Does “certified trauma coach” mean someone is qualified to treat trauma? What’s the difference between a life coach and a licensed therapist, and why does it matter when you’re looking for help?

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, I’m Mary Beth Fox, a licensed professional counselor, explaining the differences in education, clinical training, credentials, confidentiality, and professional accountability.

You’ll learn:
• What training is required to call yourself a life coach
• Why certified does not mean licensed
• How coaching experience differs from supervised clinical training
• Why being trauma-informed does not automatically qualify someone to treat trauma
• What to question when someone promises to heal your inner child, rewire your brain, or fix what years of therapy couldn’t
• What to ask before trusting someone with your mental health

Coaching can be valuable. Consumers also deserve to understand what someone’s qualifications actually prepare them to do. If you’ve tried therapy and still feel not good enough, a compelling promise deserves careful questions.

Mental health professionals can email me to request the slides featured in this episode. Please credit Mary Beth Fox and Not Good Enough Stuff and keep the slides unaltered.

Share this episode with someone deciding between therapy and life coaching, and follow Not Good Enough Stuff for more conversations about the roots of why you feel not good enough.

00:47 Therapist vs. Life Coach: What’s the Difference?

02:44 What Training Does a Life Coach Need?

04:36 What Does It Take to Become a Licensed Therapist?

06:42 Coaching Hours vs. Clinical Training Hours

09:22 Certified Does Not Mean Licensed

10:38 Who Regulates Life Coaches?

13:23 Licensing Boards and Professional Accountability

14:57 What Does Confidential Actually Mean?

16:21 Trauma-Informed vs. Qualified to Treat Trauma

17:42 Coaching and Therapy Are Different Services

18:50 Life Coaching Marketing Claims Worth Questioning

21:09 When “Therapy Didn’t Work” Becomes a Sales Pitch

25:02 Knowing About Trauma vs. Being Qualified to Treat It

26:28 Questions to Ask Before Hiring Someone

27:37 Know Their Training, Credentials, and Accountability

29:17 How Mental Health Professionals Can Request the Slides

Resources & Links: 🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:


▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff


📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist


🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist


📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox


If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution: Music licensed through Soundstripe Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

You reached the goal you thought would finally make you feel good enough. So why is your inner critic already telling you it doesn’t count?

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, I explore how messages from family, society, and culture can shape what we believe about ourselves in childhood. We may not realize we’re still carrying those messages as adults. They can show up in our work, relationships, boundaries, and even our ability to rest.

I share how childhood comments about my appearance followed me into adulthood, and why accomplishments couldn’t change what I had come to believe about myself. Then I offer a place to start: noticing when your inner critic turns something that happened into a statement about who you are.

What’s one thing your inner critic says about you that you’re beginning to wonder if you learned?

Timestamps:

00:00 Why reaching achievements doesn't always boost self-worth

00:35 The roots of not good enough feelings

01:02 Exploring childhood influences on self-image

01:40 The metaphor of the tree and its roots

02:14 How environment shapes our beliefs

02:41 Messages from family, school, and society

04:52 Beliefs as roots and their visible branches

05:29 The impact of childhood messages on adult life

08:45 Messages as reflections of identity

09:42 Recognizing messages versus who we are

11:16 Healing childhood messages about appearance

15:34 Challenging the inner critic and beliefs

17:27 Practical steps to question your inner critic

18:20 The importance of self-acceptance and healing

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:


▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff


📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist


🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist


📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox


If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

Have you ever walked away from an argument and replayed it for hours? Thinking about what you should've said, wondering how they could possibly not understand you, or waiting for them to make things okay?

Sometimes the argument is over, but something in you still doesn’t feel resolved.

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, I’m talking about what happens during and after disagreements when you don’t feel heard or understood. Why do we explain more, get louder, cry, get angry, shut down, or apologize just to make it end? Why is it so hard to move on afterward?

We’ll explore how conflict can bring us back to younger versions of ourselves when a disagreement touches old experiences of not being heard, believed, or allowed to have feelings and needs.

