We all do it, what are you putting off until tomorrow that you could do today? In this episode, Betsy talks about some things she recently tackled instead of kicking them down the road and how empowering that can be. Sometimes we let fear and anticipation stand in our own way, so listen in, and consider something you want to challenge yourself to stop kicking down the road.

Transcript:

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, welcome. Welcome to the show everybody. So right before I started talking, I was like, I’m gonna take these Invisalign out. You guys know I’ve had this Invisalign now for a while, a couple of months. It. Lots of times people say they can’t tell I speak any differently, but it sure feels different to me.

So anyway, as I was taking them out, I was like, oh my gosh, it’s already September 17th as I’m recording this and I only have to keep this a couple until the end of October. Like I’m almost done. And I just started thinking about that when I went to go get [00:01:00] them. I had been putting this off. Like literally for years I had a bunch of teeth work that had to be done, a crown and a filling and all kinds of stuff.

And then this was like the final step right in me having glorious teeth. And so I had braces as a kid, but then as I’ve gotten older, my teeth were shifting like a lot. It was really bothering me. And so finally, I was like, I’ve gotta take care of this. And I really didn’t wanna go through it. I really didn’t want to.

But the time was gonna pass anyway. And , I gotta tell you, like I’m so glad that I did, and I know that there are sometimes things that we’re like, I have to deal with that, but I don’t want to. And I think the anticipation of it. Is way worse than the actuality of it. Right? This past week, if you’ve followed me on social media, you know, I’ve been posting about how I have been in the middle of a five day CLI Siri journey.

So [00:02:00] CLI Siri is a cream that you put on your face and the cycle is like five days. And I’ve heard other people have to do them 10 or , 15, 20. Like people do them much longer. And it is for pre-cancerous. AKs, I forget what the word is, but it’s like little scaly patches that show up on your skin.

And when I went to the dermatologist last time, she said, , there’s so many of these that were burning off your skin every time. Like we should just go do a big cleanup and have you do this five day Cly Siri treatment. And so I Googled it and it’s pretty new. I think they used to use a different kind of product before, but I think this is pretty new.

So there wasn’t a lot of people talking about it online or a lot of pictures or you know, journeys that were shared. And the ones that I did see looked so terrible. So I get this five day. Cream and it’s little packets. So you get five [00:03:00] little packets and you have to put the whole packet on your face every night for five days.

And the dermatologist said to me, you’re gonna do one. And then day two, and then day three, like right before you go to bed, day four, day five. And when you wake up day six, your whole face is gonna be red. And you know, it’ll take a few days to a couple weeks for it to feel better. And then when I Googled and I saw photos.

It was complete insanity and it looked terrible. I saw a woman on TikTok that actually like kept track of her journey, and she talked about how the pain was so bad that she just laid on her bed and listened to podcasts and had a fan on her face. Like it was so terrible. And so I kept putting it off, putting it off, putting it off.

I had the medicine, I paid for it, and finally I was like, I think I gotta just do it. Like if I’m gonna do it, do it. The time is gonna go by anyway. And if I do it now, I can be done next week. Right? Or I can keep [00:04:00] worrying about it and do nothing and the next week will still come. And so I started doing it and I have to tell you, and I, I’ve posted, so if you might have seen it online, but I mean,

it looks bad, I think it looks worse than it feels and. Tylenol took away the pain. I was never laying on my bed. Maybe I’m a complete badass, I dunno. But I was never laying on the bed with a fan. It was fine. I mean, it was uncomfortable and it wasn’t the greatest. And of course I can’t, nor would I want to wear makeup or anything like that over it, but you know, whatever.

I’m just living my life. The time would’ve passed anyway. And the worst part. Even now having gone through it, ’cause now I’m through, I’m like on day eight, I can tell it’s a lot better. The anticipation of dealing with it was worse. So sometimes it’s not the actual thing. It’s the anticipation of the thing that [00:05:00] we like, spend all this time really working up in our brains, right?

Making us feel like it’s gonna be so much harder or so much bigger when we actually just deal with it. When we’re actually like, you know what? I’m gonna roar. I’m gonna lean into who I really am and just take care of this. . I mean, I know it sounds so stupid. I’m gonna do the Invisalign. I’m gonna do this crap on my face.

I’m gonna take care of the things that medically needed to be taken care of. And I think we have this in so many parts of our lives. I think that this shows up in work. It shows up in hard conversations. It shows up in like having to deal with big things in our lives that have been big things for a long time.

And , I think the longer. We have those things, the harder it is because what we’ve done is built up a lot of momentum around the idea that it’s going to be really hard, right around [00:06:00] the idea that it’s going to be bad or uncomfortable. But the truth is you can deal with bad or uncomfortable. You can, all you have to do is trust that you can deal with whatever is gonna happen.

And I gotta tell you, I was so trepidatious about doing this Cly Siri cream on my face. I really didn’t want to. I almost didn’t. I almost was like, you know what? It was only a hundred bucks, which it’s a hundred bucks. It was only a hundred bucks. I’ll just trash it. Like I just, and then I was like, wait a minute.

What I’m doing is telling myself the deepest part of myself, the identity of myself, the part that I really want to protect, the part of me that I really want to enforce in the way that I want her to be. What I’m doing is I’m telling her, you know what? You’re not worth dealing with this. Medically, [00:07:00] like you have precancerous spots on your face, you’re not worth fixing that, right?

That’s what I would be saying. And more importantly, mindset wise, I’m telling her, you can’t handle it. Whatever happens, you can’t handle it. And I had to pause and say, what is it? It makes me think I can’t handle it. Now I know dealing with having Invisalign, I mean, my God, there’s worse things, right?

Dealing with having to do cly Siri cream, although I will say on day four when it was raw and red, red, red, having to put that cream on again was like, uh, I was like, I don’t wanna do it. I’m gonna do it. I don’t wanna do it. I’m gonna do it. Like it was so stressful, but I can handle it and you can handle it too.

You’ve got things in your life you’ve been pushing off, kicking the can down the road, right? Not dealing with the stuff you have to deal with. Maybe it’s a big thing, like something in your health. Maybe it’s something at work. [00:08:00] Maybe it’s a project you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s something in your relationship, like a really courageous conversation that it’s just time that you have.

Maybe it’s getting your teeth fixed, whatever it is. Big or small, it’s important because if it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be thinking about it. You wouldn’t be dreading it. I don’t have this kind of feeling when I go to brush my teeth in the morning. I don’t go, oh, I don’t want to. It’s not important. I just do it, , but when things show up like that, it is a sign that this thing feels scary to me.

So it’s important and it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for me to grow, to change in this. And I did that episode a month or so ago about walking down the hallway, and about how we always, we’re constantly becoming [00:09:00] someone new. Every time you make a decision and when you choose to do the hard thing, you’re making a huge decision.

A huge shift in your identity, showing yourself and showing up like a really brave person that you most likely wanna be. You know, my daughter and I have had our moments like all mothers and daughters, and the one thing that I’m really proud of with her is that if I say to her, we need to have a courageous conversation, she can do it.

She can do it. She might not like it, but she’s able to show up and to keep her emotions in check, right? To understand herself. I think she knows that I’m a safe person to listen to her side of things, but we can have courageous conversations. Now, if I said I need to talk to you about [00:10:00] something, it would not go the same way, but by framing it as.

We gotta have a courageous conversation. Can you do this? Then she can. And I think sometimes there’s that moment where we have to say to ourself, alright, self, we need to have a courageous conversation. Like it’s important to me to be able to take care of pre-cancerous cells on my face and I can move through this and it might be uncomfortable, but that’s okay.

I can do it. I’ve done hard things before and I’ve come out on the other side, and I can do this too. I keep saying that. I don’t feel like the Cly cereal is that big of a deal, but it’s a good example, right? Sometimes it’s just about cleaning out your junk drawer, right? You’re like, oh my God.

Every time I go to that drawer, it makes me feel yucky. I get annoyed ’cause everything gets caught. I mean, that’s such a small thing, but that’s the same way. [00:11:00] How you do one thing is how you do everything. And if you can tackle that thing, you can tackle the big thing too. I really think that this is an important part of my growth and lessons of not pushing things off.

I think sometimes we get in situations where pushing things off becomes the norm, and then we have to really catch ourselves when we have the power to decide how things go. Do we push things off or are we ready to stand up and do the hard thing? And I think when you can do that, that is how you live a big life.

All right. Thanks so much for being here. You know, if you’ve been kicking the can down the road about your marriage and you really wanna fix it, or you wanna figure out what to do and get that clarity. We have that free video on my website if you just go to betsy pick.com. But if you’re ready to book a call, you can just message me and we’ll send you the link to our [00:12:00] calendar.

We can help you kinda walk through and get the clarity that you need on whether you need our help or if we can even help you. So if you’re ready to take that step, just reach out or go to our website and there’s a place to book a call there. All right. Have an amazing week. I love you guys so much. I’ll see you guys next week.

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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pay. And on my YouTube channel. 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.

In this episode of The Art of Living Big, host Betsy Pake asks us to replace the term starting over with starting wiser as we never truly start over. We build on our life experiences, which make us wiser and we recognize our past as we continue with our present and future. Life is an evolution, not a series of restarts.

Transcript

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.

Hello everyone. Welcome to The Art of Living Big Today. I have a thi, this is like a theme that keeps coming up and so I thought there’s gotta be something in this, right? Like any, anytime something keeps coming up, I’m like, alright, maybe I need to slow down and really think about what is happening. And what the lesson is in that, for me, typically I try and figure out what’s the lesson in this for me?

And then , if it’s any good, then I bring it to you in case it’s like a universal. So here’s how this started. So my daughter [00:01:00] is going back to school. So if you’ve been here for a long time, you might remember she went to scad. She is 23. So she went to SCAD like three years ago, four years ago. And she did amazing.

She was on the dean’s list her first semester, her second semester Dean’s list. The third, well, they do like, it’s a little different, but in the, the way they divided up, so , in the fall when she started Dean’s list, Dean list, then in the spring dean’s list, and then that last bit of the school year, it was like April.

She just like crashed out. It was so stressful. And, uh, there’s a lot to that story, but she just was like, I hate this. I can’t do it anymore, basically. So she decided to leave school and it was really, it was disappointing, but I also felt really sad for her and she was like, I gotta figure out what I’m supposed to do, you know?

So in the meantime, she’s had a couple jobs that she’s [00:02:00] really liked and she’s really liked the people. The one job she had actually led to the second job and , she felt like she was moving up right, getting new opportunities and felt really good about it. But I think there was always something sort of gnawing at her.

And maybe you’ve had this happen too, where you’re like, I made a decision to stop doing what I was doing. And now I’m in a holding pattern. I haven’t really moved on to the next thing. I’m just in this like in between. And with her, I think there was a feeling of I’ll know when I know, and also a little bit of like maybe I’ll never know.

So she would kind of go back and forth between this. Okay. So over the years, since she was like six. She has loved Anthony Bourdain. It’s been her screensaver on her phone like for years. I think it’s one of her earliest memories that she talks about is watching [00:03:00] Anthony Bourdain on TV with her dad, and it’s like such a good memory.

And so she has talked about being a chef, about maybe I should be a chef. It would be fun to be a chef. There’s not really any culinary schools here in Atlanta. Fast forward. About two months ago, we were chitchatting one day and she said, I looked up culinary school and the culinary school where Anthony Bourdain went is in New York, and you guys may know of that, the Culinary Institute of America.

And she decided that she wanted to apply. Now I really decided she needed to figure it all out. I wasn’t gonna, not that I wasn’t gonna help, but I wasn’t, I was gonna let her figure it out. ’cause I wanted to see if the drive was strong enough to move through some of the hard parts of figuring it all out.

And she did. She figured it [00:04:00] all out and she got accepted and she’ll be hopefully starting in a few months. She’s going up in just a couple weeks to look for an apartment and really her whole life is about to shift. She’s moving into the next phase out of the in-between and into what’s next. And she said something to me about how she sort of regretted that maybe that she left SCAD years ago or that she even started, like there was this.

I’ve wasted time and I could relate so deeply to that, right? And you guys probably can too. There’s a million different things where we think, oh my God, I’m starting over., Maybe you got left. Let go from your job and now you’re gotta start over. Maybe you’re really wanting to shift careers. Maybe you’ve gotten divorced and you’re starting over.

Maybe you suffered a really big financial [00:05:00] hardship and you’re starting over. Whatever it is, it feels like you’re starting over. And when I was talking to her, I totally understood that feeling and that she was coming from, but also, you’re never starting over. It’s a myth. It’s a myth that you’re starting over, you’re not starting over.

You’re starting wiser. And I felt so strongly about that with her. It made me take a look at some things in my own life. Now, here’s a really quick little story, but I have a really nice camera that I bought during COV and I have never really, I’ve never really figured it out. Last summer, I hired a photographer to help me, teach me all the ways, and she made a PowerPoint for me and I have.

Information to reference. [00:06:00] And I practiced a little bit after, but this weekend I thought, I want to figure out the camera, maybe I’ll pull it out again. And then I was like, ah, I’m gonna be starting over. And it reminded me of that conversation with my daughter and I was like, are we ever really starting over?

And when I say this is a myth, you know, we have this idea that. Of, I’m gonna say it this way, many of us, maybe not you, if, if it’s not you, I’m so jealous. But of this like all or nothing. I know I have had that over the years. I feel like it’s something I’ve begun to get under control over the past few years.

