Her Next Chapters

70. From Burnout to Breakthrough: Cathleen Mohr’s Journey to Healing and Self-Discovery

• Christina Kohl

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Embracing life after motherhood can lead to profound self-discovery and personal transformation. Guest Cathleen Mohr shares her journey from a high-stress corporate career to becoming a family constellations facilitator, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and presence in nurturing relationships.

• Introduction of Cathleen Mohr and her work
• Discussion on her career in corporate America and the stress involved
• The pivotal wake-up call that led to major life changes
• Transitioning to Ireland for self-care and reflection
• Writing a book as a part of rediscovering passions
• Explanation of family constellations and shadow work
• Personal insights into identity and emotional healing
• Importance of being present in relationships with children
• Kathleen’s resources and workshops for deeper exploration

Here are opportunities to learn more about Cathleen's work:
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Grab the Free Strengths-First Resume Template - it's perfect for anyone in career transitions, whether with a long career gap, a career pivot, or just ready for a change.
Want to chat about your career goals? Schedule a free call HERE.
Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina





Christina Kohl:

Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started.

Christina Kohl:

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters. I am excited to welcome our guest with us today. Cathleen Mohr is here. She is a family consolation facilitator, an intuitive trainer and reader. So hi, Cathleen. Hi, how are you? I'm great, it's so good to have you here. Thank you, I have so many questions for you, but before we do that, can you explain to us and to our audience who's listening? Just really quickly, at a high level. We're going to go deeper later, but just really at a high level. What is a family constellations facilitator and intuitive trainer? Sure.

Cathleen Mohr:

So a family constellations facilitator is someone who helps clients look at hidden patterns and generate more flow, more energetic flow. It's also very intuitive, so a necessary by byproduct is greater intuitive knowledge and trust trust in yourself. I've done like a number of different modalities, but this is the one that reached me.

Christina Kohl:

So I'm guessing you haven't always been a family constellation facilitator, been a Family Constellation?

Cathleen Mohr:

facilitator. I completed my year-long training in Ireland in Wickle Ireland, with Roisin Fallon.

Christina Kohl:

Okay, so tell me a little bit more. Let's back up a little bit. What is your history, what was your career, your life before this season started?

Cathleen Mohr:

So the usual empty nesting identity crisis, not sure what my purpose is. What am I now after leaving corporate America and wanting more heart and meaning in my life? What's your career in corporate privacy compliance, so really technical, organizational, information-driven kind of stuff. And so it didn't have hardly any heart at all in it. But I wanted to be responsible. I wanted to be a good mother. I was a single parent the whole time.

Christina Kohl:

How long was your career in that field?

Cathleen Mohr:

So that career was four to five years and before that I was a legal assistant and an executive assistant before that. So I got my education late in life Got it.

Christina Kohl:

So you've had a few pivots along the way. And then when did you?

Cathleen Mohr:

leave corporate In 2017.

Christina Kohl:

2017. Okay, and what was what prompted you to make that decision?

Cathleen Mohr:

I woke up one day and was blind in my right eye, and so, and after all the testing, so, um, and after all the testing, realized it was stress and I decided I needed to change. I was going to not make it clearly. I was starting to have physical repercussions from the stress of, you know, working 60 hours a week and raising my child, and so I decided, uh, there must be something else. Um, I can do something else. So I started with, you know, a dog business. I started going with what do I love, what do I enjoy? So I did, I just still do a lot of writing and social media management, and, and then I had the dog business. So, a little bit of everything.

Christina Kohl:

But talk about a wake-up call. If you're going blind in one eye, your body is like time out. So you did some things, kind of what sound like a bunch of side hustles, all kind of layered on top of each other, following what you love. And then how did that all evolve into the next chapter?

Cathleen Mohr:

So in 2021, at the end of the year I went to a retreat and at the time I was getting my master's in cybersecurity. So I had gone from one extreme to the other again and my child was 20, just turned 21 at that point and our relationship was miserable and I was still stressed out all the time. I was still, even though I was working three different jobs that I love doing. I wasn't so wasn't happy. So I went to a women's retreat and realized that I wanted to go back to Ireland. I needed to do something. And then subsequently, I had a conversation with a therapist who mentioned that I was codependent and I needed to look at myself. I needed to stop living, breathing, doing everything for my child, and it was best for both of us if I took a step back and worked on me. So clear wake up call there.