I also share a personal story about realizing an adult disagreement had taken me emotionally back to about 4 years old, and how I gave that younger part of myself the repair I wasn’t getting from the other person.

There’s a difference between wanting someone to understand you and needing them to understand you before you can feel okay.

An argument ending is not the same thing as an argument being repaired.

If certain disagreements stay with you long after they’re over, this episode helps you understand what you’re actually waiting for and where that need began.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction
01:53 When the fight becomes about being heard
02:11 Wanting vs. needing someone to understand you
03:22 Why we revert to younger ages during conflict
04:16 My experience of becoming my 4-year-old self
07:12 How to recognize the age you revert to
10:21 Overexplaining, shutting down, and replaying arguments
13:01 When your inner child is waiting for repair
17:42 Ending an argument vs. repairing it
18:09 When the other person won’t repair with you
19:37 Learning to validate your own experience
20:34 How to recognize this in your own conflicts

Resources & Links:

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:


▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff


📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist


🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist


📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox

If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

Why can you still remember the name of the kid who bullied you, what they said, and exactly how they made you feel, even decades later?

Childhood bullying doesn’t always stay in childhood. The comments about your appearance, the names you were called, or the ways you were made to feel different can become part of how you see yourself long after the bullying stops. Eventually, their voice can become part of your own inner critic.

In this episode, I’m talking about how childhood bullying can follow us into adulthood, how another child’s words can become beliefs about who we are, and why we may still carry those messages 20, 30, or 40 years later.

I also share my own experiences with bullying and how being made fun of for my appearance affected my self-image well into adulthood. Then I take this conversation somewhere you may not expect and look at childhood bullying from a very different perspective.

What if some of what you learned to believe about yourself was never really about you?

We’ll talk about childhood bullying, the inner critic, self-image, feeling not good enough, why children bully, and what healing can look like without excusing what happened or requiring you to forgive the person who hurt you.

By the end, I want you to ask yourself one question:

What did someone who bullied me teach me to believe about myself, and do I still believe it today?

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Childhood Bullying and Memory

01:21 Understanding Why Bullies Act Out

03:04 The Role of External Voices in Inner Critic Formation

03:27 Healing and Loving Your True Self

04:27 Connecting Bullying to Not Good Enough Feelings

05:23 The Influence of Childhood Environment

06:00 The Importance of Context in Behavior

06:38 Reflecting on Personal Bullying and Its Roots

07:29 The Power of Understanding and Compassion

08:20 Healing and Moving Forward

Resources & Links:

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:
▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist
🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox
💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marybethfox

If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

Why does speaking up feel so uncomfortable, even when you know you have every right to say what you think?

Maybe you soften your opinions before you say them. You over-explain your boundaries. You worry that disagreeing makes you difficult. Or you finally speak up, then replay the conversation for hours afterward.

What if that fear didn't begin in adulthood?

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, licensed professional counselor Mary Beth Fox explores the childhood roots of self-silencing and how early messages about being nice, polite, agreeable, and respectful can shape people-pleasing, boundaries, conflict avoidance, self-doubt, and the fear of speaking up later in life.

We tell people to “find their voice” and stand up for themselves. But there's a question we don't ask nearly enough:

What did speaking up once cost you?

Maybe the question isn't why you're afraid to use your voice.

Maybe it's where you learned to be afraid of it.

00:00 Introduction: The societal view of women's voices

01:05 How girls are taught to be polite and agreeable

02:51 The roots of self-doubt and silence in women

04:35 Internalized beliefs about being liked and accepted

06:36 The tree metaphor: roots and branches of beliefs

08:19 The double bind: confidence versus politeness

10:00 Respect versus obedience in communication

11:35 Questioning the rules learned about having a voice

12:54 Reflecting on personal beliefs and empowering change

Resources & Links:

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:
▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist
🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox
💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marybethfox

If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

Why does it feel like no matter how much you accomplish, it is never enough?