But this all or nothing, so. If I’ve screwed up, I have to scrap it all and start over. Like if I’m doing something and I mess up, I’ll just start again next week. Like, I gotta start on a Monday. I gotta start on the first of the month. I gotta wait till New Year’s. I gotta like, it’s, it’s done. But the truth of [00:07:00] that is, is not that it’s done.

That is a myth. It is a myth that you erase. The slate and the slate is wiped clean. Right? That’s a myth. The slate isn’t wiped clean because you have experiences, you have knowledge, you have new ways of doing things and seeing things. You have new neuro connections from the first time that you learned how to do it or took an interest in it or tried to figure it out or took the leap or whatever it is.

You’ve got new skills and so. Recognized because so often we don’t recognize it necessarily in ourself unless we pause, right. To really notice. But I recognized it when it happened to me because of the conversation that I’d had with my daughter and that language of, ugh, I’m starting over, can feel so disempowering.

It was so easy for me to look at her [00:08:00] and say, oh my God. Of course you’re not starting over. You have all this new information, right? Life is a progression. Each thing really builds on itself. You’re not losing anything, and that thought that there is something that you have to start over means there is some finish line and there’s just never really a finish line.

There’s not a reset button because it’s a continuum. There’s not a start and a stop. It’s, I’m always learning lessons and I’m always changing how I’m seeing things, and I’m always growing, and I’m always being exposed to new things. So the idea that you have to restart, you could think of it instead, like I’m relaunching.

And that’s what she’s doing. She’s relaunching with loads of upgrades, loads of skills that she didn’t have before, a maturity she didn’t have before. [00:09:00] Her brain has grown a whole lot, right? ’cause she’s almost 24. So her prefrontal cortex wasn’t even close to being completed when she started school before.

Now it’s close to being completed. So I want you to be thinking. About the ways that you’re disempowering yourself by thinking either about things that have already happened or things that you perceive will be happening or that you’re fearful of happening because you think that this is a starting over.

But really the skills and the lessons and the resilience begin to stack up even if the setting changes. So I wanna talk about a couple quick things that I want you to be thinking about that might give you a different perspective. So a couple things that you could, almost like a checklist in your mind.

Right? The first thing is emotional [00:10:00] intelligence. So this is a hidden asset and we learn a lot about ourselves as we grow older. If you’re paying attention at all, which I’m guessing you do, pay attention ’cause you’re here, right? If you’re, you wouldn’t be listening to this if you were not paying attention.

So our emotional intelligence, the more we pay attention and the more we grow and the more we get to know our ourselves, the older we get, it’s such a gift. To be older and have challenges is so much easier I think. I think, than being really young in a lot of ways. So. One of the hidden assets that you probably overlook is your emotional intelligence.

Just how much you’re able to conceptualize and understand things and see things in a new way, and. Relate to people in terms of that challenge that you have, that opportunity that you have, you probably have a way bigger network now, and connections. You know, I even, my daughter found that, [00:11:00] and she’s only 24, right?

Where she was like, oh, you know, I know somebody that knows somebody. And you know, the, the front, the front part of. The Culinary Institute, when you drive in, there’s like this huge plaza, it’s called Anton Plaza, and there’s like a big fountain and the Antons donated all this money, right, to have it. We know them.

They gave Olive of baby clothes when she was young. Olives nano worked for them for years and years and years and years and years, so. All of a sudden we’re putting all these things together, right? These networking and connections, and you have those too with things where you’re like, oh my gosh, there’s so many connections I didn’t even realize like I lost my job, but now I’m looking for a new job and I’m realizing the place I wanna work that I’ve always wanted to work has like three other people I know.

There’s just things that come up when you open your mind to it. . This perspective, I’m gonna say this perspective and maturity that [00:12:00] you have can really empower you to think of this as not a start over, but a movement forward. A relaunching with upgrades, right? And so I want you to just think about your toolkit.

Think about the things that you have that you didn’t have when you went through something similar, right? That you didn’t have last time you had this challenge. And then I want you to think about looking at your own story and finding the through lines. Look at the things that have happened and say what’s similar in all these, like what are the times where I went through something really hard and now I can draw on the experience , that I created with the success at the end?

And it doesn’t mean the experience went the way you wanted. But it means that you moved through it. That’s a success at the end. So what was it that you had to think about or believe or surround yourself with or change your [00:13:00] mind about and start bringing in that piece of that through line of that old story into your new story?

Use it as fuel for the experience that I can move through this thing because I’ve moved through other things that were challenging too, and all I did in that experience was grow. Like that’s what happened to me. We either have success, right? I’m using success in air quotes, I’m using air quotes, like we either have this success, which is things going the way we wanted.

That’s all that means, right? Really things going the way we thought they should have, or we have growth and learning that maybe sets us up for a bigger success, a greater success, something that we really desired even more an experience we wanted even more. And so it’s never really about starting over because you can never get rid of all of the great things that you’ve learned already.[00:14:00] 

It’s not starting over at all. It’s starting from a place of being wiser. It’s starting from having all of these resources that you never had. So when you start thinking about your challenges, your problems, maybe as challenges, and then move those challenges into what are the opportunities here so that I can see how my past story is actually creating.

A huge avenue for success for me moving forward. I think when you can do that, that is when you live a big life. All right. Thanks so much for being here. I will see you guys next week. 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. [00:15:00] You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pay and on my YouTube channel. 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.

Get ready for the ‘ah-ha’ moments in this episode of The Art of Living Big. Take a drive, go for a walk, or just cuddle up and press play whilst Betsy delivers the advice we all need to live a more intentional, and more joyful life. Betsy reminds us that we must be present in our unhappiness rather than avoiding discomfort because that is when we see growth in ourselves and those around us.

Transcript:

Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy P, 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.

Hello, fellow Adventurers. Hi everybody. Welcome to the show today. I have a quote that I saw that stopped me right in my tracks. And if you are fairly new here, you might really like this and align. And if you’ve been here a long time, you might really like this too. , there’s more for me to think about with this quote and I wanna talk about it.

But I also have something really specific I wanna talk about today. So here’s the quote. Real men have a happy woman. The rest. Have a strong woman. Ah, I [00:01:00] really liked it. I was like, oh, yes, that resonates so much with me. So I want to dive in today and I wanna talk about a couple things. , I was in California, , a week and a half ago, two weeks ago for my coaching group.

Where I am a coachee. I met with my coach and the whole team of people who are also coached, sort of like if people come into the Navigate Method. , I believe in coaching and so I always have a coach myself. So we meet, , about three times a year. And this time we met in California and the location where we got to meet every day.

I’m not sure if you follow me on social media, but you may have seen it was this. Just really beautiful beach house. It was right in La Jolla, right on the, like on the cliff overlooking the ocean. It had those big giant doors, that you. Push and they’re like [00:02:00] windows, but they push open like giant doors.

And so you could smell the ocean, you could hear the ocean, you could hear all the seagulls and birds. And I mean, it was, it was so beautiful. And when we were meeting, we were meeting at this big, huge, long dining room table. While we were meeting and somebody was talking or giving a presentation, I could hear the waves in the background and I was like, oh my gosh, there is very little.

That sounds better to me than that sound. It really was so calming. I could feel like my nervous system. Just sort of toggling down and I just really, really enjoyed my time there. , It was really so incredible. I think it was one of my favorite times getting together with this group. I’ve known many of the people in this group for years and years, , and we meet together every week on Zoom, and so it’s so wonderful to be able to get together live.

It was everything that I wanted it to be. , And really, really a [00:03:00] good use of my time. I kind of wish I’d stayed an extra day to sort of integrate and process. I think sometimes we can take in a lot of information, but if we’re not integrating it, if we’re not making it part of who we are, then it can kind of get lost when we get back into the regular hustle and bustle , of life.

But one of the things that I was thinking about, I was laying in bed last night actually thinking about those giant windows and how far you could see when you opened them up and you were able to poke your head out and you could see more than you could if you were just sitting on the couch looking out the window.

Right, and this makes sense. You’ve experienced this before, like clearly if you stick your head out the window, you’re gonna be able to see more to the left and more to the right. And as I was laying there last night, I was like, , that’s really what I wanna do. I [00:04:00] want to be able to help people stick their heads out the window to see more.

Because what we see in our lives typically is this narrow view. Of what we’ve always been shown and that view sometime becomes so normal and ordinary that we think we know what it is. Years ago I went , and stayed in an Airbnb down in Florida for a month, and it was a condo right on the ocean. And I was so excited about it.

If you’ve been here a long time, you know I love the ocean. , It was so beautiful and nice. And those first couple days, I mean, I was like, this is amazing. This is so incredible. And then I noticed by like day six or seven, like I didn’t even really pay attention. It already had become pretty normal.

Right. And I think that’s what happens in our lives, right? We have this. Vantage point, and if you can imagine looking [00:05:00] out the window and seeing the same space of the ocean or looking at your life. Seeing the same things over and over again. The ocean may be changing, your life may be changing. Things may be different.

But if you’re always expecting that very same thing you’re going to be searching for and finding that very same thing, which isn’t bad if that thing is exactly what you want, but the truth is that there’s way more. To see. There’s more to see when we just have an awareness and we look by being mindful and being present.

But there’s also a way more to see. When you lean your head out the window and you’re able to look to the right and look to the left, you’re like, wow, there’s way more to this picture than I thought. And I think one of the things that happens when we start looking at our marriage or at a [00:06:00] relationship that we have that’s important to us, and it has been unhappy for quite a long time, is that’s what we see.

That’s the frame in which we are experiencing the relationship. And so to be able to experience it in any other way, we have to be willing to be really present in it. And when that is uncomfortable, when we don’t like what’s happening, we really. We really repel against being present in it because we’re like, I already know how bad this is.

I want to disengage. I want to disconnect from it. I’m gonna have a glass of wine at night just so I don’t have to think about this, or I’m gonna retreat into the other room, or I’m gonna turn on TV or sports or movies or whatever it is. I’m not going to be present in this, and I’m not saying any of those things , in and of themselves is bad.

[00:07:00] It’s just when we use it in order to disengage from the thing we don’t like, we’re no longer present. That thing. And if we’re no longer present, we’re not seeing anything different, and we’re also not able to create any change. So when we start to do the work of really disseminating what we have in our lives, whether it’s a relationship or something in your career, or just how you feel about yourself or anything, any part of your life, it’s ultra important.

To be able to notice where you’re disconnecting, where you’re opting out, and then ask yourself, what is it that I’m trying to avoid? When you know what it is you’re trying to avoid, it becomes much easier to actually face that thing now. Here’s what I really, really wanna talk about [00:08:00] in all of this, because the women that I work with in the Navigate Method, , many of them have been struggling for a decade or two decades.

I mean, it can be a very long time. Sometimes women have been married, , 30, 35 years, and they’re. Yeah, looking back on the past 35 years and they’re like, this really hasn’t been good. , I’ve focused on other things, or I focused on my kids when my kids were young, or I, , created good friendships, but I used all of that to opt out.

I know for me, I really used something that you would think is really good, which was meditation. I would meditate sometimes for hours, and I always thought, this is, really good. But I was meditating in order to withstand the level of frustration and stress that I had. I wasn’t meditating to what we [00:09:00] typically think of as meditation, right?

Of like being still and , getting in touch with ourselves and exploring new things. There was a little bit of that. But , the drive for it was to be able to cope with extreme unhappiness. And so I think sometimes you have to look at the things that you’re doing and , those things may be like quote unquote healthy things, right?

You may be working out excessively, you might be off with friends all the time. The, tipping point for that is, is it. Helping you to withstand more unhappiness, and if it’s helping you to withstand more unhappiness , there’s a point where you have to stop and you have to be present with the unhappiness or else nothing is going to change.

One of the things when I talk with women, and they’ll ask me, , why is this always up to [00:10:00] me? Like, why am I the one? And people ask me this sometimes on social media, like they’ll post on my posts and say, why is it up to us? Like I’m exhausted.

Sometimes people , will even say on my posts, this feels very patriarchal. Like, why am I the one that has to , do this work? And I always say, you don’t have to do it, but this is your life. I’m not even talking about your relationship. This is your life and if you have to opt out in order to withstand what’s happening on a day to day in your life, then it’s time you do something different.

If you have been asking your husband for years to listen to you, to go to therapy maybe, or to change in some way or. Just to hear you. If you [00:11:00] have been asking for years and he’s not doing it, then he’s not going to do it. And you need to take control of your life and create a life that you really love.

And you can’t make a decision on whether that life includes him or not until you get a handle on your own side of the street until you look at your own stuff and you figure out what it is that caused you to make the choice to be with that person. What caused you to withstand that for so long? What are the things that are happening in you that makes you feel like that’s what you are worthy of?

I don’t think that you can really make , a shift or a change or a decision to change your relationship until you look at that stuff. I mean, can you technically Yeah, you absolutely can. [00:12:00] People do it all the time and then they end up in the same relationship again like five years later. Right? So. In order to do it and not feel regret, not look back and think you’ve made, wonder if you’ve made the wrong decision or if there’s anything else you could do.

When you get that clarity around your own life, you’re really clear on what your standards are, what your values are, how you wanna live your life, the ways that you deserve to be treated or respected, until you get really clear on that stuff. Then you’re never going to be able to make a decision that is without any kind of, , second guessing or regret or wondering or any of that stuff.

But when you can get really clear on that, you can feel really solid in the decision that you make. And. Are there times where women make these really big, huge changes? These shifts in how they’re [00:13:00] operating and their husbands act different? Absolutely. All the time. And the reason is because when you learn how to hold boundaries or you value yourself in a different way, everybody around you has to react different because you no longer put up with what you used to put up with.

