Embracing Self-Compassion: An Interview with Marie-Claire, Professional Rebel and Self-Expression Specialist

We have a fascinating and empowering conversation to share with you today. We're joined by the remarkable Marie-Claire, a self-expression specialist and the professional rebel, whose journey is a testament to the power of authenticity and self-compassion. Sharing her experiences of battling low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, Marie-Claire takes us through her exploration of photography as a therapeutic outlet, providing a poignant illustration of the transformative power of self-expression.

In our second segment, Marie-Claire drops pearls of wisdom on simplifying life and shifting mindset. Pulling from her own experiences, she shares how the act of gratitude and positive “brainwashing” each morning has reshaped her perspective and brought her much-needed balance and inner peace. And it's not just about her, Marie-Claire has a message for all of us: embrace self-compassion, put an end to self-punishment, and learn to view mistakes as opportunities for growth. Beyond our conversation, Marie-Claire continues to inspire through her Instagram page and her free ebook, " WTF is wrong with me?!"

 So don't wait, let Marie-Claire's journey inspire you to be kinder to yourself and embrace the power of self-compassion.

Get your free gift from Marie-Claire:  https://www.professionalrebel.co.uk/wtf-is-wrong-with-me/

Stay in touch with Marie-Claire:

www.professionalrebel.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/marieclaire.ashcroft

https://www.instagram.com/theprofessionalrebel/

Chapters

• 0:01 Overcoming Self-Doubt and Finding Authenticity
• 8:56 Simplifying Life and Shifting Mindset
• 18:36 Self-Compassion and Overcoming Mistakes

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to the Overcome Yourself podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole and I'm so excited to be here today with Marie Claire. All the way You're in the UK yes, all the way from the UK. So get ready for her and her amazing accent. Marie Claire, take it away. Tell us who you are and you're amazing. Tell us about your amazing bucket buckets, because we're gonna jump right in. So tell us all about you.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Hi everyone. So my name is Marie Claire and I am known as the professional rebel. I am a self-expression specialist combining personal brand photography with rebel confidence, coaching and facilitating, and I also have a chat show called Bucket Bucket Friday.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Love it. Tell us about it.

Speaker 2: 0:55

Well, it's basically it's kind of like a mix between Room 101 and Agony Ant. So yeah, it started at an event I started called Unicorn Club. That was all about grown-ups' kids' parties. I wanted grown-ups to have more fun and leave their grown-up problems at the door so they could come in and do face painting and play hungry hippos and twister. And I just didn't want them to bring their problems.

Speaker 2: 1:22

So I created a bucket bucket and it turned out to be like a really cathartic thing that people were like just love putting all their woes and issues and problems in there before they came to play. And then one day I decided to have a look what was in there and it turns out everyone's got the same sorts of problems and maybe just don't talk about them as much as they should. So, along with a special guest, we rummage in my big bucket and whatever comes up is what we need to talk about on the day, and sometimes it helps me, sometimes it helps my guests and sometimes it helps whoever's viewing and it's like a big pink portal to the universe. You never know what you're gonna get.

Speaker 1: 1:58

I love it, and that's kind of what we do here too. I guess they're amazing. You are absolutely amazing, and so you never know where we're gonna end up, because we have, kind of like, the questions but left field is always welcome here. So, okay, so tell me about, because one of the questions that I asked you was is there ever a time that you had to overcome yourself? So the name of the podcast is Overcome Yourself, and that's actually the name of my book that's coming out soon on Amazon, and so I wanna hear your story of overcoming. How did you get where you are?

Speaker 2: 2:39

So my whole life has been like a daily overcoming myself. So if you're watching now or you see me or you see any of my branding or internet presence, you would not believe that my background is in low self-esteem and depression and anxiety and all the other things that make somebody's side of like the edges and look at life from the outside and feel like, oh, I don't belong here.

