On todays episode Betsy dives deep into your truth and how you know your following your own path.

She tells a story of her recent travels on a solo trip to the Bahamas and the strange incident that happened that made her choices seem even more important.

Transcript:

Betsy:
Welcome to the Art of Living big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy Pake, your host, master coach, and creator of the Navigate method, here to help you listen in to your true desires, elevate your standards, and live life to the fullest. Now, let’s go live big. Hi. Good morning. Hi. Welcome. Welcome to the show.

Betsy:
If you’re new here, I’m happy that you’re here. Thanks for giving it a listen. And if you. You are old here. Hi. Hi. I’m so happy to see you. I hope you’re good.

Betsy:
All right, so this week, I. There’s something. There’s something really important that I want to talk to you about. And also, I want to tell you this crazy story. And I don’t think the story is crazy, but I know from the outside it probably looks a little crazy. And if you follow me on Instagram, then you may have witnessed the crazy while the crazy was in route. So I’m gonna explain to you kind of what has been going on. So a couple weeks ago, I decided I just needed to sit in the sun.

Betsy:
You know, I wanted to just sit and feel the heat on my face, feel the sunshine, you know, listen to the ocean. I just really wanted to be someplace warm, and I thought maybe I’ll run down to Key west, because I love Key West. But I wanted hot. I wanted to make sure that I had hot. I live in Atlanta, and it really doesn’t get super cold here, but it had been cold, and I just get sick of the winter, you know? So I am a Delta girly, and I have lots of Delta points. And so I looked up where could I go and was able to book a flight to the Bahamas. So the intention was that I would go on a Friday and stay till a Tuesday. Okay.

Betsy:
So I would be. It’d be like a long weekend, basically, which felt good to me because I didn’t want to miss group. I know this. I know I’m allowed to miss group with my ladies in the navigate method, but I don’t. I don’t like to. I think maybe I miss, like, once a year. I’m really. I really like doing it.

Betsy:
Unless I have, like, an event that I just can’t be there for whatever reason. So then I have one of my coaches do it, and they’re great and they do a great job. So there’s no. There’s no harm, no foul. But I really like to be there. And so I thought, I’ll leave. Group is on Thursday. So I thought I’ll leave on Friday, and then I’ll just be there a couple days, and I’ll come home.

Betsy:
So I worked my magic with the points, and over the last couple weeks, I have really liked thinking about going. Like, I’ve really liked thinking about how much fun it’s going to be to feel the sun on my face and, like, what I’m going to order from the restaurant. And, you know, the. The place that I decided to go was Bah Bahamar, which is in the Bahamas. And it’s this huge resort with, like, three different hotels and tons of restaurants. I mean, I think there’s, like, 17 restaurants. There’s, like, six different pools, and they have really good mocktails. Now, I’m not afraid of having a cocktail every once in a while, but it’s not totally my thing, so I was like, that’ll be fun.

Betsy:
I started thinking, like, what kind of mocktail am I going to get? Like, what am I going to sit and drink by the. By the pool and the sound of the pool and all of that? I just. I have really enjoyed the last couple weeks thinking about it. Okay, so part of the joy of the whole thing was me thinking about it. I remember years ago. I mean, years and years ago when I was, like, in college, and then, like, a young adult out of college and going to visit my grandmother. And if you’ve been here for a while, you know, I was close with my grandma, and I remember thinking, I’m gonna go surprise her. And I remember saying to my sister, I’m gonna go up and see Grandma, and I’m gonna surprise her.

Betsy:
And I remember my sister saying to me, you should tell her, because she really likes to think about it, and it brings her a lot of joy to, like, think about it for the couple weeks or the month or whatever until you arrive. And I remember thinking, like, okay. I mean, I guess the surprising seemed fun to me, but I wanted it to be fun for her. So I always told her, and she was always excited. And every time I talked to her up until I got there, she would be talking about how I would be there and what we would do and all the things. So I’ve been thinking about that because the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment from thinking about going. I. I booked the trip.

Betsy:
It was, like, one night. I was like, should I do this? And I looked it up, and I had the delta points and I had the hotel points. I mean, like, the whole trip cost me, like, 150 bucks. Do you know what I Mean, like. I mean, I was like, this is so fun. I’m getting to go basically for free. And, like, it’s. It’s fun to think about.

Betsy:
So Friday comes, I pack up my bag, I get a couple swimsuits. I’m like, ready to go, and I fly there. I get there. It’s awesome. It’s great. I’m having the best time. I spent the first day by the ocean. The second day, I got a private seat at the pool.

