¶ Unmasking False Confidence and Healing Wounds
Welcome to the Ignite Her Way podcast , where we empower women on their journey of transformation and triumph , igniting the flame within them to blaze their own trail . I'm your host , joyce Lynn Lewis , and I'm so excited to be your guide on this transformative journey . In today's episode , we'll be talking with Dr Michelle Wells .
Her goal is to see women healed so they can lead their lives with authentic confidence . Dr Michelle Wells is an experienced clinical social worker and counselor . She is a program director and associate professor of social work . Dr Michelle holds a bachelor of science , a master of social work and a PhD in organizational leadership .
Dr Michelle has 25 years of experience in the social work profession and in higher education . Dr Michelle is married to her husband of 14 years , alvin , and they have four children and nine grandchildren . So let's enter into this soul-filled conversation and be ignited . I am so excited to welcome on our show today Dr Michelle .
She is a speaker , a best-selling author , a transformational coach , and she is the visionary and founder of Courageous Voice Academy . She has started this transformative initiative that emboldens women to break obstacles and lead in their destiny In other words , be bold , and so I'm excited to welcome Dr Michelle .
Before we get started , dr Michelle , I would just love for you to share just a little bit about what you've been doing .
Well , for I don't remember the last time we got to talk , but just back over this year I did a couple of things as it relates to speaking . So I went to Michigan to what's called the Leadership Experience Tour , and that platform is a platform for up-and-coming speakers .
It's an opportunity for people to kind of share their vision , share what it is that they do , and so it was a great opportunity for me to talk about my platform , which is to be bold out loud .
So I did that , and then that very next month got to be a part of another platform called Deeper Women Speak , and Deeper Women Speak is all about going deeper , and really it was just such a blessing to be there , because every woman there shared their story .
They shared what God was doing in their lives , and I'm telling you , we realized that God had really made a divine connection among us , and so it was just an amazing , amazing experience . And out of that I got to be a part of an anthology called Deeper Women Teach , and so I was one of eight authors in Deeper Women Teach , volume 2 .
This was her second volume with Deeper Women Teach , so that was just absolutely wonderful to be a part of . Other than that I've really just been focusing on working with women who are wanting to work through their wounds and their hurts , really develop in their career , start their business , just dream right to have their dreams come to fruition .
And so I've just been working with some clients to really get past where they were so that they could start planning their lives , planning for what they wanted .
And in my course it's called Bold Voice , it's a 12-week course and it's coaching along with that , and during that time we actually kind of do what I talk about a little bit in bold choices , where we help people , help women , to really dig deep and come out of that place of just kind of living on the surface and living in that false confidence and really
coming forth after they've really dealt with some of the deeper things that have kept them kind of stuck where they are . And so many times and we'll talk about this some more but so many times we think we're at a particular place and then we realize there's more , there's more to uncover .
While you were talking , I was just thinking isn't that what happens when we say yes ?
Absolutely .
God brings about these beautiful divine connections . It's like God opens doors , he brings about opportunities . Because we said , yes , I really enjoyed your book Bold Choices transitioning into 2.0 . And I would love for you to share with our listeners about false confidence . I thought that was so good . Please share with us what is false confidence ?
I just have to say that this whole journey has been my story and the whole idea about false confidence is it really is a mask , it really is a way to keep navigating through . When you've dealt with a lot of things that I say wounds and hurts , those are the things that I see them as our wounds and our hurts .
In order for us to keep going , we've put on that mask and we've just barreled through . We walk around with that false confidence but really on the inside we are hurting and we need healing .
We've got to come to a realization that we are living in a false confidence and then we've got to be willing to do the work to heal , so that when we do show up , it's our authentic confidence , it's authentically who we are and it's not somebody that we're trying to be so that we can please people or we can make people think that we have it all together
when we really don't . I get it Sometimes . We just got to get through it . We just have to keep going , but at some point I think we have to stop . We have to realize who we are at our core .
We have to acknowledge that there's some things in our lives , that some traumas that we've experienced that have hurt us , have wounded us , and that we may be living through those wounds instead of living authentically and being the person that God has truly designed us to be .
That can even happen , I think , even when we are people of God , even when we're women of God . We get in our churches and we serve and we give and we do all the things , but we are not healed . We have to get to that place where , once the light bulb comes on , that we're willing to say , okay , I need to go ahead and do this healing .
I can truly show up as who God wants me to be , because I think we miss it sometimes when we don't show up as our authentic selves . There are people that are missed , there are lives that are not touched because we're still kind of swirling around in our own hurts .
Do you believe that women who are portraying false confidence are aware that they are portraying false confidence , or do you believe they're unaware ?
I don't think we're aware a lot of times because we , as women , we make it happen . We make it happen on our jobs , we make it happen in our families . You hear the word resilience a lot . I love that people are resilient , but I almost think that sometimes we can wear resilience as a badge .
