The Secret Shame Behind Success

SPEAKER_01 0:00

On the outside was making great money, had a great career, and internally suffering because I've had so much shame and guilt about the debt that we created. We faced a lawsuit and that led to facing bankruptcy. And it's something that took a very long time to even be able to say out loud, because no, I'm a successful high achiever. Like we don't do those kinds of things. But we actually all do have things that we wish to turn out differently.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome to this Empty Nest Life, the podcast dedicated to helping you embrace this transformative season with purpose, passion, and joy. In each episode, we explore stories, strategies, and insights to help turn your empty nest into an exciting new chapter. Whether you're redefining your identity, pursuing new passions, or finding peace in the pause, you're in the right place. Here's your host, the empty nest coach, Jay Ramsden.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Hey there, my empty nest friends. Are people pleaser, overthinker, and perfectionist three adjectives that describe you? Well, if so, you're going to want to stick around for today's episode. In studio with me is Debbie Mostassian, and she's a dedicated cardiology physician assistant who's turned a transformative coach who, after 20 years working in the medical field, recognized that traditional Western medicine left her feeling a little unfulfilled, which sparked a profound journey of self-discovery, where she developed the mind-body liberation method. It's a nervous system-based approach that helps higher achievers unravel deep-seated patterns to help them break free from the pressures that keep them stuck. We're going to dive into her story and more right now. Debbie, welcome to this emptiness life. And I wonder if people this is going to resonate with people right off the get-go. It's like you talked about deep-seated patterns. And we talked a little bit about this before we hopped on the mic, where it was like, oh yeah. Childhood stuff ends up playing into human adult stuff. And I'm just curious, when we were talking a

From Cardiology To Transformative Coaching

SPEAKER_02 2:05

little bit about that, you mentioned a journey that you've been on. So let's start there. Tell us a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

I had spent years building up this health coaching business. I was actually helping people who had diabetes to reverse their disease with plant-based nutrition. And but it just what I realized was that I was recreating my job, my day job in my business. To make a very long story short, I found this program that was all about getting to the root cause of why people behave the way they behave. Because I think that was one of the challenges I had is that people that are have chronic disease, it was very hard for them to change their ways and their habits and their choices. So I was really into what was happening on a deep, like brain-based um a brain-based level of why it was so difficult to change. So I went through this very uh deep transformative program to help me try to help other people change. And in the process, I completely changed. And it what's interesting is that even though I was in health coaching, this program had a very strong focus on money and success. And I realized through that program all of the issues that I was having, why I wasn't successful in my business. And it hit it came down to having some really deep money blocks. I was brought up in a lot of scarcity. And to we'll go, we can go on and about that in a minute, but back to this program. So I thought that I was going into this program to help my clients. And then and what happened was I actually transformed. And I had a major revelation that I didn't want to do this business anymore. And I completely walked away from the health coaching. And I decided actually, this kind of work is what I really want to do. I could relate to other entrepreneurs who are struggling like me. And so now that's what I do. I help people really get to that the deep-rooted issues that are affecting them when it comes to money and success and what they believe is possible for their career and for their lives in general.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah. So the what might be possible, I like that tangent of this conversation for people who are empty nesters. And you're an empty nester too. I think you said just this is your first year into it. And so I find often that people who are in the empty nesting phase aren't open to the idea of what's possible. So I think that ties in perfectly there. And of course, when you think you're, I can't do X, Y, or Z, that all goes back into certain aspects of our life when we were kids. So they're having thought blocks. Yours happened to be around money, but for other people, it could be other things. So tell me a little bit about like how, let's talk about how you transform. But even before that, it's like, what was the block

Scarcity Upbringing And Money Paradigms

SPEAKER_02 5:00

specifically? You said around money. Tell me more about that so people can have a better understanding of what Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So basically, we are living within a paradigm. And the way that I like to describe it so people can really get an idea. Imagine that you're living within a snow globe and you've just got this whole like clearer world around you, but you're stuck in it. So you don't even realize because you can see through it, right? But you're really being limited by this paradigm. And the paradigm has come from the way that you were raised. So for me in particular, I was raised to get all A's, go to college, get a good career, be successful. That's what my life was supposed to look like. There was no talk about what really blights you out, what makes you really happy, what do you really want out of life? It was like predetermined for me. And also, not only that, but also from a very scarce lens. For lack of a better word, my my father was very cheap, is very cheap and very frugal. And he taught me that it's hard to make money and you gotta hold on tightly to it because someone else might try to take it away. So even though I was successful throughout my life, I looked at everything through this lens of scarcity. So I felt like I never had enough. If I spent too much money, I felt guilty. If I didn't have enough savings, I felt like there wasn't enough. I had a lot of shame around debt because I shouldn't be spending that money. And so like I said, we have created this paradigm based on the way that we were raised, and then we bring that with us into our lives.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