But here’s the thing. Is that, will that be enough? Will it be enough now? And I see this over and over again and I see it in my program all the time, that when women get to the place where , they have made these really huge changes. They see themselves differently. They’ve done that deep work.

Their husband is starting to react differently or respond differently to them. I’m gonna say it’s not enough. It’s they’re just responding differently, but they’re not seeing it as an opportunity to grow together When you have a relationship that’s not working, it’s a huge, huge opportunity for spiritual growth.

It’s a huge [00:14:00] opportunity to come together and really work things out. It can be a great thing. I also think it is important. To be able to look out that window and be able to see to the right and to the left and to say, if I have been asking this person to listen to me, to help me to show up as a partner, if I’ve been asking for that and they weren’t stepping up.

They weren’t listening to me or they weren’t trying anything or having a conversation, then . That is information where they’re telling you they’re okay with you being at this level of unhappiness. And I think that is a really important thing to recognize because that is a values difference.

You wouldn’t be okay [00:15:00] with them being at that level of unhappiness and they are okay with you being at that level of unhappiness, then there may be a values difference there. And so, you know, lots of times women will say to me, will, my husband, change? Absolutely. Is totally possible and it’s totally possible.

He’ll see it as an opportunity to begin to grow with you because. If he doesn’t, if he only does, I see this all the time. Once women are out, , they’ve moved outta the house and then suddenly , they see it as an opportunity. They wanna do the work. I would say , they’re choosing to do the work so that their life doesn’t change, but they’re still okay with you being at a level of unhappiness that was intolerable to you.

And so getting you to a place. Where you can be looking out the window and really see things for what they are is only going to help you. [00:16:00] To be able to make better choices, to be able to understand what may or may not be happening, and to be able to evaluate if that’s true for you, right? Or if you see him making changes that you really wanna give this a shot, right?

, I always say there is a moment where you may decide to leave. And then there’s hope and you can lean into hope and you can stay longer and see if anything changes. There’s no shame in that this process , can take as long as you need it to, to come to the conclusions you need in your relationship.

The only thing I would caution about is if that process is including you stepping back from the window. It takes 10 years because you’re not wanting to pay attention. That’s something different. But if you are actively involved and doing the work and moving through this and building [00:17:00] your own life and cleaning up your side of the street, then it’s okay if it takes three years or two years or five years.

These processes are really important to be able to move through, and I think you can get the skills. To do this in a short amount of time and then you’ve got to look for the evidence. Is this working? Is this moving me to the place where I really wanna be? , So going back to what people ask me, like, why is it always up to us?

It’s totally not, but it’s your life. And if you’re not doing this work of cleaning up your side of the street and you’re just sitting on the couch, then you’ve gotta be okay then with. Life not going the way that you want. If it’s not going the way that you want, you’ve got to actively do something different.

And that doesn’t mean try and change your husband because we all know that doesn’t work. If it worked, it would’ve worked a decade ago. That doesn’t work, [00:18:00] but working on yourself. Looking at your own stuff, looking at your own standards and values, and then making an educated choice from there is the way to go, but you can’t do that if you’re sitting on the sidelines, and that is how you live a big life.

All right. Thanks so much everyone, for being here. I love you so much. I’ll see you next week. 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. 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 [00:19:00] big.

In this episode, Betsy discusses the emotional transition of moving into her own space and the significance of self-regulation. She emphasizes the importance of discovering personal happiness by embracing new experiences. Betsy concludes with an exercise to help listeners identify what brings them joy.

Transcript:

395 how i find more joy in my life

[00:00:00] 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.

Hello, fellow Adventurers. Hi everyone. Welcome to The Art of Living Big. I am pre-recording this,, usually I record like. Right before the show, a couple days before, or the earlier in the week, but I’m going to California. So as you’re listening to this, I’ve probably just come home from California.

I am in a coaching group as a coachee, and every year, several times a year, we all get together. And so I’ll be heading to California to meet up with fellow entrepreneurs that have been on the same journey as me. And it’s always really, really, empowering and [00:01:00] fills my soul to get to be with these people,

we all keep in touch so much throughout the weeks and we all get together once a week on Zoom and , get help and get our questions asked and those kinds of things. But just to have that comradery is so important. I think being on any kind of journey, you know, and this is how come inside the Navigate method, the community is such a big part of it.

And getting together live. I have found more and more to be just. Really important and exciting. We’re actually pulling together a live event for Navigate People next year, and it’s been so fun to look at that and what we could do together, live different than maybe what we could do together, , together online, uh, like hug.

I can’t wait. Like I’m really, really excited. A couple weeks ago, one of my clients was in town. For a training. And so I got to see her and so I asked her, I was on staycation that week and I said, can I come and meet you and we’ll go to breakfast? And she was like, sure. And so I did, and it was so lovely to [00:02:00] see her.

Then I was like, can I come get you tomorrow? She was like, sure. But like it was. It was so, so great. I think there was something really wonderful about being able to do things online and to be able to have Zoom and to be able to make those connections. And I think there’s something really fabulous about creating space to be together in person too, you know?

And I think. COVID kind of taught us that too, right? Like , that personal piece of it can just be really so lovely and such an addition to our lives. So anyway, I’m looking at all that and so I’m recording this a week before, so I wanted to share a little bit about some things that have been happening with me because I get this question a lot on social media.

So I wanted to. Shift and to share a little bit about some things I’m discovering. So this may not be a very long episode, but I wanted to answer this question so people reach out sometime to ask me about my divorce or what happened [00:03:00] or any of that. It’s boring. I’m not gonna bore you with any of that, but I am gonna tell you how.

Good things are and what I’ve discovered about myself moving forward. So if you have been along on this journey, or you’ve followed me on social media, you know that my husband, former husband and I separated. We tried to work it out, didn’t work out, and so we sold our house and moved our separate ways. I wish him all the best, but my life still continues on.

And that’s really where my focus is. And so what I have found that has been so incredible, and I’m gonna give you a thought or a action, a little exercise that you can do at the end of this episode, whether you live alone or not, and it’s something that I did when I was married. And it’s something that I have found to profoundly grow while I have been alone.

So if you are on the fence or you are just [00:04:00] recently separated maybe, or you’re getting divorced or you’ve just got divorced,, whatever your situation is, I hope that this episode brings you some comfort and some excitement about what could be possible, right? What could happen. So let’s start. Let’s start at the beginning.

One of the things that I think happens no matter what is going on in your marriage or your relationship, maybe you just live with somebody and you’re moving out. Maybe you just have a roommate and it’s a , platonic friendship and you’re moving out. There’s something that happens when you leave.

A home with somebody else and you move into a space that just includes yourself. And I think that transition is something really important to recognize and to honor because your nervous system has to re acclimate. And what our nervous systems do when we’re with somebody, even if we’re unhappy, [00:05:00] is it begins to co-regulate.

So many of the women that I work with talk about how they feel like they have to be the one that regulates their husband, right? So if he’s in a bad mood, they feel like they need to manage that, or if something’s going on, they’re just constantly scanning, right? So. I think that’s like a worst case scenario.

But then even if you are with somebody and you’re happy, or it’s just a platonic, like a just a roommate situation, and there is a feedback loop, right? When you’re with somebody else, energetically, your nervous system is regulating to them. You get into ways of being and being in a home with somebody else, and so when you make that shift and you suddenly are all by yourself, I wanna just offer the thought that it’s gonna feel different.

It may feel a lot better, but it also, because remember last week we talked about holding two truths at once. It can also feel a little [00:06:00] dysregulating because you’re like, wait a minute, I’m constant. I’m normally constantly scanning for somebody, or I’m normally co-regulating with somebody. And so I noticed when I moved into my own space that there was one night when I first moved in that first week, it rained like insane.

My apartment is on the top floor. It’s the penthouse, as I call it., It’s the top floor of an apartment. It’s a penthouse, and the building looks like a shipping container. Do you know what I mean? It’s like that corrugated metal. And so when the rain hits it, it’s amazing. It sounds. So, I mean, you could sleep for a hundred years in here, right?

It’s so great. And so that week that I moved, it was insane rain, just downpours for days, like every day and all night long. And I woke up to some thunder at like two or three in the morning and. Woke up and I scanned for my dog, [00:07:00] which I, who I didn’t have anymore ’cause he would be upset. So I scanned for him and then recognized I was alone.

And so I got up and I put my bathrobe on and I went out to the living room and I sat in the living room in the dark and I just listened. And I remember it feeling like I could exhale, like just really could be present with myself. And I could listen. I felt, you know, lots of times we’re on our phones, maybe you’re not.

I am. Lots of times I’m on my phone and then I realize like, oh my God, I’ve walked all the way down the hallway and I haven’t even noticed. ’cause I’ve been checking messages as I’ve been going from one place to another or whatever it was so present, I felt like I could take like a big, deep exhale and I could feel my nervous system just.

Toggling down, like decompressing. It was the sound, it was the dark, it was [00:08:00] the comfortable space I was sitting. It was the space to allow myself, I didn’t have anything to do. It was three o’clock in the morning and I remember being like, this is a place that I can heal, right? And we all have healing to do, but this is a place where I’m gonna really grow and I’m gonna discover who I am in a new way, and I’m gonna create.

A life that makes me really happy. And I feel like that was a bit of a declaration of we could beat ourselves up for a multitude of. Things or experiences or ways of being that we’ve done in our lives, right? If I could go back to being 20 and do it over again, would I do it differently?

Like we could do that, but I remember feeling like this is a demarcation from this place forward, I get to choose. I can’t fix what I’ve already screwed up. I can’t fix what went wrong. I can’t fix my part or someone else’s part in any [00:09:00] part of my journey. But I can choose from here how I create my life and how I respond to things moving forward.

And I think that moment of feeling my nervous system, like it felt like junk, you know what I’m saying? Like where it just settled in and I could be so present with myself. And I could say , from here forward, I’m gonna get to choose something different. I think that can be a really, really important space to live in and to give ourselves like that gift of saying , there’s nothing I can do about what’s happened, but here’s what I’m gonna do moving forward.

And one of the things that I thought about in that time was how I really wanted to experience my life and. , We all see things that we’re like, oh, I wish I had that. You know? And one of the things that I really wished was that I felt really alive like that. I had experiences [00:10:00] that I felt really alive.

If you guys have been here for a while, or maybe you’ve listened back when I went to Iceland, which I think was like four years ago, that I remember that experience I chose because I knew it would make me feel really alive. So if I’m feeling really alive, what kinds of things am I doing? I’m super present, right?

I’m finding things that bring me joy. There’s novelty, like there’s new things and I’m trying things. And I think that sometimes we get a bit set in our ways, whether we live with someone else or not, where we’re doing the same kinds of things. And then we’re feeling like, I wish I felt a spark of like aliveness.

But I think that aliveness can also be novelty, and I think novelty comes from trying new things or trying the same things with new people, and so you create a new experience in that. [00:11:00] So the next thing that I was just thinking through was like, what are the things right now that I really like? I remember several years ago, probably about five years ago, I was at a training.

And someone asked me, what do you do that makes you happy? Which I remember being really mad that they asked me that. I know this is so vulnerable that I’m telling you this, but I remember being really annoyed. Like, what do you know about me?, I didn’t know this person. So , what do you mean what makes me happy?

And she asked a totally valid question. Maybe it was the tone, like maybe there was something else that I sensed. But the point is that it made me uncomfortable because I didn’t really know that I, there was aspects of things that I knew, but a lot of my joy came from helping other people. And that’s not bad.

And that still exists today, but there also has to be more. Right. There has to be more. And so when I was sitting there, I was like, what [00:12:00] makes me happy? And I thought about that moment where that woman asked me that. I don’t even remember her name, but I just remember being, I just remember being like, what do you know?

But I thought, what makes me happy? And I thought, so on one side of the stick, I thought, I don’t know. And on the other side of the stick, I thought, I get to find out. I get to find out. And so I started trying a lot of new things and some of the things I really liked, some of the things were fine and, I may or may not do them again.

And some of the things I was like, meh, I don’t like that. So I wanna go through a variety of things, and this is just my personal things. It may be interesting to you, it may. Spur thoughts or ideas of your own, which is what I hope. , But I wanna just tell you the range of things because I think that sometimes we get [00:13:00] where we only see what’s right in front of us, and I still do, there’s more for me to explore, but , I’m trying to be exposed to lots of different things, so.

Right off the bat, one of the things that I did was, I start, I had gone to Mahjong, so there’s this Chinese restaurant near me that has Mahjong like every other Monday night, and I had went several times last summer and I really liked it and. , Mahjong takes a table of four people and so when they have Mahjong nights, you can go and rent a table and have four people and you all go and it’s so fun.

They teach you how to play Mahjong if you’ve never played. Or they’ll give you a refresh every other week. ’cause my brain completely deletes everything that I know. And so every other week I need to have a refresh. And then they feed you,? So they bring around dumb sim and you can get drinks or whatever you’re into, right?

And so they have, it’s really just so fun. They have really [00:14:00] good food and it’s a fun atmosphere and the whole place is packed. The tickets sell out. And so I was like, I really wanna go, but because I never have, like I don’t have four people that I know that I could go and play Mahjong with. That is hard for me to find.

And maybe you’re like that too. You’re like, who the heck would I go play Mahjong with? So they sell individual tickets. And so I started just buying individual tickets and going. Getting sat with people that I didn’t know. And the really interesting thing was that the people that I was sat with ended up being like the same people every other week.