Betsy:
Like, you pay for the pool seat, but then you get a waitress and you get the amount you paid in the pool seat, in food. Do you know what I mean? So I was like, I’ll totally do that. And so I. I mean, I sat there, I had a turkey club. I. I ordered, like, just French fries. Then I ordered, like, just nachos, because who could eat $150 worth of food? Do you know what I mean? So I was just, like, getting stuff I wanted. Felt so fun.

Betsy:
At one point, I got up, and they had these seats that are, like, water seats. Almost like they had, like a section. There was two different pools there, but they had a section of ring around the pool that is kind of like a lazy river, but it’s shallow. It’s not a lazy river, but you know what I’m saying. It’s like a little river. And they have these chairs in the pool. You know what I’m talking about? You’ve seen those pool. Those pool chairs in a resort.

Betsy:
So the pool. The chairs are in the pool, but there’s, like, a waterfall behind me. So I go to lay in these chairs. Like, nobody’s around. Nobody’s in these chairs. I don’t know why. So I’m laying in the chair. You’re kind of buoyant because you’re, like, in the water kind of.

Betsy:
I have headphones in. It’s, like, the best music. I look up, all I can see is, like, blue sky and seven different palm trees. I can hear the sound of this waterfall behind me. Like, I’m like the sun. I’m like, this is. This is. I’m so, like.

Betsy:
I’m like, this is heaven adjacent. I’m so, so happy. Okay, so that’s Saturday. I’m so happy. Sunday, I’m back at that pool, and I’m like, this is. It’s okay. Like, it’s okay. You know, I.

Betsy:
I’m. I’ve traveled alone. And so there was a part of me that was kind of. I wasn’t lonely. There was no part of me that was lonely. No part of the trip. That I was lonely, but I was a little bored, if that makes sense. And so, you know, I was going to the restaurants in the evening, and I was going by myself, which was fine.

Betsy:
I would chat with people or with the waiter or whatever. But by that Sunday night, I was like, I’m ready to go home. Like, I’ve had three days in the sun. I’m. I’m feeling like I’m done with the sun. You know how you kind of get where you’re like, I don’t really want to be out in the sun. I wasn’t burned. I did such a good job with my sunscreen, but I was just kind of getting, dare I say, tired of it.

Betsy:
I got what I needed. That’s what it felt like. I got what I needed. And so I thought, well, maybe I just need, like, a little variety. I needed an adventure. So I looked and I was like, I could go. I could book a spot on a ship, on a cruise, like a. You know what I mean? Like a catamaran cruise for the day.

Betsy:
And then looked at that, and it didn’t feel really fun. I mean, I’ve done those many times, and I like them, but it didn’t feel like the thing I was gonna do, flamingo yoga, but I couldn’t get a spot. And, like, I just was like, what am I? What do I wanna do? And when I really, really sat with it, what I really wanted to do was just come home. Like, I was just like, I’m ready to go home. I wish I was going home tomorrow. And then I thought, I could. I could just go home tomorrow. Now, in my head, I did this thing where I went, like, I’ve paid.

Betsy:
I’ve got the hotel till Tuesday. Like, my flight’s not till Tuesday. Like, I’d have to change my flight. I’d have to. So then I thought, well, I’ll just check and see if I could change the flight. And I could. It was easy to change the flight. And I left the screen and didn’t change it.

Betsy:
And then I noticed I felt regret. I felt regret that I didn’t hit change the flight. And again, I had this moment, and now maybe you’ve done this before, and it might not be something like a trip to the Bahamas, but it could be anything where you’re like, I really want to do that, but it makes no sense. Why would anybody leave the Bahamas? You’re on vacation and it’s paid for. But I wanted to go. And so I opened the app back up. And I hit submit and I changed my flight and I felt immediately so good. Now, I want to talk about this for a minute, and then I’m going to get to my travel day, which, if you follow me on Instagram, you saw the crazy travel gift day.

Betsy:
But I want to talk about this. So there is something that happens, and I don’t know if this happens when we’re. I think it probably happens when we’re kids, where we put the filter, the question or the intention through a filter of, like, what would my parents say? Because that’s really important when you’re little, right? You. You’ve got to be thinking about what your parents would say, or what would my teacher say? Like, what would other people say? And then the second question that came into my mind was, like, what’s the right thing to do? The right thing. And I thought that was so interesting that the. The right. That there was a right or wrong. And then I thought, the wrong thing to do is not listen to myself and what I want.

