?

Or how are you so joyful? And I was like, because I've looked at the dark stuff in my life, you know, I, and that's, that's law of polarity in action too. Right? Like to become whole, that's what the word healing means to become whole, we all have the potential to be creators and destroy. And when we can embrace the power that's behind that.

And remember that we also have the free will to choose what we do with it. That's when I, uh, you know, that that happiness shines through it's more than just a surface thing. It is integrated and rich and deep.

Chris McDonald: That's really empowering too.

Michelle Boulé: Mm-hmm yeah. Like, you know, your darkness don't run away from it.

It's it's here. It's a gift that you've been given to become the person you are now, and to become the person you are here to be 5, 10, 20, 30 years from now.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I feel like I have to listen to this back and reflect on all these cuz there's a lot you're sharing.

Michelle Boulé: Oh yeah. I'm an information junkie. So , you know, I, when I, when I teach I'm like you guys, if you don't hear it now, like on a podcast, you know, you can listen to this again, or just trust that you're hearing ex.

Exactly what you need to hear right now. Don't worry about it.

Chris McDonald: This is true. Yeah. Trying to take all that in and really apply it to your life and thinking about things and it takes time. It does, it does, but it almost feels like hopeful too. That message with all this and it's already here

Michelle Boulé: and you know what, I think if a person can really feel that and you know, we're talking about self worth, that's, that's the key piece, right?

Like I'm worthy of. And to help a person tune it to their heart and to heal all those wounds, to expose them, you know, to not hide them, to not be ashamed of them, to embrace. The things that we truly want, because they're part of our unique nature. They're part of what we're here to do be and have, you know, like that freedom is, Ooh, I'm just feeling it as I say it.

And like that's the gold, that's the key yeah. I I'm a big,

Chris McDonald: I can hear your passion too about this is great. Yeah. So how does applying these universal laws, how does it help with being successful in.

Michelle Boulé: You know, if a per here here's one tenant, you know, of the law is too. If you can imagine something, if there's a level of success that you want, the only reason you can imagine it is because it's possible.

And if a person just remembers that, right? Like the only reason it's coming into my conscious awareness is because there's a path for me from where I am now to that. To remember that and then be open, like, okay, what if we bring in the law of cause and effect, what do I need to do be, or have in this moment to help me reach this next level of success?

So, you know, those are two ways, but again, it it's the time of really learning the laws, going through them, living by them in small, incremental ways that adds up. So again, it's, it's being in that daily practice and applying them. To every moment until they become second nature, you know, that's, that's that process of becoming, and what I tend to do with, uh, my clients is yes, I have one on one clients and, and, you know, in that space we can really dig in because we're meeting almost every week.

But also with my group program, which is called the creative success accelerator program, we're meeting four times a month based on a theme. Um, like this month of the theme's been being unconditional next week, or next month it's gonna be living into abundance. And with that theme, I bring in the teachings, you know, and then there's people who come into the hot seat.

I do a Q and a. So then it's again, just like listening over and over and over. Seeing how it can apply to your life and to other people's lives. So it's, it's really study, you know, it, it, it comes outta price, right? Like it's, it's a commitment to, to saying, you know what, I'm worthy of this. And if I can just trust this law that if I imagine it it's possible, the, the real question is, are you willing to show up?

To take that journey and that's like, that's what it is. It's being willing to be consistent and persistent. And in doing that, you prove your self worth over and over and over again. And that's training in becoming, you know, a completely different person.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Are you willing to show up? So that's a good question.

Especially a lot of therapists that are starting private practices. That that's the hardest part, I think is a lot of us get into that imposter syndrome and they're afraid to show. Like, what if I really sh you know, they're gonna find out that I don't know what I'm doing, and we never studied business.

Most of us are trained in theory in how to be therapists, not the business side. So that's what it could be really challenging.

Michelle Boulé: Yeah. I totally get that, you know, and it's always amazing to hear people who are like successful beyond successful are going through that too. And I, I think, you know, something that's so important is that we forgive ourselves and know that the mistakes we make and that we are definitely going to make are part of the process.