And so I started to know them and then they would bring a friend and I would get to know their friend, and then I brought a friend and they got to know my friend. And so I don’t always make it every other week, but I try to and it’s something that is really fun. And so. Taking the thing that had an aspect of it that felt fun and being like, how can I make this work for me?

I don’t have four [00:15:00] people, but how can I make it work? And now my girlfriend and I are thinking like, how can we just create Mahjong at our house? I have Mahjong tiles at my house. I’m like, how can we make this like a monthly thing that we do with people that we know? So do I know one other person and she know one other person.

And then we could create this really fun thing where we all get together and we all bring, , food and have our own experience at one of our homes. So. This one small thing started to create something that felt a little bit bigger. The other thing that I started doing was there is, and you may have heard me talk about this, but there is this app called Time Left.

So time left is where you buy like a membership to Time left. I’m using Air quotes membership, . It’s , I don’t know, six months is 40 bucks or something like that. But what it does is it every week you can RSVP to go to dinner. And they match you with strangers. So when I started going, it was only Wednesday [00:16:00] nights and then they added Wednesdays and Fridays, and now they do a women’s only Tuesday night, which is fun.

And so it gave me this exposure to a ton of different people. Now the interesting thing is I started going like once a week and there were times where I really didn’t feel like going, but I, and mostly ’cause it was like raining and it’s late and I don’t wanna be out late. I like to go to bed at eight o’clock, but.

I made myself, I’m like, it’s once a week. Fridays became a little easier. And so I started going and I started meeting people that were just really fun. A lot of people came from the suburbs, like I live in Atlanta, so they were kind of far outside, so they wouldn’t necessarily be people that I would get together with.

But at one of them, my real estate agent was there. She had seen my stories where I was sharing this, and so she decided to join and it just happened. We were sat at the same table, so every week it’s different and we just randomly got set. So it was so fun ’cause I got to see her. I get to meet some new people every [00:17:00] week, like five new people, and I got a really good girlfriend out of it, and she lives just right around the corner from me.

And she’s brilliant and it’s been so fun to get to know her and to have somebody to do things with. So every week I would go and I would just count it as that experience. I’m just having dinner with a bunch of people and I’m getting good conversation and to learn about lots of different people.

And that’s it. Without an expectation that like, I gotta meet a best friend. Right? But I went for a long time before I met, somebody that I’d really hang out with, and that happened to live nearby. There were other people I would hang out with, but maybe they lived a little farther. So it, became just something where I could start to recognize, so this is important.

So something that I could go do, right? Something to look forward to. I work from home, so it got me outta the house, but also. I wanna, I’m gonna go back to my trip to Iceland. One of the really important parts of my trip to Iceland, and one [00:18:00] of the things that I try to recreate inside the Navigate Method is this community portion where you’re with people you don’t know.

So in that experience, , you’re starting to realize how you wanna show up. And in noticing how you wanna show up, like what you wanna share about yourself is actually the things that are really important to you. So I remember when I was in Iceland, the things that I was sharing with them were things that weren’t necessarily , I was sharing a lot about,, when I used to be a weightlifter.

And so I, it really caused me to go, what is it that I’m missing about that? So fast forward to these time left dinners. I could recognize what is it that I wanna share with people, and that is probably a place that I could lean into. And so I started trying out different gyms around. I’ve gone to those bar classes.

Which I like it. The times [00:19:00] never work for me ’cause I have a very interesting schedule, but. Just noticing that. I was talking about when I used to own a CrossFit gym, when I used to be a weightlifter, and then being like, okay, I need to bring some of that back. Where can I do that? What can I do differently?

I’ve gone and checked out different gyms, I’ve. Settled in on an app that I like that I’ve been doing at our community gym. I still am not consistent. So it’s something that I’m trying to figure out and it’s something I’m actively thinking about and I’m gonna do a episode on it once I get some more clarity around why is it.

There are things that we really enjoy and like to do, but we put them off. So that’s something I’m exploring. But my point is going to, these time left dinners and they’re in cities all over the place, so you might have them near you if you wanna try that. Allowed me to also understand myself better and to listen to people and to hear different perspectives and to just have an experience in and of itself without having it mean anything more than [00:20:00] that.

Right? If I got a friend out of it, that’s great, but if I didn’t, it didn’t matter. But I was just going for the experience. Okay. So that’s another thing. , I have been part of a book club, so there’s a group of women there. All in their sixties and they’re divorced. I think one of them is a widow. , But they all are magical and.

So impressive. They own their own homes. They’re happy, they have friendships that are deep. They go on vacations. I have learned so much by spending time with them, and I can’t always go every week, and I always joke that I don’t have time to read the book, so I just go like , I’m just going to participate in the social aspect of this.

But they’re fine with that. And so being part of that group has been really inspiring for me. So I think there is something to finding a group of people that you can look at and say , they’re doing [00:21:00] this right and how do I wanna live my life? , One of the things that I think can be really helpful, fascinating, , insightful, I think is recognizing when I meet somebody.

I ask Will, would I want to be them? Would I want to be like them? And would I switch places with them if I could? I think this gives me a interesting perspective on things. I get a lot of feedback on the internet, which I actually don’t mind. I like it. , But I do get a lot of feedback and I actually got some feedback recently from somebody that told me, Hey, I really liked your podcast this week, but also I hated last week.

I ask myself, would I wanna be like them? , So does their opinion matter to me? Would I switch lives with them if I could? And so when I’m with this book club people, I’m like, I would,, I would switch lives with, I don’t wanna switch lives, but you see what I’m saying?

. They got great things going on, so it [00:22:00] inspires me to be around them. So I think finding people that really inspire you, that are where you wanna be. I know the people inside my coaching group that I’m a coachee person, being around them inspires me. They always have incredible ideas. They’re making huge transformations in people’s lives and watching them , is a joy.

And so the, those things I think of ourselves , if we are. , Play-Doh, everybody that we’re around is like a hand squeezing the Play-Doh and is that an indentation that you would want? And I only wanna surround myself now with people whose indentation I would want on my life. And I think that’s really changed a lot of things.

I’ve been finding concerts that I really wanna go to, so. , I have a friend from college that lives nearby. He and his wife, he’s from Vermont, but he and his wife live nearby with their [00:23:00] kids, and he. Introduced me to a friend of his who’s a therapist, and she’s amazing. And so he was like, I really want you to meet her.

And so we all went out for brunch one day and now she and I are hanging out and she’s very fun and it’s now we’re going to a yacht rock concert. So these little things like making these connections. And then saying like, what feels fun? And we were talking all about yacht rock one night when I went to my girlfriend’s house for dinner

and then all of a sudden we were like, let’s go, let’s, there’s a concert in a couple weeks. Let’s go. And so we’re all gonna go. So we got tickets to go as a group. So leaning in to , what are the things that really feel fun to me? , I like music. But I’m not gonna go in the middle of the night and like pound beers and watch a concert.

I did get tickets to see Ludovico and Aldi. I hope I said that right. But I love his music and I was like, if I could see that live, it would heal something in me. So I found he was [00:24:00] coming. So I bought two tickets and , I don’t know who will go with me. I think one of this new friend that I met at time left might go, but it was so fun to be able to.

Pick something that actually brought me a lot of joy and just choose it. Right? There was no toggling back. There was just noticing and choosing. My daughter and I both really love, , John Mullaney. Do you guys know John Mullaney? I find him hilarious. He’s a comic and he’s coming to Atlanta, and so as soon as I saw the tickets, I was like, we’re going to that.

Like we’re going. And so it’s about choosing the things. That really bring you joy, right? Just about choosing those things and not worrying about having it be all perfect, but about choosing them and seeing where it leads to. And one last thing, my daughter asked me to go to the movies. She asked me to go see Superman, and I was like, yeah, let’s go.

Let’s go do that. It has been a long time since I’ve [00:25:00] been to the movies and last time I went, I think it was $15, right? So I was like,, why is it $25 for one movie ticket? But I noticed that a MC has this thing that’s $25 and 99 cents to get a pass for the month. Do you guys know about this?

So basically you get to go to four movies a week for 25 99. A month plus you get discounts on popcorn and stuff, which I need. So I was like, let’s get the passes. And then it basically, even if I go to just one movie a month, I’m breaking even basically. And if I go to other movies, it’s free.

Right? That’s like girl math. I’m like, this is totally free. So. I got a pass and it has been so fun. There’s this thing that I didn’t know I really was gonna enjoy. It’s been raining here a lot in Atlanta and I can go to the movies and I have like now like a system, I have the perfect sweater that acts like a blanket when I’m sitting in the [00:26:00] reclining seats.

We went to the store and I got. Special snacks, like gummies and stuff that I could fit in my purse so I don’t have to pay a million dollars at the kiosk to get food. But it’s really just about finding these things like, well, I do the movie thing forever, probably not, but it’s fun right now and I’m just enjoying being entertained, right?

And I’m meeting new people, doing things and just leaning into what feels good. So if somebody asked me today what makes me happy, I would have a whole laundry list of things to tell them. And besides that, I would know how to do it. And how to do it is really just about creating space to listen to yourself, to sit on your couch at 3:00 AM and allow your nervous system to settle and say, what would feel fun from [00:27:00] here?

At the beginning of this episode, I said, I have an exercise for you. And this is something I tell my clients all the time, and I know they hate it, but it’s really about spending time thinking about it, like noticing the contrast, what feels good, what doesn’t, and how can I follow the breadcrumbs of that to get to someplace better?

And I think there’s always things to learn. There’s always things that. Will make us happy in the future that don’t make us happy. Now there’s always new things that are unfolding, but I think when you can be really present, you can find out what that is now, what that is in this moment, and I think that is really how you live a big life.

So I hope that this episode inspired you a little bit, maybe gave you some new ideas. If you try any of those things, you’ll have to let me know and I will see you guys next week. Thanks so much for being here with me. I love you so much. I’ll talk to you then. [00:28:00] 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pay and on my YouTube channel.

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.

In this episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy discusses how an everyday task can have a profound effect if you can shift your perspective. She explores the importance of focusing on happiness and contributing positively to the world. If you are looking for actionable steps that will improve your outlook, this episode is perfect!

Transcript:

394 Never the same person twice

[00:00:00] 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.

Hello, fellow Adventurers. Hi everybody. Welcome to the show, and I’ve got a couple updates and then I wanted to share something that I have been thinking about that maybe will spark something inside you too. So my first update is about Dean Martin, if you’re new here. I got this cat from the pound back in April and I named him, well, he came with a name Dean and I, couldn’t, anyway, he’s Dean Martin, but actually I think most of the time I call him Kitty.

So Kitty had his second birthday. Which I was so excited about when I got him and they set his birthdays August 2nd. And [00:01:00] they gave me the date and I wrote it on my calendar and we had a little birthday party. I got sushi from H Mart and some shrimp, fresh shrimp, and I got this really cute little birthday hat and like bib thing that said Happy birthday.

I, it was like really the cutest little thing. I got it from Amazon. If you have birthday parties for your animals. Then somebody told me on Instagram that just any animal that’s as stray or that is at the pound, they give it all the same birthday, like August 1st for dogs and August 2nd for cats.

I guess. I don’t, I was so, I was like, no, it’s really his birthday. So I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of like Christmas, like you’re celebrating, but who knows what the real day is. But we did, we celebrated and it was really so fun. He has been such a joy and it’s so fun to see how much we can love a pet, right?

I had my Miley, which is a dog I had that died about four years ago, and I was so devastated and I thought, I’ll never love [00:02:00] anything like Miley. And it is different from Miley and cats are different from dogs, but I have really grown to love him and it has been like such a fun, joy thing that I’ve been doing.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that every day I will post like good things, like just little things. You know? I think there’s so many little things we forget about that are really good, and so many of my things include Dean Martin, like little, I mean, even getting to sleep in or he’s starting to purr now or get, he’s starting to cuddle with me or really hang out with me.

I got one of those. Beds that cat beds that like attach to your desk. So like, he’s right here just watching me do the podcast. So anyway, he has brought me a lot of joy and it’s really fun. So, all right, so what have I been thinking about? So, I live in an apartment right now and.

I have so many things to share about that, which I will share in the coming [00:03:00] months. But I’ve been living in this apartment and I actually really like it. It’s a, really cute apartment and, has been lovely to live here. And when I get a package, I have to go down the elevator and to the front of my building and there’s a package room.

And so I had a package and I went to go get it and I got my package and came back up. And then I got an email that made me think something. Okay. So I got like an email or a phone call or text or something and I started really thinking about change and I started really thinking about what causes us to change.

And , so many times the women that we work with inside the Navigate Method, at the end. They have an opportunity to give us feedback. Good or bad, I want it all. And so many times we get these really incredible testimonials from people [00:04:00] about how their whole life was transformed, and I’m always so grateful that they share that with me.

But I’m also like, it’s 10 weeks. So this goes to my whole thing where I am like, change happens in an instant. We have been told this like pack of lies, that it takes 21 days to change a habit, right? Have you ever heard that? And change doesn’t take that long. Like we don’t go to the therapist for 15 years and then one day we’re at the therapists and we have an aha moment.

The aha moment happens in the moment, right? It didn’t like slowly unfold or. Like pixelate into our awareness over 15 years. Now, I’m not saying all of the experiences that we have lead up to the aha moment, but the aha moment happens in an instant. It is a miracle. It’s a tiny moment of miracle where we get a different perspective and we get to see the world different.

And I started [00:05:00] really thinking about this and about what creates. This level of transformation so quickly. And then I got a text that I had another package, so I was like, oh dang. Like I just came, it’s not far y’all, but I, you know, I’m like, I gotta walk. I’m not just walking to my front door anymore. So I’m like, I’ll run down and get it ’cause I have time.