Betsy:
Leaving didn’t hurt anybody. Like, it didn’t. Who cares? And I thought, people are going to think I’m crazy. People. I’m using air quotes. I don’t know what people. People in my life, I guess. I don’t know.

Betsy:
Will my friends think this is silly because I’ve been so excited about going, but I got what I needed. I was done, and so I booked that flight. And in the morning, I headed to the airport, and I was really in such a good mood. Now, if you followed along on Instagram, I’m going to give you the quick and dirty recap. But I got on the flight. I got upgraded for free. I was sitting down. We’re about to take off.

Betsy:
Like, we’ve already backed up from the gate. And the pilot comes on and says, hey, everybody, sorry to let you know that as I’ve been sitting here, we got a crack in the windshield, which. Which impacts our pressurization. And so we can’t ride this plane. So we’re going to pull back to the gate and everybody’s going to get off. Now there’s no. I mean, was I like, oh, we’re not going to. But there was something about it.

Betsy:
I know this sounds so weird that made me really happy. I was like, oh, I didn’t know what adventure I was going to have on the flight. And this is turning out to be an adventure now. I want to say, like, I was ready to come home, but it wasn’t like, I want to be home. I just want to get home. It wasn’t like I was sick and I was like, oh, I just want to get home. Like, I just was done being there. So they tell me they’re bringing us back to the gate, and I really don’t care.

Betsy:
Like, I’m really, totally fine. Now, as I keep going with this story, there’s going to be a point where you’re like, you weren’t totally fine. And I want to tell you. I want to tell you that this was one of the best days of my trip. I know. I know. So we go back to the. To the gate, everybody gets off, and they tell us that they’ll let us know, you know, they’re going to give us some passes for Quiznos or Wendy’s.

Betsy:
Like, the airport’s little in the Bahamas, you know, so you’re gonna get these passes for some crappy food. Keep in mind, I left a resort where I could have had really luxury food, and they give us these passes. And, yeah, I went and got some pizza. I hung out. And then I got a text that said, your flight’s gonna leave, you know, four hours later. Now, I know in my head, I thought it probably, that’s a long time, but I didn’t care. I was, like, having a good time. I was super, people watching.

Betsy:
I went to Wendy’s and got a Frosty. I walked around. I did a couple laps around the airport, like, just to get some movement in. It felt good. I had some podcasts on in my earphones. Like, it was fun. I went back to the gate and noticed that they had changed our gate. So I went to the new gate.

Betsy:
Nobody was there because I was, you know, two hours early. And then I got another message that said, the flight’s been delayed again. So now where I was supposed to leave at, like, I don’t remember what time my first flight was maybe like 11:30 in the morning. Then I was leaving at 1:45. Then I was leaving at 5:45, and then I was leaving at 7:45. Get home at, like, 10:30. And I was like. I noticed how I felt.

Betsy:
I felt like, I’m totally fine with that. And it feels late to get home. I would like to have an earlier time getting home. I don’t care what time the flight leaves. I just don’t want to get home that late. That’s what I thought. And then my second thought was, I hope that doesn’t get delayed, because if it gets delayed too much further, we probably wouldn’t go home. You know, they’d probably move us to the next day.

Betsy:
So I thought, well, let me get up and walk around. And I wanted to see how I feel again. I’m feeling, this is like a fun day. I’m getting to interact with people. I’m walking around, it’s kind of windy and outside it’s not like the most beautiful day. I was there the most beautiful days in the sun. And it felt good to not be in the sun. I was like, I’ll walk around.

Betsy:
And then I noticed there’s this other flight that’s starting to, that’s starting to board. It’s like 4:30 and it’s going to Atlanta. And so I open up the app because I’m platinum on Delta. I open up the app and I text with them and I say, is there a spot on this flight? And they were like, there is. There’s one spot, you want it? And this is the beauty of traveling by yourself. So they moved me to that spot and I got the flight. I got, I mean literally, they were about to close the doors. They confirmed my thing.

Betsy:
The I get to the thing to check in and the guy’s like, do you have a boarding pass? And I was like, no. I just talked to the guy and he looks me up and he’s like, you’re not in the system. And then he said, let me refresh. And then he refreshes and I’m there. Okay, so there’s, there’s one spot on the plane. I get it. So he’s like, give me your baggage claim number. I’m going to pull your baggage.