Speaker 2: 3:05

I'm not good enough. And, yeah, I made a lot of decisions based on what would get me love, approval, doing all the things I think I thought I should, and it took me down a path where I just wasn't living or expressing myself as myself. I worked in export. I'd studied seven languages, I was working in an office and the further away I moved from like who I really was, yeah, just the worse I felt. So I had to go on a journey back to who I was. And, yeah, it started with a camera because from my childhood I have memory issues. Part of that is having PTSD, part of that is being neurodiverse, so my working memory or memory in general is terrible.

Speaker 2: 4:01

So I picked up a camera to remind myself that life was not as bad as my brain was making out and because I didn't have anything wrong with my life. I had a job you know I live in a Western country and I had, you know, nice friends. I had all the ticks and boxes checked of. You know that society says is a good life. Yet I was incredibly unhappy and I thought there was something wrong with me.

Speaker 2: 4:29

So I picked up this camera in an attempt to just take pictures of nice things to remind myself that life was okay, turned out, I was actually quite good at it, so it led me on a journey of sort of reconnecting with the world, because I used the camera as a bridge to put myself out there a little bit more go out to events, meet people, go on adventures, and yeah, eventually I didn't need it because kind of what happened is I kind of repeated a load of mistakes. I set up this amazing photography company that was called Fluke Photography, which is kind of like a hint to how bad I felt about myself. It was even in my business name.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Oh, wow, wow.

Speaker 2: 5:14

Yeah, and I was really good at it. But I kept thinking, oh, it's a fluke, somebody's gonna find out eventually. And I was just coming back from photographing in New York and in Canada and I'd been on a little adventure and I was waiting for the plane home and I broke down at the airport and I just did not want to come back to the life that I've created. And again it was like what the hell is wrong with me? Like, seriously, you've taken that step, you created a business, you created the life that you wanted. Why are you not happy again? So it led me to, you know, go on a big journey on the you know internal journey, find out who I was, work out you know what are these patterns going on? And, yeah, I worked out that the inside did not match the outside and I had to bring what was inside, all of it, not just the bits I could carefully curated for public consumption, and become my true self.

Speaker 1: 6:14

So, yeah, that's me, that's beautiful, I love it.

Speaker 1: 6:20

So many things that came up we learned to mask when we're children because, being neurodiverse, developing that anxiety, those thought patterns, you know, because one of the things I wrote about in my book is one of the most important steps that I had to take when getting out of depression was really sitting down and asking myself what questions am I asking myself all the time and what stories am I telling myself all the time? You know, and that moment, you know, we think enlightenment is like this beautiful thing You're standing on the top of the mountain and the sun is shining down on you and you're wearing this beautiful, you know, and like the hills are alive, and then, but it's not, it's really like ugly crying, you know, screaming at the universe. What the hell is wrong with me? And I want people to know that if you know, if you're going through that we've been there too it's gonna be okay. This is actually a good thing, because that's what it looks like when you face yourself and I think that's beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 1: 7:37

I look at you now like I saw you and I was like I don't know who this person is, because you know we're connected through a lot of people. I know, we know Brian. Brian is definitely one of the friends we have in common and I was like, but I want to be around her because her energy is amazing and that is because you, you know, you were brave enough to say that something's wrong here and then asking yourself if this isn't what I want, what do I want? That's a beautiful journey to start off, but you have to realize this isn't what I want. And that's really, really hard, because you built it.

Speaker 2: 8:10

Yeah, and it's really really hard as well because, like, we don't get taught to look at our emotions, we don't get taught to. So, yeah, to go internal, we look at, oh well, what's next, what do I need to achieve, what do I need to have, what do I need to do? And none of it. You know, I see a lot of people online and they try things and they try things and they try things and they're still not working. It was like, hey, why don't you turn around and go inside, cause that's where the magic is.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, is you bring up so many things? There's like 14 different ideas popping up in my head that I don't know which one to bring up first. Let's tie this back into business. Something we were talking about right before this episode was how we like to overcomplicate things, and I think this ties in really well, because we go and we make this huge thing and we create this life and it's really complicated because it takes, it's draining, it's tiring when you're not being, you're doing and we wanna get to the place where we're just being and we can be ourselves, and so simplifying. That's the solution. Right, like bringing it down and simplifying. So tell me a little bit about that. How do you think you were able to simplify things in your life and then kind of things started feeling better? Do you get where I'm going with this?

