Natalie Miller talks about how storytelling helped her move beyond societal expectations to a life that fit her better.
Natalie Miller is a boldly feminist coach who helps evolutionary leaders and creatives live well and do good. She works with people who achieve themselves into golden cages: work, relationships, and everyday lives that look lovely but feel way too small. Coaching with Natalie, they free themselves to walk their talk, live generously, and get as BIG as they know they're meant to be. Acquaint yourself with more of Natalie's magic on her weekly podcast, Mind Witchery.
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Amy Hallberg 0:01
There are those people you meet who make such an impression on you that it changes the way you see life and, more importantly, how you think about yourself. And for me, Natalie Miller is one of those people. If you've been following me and you like the way that I look at the world, you ought to thank Natalie. So I am delighted to have her here to introduce you to her today. You're listening to Courageous Wordsmith, Episode 55. This podcast presents conversation with and for real life creatives on how we find and keep walking our unique paths. I'm your host, Amy Hallberg, welcome to my world. Today, I'm talking with Natalie Miller, who is a kick ass life coach and mentor to feminist women.
Amy Hallberg 1:00
So today, I'm talking with Natalie Miller and I have known Natalie a long time, I've learned a lot about life coaching from Natalie. And one of the things that Natalie taught me was the parallel between storytelling and life coaching. So Natalie, maybe you could share with us just how you came to be such an expert, or such a fan of storytelling?
Natalie Miller 1:25
Oh, my gosh. Well, you know, I have been a great consumer of story all my life. I was 100% that kid with her nose in a book. Were you?
Amy Hallberg 1:39
Oh, yeah.
Natalie Miller 1:39
Right? Always, like just narrative and novels, especially like novels. Actually, more than anything, where I could really kind of dive into the world, and see it through a different perspective, that was always so appealing to me. And it took me actually, all the way to graduate school. I was getting a PhD in English and American literature. And mostly because what I loved to do was close reading, when I, through a series of twists and turns, left my PhD program and eventually became a life coach, I realized, oh, coaching is close reading. Coaching is really honing in on a particular something that someone has said, or a particular story that someone has about themselves and looking at it in a new way, and a new different way.
Amy Hallberg 2:36
Did you know that I also dropped out of a Ph. D. program Natalie?
Natalie Miller 2:40
Yes, I knew we had this in common.
Amy Hallberg 2:42
Because when you say this, I think about this. And one story we tell ourselves is that the way to be a successful, let's talk about women here, the way to be successful women in this society is to attain a level of high achievement. And so of course, the natural thing would be to get a PhD if you're a good reader, if you read things closely. So was that a little bit of a hard adjustment? I mean, what stories did you have to shift in your mind dropping out of a Ph. D. program?
Natalie Miller 3:11
Oh, my gosh. Well, you know. Weren't you also a valedictorian, Amy?
Amy Hallberg 3:17
Oh, yeah.
Natalie Miller 3:20
And I'm just gonna say hello to all the valedictorians in the audience. Hey!
Amy Hallberg 3:25
All the ace student women. Yeah,
Natalie Miller 3:27
All the ace students, all of the honor roll friends. Yeah. So you know, I did definitely have this identity from very early on star student, exceptional student. And in some ways, maybe a common end of that trajectory, is Ph. D. program, you're an exceptional student, keep doing school. What I realized, though, in graduate school, is I was there because I loved teaching. I loved talking about books, I loved reading poems with other people and hearing what they had to say about them. And I don't know about for you, but in the program in which I was enrolled, that was not what we were up to. The focus was nowhere near enjoying books or teaching or having conversations, we were basically sharpening word swords with which to destroy one another.
Amy Hallberg 4:43
Okay, I would not have put it that way. I actually found my... but it was German literature. I found mine more collaborative because we were navigating a foreign language together. But I actually, just this morning, finished a chapter where I was trying to explain to my grandmother why a PhD isn't going to make me happy. And why this other thing... like and it just makes no sense to people who haven't been like, of course, why wouldn't you want to get a PhD and you could be a professor and you know, attain this level, and we'll all be proud of you. But there's no joy in it. And the joy was in the dancing around with the words, the playing with them, and what can we put together and being silly, and just being free? In a way that when you're working with literature or language, there's not really one right answer. I mean, people may say there is, but there's not, there's not one answer.
Natalie Miller 5:36
I agree. And I think, you know, what happened for me was what I thought, being a professor of American literature was not in fact what it was. When I got on into the inside of it, it was like, oh, this isn't how I imagined it would be. And so with that experience, with that new expertise, I think, for me, I had to let go of the star student identity, you know, I'm not even gonna say let go, though. I had to expand identity,
Amy Hallberg 6:19
Right. Because it's not that you stop being who you are, it's that it changes, it changes focus, you repurpose, you grow into something larger.