It's like here's where my block came from. And I would imagine lots of people listening have that same block as ooh, yeah, I do remember my parents approaching money or approaching how they raised us, or approaching kind of dinner time meals, or however what you think of it, right? Anything that we can possibly imagine. And we do, we carry that right from childhood into who we are as parents and how we live our lives. So it makes perfect sense. I love that you said, yeah, my dad was very frugal. Probably not the only dad. You weren't the only child who had a dad who was frugal. And so that's what gets reinforced, and we forget it, right? When we're kids. Okay, so now you're in this spot where you're like, oh, I discovered that. Then what happened? Like, how did you, once you discovered it? Sometimes people discover it and don't do anything, but what did you do?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

The best part about it was that I knew that financially things weren't ideal, but I didn't actually realize, okay, this is my issue. Um, and because I went through this transformational program, what happened was I learned how to reveal what my paradigm was. So we go through life basically like 90 to 95% of our daily choices and what we do happen automatically. Like we're on autopilot most of our lives. And so most of the decisions I was making was based on that paradigm. And so when you stop and you literally bring up, and this is what I do with my clients, we we go really deep and we bring up what the paradigm is, and then we connect the dots, the way things were and how we formed our beliefs to like how it's impacting us right now. And that awareness alone is life-changing because you're like, oh no wonder I feel like this every time I go out to a restaurant and I feel guilty ordering off of the specials and not just getting the cheapest thing, but getting like the surf and turf. Like literally, my father would order for us at a restaurant. So it that affects us on a daily basis like that, where we feel guilty spending on ourselves because we couldn't do that when we were younger. And so there's this conflict between the way things were, the beliefs we formed, and then what we actually want in our lives now.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Okay, and but that also played out a little bit in your work experience too, right? You basically started a business based upon what you knew, not realizing it, and saying, I wasn't happy over here. What makes me think I'm gonna be happy over here? The same thing applied with the money piece and where you ended up in your life. You also mentioned like you had a little bit of like a financial disaster as well. So I would imagine that plays in a little bit with all maybe the shame and guilt of everything that you possibly have taken away from your dad, right, when you were growing up. Yeah. I'm just assuming based upon your story that you told me a little bit about, that that could have been part of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah. And what's tricky, especially for us now, like at this point in our lives, is we feel like we should have all of our shit together.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

You're to being a human. We're like, ah, we're 50, we should have it all figured out.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah. And so especially when you've been successful, and then you've got this little kind of dark secret in the back, like lurking. And the more successful you are, and the older you get, the more like we we feel embarrassed or shame about those types of things. So here I was on the outside, making great money, had a great career, and in the on internally suffering because I've had so much shame and guilt about the debt that we created and we faced a lawsuit, and that led to facing bankruptcy. And it's something that took a very long time to even be able to say out loud because no, I'm a successful high achiever, but we actually all do have things that maybe we aren't super proud of, or if we had to do it over again, maybe we wished it turned out differently. And the best part about this work is that it helps you to really let go of all of that negative emotion linked to past failures or things that you think should not have happened, or thinking that you should be further ahead than you are. It and it's all of that is really just like bullshit beliefs, basically.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

There's as humans, we want to adult humans, we want to cover all of that up because we're supposed to be like perfect examples of life that we've led, all the things that we've learned. And I think of it as wouldn't it be awesome if we were like the four-year-old kid whose shoes are untied, you're like, hey, you have to tie your shoes, and they're like, I don't know how to do that. And then they like go off and run, and they're like, I don't care that I don't know how to tie my shoe. So I think that's an important takeaway in this conversation is oh, if we're super honest with ourselves, that's how we become unlocked. That's how we transform. You keep talking about this transformative experience you had. Like, what was the program specifically?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