Christina Kohl:

Yeah, and that's hard for us as moms. You mentioned codependency, but just in any parent-child relationship, our identities. I'll speak for myself here. My identity is caught up in being mom and concerned about the well-being of my child. But as they become adults there is this transition phase and I don't know the details of your relationship, but it sounds like you needed to separate and have some space and distance, and for you that was going to Ireland. So tell me a little bit more about why Ireland, like what's your history there?

Cathleen Mohr:

Yeah, so I had moved to Ireland in 1998. And 1999, I lived there for a while, maybe not a very popular choice, but based on romance novel. I dropped everything and moved to Ireland, followed the signs, followed my intuition and I loved it. I loved it. I lived there for almost two years and then I moved back to the States when my mom got ill and I was pregnant. So, um, again, it was that responsibility do what I want. Responsibility, do what I want.

Christina Kohl:

So so Ireland called you back, it was time to focus on Cathleen for a while, and and you you went and so tell what happened, what happened once you were in Ireland.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yeah, so my child decided to travel to Australia and leave as well, and I went to Ireland and stayed with one of my friends my friend that I'd had since before and then I found a cute little cottage in the middle of the Atlantic the Wild Atlantic Way, they call it in the coastal town of Kilkey, in County Clare, and so I lived out there for a year and wrote a book. So my whole plan was to finally write that book and then grow a business based on the success of that and a course. Okay, what was your book? It's called Not Socially Acceptable and it is about that back and forth, and you know, really wanting so much to be connected and doing what we love and what can keep us from that, that responsibility piece, that that's not what people do.

Christina Kohl:

So Right, so you followed your passion. You fulfilled the lifelong dream of writing a book. And then what happened?

Cathleen Mohr:

what happened? Yeah it, it didn't. I felt, after telling my story and owning it, um, that I had an identity crisis if I wasn't the person that I, that I had always been. So I really got out of that victim mentality if that makes any sense and in, in, looking at myself and doing some inner work, and I, I continued with some um psychology, um work with a therapist, and then I realized, oh, um, I was so focused on that all the time that I couldn't see myself. So then the real work started. So once the story was out and out of my system, then the real work started.

Christina Kohl:

That's what I would say Okay. So the real work began and, if I remember right, you went to an event where you got introduced to the constellation modality. I'm not sure what else to call it, but I'll let you be the expert and tell us about it and kind of how you tiptoed in and how you've embraced that now. That's kind of an interesting story too.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yeah, I met a woman who wanted to do the Artist's Way, and so we became accountability partners. The Artist's Way is by Julia Cameron. It's a great personal development and explore your creativity process. And synchronistically she wanted to go to a family constellations workshop for it was for a full day and I said no. Initially I thought it had to do with astrology and I was yeah. So I'm like, oh, no. Well, then I saw someone else mentioned family constellations, who is another person that I follow, and I'm like, well, if it comes up more than once, then it's kind of like a sign from the universe for me. That's how I interpret it, and so I said, oh, I guess I better go.

Christina Kohl:

So with the constellations again, like you said, you know you thought it was astrology and so did I. So if you can kind of enlighten us on what constellation? I don't even know the right word. Constellation, what is it?

Cathleen Mohr:

Experience, experience, yeah, it is experiential, yes, and and it's somatic you know that's a pretty big buzzword right now is, you know, it's felt in the body, it's emotional an issue, it can be a health issue, a pattern that they're recognizing, pain or repeated relationship issue, or they're just not loving life. So they come with an issue and the facilitator will say, okay, well, let's take a look at what's happening there. And so I'm a little bit of a skeptic, even though I do a lot of woo-woo practices and I trust my intuition, I'm practical about it, I'm an intuitive coach, trainer, reader. I'm not a therapist and it seemed pretty. It's very intense, it can be very intense, deeply moving, and you know a little bit beyond what I was maybe capable of, and so I talked through that with the facilitator.

Cathleen Mohr:

So, roisin, we had this conversation, it was probably about five minutes and I signed up. It's a much bigger modality. It was originated in Germany by Bert Hellinger and he was looking at generational trauma, so it's a much more known modality in Europe. So I arrived and I hadn't even had a constellation as a client yet.