When we wear resilience as a badge , we never really heal , we just keep going because that's what we're expected to do .
So I think a lot of times women don't even know they may know something is going on because , as I talk about in the book , all of those underlying emotions , that self-doubt , the fear , anxiety , that's going on inside of us but we kind of push it to the side or we think what's wrong with me and we don't realize that that's the part of us that needs to
be dealt with so that we can break through the mask of false confidence . But again , I don't think that we identify it as a false confidence . We just identify it as we're resilient and we keep getting through and we do all the things , and that's what I do .
We think we're confident and yet inside , that little girl inside is screaming hey , I need to be healed .
I would love to talk about what you discussed in chapter four about the undercurrent , because I recently discovered that the undercurrent emotion in my life has been a feeling of worthlessness Wow , you just said .
I will say that I was not aware of this and this is why I was just so blown away by your chapter four , because it was speaking directly to me , because I've been doing podcasts and blogs and many other things , but I was unaware of this undercurrent that I had going on in my own self . So please talk about the undercurrent .
That is on target and that's exactly you know in the chapter about the undercurrent . You know I talk about how on the surface , you know , the water can look like it's so calm , but underneath there's the water going in the opposite direction of where you want to go . And that's and that's .
I think the conflict that we can live in and when I say live in is that is just like I was saying before we become so used to it . And we become so accustomed to being that strong person that we never deal with In your example , the worthlessness or the In my example , insecurity and inadequacy .
So I think it's so important that this conversation happened to make , to bring awareness to that knowing feeling that women are having within themselves that they need to address that .
Yeah .
Because I don't think that you operate in your full capacity when you're not operating from a place of being healed . I'm still on my journey , but I think we always are . We're always on our . The whole book is about that . We want to get to that destination .
Right , we have this big dream where we want to get to , you know when , I get to that goal I have arrived , but the reality is is that you don't get there without a process , and so the whole , the whole premise , is that you've got to be willing to go through the process and not skip the steps right and not and not ignore what it is you are sensing in
your spirit , because God's put that there , because we've all been through her , we have all been through some kind of hurt in our life and we have just got to be real about that and really , if you think you have it all together , okay , so how can you go deeper ? How can you still go deeper ?
Because , at the end of the day , this is about how God wants to use us to serve other people . Because I think when you go deeper , you're going to realize there's some things there that you need to need to heal from , you need to deal with .
Right , because we think we're okay , but then when we go deeper we actually discover that we're really not okay .
Absolutely .
What I love about your book is , I believe , that what it actually does is it gives us permission to do the inner work , because you actually show us the way . How do you get women us women to begin the journey to heal , so that healing can take place ?
I think for me I mean , as I was sharing earlier about the the connection I made with these women at this Deeper Women is what it was called conference the honesty and the vulnerability .
I think when other women can see that in us and they can recognize that we can be vulnerable , we can be honest and we can still be successful and we can still continue forward in our lives , and that really , when we do that more , it gives us more opportunity to walk in our purpose than to just try to keep doing it , trying to keep pulling it from a
place where we're not being fully transparent . These are my three words truthful , transparent and tenacious . That we have to be truthful with each other , because I think that's what helps women to recognize that , hey , if they can do it , if they're willing to stand up and share their story , I can do that too .
And then the transparency doing it in a way where you're not just telling a little bit of the story but you tell the whole thing , as you said , in a safe space . But you tell it all so people can see that we're all real , we all heard , we all've been through some things in our lives , but it doesn't stop what God wants to do .
And then the tenacity means that you gotta push through it , even when it's hard . Even when it's hard and it does get hard I mean we all when we do this kind of work we shed our tears , right , we have the ugly cries , we have the moans right when the Holy Spirit is praying for us because we don't have any words , right .
But when we're willing to go through that process , man , what God can do , right . That's why this community of women is so important , right . The coming together of sisters right , no matter , we're all sisters . The man will look like where we came .
We're sisters when we come together in Christ and when we come together in that kind of community , there's a power in that , a really , really , really great power in that , and it's also a place of really really deep healing .
Well , I want to be a testimony to your work , because what I discovered around worthlessness is that when you dig deep and you really discover what God says , then you discover that limiting belief and , it's true , you shed your tears , but those tears is like cleansing and I can't explain it .
There's a worthlessness , but there's a freedom that comes with the awareness of discovering the undercurrent and discovering the limiting belief , because I can say that I literally just experienced your chapter four and chapter five , so perhaps you can explain this freedom and what that is like for the woman who has made the decision to do this inner work that leads to
healing .
You know , um , I think it's when you can stop walking around with the pit in your stomach . That's the best way I can say as it relates to how it feels .
I mean , I think you'll begin to see in different areas of your life how you show up differently , how , when you walk into certain situations or you encounter certain people , the emotion that might have been related to those situations or those people is no longer there , the negative emotion .