So basically, what we did is uncover what the paradigm is that you're living in and where it came from. So, like I said, you can connect the dots of this is how it's been reinforced through the years, through all your decisions, and then this is why you are where you are now. Um, and then you when you once you have that awareness, then it's oh, okay. Like I said, no wonder. It's my favorite phrase that my my clients say. And then it's like taking all the pressure off of, okay, now I really understand why things are the way they are. And now what do I want instead? And when you can let go of the old stuff, you're clear, you're like very different in what you think is possible. You really start to think about and wonder, and you get curious about what you really want out of life and out of your success. And what do you want all that money for? And what do you want to have to do to make the money? Like all of your really deep desires are able to come out and surface because you've let go of the old stuff. And so I use a mind-body technique. I use a lot of tapping and visualization and things to really let go of like this overthinking conscious awareness. It's like, no, you gotta actually go deep where it's like in our body, it's in our nervous system. And so that as I'm coaching my clients, that's what we do. We get really honest about those thoughts

Tapping To Calm The Nervous System

SPEAKER_01 13:20

and those feelings that have been stuck and pushed down and ignored. We let them speak, we let them be heard, and then in doing that, you release it. And the process that I use is clinically proven to help reset your nervous system and calm it down. And when you do that, when you make decisions from a very calm and grounded nervous system as opposed to being in high alert, like flight response, then your decisions are completely different.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Get out of whatever I'm feeling in the moment, as opposed to slowing down and saying, okay, what can I actually do in this situation? You talk a little bit about like the financial crisis, and you had clearly you had thoughts and feelings about that. What were some of the feelings you experienced when you were in the middle of it before you had this transformation?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah. First of all, on a just a very basic level, I was worried about money all the time. Everything was about how much does it cost? How much did we spend? It's like I was obsessed with every penny. I would go on vacation and instead of really enjoying and being present, I was worried about, oh my God, that dinner was so expensive. And I like there was a lot of just worry and then either regret or second guessing. Um, and then later, when it got worse and worse, it was like then it led to like embarrassment and shame, even because it was like I should not be in this situation. So for me, I I had to go through a major financial disaster, I call it a financial trauma to really show it's like it came to a head. But it doesn't need to be that way. If you know that you are not feeling good about money and you think that maybe that you should be, and I hate to use that phrase should be, but if there's something like I don't I I should definitely feel better about money than I do. I like to say that's your relationship with money, right? So if you want to have a better relationship with money, you can get really clear about what those deep thoughts and beliefs are that have led to the choices. Because the beliefs that have led to those choices that you've made. And that's what you can really get clear on and then make new choices to create a completely different experience.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Okay. So for the person who's out there going, I don't even know where to start with changing my belief around anything, X, Y, or Z, we're talking about you and the money situation, but just in general, I don't even know where to start. Where does somebody start to change a belief?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Let's use the vacation. That my my favorite thing is going on vacation, right? And now I can enjoy it on a different different level than I used to. So it's like when you talk about going to Costa Rica, what are all of the thoughts? And like you can do like a brain dump where you write down all of the thoughts and emotions that you have around the particular thing. For example, planning a trip. Um, are you what's the first thing you think of? Do you think, oh, I can't afford it, or oh, I shouldn't go, or it's gonna be too expensive, or I gotta make sure I choose the cheapest re the cheapest flight, and I don't care if it has three stops, even if that's really inconvenient. Getting like down granular of the thoughts and the emotions that then follow when you think about planning your trip. Is it all excitement and you can't wait, or is there a lot of maybe not? And just starting with that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Once I get those thoughts down, then what's the next step? Do I like take a subset of them and examine them? Or do I figure out which one's like the biggest one? What's that next step?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, so my fastest tip is to think about something that's causing you some negative emotions, and you get really clear about what the thoughts are, what kind of emotions you're having, and then let yourself feel it. Like pause and really drop down into your body and be like, okay, do I feel anything? Some people really feel it in their throat or feel it in their their stomach area. But basically, the fastest hack that I have is that you use tapping. Emotional freedom technique. I don't know if you are familiar with it, but it's a mind-body technique where you literally use your fingertips and you tap on specific parts of your body and you say the words, the phrases, the thoughts, the emotions, you say them out loud. So you can do all of them. You don't have to focus on one. You just all of it, everything that's coming up that you're thinking and feeling while tapping, there's just this magic that happens because you're calming your nervous system while saying all of those thoughts out loud.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Okay. Love that. Now, in your journey, you talk about, oh, you had this transformative experience, and now you and your husband, like, actually things are really good. So you had this horrible financial crisis that you were stuck in. Now it's better than ever. How long did it take? All the things that people are wondering as they're listening is, ooh, okay, we've we figured it out what the block was. How long did it take for us to have it be better than ever?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

