How Eden Downey Helps Business Owners Escape Their Spiral

In the chaotic world of entrepreneurship, business owners often find themselves caught in a mental spiral that can feel impossible to escape. This is especially true for mother entrepreneurs who juggle the demands of running a business while maintaining a household and raising children. Enter Eden Downey, a certified life coach specializing in helping business owners, particularly women, navigate the mental challenges that come with entrepreneurship.

Eden's journey to becoming a life coach began during her psychology studies when she discovered "mental strength work" - focusing on what's within your power now and creating new mental habits. This approach resonated deeply with her, leading her to complete life coaching certification and begin working with clients who needed help untangling their mental chaos. Now, as a mother of two young boys and a business owner herself, Eden brings both personal experience and professional expertise to her coaching practice.

In a recent episode of The Profitability Podcast, hosts Joey and Mackenzie sat down with Eden to explore the mental challenges facing entrepreneurs and the techniques that can help them break free from overwhelming thought patterns. Their conversation revealed valuable insights for anyone struggling to silence their inner critic and find joy in their current circumstances. From distinguishing between therapy and coaching to practical tips for moving through difficult emotions quickly, Eden shared frameworks that can transform how business owners approach decision-making and self-perception.

Untangling Mental Chaos  

Business ownership often feels like trying to read a label from inside a jar - you simply can't see what's happening clearly when you're in the middle of it. This is where Eden's approach to coaching shines. Rather than telling clients what to do, she asks thought-provoking questions that help them untangle their own mental chaos. She believes that deep down, people already know what they need; they just require help accessing that knowledge amidst the noise of business demands, family responsibilities, and personal expectations.

This approach differs significantly from directive consulting or mentoring. As Eden explained in the podcast, one of the hardest parts of coaching is holding back her own "aha moments" for clients. When she sees a solution, she resists the urge to simply provide the answer. Instead, she creates space for clients to reach their own realizations because they value insights much more when they discover them themselves. This doesn't mean Eden never offers suggestions, but she prioritizes guiding clients to their own discoveries, knowing they're more likely to implement ideas they generate.

What makes Eden's coaching particularly valuable for business owners is her transparency about her own struggles. She doesn't position herself as someone who has everything figured out, offering a perfect blueprint for others to follow. Instead, she meets clients where they are, acknowledges that she experiences similar challenges, and shares tools that have helped her navigate difficulties. This authentic approach creates an environment where clients feel safe exploring their thoughts without judgment, which is essential for the deep personal work required to overcome mental blocks.

The Therapy-Coaching Distinction  

One common misconception Eden addressed in the podcast is the confusion between therapy and coaching. While there can be some overlap, the approaches serve different purposes and focus on different timeframes. Therapy typically focuses on healing past traumas (whether major or minor) and helping people achieve basic functioning in their daily lives. It looks backward to understand how past experiences shape current behaviors and thought patterns.

Coaching, on the other hand, focuses primarily on the future - who clients need to be now to move forward and pursue what they want. Eden emphasizes the concept of "be, do, have" rather than the reverse. This means focusing first on who you are as a person, understanding your values and how you show up in various roles. This self-awareness then impacts what you do, which ultimately determines what you have. Instead of thinking "When I have a successful business, then I can take time for myself and my family," coaching flips the script to put being first, followed by doing, and finally having.

This distinction becomes particularly important for business owners struggling with decision-making. When entrepreneurs understand who they want to be and what truly matters to them, decisions become clearer. Rather than being paralyzed by endless options or caught in spirals of doubt, they can evaluate choices based on alignment with their core values and desired identity. Eden's coaching creates space for this kind of reflection, helping clients move beyond immediate urgency to consider what will truly serve them in the long run.

Breaking Free from the Spiral  

During the podcast conversation, Joey identified herself as a "visionary" - someone with numerous ideas who struggles to determine which ones to execute. This pattern is common among entrepreneurs and can lead to what Joey described as a feeling of insanity, with too many options creating mental paralysis. Eden's approach to helping visionaries involves asking "for what purpose?" repeatedly, helping clients trace ideas back to their core motivations.

When Joey explored this process herself, she discovered that beneath her many business ideas were core desires: financial security, flexibility to do what she loves, and supporting other women. This clarity immediately reduced her sense of chaos because it provided criteria for evaluating which ideas to pursue. Instead of seeing every possibility as equally compelling, she could assess them based on how well they served her fundamental goals. This simple but profound shift illustrates how coaching can transform decision-making for visionaries.