Betsy:
Make sure your baggage gets on there. I’m like, okay, amazing. So he does that. Like, I’m like, this is great. I get on the plane, I have one of those little apple like, you know, little things that keeps track, whatever they’re called, that you put in your suitcase, you know, and you can track it. Find my suitcase. I can see that my suitcase is getting on the plane. I’m like, this is so great.

Betsy:
This is so great. I get upgraded. I’m still in an upgraded seat. And then, and then this kid in first class starts throwing up. And when I say kid, I mean 22 year old. Ish. My guess is that in the layover he was drinking at the bar maybe, I don’t know. I get that’s what I’m guessing.

Betsy:
Disgusting. The person sitting next to him was not his dad. His dad was like behind him. So the person next to him is like wiping off like their briefcase. I mean it was so bad. And they were like, we’re going to have to go back to the gate. We had already backed up the, the airline. The flight attendant was so annoyed, I could tell, but he was a trooper and he was like, we’re going to have to go back to the gate and get this cleaned.

Betsy:
So they bring us back to the gate, the kid gets off, his brother jumps out of comfort plus goes with him and they bring a whole cleaning crew on and they spend the next like 20 minutes cleaning. And so our flight is delayed like I don’t know, 30 minutes or 40 minutes or something. I don’t even know because I’m fine. And then we take off and I get home and it was easy. And I know that it doesn’t sound easy, it was fine. So I know that this sounds kind of crazy because you’re like you wanted to leave and then you spend the whole day in the airport, like, how was that better? I didn’t get home till 9:00 at night or something, right? So 8, 30, I don’t know, something like that. Here’s why, here’s why it was so great because I did what I wanted to do. I didn’t push it through a filter of what I should do, what other people would think, if it made sense, if it was wasteful, if I was missing out.

Betsy:
I just paid attention to something inside my body that said, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to do. And it doesn’t have to make any sense at all. It doesn’t have to make any sense to anybody. It doesn’t even have to make sense to me. This is the part I want you to know is that it doesn’t have to make sense to me. The feeling of it is enough. You know, people come to me to make really, really big life altering decisions in their life every single day. And there is something in them that have, that has done decision making the same way for years and years and years and years.

Betsy:
And in that decision making they have pushed aside or put through filters or whatever it is that they’ve done. And then they know that something isn’t right, but because they can’t label it, they have a really hard time accepting it and understanding that things need to change. There is something about our world that tells us that a feeling isn’t enough, that we’ve got to have like a justification or rationalization. It has to make sense, there has to be sequenced things and there has to be good reasons. But I want to offer you the thought that the good reason is that you feel like it, the good reason is that you feel like something’s not working right. The good feeling or the good reason is that I know something’s wrong, I don’t know what it is and I don’t know how to label it. And that is okay. You know, I wanted to leave.

Betsy:
I was just done. I was just done. And I was like, well, this will be my party trick, is that I just leave because I want to, not because it makes sense. Not because two week earlier me would have understood this, but just because I’m ready to go. You know, when women come into my program, one of the things I hear all the time after like three days and I, and I get it, but after like just a couple days, they’re like finally relaxing into the idea that what they’ve been going through and the mental gymnastics that they’ve been going through as they’ve tried to make these really big heart wrenching decisions about their marriage. And one of the things they’ve been going through is pushing away the idea that they have a truth and that their truth could be theirs alone. Nobody else has to understand it, make sense of it. Doesn’t have to look right in the world.

Betsy:
Your parents don’t need to get it doesn’t have to be something somebody approves of. None of that. And then when they recognize that, that truth, they want to be comfortable in that truth right away. But I want to offer the thought that getting to that truth takes time. You know, when we’re pregnant, when we’re pregnant it takes nine months like to have the baby and then it takes nine months or 18 months to get back to feeling normal. You know, you’ve been through a lot. And when we start to do this work where we start to really understand who we are and what we want separate from the way that we’ve lived our life for lives for, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. It’s going to take a minute, it’s going to take a second to recognize what it is you really want first of all and then to be okay with it.

Betsy:
And it’s the being okay with it that I think people have the hardest time with. You know, we’re given all these senses. We can see things and hear things and feel things and like, feel like tech, like texture, like we can touch the table. But when it’s an emotion, when it’s something like that, we, we label it as not as real and we kind of push it aside and you know, it, you know, not to go down the whole patriarchy rabbit hole. And you heard me say this in the last episode, but I’m not saying that the patriarchy. The patriarchy hurts everybody. Everybody. Man, woman, child.