When you start doing this work, the relief is immediate. So it doesn't even matter how much money, let's say, for example, how much money you have in your bank account, okay, your savings account. When you start to change your relationship with money, you just every amount of money that you have feels differently. So it's like thinking, oh, all of my problems will be solved if I just made $10,000 more per month. But that's not actually true. All of your paradigm comes with you to every income level. So it's really about feeling good about whatever is in your bank account in this moment. And when you are able to do that, then it just can grow and grow. So we like the relief and the change and the way that you experience money happens almost immediately. And then it just got better and better on a yearly basis.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Like people can really be like, oh, it could be that easy to say, okay, I understand now where I'm stuck with money or relationships or parenting my kids or whatever it may be, like every single human gets stuck. That's just part of being a human. And in your case, it was like, okay, we discovered what the history behind it was. Now we know what to do. And now that we were able to do that, and I feel this relief, doors open to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah. Cause imagine just okay, if you are feeling like you should be further ahead, for example. Think about when you're feeling anxious and nervous and stressed and shit, shame. What are you gonna do to improve your situation? But if you're feeling really calm and grounded and accepting and hopeful, it's like, what are you gonna do in that scenario? It literally everything changes when you change the way that you're experiencing your current situation.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah, a hundred percent. You and I were together at a like a retreat with our coach, and I got coached on debt and like in the shame and guilt of it all. So I'm right there with you. I get that, but you're right. When you start to have different beliefs about it, like literally came back and signed two new clients and had another renew, and hopefully Monday there will be a third one coming on board. When you start to release the shame and guilt or whatever it may be, whatever you've learned in your childhood, it does. It can just free you to move forward. And I think that's a lot of what you're talking about here with that with the mind-body liberation is yep, tap into our body, figure out where it's going on, figure out what we're feeling, and then basically let it free so you can be free.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Doesn't that sound right?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Yeah, I think the biggest change that has happened to me is that I was always searching outside of myself for the next thing. It was like the next job, the next goal, the next, okay, I gotta move from Michigan to Arizona. I get there was always something else that I was like needing to do to find my happy place. And that's not at all what it's about because no matter where you go, these things come with you. And so it like life changes when you change within, not when you try to change your external situation.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Yeah. Okay. So you and your husband have had this experience. You more so probably, because this is the work that you've been doing with the transformation. You said life changes for you, right? We bring whatever we have. Forward, but it also changes for you. But I would imagine your kids witness that as well since we're talking about empty nesting and that life. Yeah. How does that play out? How's that played out for them?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Oh, I wish I could say that we figured all this crap out before they were five years old. But my older daughter in particular, she she witnessed this whole thing that we went through. It was more on my husband's side, but like she watched the devastation

Empty Nest Lessons And Modeling Abundance

SPEAKER_01 22:30

happen. And the good news is she watched us expand past it and get over it. And so there's a part of her that always has a little bit of this, oh, is that going to happen again? Are my parents gonna be okay? And so we've had to acknowledge that we have to keep reminding her that yes, this is something that happened, but it's fine. And there's no reason to think that anything like this is gonna happen again. But it is really interesting once you learn how that the stuff all happens by the almost all of it happens by the time we're seven years old. Like I said, unfortunately, we didn't know all these tools back then to teach our children, but now we actually can be on the lookout for when we see them getting into these patterns or thoughts or things they say about money.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