Christina Kohl:

Okay, so you walk into the training. The first one was it in person.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yes.

Christina Kohl:

There's so much that's virtual these days. Yeah, so it was virtual these days.

Cathleen Mohr:

So yeah, so it was residential once a month, and the first one was five days, and yeah so we all showed up. There are 16 trainees in my group and yeah so we worked from 9 am till 5, 6, 7 o'clock at night in training. And the way that Roshin facilitates is that you're really doing shadow work for 60% of the training, so you're doing your own personal work in order to be able to hold space for, and so I wasn't sure I would even be a facilitator. I was like shadow work, that sounds amazing.

Christina Kohl:

For those of us who are, and those that are listening, who aren't familiar with shadow work I've heard the phrase a lot more in the last year or two that are listening, who aren't familiar with shadow work I've heard the phrase a lot more in the last year or two. But share with us a little bit more about what that means.

Cathleen Mohr:

So what it means to me now is shadow and to look at the things that I've been unwilling to look at before, to be able to bring things up into my awareness that I haven't been able to see. So they can be gifts, they can be personality traits, they can be events that have occurred that you haven't been willing to look at, they can be aspects that you want to have but you don't let yourself have, or hidden emotions. So grief, anger, leadership, it can be any of those things. It's just what is hidden from you, that's in the shadow.

Christina Kohl:

For the uninsheated. I think of it, and when I hear the term shadow work, it makes me think of dark, negative. But what you just said, it could be that, but it doesn't sound like it's just that, like it could just be things that it's hidden from ourselves because we're not, for whatever reason, allowing ourselves to be aware of it or tap into it. Would that be correct? Yes, okay.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yeah. So I'll give you an example for me in particular. So my first consolation I wanted to look at disappointment. Why do I feel disappointed in myself? Why do I feel I always let people down? What is it about me that can't rise to the occasion or finish the thing or express myself the way I intend to? What keeps me from succeeding, I guess? Or feeling like I haven't let someone down? So it's a kind of a double-edged kind of a thing.

Cathleen Mohr:

And so when I went up to be the client, I felt very young, and so the facilitator asked me how old do you feel? And I said six. That's how old I felt at that time in that spot and related to this particular issue. And so they brought a representative so a complete stranger that I'm going to spend a whole year with coming out as me as a six-year-old. So my six-year-old self is in the field. I was so focused on my mom and dad and I was avoiding looking at my six-year-old self. And so, as a facilitator, that's what you do you say well, I'm noticing that you're not looking at your six-year-old self. I'm noticing that your focus is all on your parents and what's going on for you, and so that whole process was really about the movement in that particular experience would be me being able to reconnect with my six-year-old self.

Cathleen Mohr:

My six-year-old self was in my shadow. I was focused on other people. That also came about and it wasn't anything to do with me. What was also in my shadow was the fact that my parents, at one point, did love each other, so I didn't want to recognize that. So there's like a number of aha moments of things that were in my shadow, like they're not my responsibility. They did love each other. My focus needs to be on my six-year-old self. That's who needs me. And so then the completion of the consolation was me connecting with my six-year-old self, and that's just like. I'm going to be there for you. I will look at you, I will be open to what you have to say to me. So it was that healing connection with my inner child, basically, and if you would have asked me before that moment, I would have said I've done inner work, I've talked to my inner child. So it was just a different experience.

Christina Kohl:

How did things, how did you carry forward with that? How did that experience carry forward for you?

Cathleen Mohr:

So one thing I realized quickly was I don't actually know as much as I think I know I realized every time I was going to be like whoa that was mind blowing.

Cathleen Mohr:

So how did I carry forward? From that? I felt differently about who I was, at six years old for sure, and that is when my trauma was most intense. So you know, recognizing that and also recognizing that it wasn't my job to take care of my parents, especially my mother, it was never my job. I think there was part of me that thought that she didn't choose me right. But it wasn't, it had nothing to do with me. There, a lot of times, out of blind love, we will choose to parent our parents. We will become the bigger person We'll need to to survive.