And as I was walking down the hall, I thought I just was walking down this hall like 20 minutes ago, but I am different. I’m different than I was when I walked down the hall 20 minutes ago. And the reason is lots of reasons. I’m older, right? Probably a lot of things metabolically have happened in my body.

Like my physical structure is different, but I’ve had different thoughts. I’ve had new thoughts, and I’ve thought about change and I have a different perspective. And so now as I walk down the hall. I’m [00:06:00] experiencing the hallway different. So I’m having this awareness that I’m experiencing the hallway in a different way.

Now, I know this probably sounds really traumatic ’cause you’re like, Betsy, you’re just going to get, you’re just going to pick up your Amazon package. But the thought is so important, I think because it is the awareness that we are allowed to change. We’re allowed to transform. We’re allowed to think different things.

We’re allowed to have new perspectives. We’re allowed to change our mind, and it doesn’t have to take some big monumental thing to happen. It doesn’t have to take a ton of time, and it doesn’t have to take something interacting with us. It can happen inside ourselves. And so I wanted to kind of.

Explore through this thought because I believe that we get held back a [00:07:00] lot,. We are held back completely by the ideas and beliefs that we have. Like there is no non-limiting belief, right? Like you hear about limiting beliefs. Every belief is limiting in and of itself, right?

So then. Am I toggling myself back constantly by thoughts or beliefs around experiences that are allowed or not allowed to transform me? So on one hand, can I release the idea that something monumental has to happen or important needs to happen that I deem as important? In order for me to get a different perspective.

Can I just allow many different perspectives to exist inside me at once? Is it okay for me to hold [00:08:00] to ideas that may seem opposing, but I can understand or. Experience and have alignment with aspects of each of those components, right? So I work with women who are trying to make this really tough decision on what to do about their marriage.

Like, do I move forward and stay in this and get some new skills so that I can see and experience things differently? Or is it time for me to go. And both of those experiences can be held in your body. At the same time, I can want and hope that things will change and get better, and I can have an awareness that there are attachment issues they need to heal, or things that they need to do in order for this to be acceptable [00:09:00] to me.

Both of those things can happen at the same time. And I think what’s happening inside our program is that when we accept all those aspects of ourselves, there’s no longer this push or pull and that clarity comes into place and then it’s really. Aligning and clear on what feels like the right thing to move forward,

I think the push and pull of there’s a right way and a wrong way to think or be is it, causes us to spin, whether it’s spinning an indecision or spinning in unhappiness or spinning in, I’m fully, accepting myself. And so I lean towards one way or the other, right?

Everything’s either black or white. I’m not living in the gray, and I think I really live in the gray a lot. And so when I can do that, I can pull aspects of the black and the white , [00:10:00] that work for me, and I can create a reality that starts to move me in a way forward that I feel happy now. Okay.

So now if that’s happening, and I wanna go back to this idea of, I feel happy and why that’s important. So on the other hand, if I’m doing that and accepting all these parts of me, there’s another side of this that when I’m not doing it, something that’s happening. So when I’m not understanding that all of life.

I’m gonna say this thing, I say this inside the group and sometimes I can feel tension, , but hear me out. But that all of life is neutral. Like what’s happening is we are putting our beliefs on it and that’s what’s giving it the story that’s telling us if it’s good or bad. Okay? Which is important.

It’s important to be able to. Make judgements for yourself about how you wanna live and what’s [00:11:00] good and what feels good to you, right? So all of that’s important. But it’s also important to recognize that it’s neutral. So you walking into the kitchen and seeing that your husband has left stuff all over the counter and left for the day, that in itself is neutral.

The story that you have around that, like maybe he doesn’t respect me or he’s not paying attention, or he thinks I’m supposed to pick up after him. That story is the thing that gives it meaning. Okay, so I’m walking down the hall. I have this awareness that we can change in an instant. Okay? So I’m recognizing on the one hand that I can accept the gray.

I can understand that there’s black and white and I can live in gray, and I can accept all those parts of me. But on the other hand, if I’m not accepting those parts of me, if I’m pushing something away, what happens when we push [00:12:00] like a swinging door, right? It comes back and hits us in the face, right? So when I’m pushing something away, there’s resistance there.

And so if I’m actively pushing a thought, maybe it’s not even a thought I’m aware of. But a thought or a concept or a part of myself away, it’s always gonna be coming back to get me. It’s always gonna be coming back where it’s gonna be like, Hey, remember me, this is the thing that you hate. And then you’re gonna have all these experiences of that thing because there is resistance in it.

On one hand, I can walk through the world and say, I’m gonna just accept all these parts of me and then see what makes me feel the best. Or I can have really strict parameters on what’s right or wrong, and I can be pushing away and then continue to see the thing that I don’t like over and over again.[00:13:00]

Does this make sense so far? So bringing it back to why it’s important for you to find out what makes you happy, you know? I’ve had people say to me before online, when I’ve posted something in stories typically about my only job today is to be happy. They’re like, well, that would be great, but I have to go to work.

Your only job is to be happy. That’s a concept. We could do a whole show on that. In fact, I probably have, but when you’re thinking about all of the things that are happening in the world that we can focus on and. You’re recognizing that everything that you’re thinking is changing who you are, then why would you spend time focusing someplace that you don’t want?

Now, I’m not saying ignore things that are happening, and I’m not saying spiritually bypass. I’m saying use what’s happening to create the real change that you [00:14:00] want so you can continue to focus. On the unwanted and pointed out and re-share it on social media or think about it. My daughter said to me last night, she said, you have a really hard time talking about things that are sad or unhappy politically, things happening.

And I said, I don’t have a hard time. If you wanna have a discussion about it and talk about it, like I’m happy to do that. I’m not gonna just talk about it in order to make myself aware of how terrible it is. So I wanna say that in a different way. Instead, I wanna figure out, I wanna focus on the side of the other side of the stick.

Like, what could I be doing? What could this propel me forward to do? How can I take an action that would counteract the thing that I want? Or that I don’t want the thing that I’m [00:15:00] finding that’s unhappy. There were some changes recently and there was some talk about, school lunch programs losing funding.

Oh, I like my heart. Like I just, it broke my heart and I saw somebody post online. That kids that, oh, it’s gonna make me cry. I’m gonna have to pause. I’m not gonna pause. I’m gonna work through it. Kids that have food scarcity, when they get offered food, they don’t play, they’re not fooling around at the lunch table, they are so focused on the food and then they’re scanning to see what’s left over that they could save for later.

Okay, so the idea of those kids losing. Some funding and not getting enough food or any of that. Like I could look at that and I could be like, that’s so bad. Who did this? I could spend a lot of time, and instead what I decided to do was how could I find something locally that I could start just funneling [00:16:00] part of our proceeds too, that would pick up the slack for these kids?

’cause this is the thing that. Caused me pain. Does that make sense? So I think that, like when my daughter said last night, you don’t wanna talk about things that are hard. I’m totally happy to, as long as you’re willing to talk about the other end of the stick. So bringing it back to what makes us happy, it’s really important.

, I believe, and you can choose to believe otherwise, but I believe it’s really important for us collectively to stay in the. I’m gonna use the word vibration, right? The vibration above, like the worry line, right? If you think about the emotional guidance scale, like I wanna be above worry. I’m not contributing anything to the world.

When I’m in fear, desperation, stuckness, anger, like I’m [00:17:00] not adding anything to the world in that state. I can’t come up with really good solutions to things when I’m in that place, whether for my personal life or for the world. So how do I impact the whole world? I know this might sound crazy, but think about if everybody in the world was doing this.

How do I impact the whole world as I, I stay in a higher place of awareness so that I’m constantly shifting towards the side of the stick that I want, and so. That way when things come into my life that are unwanted, it becomes a natural reaction to shift to the place that I do want. And then from there, I can find solutions and answers that move me forward.

And in that aspect, I’m never the same person. Because I’m getting contrast constantly. A [00:18:00] thought that is unwanted, but I’m immediately seeing the other side of the stick. Now it takes training to do that. Am I the best at it? No, not at all. I’m on this journey too, but I see something and I say I can focus on it.

I can go down the rabbit hole. I can reshare a million terrible things and or ’cause I can hold both things. I can also. Be like, what can I do right now that would make me feel better? Because when I feel better, I’m gonna come up with some sort of solution or idea that would be helpful either for my life, for somebody else’s life or for the collective.

I believe that when we can start thinking this way, and I have a really specific training that I do inside my program on how to start to shift that on a really easy exercises so that every day I sit down and I go, how am I feeling? [00:19:00] And then how can I move myself up the scale into a higher place of meaning before I do anything?

And so when we can do this, then. I walk down the hall, I’m one person. I’m getting contrast constantly. That’s we’re constantly getting experiences. Good or bad. Good or bad. Good or bad, right contrast. But if I can teach myself self to shift, then the next time I walk down the hallway, am I different? Yes. Is it improvement?

I’m using the word improvement. You gotta define that in the way that feels right to you. But is it improvement for me would be me always feeling good. I’m not helping the world at all. If I’m not feeling good, I’m not getting good ideas. I’m not all those things. Okay, so how can I continue to accept that there are lots of things going on inside of me, black and white and gray, and release [00:20:00] the resistance to the unwanted so that I can move up the happiness scale.

Get new perspectives and ideas in order to impact the things that are really important to me. So I think when we can do, that is how we live a big life. Thanks so much for being here with me. I. Appreciate you guys that are sharing the show. It means a lot to me and I am still doing my YouTube.

We’re going to get back at it this week. It’s coming out this week, so I appreciate you guys checking me out over there too and being so supportive. And yeah, if I can do anything for you, you can always email us. At [email protected]. I see all those emails and if you’re interested in coming inside the Navigate method, you know I have a free masterclass on my website.

You can check that out. And if it seems like something you wanna explore, we will do a free clarity call with you. So a whole hour long call [00:21:00] where we really explore your situation and help you get clarity and then see if we can help. And if we can, we can tell you the next steps. So thanks so much for being here.

I will see you guys next week. 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. 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.

In this episode Betsy asks us to think about the feelings that we felt when we were the favorite version of ourselves. Were you concerned about perception during those times or fully confident and present? Listen in to discover how freeing it can be to accept that you can live everyday as your favorite version and leave your best version to the side.

Transcript:

393 How to be your favorite self

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy P, 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.

Hello, fellow Adventurers. Hi everybody. Welcome to the Art of Living Big. I have a. A big topic that I wanna talk to you about, a big concept, and I hope that I do it justice. I hope that this makes all kinds of sense as I talk about it. So before I get into that, I wanna give you a couple updates. If you’ve been here for a long time, maybe you like my updates, I don’t know.

I wanna give you a Dean Martin update. So Dean Martin is my kitty that I rescued from the. Pound I got him from the pound back in beginning of April, so I’ve had him now four months. His second [00:01:00] birthday is this weekend. I ordered a hat and necklace and, oh God, some stuff for cat.

Birthdays from Amazon and we’ll be getting sushi and I’m really looking forward to this little celebration with Dean Martin. He has grown into being such a nice kitty. If you were here back then or you were following me on Instagram, like he was sort of a terror in the beginning. And I even got a little bit worried like, oh my, what have I done?

Always been a dog person, but I thought a cat will be easier. And then he became like this total hellion. But over the last month or so, I mean, every month I feel like he’s gotten more settled, but over the last month, even more so, and now he’s purring. He hasn’t pured y’all. And so it’s like when you’re taking care of an infant, but there’s no feedback and you’re like, I’m doing all this work for what?

And then they smile and you’re like, oh, it matters. Right? That’s what it felt like. [00:02:00] I was like, oh, he does like me. So he’s purring and this is a big deal. So I’m excited about that. Okay, so I wanna get into this whole thought, this whole idea that I have, you know, as we. Move through our lives and we grow and I think we get this heightened self of awareness about who we are, hopefully, right?

Hopefully as we grow, we get a heightened sense of awareness about who we are, and I know for myself over the past 15 years, I think I have been on a path to discover myself. When I look back before that. I was walking through life very unconscious, and that’s not necessarily bad, it’s just where I was.

And so as I have moved through and learned more about myself and been a coach over the last decade, [00:03:00] I’m starting to recognize certain patterns or ways of being that I have, and because I believe that everything is neutral. It’s only the truth that I put upon it that makes it what it is. I’ve started to evaluate how I’m actually thinking about those patterns.

So not just the thing that I do, but also how I think about the thing that I do. And , just like you, I have a little voice in my head. That’s like a little gremlin that will tell me things that are lies. You know, you’re not good enough or why are you doing it like that? Or, oh my God, you’re so cringey.

And I have been thinking a lot about that. There’s this thing going around social media that’s like, you have to be cringey in order to grow, to do something new, to learn something. There is that moment of [00:04:00] cringey. But I also, when I see that meme that’s going around, I also think, well, is it cringey or is it just what we think about it that makes it seem cringey?

But it is in itself totally neutral. And so I started evaluating when I feel that cringiness, what’s the lens that I’m looking through? And so many times that lens would be. How other people would perceive what I’m doing. So me and myself, it didn’t necessarily feel cringey, but it would be when I would evaluate it through a lens of how somebody from the outside may perceive it.

And that’s a big may because I’m totally mindreading, right? I’m totally saying. I think they would think of this, but I have no idea. And the truth is probably some people do think that and some people don’t. [00:05:00] And I know just from the work that I do, that if they do think it’s cringey, it’s something that’s going on inside them and probably less to do with me.