You finish one thing and immediately think about what comes next. You sit down to rest and feel guilty about everything you should be doing instead. You look at other people and somehow it seems like they are managing their careers, homes, families, friendships, health, and lives better than you are.

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, Mary Beth Fox explores why productivity can become tangled up with self-worth and why accomplishing more rarely makes that “not enough” feeling disappear for very long.

We talk about where the pressure to constantly achieve can begin, how childhood messages about success, responsibility, mistakes, and rest can follow us into adulthood, and why comparing our real lives to the “fairy tale” lives we imagine other people have keeps us feeling perpetually behind.

This episode is not about giving up ambition or your goals. It is about asking a much harder question: Can you stop? Can you leave something unfinished and still believe you did enough today?

You’ll also hear why your life cannot keep waiting until the to-do list is finished, why unfinished tasks are not proof that you are failing, and what you may be missing while trying to become the person you think you are supposed to be.

What are you missing in your actual life while trying to prove that you are doing enough?

End of description:

Resources & Links:

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:
▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist
🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox
💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marybethfox

If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

Why does it hurt so much when someone doesn’t like you, even when you know not everyone is going to?

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, Mary Beth Fox explores why rejection can feel so personal and how childhood messages about being nice, agreeable, and liked can teach us to believe that someone else’s rejection means there is something wrong with us.

You’ll hear how fear of rejection can show up as replaying conversations, questioning what you did wrong, changing yourself to gain someone’s approval, or staying in friendships and relationships that no longer feel right because you’re afraid of hurting someone else.

We’ll also look at the other side of rejection: learning that you are allowed to decide someone isn’t right for your life, and other people are allowed to make that same decision about you.

Rejection can hurt. The goal isn’t to stop caring altogether. It’s learning to feel disappointed without turning someone else’s opinion or decision into evidence that you aren’t good enough.

In this episode:

• Why being disliked can feel like proof that something is wrong with you
• Childhood messages that teach us everyone should like us
• Why ambiguous behavior can trigger a rejection spiral
• How fear of rejection feeds people-pleasing and self-doubt
• Why you may stay in friendships or relationships you don’t actually want
• The difference between rejecting someone and deciding you aren’t a good fit
• How to experience rejection without making it mean you aren’t good enough

A question to sit with:
Can I be disappointed that someone doesn’t like me without making their opinion evidence that something is wrong with me?

Resources & Links:

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:
▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist
🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox
💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marybethfox

If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS

Have you ever gotten so angry over something small that even you were confused by your reaction? Or felt ashamed afterward and wondered, Why did I react like that?

In this episode of Not Good Enough Stuff, I explore what may be underneath that anger: sadness you learned to hide. If you grew up hearing “stop crying,” “you’re fine,” or that crying was weak, you may have learned to suppress sadness long before you understood what you were doing.

We’ll talk about how childhood messages about emotions can follow us into adulthood, why sadness can show up as anger, and how the cycle of exploding, feeling ashamed, and pushing your feelings back down can continue.

Instead of asking, “Why am I so angry?” what might change if you asked, “What might be underneath my anger that I never learned how to feel?”

Timestamps:

00:00 The Roots of Crying and Childhood Conditioning

06:57 The Consequences of Repressed Emotions

13:32 Redefining Strength: The Power of Vulnerability

20:25 Healing Through Understanding: The Impact of Childhood Lessons

Resources & Links:

🌐 Visit: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/

Download your FREE Not Good Enough Guide here: https://www.theinnerchildtherapist.com/free-guide-to-feeling-enough/

Connect with Me:
▶️ YouTube: @notgoodenoughstuff
📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinnerchildtherapist
🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@theinnerchildtherapist
📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/TICT.MaryBethFox
💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marybethfox

If this episode resonated with you, please follow the podcast, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps more people begin questioning the messages they never chose to believe.

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast is for educational and personal growth purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy, mental health treatment, or medical advice, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. If you need support for your unique situation, please connect with a licensed mental health professional in your area.

Music Attribution:

Music licensed through Soundstripe

Code: CDAA5GJA2635SEHS