Cathleen Mohr:

So how did it look? It looked like me recognizing I was capable of more and that what I thought was not necessarily what was true. The stories that I survived on weren't the whole truth. So it helped me be a little more open to learning a little bit more of the truth of myself. And how did that play out Like over months? So each constellation, the energy it's like throwing a little stone in that ripples out over time, that increases the flow of life in that field and kind of rebalances it. By observing things, we rebalance them, we bring things back into belonging. The other thing that I learned is that I had a place in my family and it wasn't the place that I had taken up. I had my own place as the daughter of my parents. I had my own responsibilities and my own place. That would make sense to me. Over the next few weeks, I felt better in my body. I had more energy, I had better sleep, there was a lot of relaxing. Those are just some of the benefits of that first constellation.

Christina Kohl:

Yeah, yeah, and this training. So every month for a year you all met and did this level of intense training and this was in when was this? 2022, 2023?

Cathleen Mohr:

No, this is 2024. Oh, okay, yeah, all of 2024 yep, okay, yep, I yeah just completed, yep okay, so you're now doing this work.

Christina Kohl:

Um, can you tell me a little bit more like the, the constellation therapy, like why, when is it? It's not therapy. And what I'm curious to know is more about the constellation like why? Why is that the title, why is that the name?

Cathleen Mohr:

sure so, family constellations. When you're working in a family system, there would be an order or a hierarchy of so you have the dad and the mom and then the oldest child and each subsequent child, in a family system, for instance, but then you have the extended family system and generationally, what will happen is the system will try to rebalance itself to create more flow of life, to create more energy. So if you've ever noticed, one generation will maybe have a characteristic of you know, maybe their alcoholism is a prevalent thing for them.

Christina Kohl:

generation there's no one who even drinks alcohol, but they might marry someone who experiences alcoholism, right?

Cathleen Mohr:

Or their family has come from alcoholism. So in my family both of my grandparents had alcoholism in that generation, but it didn't come in the subsequent generation. But the effects are still. They still happen. So how does that present itself? It could be as denial, right? So my mother was very good at denial, of denying reality and of staying in this. You know, perfect family place.

Cathleen Mohr:

Well, that's kind of a condition of alcoholism. It's the thing you don't look at, right? So you learn to be very good at not looking at something. And then you know, maybe every other generation seems to want to do you know something like as an adventurer, for instance. But then you have the next generation who wants to stay home, be secure, find a job for 40 years and stay in it, right?

Cathleen Mohr:

So what are the patterns of behavior? How is the system trying to balance itself? And then what we do in constellations is, when you recognize that everything belongs, when you acknowledge what's there, the system kind of writes itself. And so then you don't have that pattern, like I was talking about in the beginning, where I'm responsible, I'm adventurous, I'm responsible, I'm adventurous, I do what I want, I follow my dreams. You know those are. That's a pattern, that's a family pattern playing out through me.

Cathleen Mohr:

And so, in constellations, what you strive to do is observe, to know that everything belongs, without judgment. So I mean, every family has secrets, right? So you don't even necessarily need to know what the secret is. You need to acknowledge that it's there, that, oh, five people reacted to that particular secret in this way. How do we bring it back into balance? There's organizational constellations as well. So why is this team not functioning? Why aren't they getting their work done? Why is everyone miserable on this team? What needs to be observed, spoken out loud, acknowledged, in order to bring back flow in that team? So it's a little bit about placement and it's a lot about where do they want to move, so that you can see the pattern, what's being drawn to what, what's being rejected, what's being kept from the system. So it's also how they interact.

Christina Kohl:

A little bit.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yeah.

Christina Kohl:

Interesting.

Cathleen Mohr:

There's lots of ways it can play out, but by being aware of it, by naming it, it's in your awareness. It's no longer in your shadow yeah, yeah, so are there.

Christina Kohl:

Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you think would be valuable to to share? We've kind of we've talked about your, your background, your pivot, how you kind of tiptoed into this and now you've fully embraced it. Um, is there anything else that would be helpful? And yeah.

Cathleen Mohr:

So for me, um, for consolation work really helped me connect to myself. It helped me go from self-consciousness to more self-awareness. I still will be doing this work for the rest of my life life and because I want to keep expanding my self-awareness, I want to keep observing the patterns. And for someone who started not even being able to look at themselves and my latest constellation and this is my third I was able to see at least eight different aspects of myself, including love, rebalancing the system. Like the work that I'm doing, I'm able to see more of who I am, which means that the opportunities are bigger. They're different. I'm meeting new people who relate differently. I'm able to connect and feel in my body. I'm able to sit and be with someone in moments of intense emotion now.