So why do I have this voice in my head? Why do I evaluate myself through this filter that doesn’t actually serve me? A couple years ago I saw a woman on TikTok and she has this little thing. You might know who I’m talking about, and I don’t remember her name ’cause she’s not somebody that I follow, but I would see her come up.

But she would say, have a great day, not just a good day. Do you know who this? It’s a young woman that was like, at Alabama University. So have a great day, not just a good day. And she was very cute, but she would say things like. I wasn’t being my best self or I wanna show up today as my best self.

And I really, I kind of liked that, but I thought about it a lot. And in [00:06:00] this like evaluating things that I do through the lens of other people that I know or don’t know, or that I hypothetically think about, right? That may not even exist. Just what I think people might think. And then, am I being my best self?

I started to recognize there was this correlation between the two, and that me being my best self felt very external. It felt like if I was being my best self, it meant I was showing up as my best. And if I was showing up as my best, then it was less likely that I was being cringey or that I would be perceived in a way that I didn’t wanna be perceived.

Okay, so are you tracking with me so far? Is this making sense? So I’m starting to question the voice in my head that’s telling me things about myself. I’m recognizing that I’m putting parameters that are only made up in my own mind, and it’s coming from this place of wanting to [00:07:00] show up as the best version of me to the world.

Haha. And so over the past. Probably two months, three months, maybe four. ’cause probably since I’ve gotten Dean Martin, I would say I have been thinking about this in a different way. I started to think about what was the favorite version of me. If I look back over my life, I can think about times where I was the favorite version of me.

But when I compared those times with. Was I perceived as being, I’m using air quotes, right, worthy or good enough? I don’t know. So the times where I was being my favorite version of me, I was so in myself, like I was so fully embodying [00:08:00] myself that I wasn’t even using the lens of perception. From some outside entity.

Okay. So there’s a version of myself that’s like my best self, putting my best self forward. And there’s a version of myself that’s my favorite self. My favorite self is the times where I’m not even perceiving how other people would see me. I’m so fully embodied in myself. Those times are also times where I’m most present.

Right. Which makes a lot of sense ’cause you’d be super present. Yourself so you wouldn’t be perceiving outside of you. So my favorite version of myself is the times where I am fully embodied and present. Okay. So now fast forward like a couple like a month maybe after all that, when I started thinking about that.

And I come to you here on the show with like things that [00:09:00] I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So. I hear , a video comes onto my YouTube and you may know this guy Bahar. I don’t follow Bahar. I knew who he was when he came to my. My YouTube video. Lots of times I’ll turn on YouTube at night, like when I’m doing laundry or whatever, and I just have it on, and lots of times I’ll be listening to something positive, like I want something positive.

So I’ll have like Abraham Hicks. Now, if you’re familiar with Abraham Hicks, then it would make sense why Bahar would come into the next video for you, right? So I just had it on and I wasn’t doing something else, so I wasn’t shutting it off. I didn’t skip past it. And so I was listening and a woman was asking Bashar about moments where she felt not good enough, and Bashar said, for what?

Good enough for what? And [00:10:00] she said, well, like, just good enough. And he said, for what? To be yourself. Who else could be better at it? And , I got, I paused, so I’m gonna pause here. To, you’re not good enough to be yourself. Who could be better at it? So even if I’m being perceived as cringey or I’m, whatever the thing is that I’m doing, if I’m fully being myself, then there’s a zero chance that I’m not being good enough.

I’ve eliminated the opportunity to not be good enough. Nobody else could possibly be good as good at being me as I am and nobody else could possibly be as good as being you as you are. And so are we gonna make mistakes? Are we gonna do things [00:11:00] that are air quotes, like cringey? Yeah, that’s me being me.

Which makes me fully embodied and totally good enough because I’m fully experiencing life., I think that there’s this idea, and maybe it’s unconscious, and maybe you’ll listen to this and you’ll be like, I don’t have that, and if you don’t have that, I am so happy for you. Like I love that. Please call me.

I think we all have these moments where we’re like, oh my God, why am I so cringey? Why am I so dumb? Why? Why did I do that? Or I look back on things in my life and I think, like, I, God, I wish I hadn’t done that. Why did I do that? Why was I living that way? Why was I making that choice? What was my decision process?

But the truth, is that I was being fully me, which is I was learning, I was figuring out what was right. I was discerning,, and if I don’t have the bad, I don’t know what feels [00:12:00] good. And so those times in my life then where I feel shameful about or I regret or I just hate, or I wish I hadn’t worn that terrible style in that phase of my life or whatever, big or small, I couldn’t be me right now without those experiences.

And when I started to have these thoughts, it started. To change how I was perceiving myself and really quickly how confident I felt in myself, because I released the need, not totally, i’m still on the journey, but I released the need. There have been instances where I’ve felt it, where I have felt this total alignment to being myself and when I am that it’s my favorite self.

So now I no [00:13:00] longer wanna be my best self because I don’t wanna care about how I’m perceived in terms of somebody else determining if I’m worthy or if I’m good enough or if I am doing things right, because it may be that I’m doing something that I’m learning through. And it may be that I’m making mistakes because that’s how I decide what feels good and what feels bad, and there’s a place for me.

Being my favorite self, that if I harm other people in that process, that it is in my alignment to be fully me. To apologize for those things, to say I wish I had known something different. I wish I had been able to perceive something different and now I know, and so I can make amends and I can move forward and I can.

Forgive myself for whatever perceived failures [00:14:00] I had. I think there’s also a space in this for some things that aren’t perceived failures from the outside, but you may know. I did that, I, bypassed for way too long, or I put myself second or third or fourth, or fifth or 19th for way too long. And now, my favorite version of myself just fully embraces myself and forgives myself for whatever I put up with whatever I wished I hadn’t done, whatever I wished I hadn’t lived in, because right now I am in a place.

That I can be in alignment and I can be my favorite version of myself. So I wanted to share that thought with you because I think that there is, especially in the world of social media, of comparing ourselves and am I worthy? Oh [00:15:00] my God, did I do that good enough? Am I, doing things right?

Is my relationship good enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I doing my work good enough? Am I a good enough marketer? These are the things that come up for me, right? How can I compete against a standard that’s constantly changing and constantly somebody else’s version of maybe their favorite self or their best self?

How could I not be good enough to be myself? ’cause who could be better at it? Nobody else could possibly be as good at being you as you are. So I wanna offer you the thought this week that maybe you lean back and say, what’s my favorite version of myself do today? When something feels constricting, something makes you [00:16:00] upset or something is triggering for you, you say, what is my favorite version of myself?

What is the real, real deep down version of me? How does she handle this? And if you were triggered or upset by something later, you can say,, how does she heal from it? Now. Anytime I’m hysterical. I’m like, I know it must be historical. There’s something deeper in there. And so it may be in the moment I just accept myself for whatever I’m going through, and then later I say, what does the favorite version of me do?

How does she proceed from here? And from there, I can knock off all the comparing. I can always know that I’m being present and doing the best that I can in any moment, and that is, I think, how you live a big life. I hope that this was helpful. I hope that this made sense. [00:17:00] I’ll listen back, be like, I hope this made sense.

It was a lot of different thoughts in my mind, but it’s a real, a concept and an idea I really wanted to share with you. So I love you so much. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next week. 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy and on my YouTube channel. 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.

In this episode Betsy hosts Adrianna, a mindset coach within The Navigate Method, to ask her what she does to make life more magical. This episode has the ability to change very big things in your life, enjoy!

Transcript:

392 episode with adrianna

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy P, 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.

Hello, fellow Adventurers. Hi everyone. Welcome. Welcome to The Art of Living Big. So I’m gonna see how this sounds. About a month ago I got Invisalign. I feel like I talk weird. Nobody else seems to notice it, so we are just gonna see how this sounds. But if it seems weird next week, I will sound different because I won’t have these in.

You’re supposed to leave them in an absurd amount of. Time, like 22 hours a day, which doesn’t seem like a lot until you realize that in the morning when you have your coffee and you’re hanging out, like [00:01:00] it’s an hour easy, and then you only have 30 minutes for each of your other meals. Anyway, I’ve so lost weight because I don’t, I can’t eat.

And I don’t, I only have these tiny windows of being able to eat, but anyway. Straight teeth are in my future. And so that’s exciting. So I’m excited to be here with you today. I have a little interview and this interview that I’m gonna share with you is really a thought that was shared with me in our team meetings.

So we have team meetings every week, and one of the mindset coaches for the Navigate method is Adriana. She’s amazing and I just, I love her brain. It’s, so good. And I love how aligned she is to where she wants to be and after we had that meeting, I thought about it for like a couple weeks and I had shared it with one of my friends and one of my girlfriends was like, I keep thinking about it. So then I was [00:02:00] like, I wanna tell you guys.

So I had her jump on Zoom with me and just talked about it for a minute, but I want you to hear what Adriana does to make life a little bit more magical and. You know, that’s how I think you live a big life. So here you go. Here’s the little idea from Adriana. I hope you like it. All right everyone.

I have a really special guest today that I’m really excited that she’s here, that she took a few minutes out of her very busy schedule, and I’m not kidding, she’s very busy. But my friend Adriana is here. Adriana is a coach inside the Navigate Method, and she’s really incredible. A couple weeks ago when we were .

In our laser coaching group that we do once a week. I said something about Adriana and everybody cheered. , I was like, what? What is happening? It was so great. So Adriana, thank you for being here. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. So tell everybody just a little bit about [00:03:00] you so they can know who you are.

And then I want you to tell us this thing that you said in our team meeting recently that I was like, oh, everybody needs to hear that. I love that. Yeah,

sure. So I am , how do I even describe myself? , I’m , a student of life and throughout my life I was, , introduced to the idea of, , NLP neurolinguistic programming by my dad, but I didn’t know it until years later that’s what he.

Used with his, , clients, students, patients, if you will. And it was so fascinating to me when I went through my own journey, it’s like in your twenties you think you know everything and you know, and then you realize as you’re getting, gaining more experience, like, oh, I don’t even know anything.

Yeah, right. And I had a big move in my thirties and , and then in my late thirties, I,. Finally put my foot down for exactly what I wanted to find as far as what I wanted to do to help people in life. I have always been the go-to for advice. People connect with me in all of , the jobs [00:04:00] I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t fulfilling.

I wasn’t like serving people in a way to really affect change long-term. Right? It’s like they had their moments with me, but they didn’t have the long term. So. I became a professional organizer, but I’ve named, that work for the soul and the space because what is in our outer world is a representation of our inner world.

So now being,, certified as a trainer of NLP and using it in my own life, coming to understanding how, why maybe my dad and I had an awkward relationship it’s so wild to me that your dad did it. Yeah. Yeah. . Actually trained with one of the co-founders, right? So that’s really cool.

It was, it was wild. To have this come around and have my mind like blown, like, oh my God, I now understand what he was trying to do to help me, how this works in my life, and what I started to do to peel back the layers of things that. Weren’t serving me that, weren’t good for me anymore that I could do.

And it’s just changed everything. So [00:05:00] now,, I look at my life very differently and I look at it very purposefully and what I create. And so what I’d mentioned on our meeting yeah. Was, , that I call , the things that occur well, I’ll just say, I call them rich life stories, and when I think of the word rich, like there’s rich as in like chocolatey fudge, that’s rich.

There’s rich as in your bank account has multiple zeros. There’s rich that you feel so loved by family and friends and you know that there’s rich in joy. So for me, rich life stories, what is that? It’s kind of akin to the romanticizing your life, but. It’s also way more than that because it’s a way of looking at even the smallest things like,, I live so close to an airport that I can fly easily out of, here to go to all of my,, fun events and things that I get to do.

Yeah. So lemme kinda frame this though so people know what we’re talking about.

So we’re on a team meeting and you were at an event [00:06:00] and you were saying that you missed your flight or your flight was running late and you had extra time or something and you said, but it’s fine ’cause I’m gonna make it a rich life story. And right off I was like, what do you mean whatcha talking about?

Yeah. And when you started describing this, it’s like we have these moments in our lives. That can be seen as so routine or even as something that is a challenge or this screwed up my schedule or whatever. But you had this spin on it, and so tell me a little bit about how do you take a situation or a moment in your life and make it so that it is a rich life

story?

Yeah. So I was just the other day thinking about this. So maybe this will like on my walk, just a walk where I walk every day from my house out the front door, down the hill, and I can take any one of like choose your own adventure paths because there’s just umpteen different streets to go to.

Yeah. And

they all [00:07:00] kind of circle back around.

And I was smelling orange blossom and roses and night blooming Jasmine. And it’s like you could pay attention to those things and or ignore those things. You could not even be o open. Your sense of smell could be completely blocked because your brain is so busy thinking about what you did during the day, but taking those moments of the mundane.

Or the challenging, like, oh, I’m just gonna take a walk to clear my head. I’ve been so busy. I’ve been stuck to the computer all day, but I actually got out and it’s like, what a rich life I have that I live in the safest place. And it’s like all of, summer is coming out with , the trees blooming and the plants blooming , and all of these wonderful things.

I have neighbors who say hello. I have people who don’t know you that like still wave as they’re driving by. It’s the little things like coming out of la. No one. Like they don’t wanna look at you, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a rich life to me, whether it’s I’m [00:08:00] in Hawaii or I’m in my own little town. Yeah.

Because it’s the way that I look at it and it’s the way I’m open to how things are magical, you know? And it doesn’t matter. Like, yeah, I almost, I almost miss my flight and, or, you know, if planes are delayed or things like that. Like if you’re in an airport, you are around the possibility of meeting the most amazing souls.