I think that's so helpful to be able to say, okay, we have tools now. Let me share them with you. And oftentimes parents just want to hide stuff from their kids, right? They don't want them to see the struggles we're going through or how we're maybe not perfect humans and we don't want to worry about struggles, but to be transparent in the process, to be able to say to them, okay, I'm recognizing this in you. Here's how we work through it. Here's some things that you might look at, is pretty powerful. Yep. Yeah. So now the work that you're doing, right? Tell me like how that feels for you, that you found this place. Like if it feels good. You know how to help people, you know how to unlock in others. What's one of the greatest things that you've learned about yourself in this journey?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I when I first started creating my business, I was obsessed. Like I was obsessed with it needing to be successful. I was obsessed with why can't I make it successful? I was obsessed with needing it to replace my salary so I could leave my job. And there was a lot of pressure around it. And it negated the whole idea that I started this in the first place. What I ended up discovering about myself is the reason why I was feeling unfulfilled in my career is because I feel like I wasn't making a huge impact. So I wanted to create a business to make a huge impact. And then I realized that I wasn't making this huge impact because all I was doing was putting all this pressure on myself and stressing about it. And it just wasn't in alignment with the reason why I started it in the first place. And so I would say the best thing that has come of this is that I now am doing this work because I just want to. There's no pressure that I have to leave my job by a certain time because I actually still work. It's like this bonus that I get to do. And like just doing interviews like this, I'm so excited for 2026 just to get out there more and speak more and share more, as opposed to having this result-focused obsession. I have to, and letting go of that has been so powerful for me just to be a happier person. So I find myself that I'm focused way more on what do I want to do today? What would be awesome? And I've started combined, I combined two of my biggest passions, which is hiking and sunsets. Like I'm obsessed with sunsets. So now I've been going on several lately sunset hikes. And I'm like, Why haven't I been doing this for the last 50 years? It's just, I'm just really in touch with what is gonna make my life better. What do I want to do? And to let go of all that pressure and that other it's just been like a miracle.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

I love that. I love it. If I uh again, for me, love hiking too, but it sunrises for me. And I did my first sunrise hike solo the other month ago, month and a half ago, and it was like wha incredible. When you realize what you're passionate about and what you want to be doing at this stage in life, right? Everything that blocks us keeps us from realizing what those things are. Yeah. Yeah. When you see something in your kids where they're feeling stuck, how do you approach that conversation?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

That's a very interesting question because when we first were going through our process, I think we were very heavy on wanting the kids to also experience it, and they were a bit resistant. So now a lot of it is just like showing them through example, talking about money in a different way, and and really being mindful of certain words that like the that's too expensive, or we can't afford that, or things like we don't say that type of stuff anymore. We don't really believe it anymore. But it's like those types of phrases are beliefs, and it's really trying to be mindful of the way that we experience money and talk about money with them. I'd say I would say my younger ones maybe works, she goes off an eye, like she's she feels very abundant, and then she'll feel like really worried about money. So that's been interesting to watch her go back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

You know what? There's like nothing more freeing than to have the thought that money flows freely and easily to me. And it doesn't mean that that's the case all the time. I flow in and out of that. But when I'm in that mindset, then yes, clients come. And when I'm not in that mindset, clients don't come, like new clients. It's because I'm not open to the idea that that's even possible for me. And I think that's probably a lot of what the Mind Body Liberation does. Your work is like it really allows what's possible for for people because you're looking at what's holding you back.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, and I would say a big thing that not even about money, but about what makes you happy. Like I said earlier, I was never asked, what makes you happy? What do you really want to do? What are you passionate about? And that was never a conversation. So we have tried to go overboard in that direction of like what would make you happy, and I think that's been so positive for our kids because they've been able to figure it out on their own what they do want to do, and it isn't all about money. Of course, money is always going to be a factor, but it's not as much of a deciding factor, I think. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

What makes you happy right now?

SPEAKER_01 29:04

The other thing, especially now because my youngest is went off to college, I would say like one of the best things is when I see my two girls talking like they're friends. That just brings me so much joy.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

So I love it. How what what's the age difference between them?

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Um 18, they're 18 and 21.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

18 and 21.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

At the same college right now for this year. And then my

Joy, Milestones, And Belief

SPEAKER_01 29:30

older one will be graduating college this year.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Lots of big milestones coming up for you. One just passed empty nest now, college graduation. Oh, so Debbie, I so appreciate you coming on and sharing a little bit of your story to give people an idea of what's possible for us really when we get out of our own ways. Yeah. I appreciate you being here and sharing a little bit of that with us.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Thank you for having me. And I just want to end it at this is that everything that you want is possible, you just gotta believe it. So that's it.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Yeah, you have to believe it before you see it. Love.