The conversation also touched on the dynamic between visionaries and "integrators" - people who excel at implementation but may sometimes rain on a visionary's parade by pointing out practical limitations. Eden's coaching provides a middle path, honoring the visionary's creative energy while facilitating practical forward movement. Rather than deflating entrepreneurial dreams, she helps clients identify which visions align most closely with their core values and develop realistic paths toward those goals. This balance keeps visionaries from feeling constantly frustrated by limitations while ensuring they make progress on meaningful objectives.

The Self-Love Foundation  

Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of Eden's coaching approach is her emphasis on self-love as a foundation for business success. While this might seem disconnected from pragmatic business concerns, the podcast conversation revealed how crucial self-acceptance is for effective decision-making and forward movement. Eden shared that when business owners face inevitable setbacks - a client who doesn't sign, a failed launch, or even small daily disappointments - shame often follows, creating a spiral that impedes progress.

Her solution is surprisingly simple but profoundly effective: acknowledging the feeling of failure or disappointment while still choosing to "deeply and completely love and accept" yourself. This practice, which Eden learned through Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping), interrupts the shame spiral that keeps entrepreneurs stuck. Rather than wallowing in self-criticism or avoiding uncomfortable emotions, business owners can acknowledge their feelings, accept themselves anyway, and continue moving forward with greater clarity.

This approach fundamentally changes how entrepreneurs make decisions. When choices come from self-love rather than fear, they tend to be more aligned with true values and long-term goals. Joey reflected on how different her past might have been if she'd practiced this kind of self-acceptance instead of getting caught in shame spirals after setbacks. The conversation highlighted how many entrepreneurs lose momentum not because of external obstacles but because they get trapped in cycles of self-criticism that drain their energy and cloud their judgment.

Practical Techniques for Moving Through Emotions Quickly  

One of the most practical insights from Eden's approach is that feeling emotions fully and accepting them actually accelerates moving through them - contrary to the avoidance strategies many entrepreneurs employ. According to Eden, it takes only about nine seconds to fully experience an emotion if you allow it to process through your body. This contrasts sharply with the days, weeks, or even months many business owners spend avoiding or suppressing difficult feelings.

Joey's reaction to this information was revealing - she admitted that she typically operates on a "90-day timeline" for processing emotions, putting them off until she has time to deal with them. This avoidance creates a backlog of unprocessed feelings that affects all areas of life, from business decision-making to family relationships. Eden's approach offers a more efficient alternative: feel the feeling fully, acknowledge it without judgment, and then move forward without the weight of suppressed emotions.

Here are some practical techniques Eden shared for moving through emotions quickly:

1. Name the feeling specifically - Instead of vague distress, identify exactly what you're experiencing (e.g., "I feel disappointment about losing that client")

2. Locate the feeling in your body - Notice where you physically feel the emotion and how it manifests

3. Allow yourself to experience it fully for a few seconds - Don't try to change or suppress it

4. Say to yourself: "Even though I feel [emotion], I deeply and completely love and accept myself"

5. Take a deep breath and notice how the intensity shifts

6. Ask yourself what you need now - This moves you from reaction to response

These simple steps can transform how entrepreneurs experience setbacks, preventing the extended productivity losses that often follow disappointments. By processing emotions efficiently, business owners can maintain clearer thinking and make better decisions even during challenging times.

Finding Joy in the Present Reality  

The conversation between Joey and Eden ultimately circled back to a profound insight: when entrepreneurs clear the mental clutter and align with their true values, they often discover they already "have it all." Joey shared that when she escapes the spiral of doubt and fear, she recognizes the joy available in her current circumstances - even with their imperfections and challenges. This shift from scarcity to abundance thinking transforms how she approaches both business and family life.

This doesn't mean entrepreneurs should dismiss legitimate challenges or pretend everything is perfect. Rather, it's about recognizing that joy and fulfillment aren't contingent on achieving some future state of perfection. Eden emphasized that this mindset shift requires ongoing work - it's not a one-time transformation but a practice of returning to core values and self-acceptance whenever the spiral begins again.

If you find yourself caught in mental chaos as a business owner, consider whether a coach like Eden might help you untangle your thoughts and reconnect with what truly matters to you. The investment in mental clarity pays dividends across all areas of life, from more effective business decisions to more present family relationships. By learning to process emotions efficiently and make decisions from a place of self-acceptance rather than fear, you can transform your experience of entrepreneurship from constant overwhelm to purposeful progress.

Remember that underneath all the chaos of business ownership lies your innate wisdom about what matters most to you. Sometimes, you just need someone to help you read the label from outside the jar. As Eden so beautifully put it, her goal is to help people "do what they do best, and do it really, really well, and offer it to the world." Perhaps that's the ultimate purpose of mental strength work - clearing away the obstacles so your unique gifts can flow freely into a world that needs them.