So instead of like, oh my God, like I’m late, I’m gonna miss my connection. It’s like, well, what am I meant to be here for? Like, what do I get to go and do now? Who am I gonna get? What is here for me? Yeah, yeah. What’s here for me? I mean, I noticed that when I come from that perspective of like, how is this gonna be a rich life story for me, of what I’m capable of doing, like the fact that I’m even in an airport getting to travel is a rich life story.

’cause not everybody gets to do that, right? Yeah. Yeah. So. If I operate from that, that’s what I exude. And it’s how people start to respond to me in ways that it’s like, it’s such [00:09:00] a good vibration. Like, I’m smiling, I need you. I’m, you know? Yeah. And even, even if we, you know, it’s like you have to understand too, how you are speaking to somebody else, how you’re responding to them

even if they aren’t meeting you with that same high level mm-hmm. We don’t go down to that. We send them like the most support and the most love that we can. And just try to make their day a little bit better. I was checking into a hotel, there was a long line, okay, so I’m gonna stand here, I’m gonna look around, I’m gonna enjoy the fact that my luggage made it, you know?

And I got to the. The front desk person, and she just had a struggle with the person in front of me. I heard her say , I can sense that you’re, not happy right now, so let me give you your waters and why don’t you come back? ,

She basically like sent him off on a timeout. And she got to me, she was still down. She wasn’t looking at me. She was, , frustrated. I could tell, and I just thought, hmm. Okay. How can I shift this for her? How can I be. [00:10:00] A just an ease part of her day. And I thought almost to say something like, Hey, don’t let that guy like, , bring you down.

Yeah. But then I thought, I don’t have to say it. I can just be it. I can just act like, and then she was lovely and like, oh wait, let me get this for you and let me get that for you. And, and she turned around and it was just because. Of how I responded to the situation. Yeah. And to me, I’m like, it’s rich.

Like my life is so rich, it’s so full. I’m so wealthy and abundant of so many great things. And that’s what I take the time to notice. And so that’s why my life is just filled with rich life stories.

You know, every morning, not every morning, almost every morning I’ll post. Like my outfit on Instagram and I always, yes, I love to see them.

You do see, I see. I got a lot of hate. So I was like, well, I will also include a list of good things and then how can you hate on good things? So I always put kind of on the side things that I’m appreciating. And you know, yesterday it was like, I really like my toenail color, you know? Yeah. It’s new color that I got.

I have a magical [00:11:00] machine in my kitchen. I don’t know if you have one, but it cleans my dishes while I sleep. I mean, is that not amazing? Yeah. So things like that, and I, what I loved so much about framing it in the rich life story was like, if I’m about to have an experience, it reminded me of Abraham Hicks segment intending, do you know who Abraham Hicks is?

Yeah, totally. So segment intending like, I’m about to have this experience. How can I make this a really cool story, , because if we’re framing it like that, I’m gonna tell this story later. What are the amazing things I wanna be able to tell? Yeah. And I really liked that. Like when you were talking, that’s what I was thinking of.

Every experience gets to be a really cool commentary on your life. Mm-hmm. How do you want it to go? Intend it before and say this is gonna be a really rich life story. I shared this with a friend and she , like when that happened, which was like a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And she messaged me this morning.

She’s still doing it. I tried to make it a [00:12:00] rich life story. So I hope that everybody listening, we’ll kind of take that and say, what is happening in my life today that I could make into a really rich life story? ’cause there’s really so much magic and cool things happening all around us

all the time.

There is. There’s one thing that I think helped me get there to this, which was a Joe Dispenza talk where he drew a diagram that showed us in the, like on a timeline in the moment of now. But our mind having all of these lines back to the past, creating what he called a predictable future.

Yeah. And I thought, oh man, like if you’re , already connected, if what my past is full of rich life stories, then excellent. Because that’s what I’m creating going forward. But if what we’re connected to in the past is how like. , Your luck ran out and things went wrong and you, this didn’t work out and you weren’t here when you need whatever.

You’re already there in your mind. You aren’t even in the present for it to be a rich life story. For you to see that [00:13:00] possibility. So to me, I’m like, what is my predictable future? How is my mind creating that for me? Yeah. So the rich life story helps me. Stay focused and intentional about how I’m framing what I’m seeing or being open to opportunities and possibilities as opposed to seeing , only your box of problem.

Yeah. Yeah. Really good. Really good. Thank you so much for coming on and talking with us a little bit about your rich life. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So fun. So good to see you. Yeah. Good to see you too. 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your [00:14:00] potential is endless. And your life. It’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.

In this episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy reflects on the power of nervous system healing and how it’s been showing up in her everyday life. She shares the concept of the “Thinking Chair” and how intentional reflection can help us uncover deeper truths. Betsy also introduces the idea that many of our “problems” aren’t really problems at all…just things not going as expected, and how reframing them can lead to growth. With updates on The Navigate Method, the Navigate Chronicles on YouTube, and more, this episode is full of inspiration and practical takeaways for anyone on a personal development journey. Tune in to explore how small shifts can lead to big breakthroughs.

What You’ll Learn:

Links Mentioned:

Learn more about The Navigate Method: www.betsypake.com

Subscribe to Betsy on YouTube (search “Betsy Pake” to find her channel)

Connect on Instagram: @betsypake

Get your CozyEarth sheets and Pj’s at 40% off using code LIVEBIGBETSY at https://cozyearth.com/

Transcript:

391 Is it really a problem

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy P, 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.

Hello everyone. Welcome to The Art of Living Big. I’m excited that you’re here. If you’re new here, welcome. There’s a lot of episodes to listen to. I’ve been getting messages from people asking like, which specific episodes should I be listening to? Or, which ones would you suggest first? And I always suggest just starting from where we last left off every episode.

Is typically like a little story and then a lesson, and hopefully it applies to your life and entertains you a little bit as you listen. So. I have a bunch of little things to [00:01:00] talk about today, and one really big thing that I’m really excited about is we have someone new on our team that’s gonna be helping me.

I’m so excited to be able to show up a little bit more regularly. In fact, I’m thinking, is there a way that I can begin doing this every week again, because I really liked having episodes every week and, I still have so many things to share. If you haven’t checked out the YouTube channel, make sure you go over there.

I think if you just search my name, you’ll find me. But I’m doing the Navigate Chronicles, which is something that’s coming up every week inside the Navigate Method. And even if the Navigate method. Isn’t for you. You might find something helpful in what everybody’s talking about. You know, I think so many of our problems and concerns and all of those things are just so universal.

That there’s always something to connect with. So this week, like I said, I have a couple fun things to share with you and, a thought. So if you ever have [00:02:00] listened to my episode on the Thinking Couch, you can just search for that. It’s only a few months back.

the Thinking Couch and now I have a thinking chair is really just a place where I go to spend time to think. You might do this already. You know, you might go for walks and really think, you know, you don’t have podcasts on.

Maybe you do if you do. I celebrate that if you’re listening to me while you’re walking. But you know, you might have moments where it is meditative, it might be doing laundry or. Going for a walk or in your car, or sometimes those thoughts or deep thoughts kind of come to us when we’re in the shower.

It’s in the times where we have some space, right? And so what I like to do is create that space by sitting in my thinking chair. So I have a chair that’s in my office that I use specifically to be able to just think about the things that are on my mind. So I wanna talk to you a little bit about that.

You know, one of the things that we teach inside the Navigate [00:03:00] Method is this idea of regulating our nervous system on purpose and learning how our unique nervous system works. Understanding ourself and what shows up for us. In any instance, you may operate totally different than somebody else.

In that same instance, you may have a fight or flight response where someone else would have a freeze response. You might not be bothered at all, and then you’ll notice you’ll be bothered later. Your heart will race, or you’ll just notice you’re really tight. You might notice that in your shoulders or your neck sometimes.

That’s where I get it, where I’m really tight. I don’t even realize that I’m stressed or that my nervous system is activated until I notice those signs. So we teach how to really understand all of that inside the Navigate method and, how to. Tone your nervous system, kind of like going to the gym and how [00:04:00] to be able to move past some things so that you can regulate around the things that activated you in the past, and so that those things don’t activate you in the future.

It’s super powerful and I don’t think we can do any work on. Relationships or our lives really, without taking into consideration this component of our nervous system. You know that book, the body keeps the score. Well, that’s what it is. Like even if our brain can conceptualize things, our body.

Keeps the score. Our body knows and remembers what has happened. And so giving that some healing is just so important. One of the things that I’ve talked about, for years on the show, is going to float. Have you guys done this before? So you might know what I’m talking about, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it is floating in a sensory deprivation tank.

So you could just Google like float tanks. Like float tanks near me. [00:05:00] And it’ll come up with some float tanks near you. There’s several in Atlanta and I think I’ve been to all of them, but I have one that I really like and I have not been in, I don’t know, maybe like about five or six months. Yeah, five or six months, maybe even a little bit longer. I had a membership for a long time and I would go a couple times a month really regularly. Floating is where you get in this pod typically. It’s dark, so it’s totally dark in the room, the air in the room and the temperature of the water is your body temperature and the water is 10 times saltier than the Dead Sea.

So you actually float. As soon as you get in the pod, you get in totally naked so there’s nothing touching your skin, and you lay down and you float and it’s totally dark and there’s no sound. Even just thinking about it, I can feel my body take a big, deep breath. It’s [00:06:00] so wonderful and relaxing. Now, about six months ago, I had this really weird interaction with the, owner.

It wasn’t even that big of a deal really looking back, but. He was not feeling well. And just said something really rude to me and I just, I couldn’t bring myself to go back, you know? So I took quite a long break and then I regulated my nervous system around it. I decided I wanted to go back.

I still had, active floats that I could take, that I’d paid for, so I went last week. And one of the things that I would tell people is when you get inside the float tank, you know it’s gonna take a little while to relax. It’s gonna take a minute for you to catch your breath and to actually remind your body that it’s safe to just relax and slow down, and it doesn’t have to have any armor up.

And typically when I would get in the float tank, I would take many big, deep breaths trying [00:07:00] to remind myself, of this safety and that I was in a place that I wanted to be and I could just float. And then I typically float for 90 minutes. So about 15 or 20 minutes before it would be time. To get out.

I could feel my body start getting ramped up. It’s like it almost knew, okay, we’ve just got 15, 20 minutes left, like we gotta get ready. Almost like this armor that was beginning to go up. Anyway, I didn’t really think all that much about it. I kind of thought that was. A process that you went through when you went to float.

Like you’d have to take some big deep breaths. It would take a little while to chill out and then before you got up, your body would kind of know and it would start, adrenaline and reactivating so that you could get up. Right? Not so, you know, as we heal our nervous system and our body begins to know that we’re safe things.

That typically you thought were normal, start to [00:08:00] feel different? They start to show up differently. And when I went to float last week, I was so shocked at how when I got in the the water, I immediately relaxed. There was no deep breaths, there was no waiting for my body to UNC Unclench. And interestingly, there was no activation at the time.

I would be getting ready to get out of the pod. In fact, I didn’t know it was time to get out until the , it’s like this French lady’s voice. She says, hello, it is time to get up. I didn’t even know till that ding happened, and she started talking and I was like, wow. I immediately went into a relaxed state, which tells me that my nervous system.

The, threat level is so much lower, right? And I say threat level, that’s a term that we use inside the navigate method to determine where [00:09:00] we are in terms of activation or our nervous system being on guard, for example. But my threat level, and we use, the, analogy of like a big bucket of water.

So if you’re always kind of stressed and the water in your bucket is really high. Then something happens at work in your relationship on the road with the road rage or whatever, and it doesn’t take long for that water in the bucket to get to the place where it’s about to overflow. And because our bodies are so amazing.

Your body does. It doesn’t allow the overflow. Instead, a spigot opens at the bottom, and that is what we see as evidence of our stress. We, clench our jaw. We can’t relax in the float tank like we feel all this tension on our shoulders maybe, or our neck, right? We feel rigid or stiff. We can’t fall asleep.

We [00:10:00] wake up at 2:00 AM Those are all indicators that our nervous system. Spigot is opening to be able to keep the threat level at a place where it doesn’t overflow. And so one of the things that I was so surprised about was that there was such evidence in doing that. There was so much evidence that my day-to-day threat level was so much lower that I could just get in the float tank.

So there’s little things that we can look for for evidence. Another piece of evidence that I’ve had is I have used a mouth guard for years. I clenched my teeth so bad. I’ve cracked my teeth. I haven’t used a mouth guard in months. I don’t even clench at night.

I don’t have any jaw issues. I’m not clenching or exhausting the muscles in my jaw anymore. And in fact, I feel like my face has gotten. Where it’s thinner ’cause that muscle isn’t being like tensed and expanded so much. And so I think we start to see evidence when we [00:11:00] continue to do the work on our nervous system, we continue to take actions that help bring us to a place where we’re surrounded and we have an atmosphere that.

Allows our nervous systems to relax. This is why we talk about like finding the people in our lives that help our nervous system relax. It impacts everything. That threat level we may not even realize is so high. We just know we’re so activated by things. And then when we begin to bring that down, all of a sudden we start to see all this evidence and all these things start to shed where we just feel so much better.

So that’s one of the things that I have been noticing recently and I was actually pretty surprised cause I’ve done so much nervous system work but as I always say, I am so much on this journey along with y’all and learning and. Healing and getting better. I posted something on Instagram, I don’t know, maybe a month ago that I think I’m like one of the [00:12:00] happiest that I’ve ever been.