Cathleen Mohr:

So for me, I craved connection, love, belonging, which most of us do, but for me it was, and I was so afraid, and now I still get afraid sometimes, but I know it's important, it's more important and it's worth it. So I guess that's what I would say. Before I would have said I was a feeling person, I was passionate, but I didn't feel it in my body, and now I do. So I relate differently and I'm not afraid of conflict. So there's yeah, that's what I would say is that self-connection, that self-awareness especially if you're going to be pivoting and doing something different. Really having all of your energy on board is priceless. I wake up now every day and I know exactly what I want to do.

Christina Kohl:

So I guess one thing that I would, just that it's on my mind, because a lot of the listeners are either in the empty nest or maybe facing the empty nest and with that you that, regardless of careers, that's just a huge life change. And just in wondering, who am I if my kids are grown and flown and don't need me anymore, there's that recalibration. That's not really the right word, but it's a reconnection to self and I'm wondering how constellation exercises, experiences, might be able to help provide again, these words are just kind of coming to me so help provide grounding as someone is in a life transition. So it's a pivot an experience and you've, you've experienced it. Your, your child is probably what? 23, 24 by now and you are living in a different phase of life because of that. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are, how constellation experiences can help someone who's going through that type of life transition and identity shift is.

Cathleen Mohr:

I went, not even to save myself, even though I was supposed to be looking at myself. I went because I didn't want the kind of relationship I had with my child In the beginning, with the codependency. I wasn't able to hold space to witness them, to see them as an adult, to see them for who they are, and I was worried about like, what do I need to do? What's next? Where do I belong? You know it was coming from a different place and now we are able to have conversations. We've had difficult conversations, like in moving back to the United States. You know we needed to talk about what we were going to do with Maisie.

Cathleen Mohr:

My child is now in Scotland instead of Australia and they have a life partner. So we're able to be present with one another. We're able to talk about. We're able to be present with one another. We're able to talk about deep things. I'm able to be there for them in a way that I never was while I was raising them because I was so worried about what I needed to do for them. So it's helped me be present. It's helped me be a source of resonance for them, a source of support.

Cathleen Mohr:

And if I can say one thing to any mother at any point. The biggest, most important life-changing thing you can do for your child is to be a present witness, listen, be there in a way that holds space for them to exist. Being seen and heard is one of the things that everyone needs to be happy. So it isn't, unfortunately, which is what I did. It isn't making the snacks, cleaning the house, making sure they get to sports on time although it is that but in those moments, being present without the worry, just being present, to be able to hold that space for their existence and evolution, that space for their existence and evolution, yeah, so being there for yourself and being self-connected and being self-responsible will exponentially evolve the relationship with your children.

Christina Kohl:

Yeah, that's powerful yeah.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yeah. I mean it didn't only only save the work, didn't only save myself, it saved my relationship with my child.

Christina Kohl:

So well, if people want to know more, how can they reach you? How can they get in touch with you to tap into?

Cathleen Mohr:

all this yep. So thanks, I appreciate this opportunity and I'll have my website. It has more information and I have monthly workshops that are free one Sunday a month. I also offer one free constellation a month, either individual or group online individual or group online and so my suggestion is start to feel into your body, especially if you think you're on automatic or you're a woman. I've heard this so many times. I'm a thinker, I'm not, I'm not really emotional, you know. So start by representing, and that can be free. You know, so, start by representing, and that can be free. Um, but yeah, I'll give you my website and anyone can find me. I have everything out there.

Christina Kohl:

Okay, so we'll include your website in the show notes, as well as the information about the monthly workshops that they said that are free and open to the public. So those are all online. It sounds like to kind of get a taste of it and learn more about the modality and learn more about ourselves, right.

Cathleen Mohr:

Yes, and if you decide you love it, there's ways to go deeper and be more strategic about it. Yeah, okay, wonderful, all right, well, Cathleen, thank you so much for joining us today, thank you, thanks for having me, and let me talk about my favorite thing Absolutely.

Christina Kohl:

All right. Well, everyone, thanks for joining and listening in. That wraps up this week's episode, so we will talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember your story is uniquely your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.