Natalie Miller 6:28
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And so I went on to be a student in other places, including with you. And in master life coach training...
Amy Hallberg 6:40
I have to tell you, Natalie, when we were in master life coach training, I was at a place where I was like, I had just become a new life coach. So I, like, I was just out of basic training, and they're like, why you show promise, come on in. And that was very intimidating for me, like all the things that I don't know yet. And it kind of blew my brain open. And in ways that now I'm like, I'm so grateful, but at the time was really scary. You know, whereas I think if there was A student that would have been you.
Natalie Miller 7:13
Well, I mean, you know, in many ways, I actually, I was in there at exactly the right time, like the timing was just so good for me in my own kind of life trajectory. And which is to say, also, right, like, who knows, maybe if I had gone to a different graduate program, or I had been there in a different moment, or had had a different mentor, right? Everything we do is co created. So it's like, you know, circumstances and communities and my own self and my own self knowledge all coming together. Maybe it would have been different. But it was the way that it was. But yes, the moment that we met one another, it was like a, it was a beautiful confluence of circumstances and community. And I think of my own kind of, like where I was, it was the right time for me.
Amy Hallberg 8:08
Well, that brings us to an interesting thing that you and I were, before we started recording, we were talking about how you can be in a story, right? And the point of story is that things don't turn out as expected. The story, you know, like, here's what's going to happen, and then it happens, the end, that's a really boring and shitty story, right? So you can look at a moment in the story and go, gosh, that is the worst possible thing that could possibly happen to a person. But if you zoom out, you can see that that's a pivot point that's necessary for the further growth and expansion of that character.
Natalie Miller 8:45
You know, it's really interesting, my kids went to a phenomenal, cooperative preschool. And the preschool teacher was very, very into reading the kids stories that were a little dark. And what she taught them was, if there's no trouble, there's no story, which I'm so grateful for, because that has actually become life lesson for them, right? Oh, I've entered middle school, this is hard, or here's the trouble but you know what, if there's no trouble there's no story. So I love that idea of like yeah, it's the twists and turns and the dark moments of life, they are important, they're vital, there's vitality in them.
Amy Hallberg 9:32
And there are throughlines, right, I call them truelines that you know, because they're like this thing seeds, that thing seeds that thing and at the end you can look back and that you know when you get to that big final moment of truth or whatever, it echoes all the learning that came from all the way along that path. So you couldn't have it without those other moments. You know?
Natalie Miller 9:56
It's funny, I mean, I just enacted that right by started saying like, you know, how did I end up in graduate school? Well, let's go back to the beginning, when I was, you know, an early reader, and then I was, you know that I was a star first grader and, you know, yeah, we do, we look for the trueline.
Amy Hallberg 10:15
So let me ask you, so you dropped out of graduate school? Did you just like go straight on to being a life coach? Or was there something in between where you had to figure out what to do?
Natalie Miller 10:24
Oh, my gosh, the first thing I did immediately was cut all my hair off, bleach it and dye it pink.
Amy Hallberg 10:31
Nice.
Natalie Miller 10:33
I discovered that when someone has been in higher education for most of her adult life, she doesn't have much of a resume, finding other kinds of jobs. And so I assembled a hodgepodge of retail work, doing work study at a local yoga studio, so that I could take fancy yoga classes, and doing a little bit of adjunct teaching, to kind of figure out what was next. I'm going to condense how the story flows, it basically goes, Natalie becomes a, like a, that's what is really kind of surreal. Actually, what I immediately did was in my retail job, I was very quickly promoted, and I was promoted all the way into the corporate headquarters. So that was a whole, like, I became a merchandiser, which is, those are the people who like set up displays and window displays for a very sort of shishi, French cosmetics company. Okay, so I did that. And then I was like, wait a minute, this isn't really what I want to do. And then I became a yoga teacher and a yoga studio owner, and realized that I was less interested in teaching people yoga than I was in teaching them how to be nice to themselves when they were doing yoga. So it was more interested in like, what are we telling ourselves? How do we make it into the studio, like, I got very interested in people's kind of, you know, self judgments and motivations. And then that is where I was with my therapist, and I said, am I to become a therapist? And she was like, "No, I don't know what you do, but don't become a therapist." And I was like, Oh, I don't know what to do. And I had a conversation with a friend of mine. Unrelated, I was having a problem in my life. And she asked me some questions that helped me see the problem in a completely different way. That helped me see myself in a completely different way. And it was very helpful. And then I think a week later, I was like, hey, how did you do that? Like, what happened? What happened in that conversation? She had gone through Martha Beck's life coach training program, she wasn't a coach, but she just kind of picked up those questioning skills. And then I was like, okay, this is the skill set that I want next. So that is how I became a coach.
