Retrain Your Mind with Kara Loewentheil

Kara Loewentheil has a B.A. from Yale and a J.D. from Harvard Law School and graduated both schools with honors. In her legal career she clerked for a federal appeals court judge, litigated in state and federal court, held several academic appointments, and ran a think tank. Today she is a Master Certified Coach who works with high-achieving feminist women who believe in empowerment, but don’t always feel empowered. Her cognitive-based tools and strategies help women learn how to literally rewire their brains to overcome social conditioning and insecurity. Or in other words, she teaches them how to unf*ck their brains so that they can create the confidence they need and the lives they want.

Here are a few of the big topics we talked about:

Kara shares how she went from being a lawyer to a master certified coach.
High-achieving women are typically socialized to believe that what matters is what others think of us.
To create new habits and rewire our brain, we must learn to think differently.
You're a perfectionist if you want everything to be perfect and you think you would be happier if it were.
Kara shares some great ideas for reinforcing your new thoughts.
Even though Kara’s been doing this for years, she continues to practice and improve.
Your brain may think you’re going to die, but you will not.
Write down the new thoughts you want to practice on paper.
Separate yourself from your anxiety and you’ll find space to discover what you really want.
Switch every should in your life, to want and see what changes.
When you do something because you think somebody else wants you to, you are still just doing it because you want to have a thought or feeling about yourself.
We spend approximately 15% of our mental, emotional and physical energy feeling guilty and bad. If you clean that up and stop making it about you, you suddenly have energy and time to do something else for yourself or other people.
Kara shares what her inner voice is telling her to do.

In Kara's Voice:

“Women are socialized to think what matters about us is what everybody else thinks about us and we’re constantly sent these subtle social messages that women are inferior, that they are not good enough, that they get ahead because of their looks, that they’re more emotional, that they’re not as capable as men."

“If you want to rewire your brain, you have to learn to think differently.”

“Write down your thoughts. Write down the new thought you want to practice. Put it on paper.”

“Separating yourself from your anxiety gives you the space to discover what you really want.”

“Change all of your shoulds to wants and see what changes.”

“Be open to the idea that there could be a different way to think and feel and live and open to the idea that you would get your energy and time back.”