Speaker 2: 9:47

Yeah, sort of I mean correct me if I start jibbering about something else. But yeah, for me it felt like the process of simplifying and making life easier. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2: 10:02

It wasn't an easy process. So, to give me an example, the thing that we're talking about today. So yesterday I was full of beans. I didn't have a great start to the day. I woke up with a bit of anxiety, but I've got the tools to sort of manage that and channel it to something more productive and I had a great day yesterday. I was really productive. I was on one of the up create loads of stuff, get loads of stuff done.

Speaker 2: 10:28

And then today I woke up with a tiny little bit of a sniffle. I didn't have the most refreshing sleep and there was part of my brain that still wanted to be like as productive as I was yesterday. I wanted this constant yes, yes, yes, I'm achieved, achieved, achieved because that's how we're conditioned to be. But I just listened and I was like well, you're not gonna be able to do anything. You've got a really big day tomorrow. You've got a podcast tonight. If you push through, you're gonna be useless.

Speaker 2: 11:01

So take, you know, staining pajamas, ship away at some you know mindless tasks rather than taking over the world. Take a nap, eat all the snacks that you want and a lot of snacks happened and turns out after a few hours because I did not beat myself up about this. Guess what? I feel? Completely fine now I'm feeling a little bit pale, but apart from that, I, you know, I feel great and I sort of documented this online because the old me, years ago, before I knew I was neurodiverse, before I knew I had PTSD, you know, there was this constant comparison to other people who do the nine to five and who can work eight hours a day and who have that sort of you know, linear progression upwards.

Speaker 2: 11:52

And that was never me. I tried that. So I would always consider my days that I had today as a step backwards, but it wasn't. You know, the minute I realized that it wasn't a step backwards and to stop looking for problems, it turns out that actually I just needed to recharge, you know, and I've said today, you know it takes a lot of energy to be this fabulous resonated with and, and that reframe is so simple, but I'd say it's taken me about like 15 years to actually make it a reality.

Speaker 1: 12:27

I love that. And To tie back into something else you said, you know, like recognizing our accomplishments, one of the big themes in my book is gratitude and Learning to practice. Gratitude is what helped me do things like appreciate and be able to reframe things like that, because it's all about, like our perspective. It's all about perception, isn't it? Um? And when you adjust your mindset, was there a mindset shift for you? Um, in that moment, do you think?

Speaker 1: 13:04

Today or just in, in the whole process in the whole process, like to get to where this point is Mindset shift was, you know, asking yourself like reframing things, right, that's, that was a mindset shift. It didn't just come from nowhere. You've got practice is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 2: 13:20

No, you've got to practice like something I call positively brainwashing yourself.

Speaker 2: 13:25

So I use a lot of Some photography puns in my work because obviously it's a link between the photography and the sort of self image work Um, so I like in it too. You know how people wear rose tinted glasses I've got some here but what happens is we tend to, um, have a few negative or emotional, emotionally charged experiences in our past that put like who on our rose tinted glasses. So we start to see ourselves through these filters and these lenses that just focus on our floors. And so for me, you know, I tell people to just zoom out, look at the bigger picture, rather focusing on these few, um, sort of negative experiences that cloud your view of yourself and your abilities and your life and your fucking everything. That's possible because you're just looking at it from the wrong lens. And it's a mindset, mindset shift in the lens that you just look at yourself through, and that's kind of the message throughout.

Speaker 2: 14:28

You know all of the stuff that I teach for people, whether it's photography or in my like coaching or classes or whatever, and that's the mindset shift.