Amy Hallberg 13:04
You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about how there are Martha Beck life coaches who become yoga instructors, right? I mean, like, a lot of what I did, as a German teacher, it would have taken me a long time to figure out that it's not about teaching German, or it's not about teaching yoga, it is a vehicle to help people learn the lessons of how to see themselves differently, how to be kind to themselves, how to question. I think the thing that startled me the most because basic life coach training was like, oh, I got this, you know, like, I'm a student. When I got into master coach training, there were so many questions from society, from my family from everything, it really was like my brain was like, struggling because part of my brain wants to hang on to all those things we've been told that should matter. I'm wondering if there was a point where you really struggled with that? Or did that feel like a natural progression for you? Do you know what I'm saying from the patriarchal mindset, which good girls are raised in to a place where, you know, you're still using your academic training, but in a very discerning way, and in order to say, and fuck the system that handed us the rest of this garbage? So what was that progression like for you to get to that place?
Natalie Miller 14:30
This is going to be a kind of three part answer. Once upon a time, the reason I went to graduate school really, another true line, is I was sitting in a lecture, sophomore year of college at the small liberal arts school. I went to Grinnell College, small liberal arts school, incredible professor, and she was talking about transcendentalism and she was talking about Ralph Waldo Emerson's idea of the over soul, which sort of sets what is most individual, what is most true to you is actually the way you connect with the universe. If you want to make beautiful art, if you want to connect with soul with people, be entirely completely yourself. And I heard that idea I can still remember, where I was sitting, the light in the room, it was an afternoon class, the sun was coming through just so. She's standing at a dry erase board, she's done a drawing, I'm like two thirds of the way, you know, I can just see myself. And I was like, I am supposed to teach this idea. And in that moment, 19 years old, how do you teach this idea you become a professor of American literature? Fast forward when I found myself there, and my colleagues, my friends are like, "Oh, did you submit a paper to such and such conference?" No, I didn't even know about such and such conference, because I don't have any desire to write any more papers than I'm already writing, right? Oh, did you apply for such and such? And I'm like, no, right. And I looked around, I looked at the professors ahead of me on the path. I looked at my colleagues and I was like, "This isn't right. This doesn't feel right. This is not who I am."
Amy Hallberg 16:27
You know, I know you have two more part answers. So a little bookmark here. But I'd like to just interject that you are a fairly prolific writer. So it's not the writing that you were objecting to, it was the writing to a prescribed, I assume, it was that it was writing to a prescribed purpose for external validation, as opposed to you are very clear that you write what you choose to write, please, and thank you.
Natalie Miller 16:53
Totally. And it was also it was writing that was intended to tear other writing apart. That's how I saw it, it was like, I will choose which scholars to build on and I will choose which scholars to tear down so that I rip and rip up a place for myself. I take a stand on the some, and on the dead bodies of others. And that's not why I was there. I was there because I loved books. I was there because an idea sent me a flame. And that's not any longer what I felt like I could do. Same thing with yoga teaching. I was taking these yoga classes, oh my gosh, oh, apparently this is the place because it's a foundational idea. In yogic philosophy. It's actually Emerson got it from reading yoga philosophy in counts. One is the many, when you are most individualized, that this is a kind of a tantric philosophy thing. When you are most true to yourself. You are most universal. You are, you know, you're who you're meant to be. And I'm like, oh, okay, I'm supposed to do it in the yoga community. And then I look around and people are like, "Oh, did you do you know, you just turned 32? Did you just do 32 sun salutations for your birthday?"
Amy Hallberg 18:13
No.
Natalie Miller 18:16
Did you? Did you? Did you get a photo shoot of yourself in ball gowns? and fancy yoga poses? No, I did not do that, right? No. I was like, shit, this isn't working either. This isn't the right place to do this idea, either, right? And so on. And so then eventually, right, this is what I do. As a coach. I truly believe that when you are who you are in your entirety, with your works with your strengths, with your weaknesses, when you are just your self most fully. You're exactly who you need to be for all of us. Yeah, like I love you most when you are that person, even though this world has has sort of told us you're not welcome here unless you are the extremely edited airbrushed version of yourself.
Amy Hallberg 19:17
And also better than the other versions of other people's airbrushed selves, too, by the way, part of what you were saying I was thinking about how you were talking about that tearing down of other people, that competition of it. And yet, that's so antithetical to the description of Emerson's quote, as you experienced it. I actually have my moment, my piece of literature was Herman Hesse's Damian, but it's that same thing of of, nope, you have to go so deeply within and like you, I remember that moment. I remember feeling it in my body. You know, we have these ideas we know so strongly in our head, you know, that are stuck there. But when you get out of your way, really just even talking about it, I feel it running through my legs right now you can feel it, but you'd have to pay attention. And you'd have to give credence to that feeling. And I think academia, I've had so many gifts from academia and I hear you saying that you do as well. And both of us, I think, have repurposed that learning, right? But to the exclusion of maybe the wholeness of who we really are.