When the triggers come , or when you recognize the triggers , you navigate them a different way . You don't fall into the same I'll speak for myself the same passive , aggressive nature , the same anxiety field nature . You don't deal with them in the same way .
You have a heightened awareness that this is a trigger and this is how I'm going to now handle this , and so freedom comes in . I think all of those ways .
¶ Journey to True Freedom and Authenticity
But when you see yourself showing up in a very different way , it's kind of like , wow , something happened here . I'm not the same , and it is just like you said . There's really no words to it . But it's just such a freeing feeling , it's just such a relief . There's a joy there .
So it's like you strive to actually experience that tangible difference in how you feel and how you show up . Because the reality is and I'm sure you can relate to this joy slip is that we know the word right and we quote the word . You know the joy of the Lord is my strength . You know , we quote it and yet we're still struggling .
Yes , but when you really really get to the place of freedom , the word the joy of the Lord is my strength is very different for you . Then , when you're walking around just quoting the word with that false confidence , right ?
So I don't know and this has been my and I'm going to say it's a concern how to really help women understand that this isn't something that they need to do . Yes , but again , I get that we've lived a certain way so long that it has become the way we live .
Yes .
And we miss out on what God really wants to do , because that deep work never happens . And so my plea to women is let the deep work happen , let's do this right . Let's let that deep work happen so that you can really experience the true freedom that God wants you to experience .
But you've got to start with addressing I'm going to say the pit in your stomach . Yeah , addressing that . You've got to address the undercurrent , like you said , like we were saying .
What I'm hearing you say , Dr Michelle , is it's not an option .
No .
We need to address that pit in our stomach . You know , I can recall leading retreats where the very first question that we would ask the participants was to finish actually the sentence of if I'm honest with myself , today I feel so .
I'm wondering if it's about really getting back to naming our feelings and moving away from the superficial hello , how are you doing ? Maybe we need to start saying hello , how are you feeling ?
It is getting back to being able to pinpoint our emotions , put a name to them right , and not just the surface emotions . I'm happy , I'm sad , but like we were talking about , like you use the word worthless , I use the word insecure , you know so really being able to name that . And then where did it come from ? Why am I there ? What triggers it ?
There's just so much . I think that , again , if we can , I love how you did start those retreats . If I'm honest today , I think if we can get to that place of being honest and truthful about where we are , then we can start .
That's our starting point , our starting line , and that's really that's my heart's desire for women , because and again , I've walked around a long time , a long time being the person with the false confidence , being the person who was just making it through , being the person that just handled everything .
I walked around a long time being that person and it impacted my relationships . It's and to realize that I don't have to . I don't have to be that person that walks around with that mask on .
I can just be the authentic person God's called me to be and that's really the person that other people in my life , that's who they wanna interact with , they don't wanna interact with the other person .
And so I think , when we're willing to get on the starting line and take this journey , we're gonna see it show up in our relationships , in our work , knowing how we interact in the various social groups we're in . You'll see it show up , but we've got to start .
I know one of the ways that women can experience healing those inner emotions is through your academy . Share with our listeners about the academy .
So it is a 90 day coaching program and we work through and they work through .
Each week they have a different , there's a different part of the curriculum to work through , but every other week I meet with them in a coaching space and we walk through many of the things that we've talked about here today , and so if anyone is interested in being a part of Bois , I encourage them to reach out to me through my website , which is
wwwdoctormichellewellscom . And Michelle is spelled with one L . If they put two L's in there , they won't get to me . But also they can find me on Facebook at Michelle Renee Wells . And , yes , my heart is just so excited to when women say yes to this work .
I know sometimes it's crying , it's moaning , you know , to get through it , but it's so exciting because there's such a payoff .
On the other side of it there's a phone number they can call 859-287-4213 , scheduling a time for them to us to have a complimentary call where I actually walk through a little bit more in detail what they would get in the Bois program .
And then the other thing I'll say if anybody you know , there are women who are wanting to do conferences or anything , I would be honored to come and speak about this and to you know , just let women know that that true transparency and tenacity is necessary for them to really be all that God has called and ordained them to be .
¶ Gratitude and Inspiration on Podcast
I just thank you for this opportunity . I'm honored , as usual , to be in your presence and I'm thankful that God connected us several years ago . So thank you again for allowing me to share on the podcast .
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom and your insights and your expertise with us on this episode . I look forward to hearing more and more about what what you'll be doing in the future Every time we get together and have a conversation . It blesses me . Thank you so much . Thank you for listening to the Ignite Her Way podcast .
I pray that this episode resonates with your heart , your mind and your soul . Don't forget to follow and share this podcast with your girlfriends . So let us go forth an apologetically fierce , unyieldingly confident and unwaveringly bold . Together , we can ignite our homes , our churches , our communities and the world .
If you want to know more about Dr Michelle , you can see more in the description of this episode . If you want to find me , you can find me on Instagram at Joiceland Ignite , and for more information you can go to my website at wwwjoicelandluiscom . Be ignited .