You know, you might have an interaction with a client that doesn't go well, but there's always, I think, you know, as a therapist, you must know this too, right? Like, yes, it took two people to come into that. And there's real trust in knowing that both of you. In your highest selves or by your souls, or however you wanna look at it came to this moment for growth.

You can't control what the other person does. You can control what you do and how you choose to react to it and be gentle and forgiving and just, you know, we can do our best to love in the highest way, but we are going to make mistakes. We're gonna say things that this is true, you know, and I think the more we can be forgiving.

Towards ourselves in that, you know, it's it that that's a vibration just to understand. And, and it's so missing in our world today, right? Like we wanna condemn people as soon as they say the wrong thing or for the thing very judgy 30 years ago. Exactly. Very judgy, right? Like judge is not an act of love.

It's an act of fear and separation and that's not what we're here to do. So again, if we. Okay, I did this. I'm gonna forgive myself. I know this is part of my learning. I'm gonna let go. And I'm gonna show up again for the rest of the, the day today and tomorrow as the next best version. Thank you so much, you know, thank you so much.

This, this experience, this person for helping me grow

Chris McDonald: Because we'd all get. Difficult clients or, or sessions that don't go well. And for sure, it's easy to get on the other side of that and beat yourself up and what I could, I do differently. But knowing that, like you said, there's two people in that process and sometimes people aren't ready to heal.

Michelle Boulé: Totally.

Chris McDonald: They're not in that space.

Michelle Boulé: Yeah. And that's such a great thing to discern as a practitioner too, you know, cuz I mean, keep are already yeah. You know, and, and, and here's like, it's trusting abundance. You know, if we look at success, you know, I feel like it's a good thing to drop any fear about like I have to keep this client because I have to pay my bills if it's, you know, if it's not the right client, like let them go and let the next best client come in.

Chris McDonald: That's it right. Getting into that abundance energy. So was there anything else that you wanted to share today that we covered? I know we covered a lot.

Michelle Boulé: I know we did. it's all over the place nutrient dense. So listen to this one again, and, you know, I guess I just. Love helping people remember, you know, there is something that wants to be expressed through them.

There's something that wants to be expressed through you as a therapist or as a practitioner. And I think we all know this, right? Like we do this work of course, for our own healing first. Right. And, and yep. And so. I think just to be kind and here here's one thing that I, when we were talking about, you know, beating ourselves up it's, you know, having the, the bad session or something, one of the important things to remember is what meaning do you give to any kind of situation, right?

Because it's, it's like that. I think, you know, Shakespeare, there's so many different people that. Say, you know, things are neither good nor bad if it's how we think about them that make them so, so true. So it's like, yeah. So it's just like, okay, this thing happened. What kind of meaning are you giving to it?

Because that's where we have choice. And is the meaning productive or is it destructive? And to know that even if something challenging or awful happens, you can give it meaning. Moves you towards more life and expansion and satisfaction, because that really is the direction of life. EV if you look at nature, there's no shame.

There's no guilt, there's no judgment, right? Like everything is just moving towards more life, even as it dies. So I think to remember that and also surrender into it, because I know this for myself, , I've seen it with my. Right. Like the, the, the control that we try to exert because we're afraid. Yeah. And what I've really what I've loved.

You know, I feel like I've been able to dive into this in the last year, especially is just to let go, let go. And remember that there's a, there's a higher order here. There's a beyond what I can proceed. That's. That's intersecting and available to me at all times to help me figure out what's next. So true.

Chris McDonald: Very profound too. Well, you have so many gems here. Like I said, this is a good episode, I think for everybody to listen back to and, uh, you might even learn more things each time you listen. yeah, no, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast.

Michelle Boulé: Thank you so much for having me. And I really hope this helps your audience.

And you know, if anyone wants to connect more, um, I have some free resources at my website, MichelleBoule.com and then also, you know, you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. It's Michelle dot Bule.

Chris McDonald: Excellent. And those will be in the show notes as well on the website. Thank you. But don't forget to join us for another episode next Wednesday.

Be sure to visit@wwwdotholisticcounselingpodcast.com to access our show notes and all our resources. This is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light in love. Till next time, take care.

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