Betsy:
It hurts everybody. But also in that structure, we’ve labeled things as masculine or feminine. And if it’s feminine, it’s not as good, right? If it’s feminine, then it’s. It loses its value, is diminished somehow. And so having an intuition is been labeled. Everybody has it, but it’s been labeled as feminine or witchy or whatever, however you’ve heard it called. And so it diminished its value. And we go, oh, well, it must not be real, or it’s not as good as seeing or hearing and, or smelling or tasting.

Betsy:
So it’s not as good. But the truth is everybody has access to it. It’s not masculine or feminine. It is. It is another sense. I know when I’m talking to my dad, if I say I have a gut feeling, he so more accepts that than if I say my intuition told me, like, the gut feel. He understands, right? It’s. It’s.

Betsy:
It. It is more acceptable. So I want to offer you the thought that you can have a feeling and that’s enough. And a step, a first step is recognizing that you have the feeling even if you don’t do anything about it. Even if you’re like, I. I have the feeling that I want to leave the Bahamas, but I’m not going to do it because it doesn’t make sense in any other way. Just having the realization that I have the feeling is a step towards breaking that habit of pushing it through everyone else’s filter. Now I want to offer this thought.

Betsy:
I want to say, putting decisions through filters of how it will impact other people is not a bad thing. That feels aligning to me. That feels like honoring myself. So, you know, when I made my reservation, I messaged my daughter and said, hey, I’m going to be going out of town. There’s nothing going on that weekend, right? Like, I can. You don’t need me for anything. And she was like, no, no, that sounds fine. Go.

Betsy:
That felt aligning to me. That wasn’t me. Like making. Having somebody else made a. Make a decision for me. That’s not what I’m saying. We can take other people’s experience into account when we make decisions based on how we feel, because that impacts how I feel. If I was with other people, it may have felt better to stay because that improved their experience.

Betsy:
But my truth could still be that I wanted to go. Knowing the difference between those is super duper Important. And I think that we forget about that. And that leads down a pathway of a lot of disconnection from ourselves and I know from working with women, you know, trying to make big decisions in their marriage. But anytime we’re trying to make a big decision, if we have spent a lifetime or a decade or two decades or a marriage where we have put everybody’s experience before ours, we start to lose touch with what our experience actually is. We start to lose touch with what our truth is. And you start to second guess yourself. You start to say, well, I don’t know just because I feel it, I don’t know if that’s what I feel.

Betsy:
We start to pause before speaking up because we run it through all those other filters of what will happen if I say this, what will happen if I say my truth? Will I be cut down? Will I be ignored? And after a while, if you’re cut down or ignored enough, you stop saying it. You stop saying what your truth is. And once you start stop acting on it and then you stopped saying it, and then pretty soon you stop recognizing it. And it’s a process to move back into that alignment and into the touch that you have with who you are and what you want and how you want to create your life. You know, I have this little post it on my, on my computer and you’ve probably heard me talk about this over the years. But the little post it note says this is just my current reality in the process of changing into something better. If there’s anything that I don’t like, I always think this is just my old reality. This is just me getting in touch with the feeling of that thing.

Betsy:
And if I can disconnect from that and instead connect with where I want to go with what I really want, then my, my reality is going to change into something better. And by better means more aligned with who I am and what I really want. So, you know, I know going coming home early from the Bahamas may not be that big of a deal. Who cares? I was by myself. It doesn’t affect anybody. Like it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s one of the biggest deals ever because it’s being in alignment. And when you make a choice like that I’m going to do what’s right for me, then that is the message that you’re sending out. That is what you’re creating.

Betsy:
When you’re creating your current reality, when you’re changing it into something else, make sure that it’s something better. Make sure that it is in alignment with you and who you are and how you want to live your life. You know, we have this one great, wild, wonderful life. And I think I mentioned this maybe on the show last week or, I don’t know, probably years ago, but I have this app on my phone that alerts me like four or five times a day, hey, just a reminder, you’re gonna die. You’re gonna die. Like, is this what you want? It’s okay if it is. There’s no right or wrong, but is this what you want? And if it’s not, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna show up? And what’s the process that you’re gonna go through in order to change your reality into something better? And when you can do that and have that level of awareness, I think that is how you live a big life. All right, thanks so much for listening today.

Betsy:
I will see you all next week. I love you so much. Bye bye. Thanks for joining me on the Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram, Etsy Paik and on my YouTube channel.

Betsy:
Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless. And your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.