Speaker 2: 14:36

It's like, it's almost like, um, you know, when you go to the opticians and they like, switch the, the, the machine that switches the lenses, and suddenly you can see everything clearly that's what it is.

Speaker 2: 14:48

It's just like, oh Hang on, everything was completely wrong before, and that's that's kind of how I frame it. And it's not just a case of like Seeing yourself through this new lens and then it being truth, because it's exactly the same as like if you go to the gym, you don't just go once and then have like sexy booty and like muscles, you've got to keep going. So I made it my morning routine with my cup of tea, because I'm ever so British, having a cup of tea in the morning and positively brainwashing myself, looking over my achievement, my accomplishment, person that I am, the person that I am for other people, how I feel and like, literally every day, creating those new neural pathways and, yes, eventually with a bit of practice. But I'm not perfect, I'm still human. I slip up and I think that's what makes me a good teacher is that I still relate to the people going through it because I still go Through it myself.

Speaker 2: 15:43

I just bounce back within hours rather than weeks, months, years.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Yes, and you know what I think it's so important, what you mentioned about neural pathways, because you know, when I talk about gratitude, a lot of people kind of like, okay, yeah, that's really woo-woo, but it's really not.

Speaker 1: 16:04

When you look at the habits, when you look at what happens due to our brains, you are a hundred percent correct. We have these paths, like if someone's walking down a path, you know Like you go to work and there's like this, this grassy area, and then you see that there's some dirt. You know that somebody walks that way and then you know the Deeper it is, the longer this, you know these people have been using this path. And then if it's just kind of like the grass is down a little bit, and when we're creating those habits, we've got these new, little, still grassy pathways that are competing with these tried and true areas, and so building those habits means that we are gonna slip up sometime, because this is the easier path, because it's already Established. You've got, like road signs already set up. You know you've invested a lot, and so, building out this new path, now you've got this tiny little dirt road, you know, like a highway versus a dirt road, and you're like, oh my god, this is so annoying and it's okay.

Speaker 2: 17:03

Like a dirt road.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Yeah right, um, you know, but you got to take it because that's the only way that it's. You know, eventually you're gonna even it out and then it's gonna be easy to walk down that way. So, such a big deal About setting habits and I love how it's not like this five hour journey that you're investing, that you have to set aside, and then you got to feel guilty because your kids need your help no, it's like, this is like a five minute thing, like, literally, while your tea I'm drinking coffee, but while your tea is brewing, you sit there and you're like I'm so grateful, I, I do three things that I'm grateful for. And then, throughout the day or at the end of the day, I write down accomplishments and I make myself really look at Not just what I got done, because it's really easy to be like I close the client or, you know, like I posted on social media, but, like you know, was I intentional about being helpful? You know, did I offer grace? Like did I give myself grace? Like did I take some time to rest on the couch because my, my head was hurting, you know? Or did I just ignore it? And so writing down these tiny little things?

Speaker 1: 18:13

No, but we have to give ourselves credit because, especially as women, we discount everything we do. Oh yeah, but that's, you know. I was nice to my kid oh yeah, but that's my kid. Yeah, but like you have a choice and you chose to take a deep breath and be nice instead of, like you know, blowing a gasket, and so we've got to give ourselves credit for those things you know. So I absolutely love that. So Can you share? What is like one big tip that all of your clients come to you said you went through all of those problems. So what is like that one big tip that you give to To your people? You know, in the bucket, bucket, what's the biggest thing? So we can, so we can have our own thing.

Speaker 2: 18:59

The biggest thing is that you will slip up. That's what's going to happen. The biggest tip is you're going to slip up, you're going to fuck up, you're going to go back to your own old habits and all it is is, you know, I say don't be a cunt to yourself. Like you know, it's self-compassion, it's being, you know, witnessing yourself as a messy human, it's knowing not to shame yourself. It's just be okay, because I've been saying this again a few times again, it's come up a few times today it takes energy to beat yourself up, you know, with a stick and be mean to yourself and call yourself names and compare yourself to other people, whereas if you just go, oh just, I'm being a human today. This is the not so much fun part of being a human. You bounce back so much quicker and it's a lot more pleasant and enjoyable and you know, nobody likes being a twat to themselves.