Natalie Miller 20:27
I will say, there were some beautiful moments in graduate school too, even though it was not ultimately the right fit. But overall, how we feel, that's unavoidable information, because it's either showing us that when we feel uncomfortable, it's either showing us where we're lying to ourselves. Or it's showing us where we've adopted ideas, identities, that aren't ours.
Amy Hallberg 21:04
Right? And it's just contextual, right? Like, the things that have been the most painful for me, are often exactly those things that, recontextualized, are the greatest gifts of my life. Yes. Have you experienced that?
Natalie Miller 21:22
100% always, you know, if you think about it, I went to graduate school because I wanted to teach this idea that you have to be completely true to yourself in order to make your most kind of important, universally relevant contribution. And when graduate school was miserable for me, personally, and I really want to be clear, it's wonderful for many people, I have colleagues, I'm so happy to say, who now are professors at Stanford and Fordham. And like, it's amazing, right? Oh, that's wonderful. But how kind of perfect to, for me to have such a terrible experience. They're almost as if the universe is like, "Did you really hear what we said? You have to be yourself." And I was like, okay, okay, I'm gonna go be a yoga teacher, and they're like, "Okay, did you really hear the idea? You have to be yourself, you have to be true to you." Oh, okay. Okay. And now, you know, I'm closer and even still, I get a deep, I get deeper wisdom around the idea, I get a deeper understanding of the idea. Month by month, as life unfolds, and it is in the challenges. It's not in the places where it's smooth sailing. It's in the snags.
Amy Hallberg 22:50
So my mentor, through the writing of my book, she was a teacher who left teaching before me, and she just kept showing up all the places ahead of me. So like, oh, hi, Amy, how you doing? I'm writing a book, I want to write a book. And then you know, hey, hi, I've written a book. Oh, well, now I'm working for the publishing company. So she was always just like, one step ahead of me on the path, which is, you know, thank you universe, that's lovely. She was the one who said, you know, as I'm like, trying to get the book published, and she's like, "Amy, the writing is the good part, the living into it is the good part." I think sometimes we frame it as though that degree or that curriculum, the completion of the curriculum, will then you know, we will be educated, and then we will be finished. And what I'm hearing you say is, and what my experience is, the living of the adventure is the reward.
Natalie Miller 23:43
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is an interesting thing, isn't it to look at to talk to people who are achievers who've been socialized as achievers, and maybe even have a bit of that, like, that desire to accomplish? That's native to us, right? As we know, you can accomplish, you can get the A, you can be the valedictorian, you can get the fellowship, like you can achieve these things. And it's never done. It's never done, it's never enough. It hasn't proven anything, right? It's sort of like, oh, when I get here, then they'll... No, no, like no, because there's always kind of a next, there's like a next level and next piece. And so when we get away from that, like expecting the degree or the book deal, or the spot on the New York Times bestseller list, or whatever it is that we think is going to be proof that we've made it and we're just like, oh no, I'm actually making it all along. This is me making it you know, this is here's Elizabeth Gilbert crying on the bathroom floor, writing about it a year later, that was her making it, like, that was what made her write.
Amy Hallberg 25:03
And that isn't who she is anymore. If you read Elizabeth Gilbert's stuff, she's still living into it. Still, you know.
Natalie Miller 25:11
We always are, we're always evolving.
Amy Hallberg 25:15
So you may have already answered this but I'm going to ask it anyway. If you, the Natalie of today, were talking to the Natalie of then, and you could just sort of send a whisper back in her direction. What would it be?
Natalie Miller 25:34
Well, you're catching me in the week that my divorce is finalizing. So I'm like, don't marry him. Don't marry him. Thank you. Thank you. But that's not actually, that's not all. I want her to know. I want to send this in all directions. I want to send this message into the past and I also want to send this message into the future and it actually brings like makes me feel teary eyed. I want to say, "You can trust yourself. You can trust yourself. You can trust yourself."
Amy Hallberg 26:08
Thanks for listening to Courageous Wordsmith. Today's episode featured Natalie Miller. You can read about her and check out her links in the show notes. Backstage at Courageous Wordsmith, my editor is the talented Will Quie and my social media manager is the fabulous Maddy Kelley. If you enjoy this podcast, you can help it thrive and grow organically. Please subscribe right on this page, share with friends, and sign up for Truelines, my letter for real-life writers so that you'll hear about future episodes. And if you're feeling called to write, and you wonder if I might be the person to help you, you can learn more about me at amyhallberg.com. That's Amy Hallberg with two L's, dot com. I am Amy Hallberg and until we meet again, travel safely.