Speaker 1: 19:58

Why, do it. Yeah, you know, I've heard, I've heard it before If somebody else talked to you the way that you talked to yourself, like would you still be friends with that person. And when I heard that, I was like no way back then. And one of the things that I taught myself to do is talk to yourself like a four year old, like I literally told myself that. So like, if a four year old messes up, you're not going to kick them. There you go. You know what I'm saying. You're not going to call them stupid, you're not going to call them names, you're not going to put them down, you're not going to do that because they're small and they're fragile and they're not going to understand. And if that's where you've got to start right, like if I'm not nice myself, then let's go back to the beginning and be like all right, nicole.

Speaker 1: 20:47

Now where did we go wrong on this? Okay, we shouldn't have left this on the counter. All right, let's go get some paper towels and clean it up. Right, because that's giving ourselves grace, because when we think of a little kid, it's a lot easier to be like all right, how can I be nice to you about this, you know, versus just being like oh my God, you're so stupid, I can't believe you did this again. Like you're not going to get anywhere. So I love how you're saying it's going to take the same amount of energy. Like, why waste it on? My mom used to say, if you're getting angry, you've got two jobs to get angry and then to get happy again. So like, why even waste the time? You know we got spoons. Like let's save the spoons for productive, happy things right Now. Very, very important. How can we follow you? How can we hang out with you? How can we, like buy things from you?

Speaker 2: 21:39

Amazing. Well, I hang around on social media a lot On my personal profile. I tend not to use my page a lot, so it's just Marie Claire Ashcroft. I'll give you the link to that. Are the links on the app Dana? Yeah, I'm having more fun on Instagram lately having me play with reels. Yeah, professional rebelcouk, so wwwprofessionalrebelcouk. I will give you guys a link for listening to get a free ebook called what? The hell is wrong with me. What the fuck is wrong with?

Speaker 2: 22:17

me and it talks through the whole thought process that we've talked about today. And yeah, just have a stalk of my website. You'll get more of a vibe of the things that I do. I've got membership community. I take photographs, I do speaking. I just love hanging around with other weird, wonderful, amazing human being who were just so talented and ambitious and passionate about doing epic things in the world.

Speaker 1: 22:42

So, yeah, yes, I highly recommend you follow her. It's so much fun and I've learned so much from you too. Like you, and seeing your post where you're like, not feeling well today, you know what. I feel better now just because I had some grace and I gave myself some space and now I'm going to go to work and so you know, I appreciate the realness and, of course, like you already know, you're so much fun. So thank you so, so, so, so much for being here today. This has been wonderful. Any last minute thoughts before we sign off?

Speaker 2: 23:15

Just chuck it in the bucket bucket. Anything that doesn't make you happy, chuck it in the bucket bucket. You can see it just there.

Speaker 1: 23:23

Love it. There it is. I love it.

Speaker 2: 23:25

Like she literally has a bucket guys.

Speaker 1: 23:26

Like, if you want to make your own bucket, literally go buy a bucket you can get it at a dollar tree and literally just write bucket, bucket and when something's going wrong, just chuck it in there. I love it. No, but sometimes it's really good Like having visualizations like that I think is really helpful for us. Yes, yes, yes, yes, right.

Speaker 2: 23:46

I've had enough of that slam dunk off, it goes.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Yes, yes, I love it. Well, like I said, thank you so much for being here. This has been wonderful. Make sure you follow Marie Claire on Instagram. You said you're having a lot of fun on Instagram and on Facebook and we will see you out in the wonderful World Wide Web. Thanks guys, we'll see you next time.