I feel so much more relaxed and I have. Such good people coming into my life and good friends, and I’m doing a lot of things, and all of those things start to impact our nervous system and the threat level that we experience on a day to day. So being able to recognize who is good for my nervous system and being able to.

Seek those people out is just such a huge part of healing and showing up and being able to make big changes in your life and to be able to feel like you’re living a life that feels really good. It doesn’t mean we don’t have problems and issues don’t arise, but man, it’s so much easier to deal with those things.

I was dealing with some problems this month, and this is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, and I was like, I know that these are. Issues. I know the problems. I know that these are things to solve. But it feels really fun to be able to find the [00:13:00] solution, like it feels fun to move through this problem.

It doesn’t feel like full of angst and awfulness. I have control. I can do actions differently, and they actually impact my environment and I can make changes and I can move forward, and it all just feels really fun. Which leads me to sitting on the thinking couch because I was thinking about problems, and the problems that I have been experiencing.

And the funny thing is, as I was thinking about this and I was really trying to identify, what is it I’m actually saying. So even if I say I have a problem, well, how do I know? How do I know that it’s a problem? What’s the indicator that says that’s a problem?

And when I was really breaking this down, and this is the thought that I really wanted to share, is that most of my problems, and I’m curious if this is the way for you, so message me, message me on Instagram, [00:14:00] shoot me an email. I really wanna know, if you look at the problems and I, and things that need to be solved, is it.

That things are going wrong, or is it that things are just not going the way you thought they would, and when they don’t go the way that you thought they would, you think that it’s wrong, but maybe it’s actually right. But the way you were thinking about it was wrong. So the problems that we have are actually working to move us in the place we need to go.

We just weren’t aware that we had to go there. And so if that’s true, then all of the things that happen are actually working and there isn’t a problem. There’s just a new way that we need to [00:15:00] think in order to move forward. I realized that so many of the things, when I tried to identify my definition of problem, a problem would be something that I couldn’t impact.

I’ve said before, and you’ve probably heard me say this, but if money can fix it, it’s probably not a problem. If your hot water heater breaks money can fix it. It’s not a problem. It’s just something you have to solve for. Now, if it’s something that money cannot fix, that’s a real problem, right?

Health issues or things like that are just outside of anything you can do anything about other than move forward, learn all the lessons that you can and take the next right action. So when I was looking at my problems, if that’s sort of my definition, then I didn’t really have any problems and. It was really my redirection [00:16:00] and it helped me learn things about myself.

It helped me recognize places that I needed to heal and some of the challenges that I had, opportunities that I had gave me bigger boundaries that were necessary in order for me to continue to heal and to move forward. And that is actually not a problem, it’s just not what I was expecting. So. I hope that gave you some food for thought this week.

I am looking forward to seeing you over on YouTube. If you catch me over there, drop me a comment, so I know you came from the podcast. We are doing the Navigate Chronicles every other week, and then we’ll see if I can show up here every week. You know, I like to. Have this time with you where I do this podcast.,

Thank you so much for being here. I love you so much. Keep working on yourself, keep moving forward. You got this. All right, I’ll see you next time. Thanks for joining me [00:17:00] 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pay and on my YouTube channel. 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.

In this episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy explores the concept of life patterns and how to break out of those cycles to foster growth. 

Use code LIVEBIGBETSY for 40% all products at Cozy Earth! Betsy has the peoney sheets and loves their pajamas. https://cozyearth.com/

Transcription:

[00:00:00] 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.

Hello. Hi. Welcome to The Art of Living Big. I am, I’m doing [00:01:00] things a little bit differently this time. I don’t know how this is gonna turn out, but I am recording with video. If you’ve been here for a little while, you may remember that I mentioned that I tried to do this, I don’t know, many months ago.

It, it. It bombed. It didn’t really work, but we’re trying again. We’re gonna see. We’re gonna see how it goes. So I’m excited to get to be with you. You’ll hear on audio and if the planet’s aligned, you could go to YouTube and you could actually see me recording it. I don’t know. I mean, would you even wanna do that?

I don’t know. But I’m happy that you’re here with me, whichever way that you’re seeing this. So I’ve got a couple updates and I’ve got some cool stuff to talk about, and I have. A thought that I have been thinking about over the last few days, and I’ll get into that. I’ll get into that. So, okay, let’s, let’s start with the most important update, which is about Dean Martin.

So [00:02:00] Dean Martin, if you’re new here is my cat that I adopted from the shelter, and there’s a crazy story about me adopting him. You could go back a couple episodes and listen to that. Um, and. He’s really wonderful and sweet and he’s the cutest little thing. I don’t know. Something about his little mouth and his nose is like the perfect little pink.

He’s just perfect. And because two things can be true at once, he’s a total terror. He’s a real terror and he is just tearing things up. I have posted on Instagram about him. It’s kind of the joke. It’s kind of funny. Um, but he continues to tear up my life. I have gotten, I play with him. I mean, I play with him so much.

I’ve even paid somebody to come and play with him. Yes. Because I need to work and I need to sleep. And both of those things have become increasingly difficult. And [00:03:00] so, um. I’ve bought, I, I just, I mean, an insane amount of toys for him and he likes some of them and some of them he doesn’t. Mostly he likes the boxes, right?

So my point is, I’ve done all of the things the vet has even given medication to help calm him down at night. Uh, and I tried that once, but it was hard to give it to him. And so I’ve kind of abandoned mission there. But here’s what I wanted to share with you about that. ’cause we all have the Dean Martin in our life, right?

Whether it’s a cat or a person or a situation. And so I decided I was gonna really pause here and think like, what is this here to teach me? Like why is this like I, I, I didn’t get a kitten. I got a 2-year-old cat. Why did I get a 2-year-old cat that is challenging [00:04:00] me in so many ways. Like what is there in this for me to learn?

And I think that there is a level of, I mean, patience would be the obvious thing, but I think that there’s something deeper here. And I have not, I have not noodled through it all, but I’m gonna continue to keep you updated because. There’s something really important in this for me, and I know that that may seem like, you know, Betsy, it’s just a cat and you just got a cat that’s got some extra energy or is anxious ’cause he is new living with you, or whatever the case may be.

But I have the belief, and you can choose to believe this too or not, but I have the belief that we. Our, I’m gonna say it like the, I’m gonna say it in a crazy way. Okay. But the, our reality is completely coming from inside. It’s coming from inside the [00:05:00] house. It’s not external. It’s coming from inside and, and you know, if you’ve listened to me for some time, what I mean by that, which is there’s science and physics that I can use to explain.

Why, what I think is correct, and if that’s true, then it, this is me sorting something out. It’s me being given an opportunity to sort something out. And whenever something happens like this, I always want to be able to pause and to get the lesson. So it, it just occurred to me that the, that there’s something in here for me to learn instead of just like, how many toys can I buy and how, how many times can I play with him?

I share this because, well, because I’m gonna continue to give you updates and so you might wanna know the backstory, but also I want you to be thinking about your own thing, [00:06:00] your own Dean Martin, and what is happening and how you’re reacting to it. What you are learning or adapting in that experience? We don’t have experiences to just move through them.

There’s a, before the experience, there’s a, through the experience and then there’s an after the experience. And when you get to the after, you are not the same as the before. Whether your change has been positive or negative is up to you. And I think so many people are on autopilot, not you, because you wouldn’t be here listening if you were an autopilot person, but so many people are on autopilot that they are just impacted and molded by things without having any awareness and essentially then any control.

Right? So. [00:07:00] That’s my Dean Martin update. I’m gonna continue to keep you updated. What is the, what in the, what is the dang meaning of this? I don’t know. We’ll, we will figure it out. I do have a new sponsor for today’s show. You’ll hear it in a little bit, but I’m super excited about it. You know, I get reached out to a lot to share things or, um, you know, promote things and I ne I never do.

I never do because it has to be. It has to be something that I really like. It has to be something that actually is meaningful for me and I have something. So I’m really excited for you to hear that and you’ll hear it in just a little bit. So stay tuned for that. Alright. I’ve told you guys how I have this new YouTube channel.

I’ve had the YouTube channel, but I’m becoming intentional with the YouTube channel. And so on the weeks where I don’t have the podcast, I have been uploading a YouTube video and I have done two of them now, an introduction and then two videos. When I make the video, because I’m trying to [00:08:00] do things, how can I do things in the easiest way possible, right?

How can I make this the least amount of stress? And like, how can I make this simple? And what I found was that I was recording and then if I would make a mistake, I would stop the recording and then I would restart the recording and kind of take off where I was. Which led to me having like 14 videos that I had to slice and dice together.

And so what I discovered was it was just easier to just let the video run while I figured out what I was gonna say or what was gonna happen. Okay. So once I finished the video, then we edit it. So that it like makes sense and flows. And I take out the weird stuff where I’m like, wait, what was I doing?

What was I, what was that quote I wanted to share? Like, well, I’m doing all of that stuff. So we do some editing. I. It was slicing and dicing some video of the YouTube [00:09:00] video so I could put it on Instagram.

And when I sliced and diced the video, the slice that I diced was me going, what the, and I’m gonna curse. What the fuck was I gonna say? I don’t even remember what I was gonna say. Oh my God. Oh my God. Like that’s what I say in the video. Okay. And so that snippet that was sliced and diced, I was like, wait a minute.

Where did this video, where is this slicing and dicing from? Did I upload the video to Slice and Dice, or is it pulling it directly from YouTube? Because if it’s me just uploading it, maybe I uploaded the wrong video, like the unedited video, but no. No, no, my friends, it was taking it right from YouTube. And so, you know, I have talked before about being a beginner about how, about how we make mistakes.

We have to be [00:10:00] comfortable failing, and I use the word air quotes, like with the failing, but making mistakes, like being a beginner means you’re gonna screw things up because you’re figuring things out. When I saw that little snippet, I was like, I, to be honest, I immediately just started laughing like hysterically.

I was like, there’s no way I’ve uploaded this. So I go right to YouTube. Luckily, not many people are looking at the YouTube. I had 32 views, you know, it had been up for like 12 hours. I was like, oh my God. So he immediately took it down. No, that’s not true. I immediately scanned the video to see if I actually had this huge pause.

You guys, it was like 30 seconds where I was like scratching my head, what was I gonna say? Cursing at myself. I mean, it was all in that video, so I took it down, found the one that I had actually edited and uploaded that one. This is why I can’t do this job. This is why I’ve gotta hire somebody else to do some of [00:11:00] this stuff because, , I am more of a, a thinker than a tedious details person.

So I share that because we all, well, because it was hilarious and because nothing goes the way we think it goes. You know, we see all this stuff on social media. It all just looks perfect and figured out. And I mean, with. Editing and AI to slice and dice stuff. Like who knows what’s real, you know? And so I think it’s really important when we do find something that feels authentic, something that feels real, I think it’s, I, I think it’s still real to be able to edit out errors or bloopers.

Right? We all have our bloopers reel, but I wanted to share it because I. Because I don’t have it all figured out, and I think if you’ve been here for a while on the show, you know that because I talk about, I’m on the journey with you, like I’m constantly learning. There have been [00:12:00] mistakes that I have made in my life that I will regret until I die.

Like there are things that I wish I had done different or had experienced different or risks I wish I had taken. You know, there are a lot of these things and I think it’s really important to be able to acknowledge where you screwed it up and fix it and go. That is part of learning and that is part of being human and that is part of being authentic on this journey.

When I moved, if you’ve been here for a little while, you know that I moved back in January. I put my house on the market, like in last, I don’t know, September maybe decided to put my house on the market. It went on the market.

It was, it just took a while. I had a very old house that I owned. Um, a hundred year old house. And, and with that, you know, it, and the market was rates, interest rates had gone up, like things had slowed down. It. I have [00:13:00] historically been really lucky when I have bought and sold houses because I have typically bought when it’s pretty easy to buy and I have sold when it’s really good to be a seller.

And things in my life have gone really quickly. Like I make a decision and I’m ready to go. Like I am pretty decisive once I’ve made a choice, right? And so put this house on the market took dang forever. There was issues and all kinds of stuff. I have, I I, and I’ve talked about this so I don’t have to go into it, but I had done more repairs.

Like I had taken care of that house, like it was my part-time job. I did so much stuff, so. By the time it was time to sell the house and it, and it sold and we were getting closer to closing on it, I was so tired. I was pretty depleted and I had been living differently. Do you know how you live differently when your house is on the market?

You don’t live like you live in your house, right? You [00:14:00] have to hide your towels and do you know what I mean? Like put your. Knickknacks away or whatever. And so I had been living for many, many months, a little bit different way. So then I move into my apartment, like it’s all new for me. I’m living alone and I’ve, I’m, I’m figuring out where I want things and how I want things.

And I noticed that I was getting up in the morning and what was my pattern when I lived in my house? Was that I would get up, I would get my coffee, and then I would either go sit on my porch or if it was cold, I would go into my office and I have my thinking chairs in my office, and I would sit in my office and read my coffee.

I would journal, or I would read, or I would do something to fortify myself for the day. I like to do gratitude or just think about the things that are happening, right? And then I’ll, I’ll share it on Instagram so often. [00:15:00] So what I found was that worked for me in that environment, and then when I got to the new space, I was sitting in my thinking chair, like the same chair y’all.

The chair was the same, the coffee was the same. You know, for the most part, I think I had shifted to espresso, but it was the same. I was sitting and I was doing what I needed to do. All of my morning routine stuff. And then I found it was really hard to get going. Like I would, I was sitting, but whereas before I would sit and then I would feel complete and fortified and ready to go, I was not.

I was feeling depleted and I was feeling like sort of lethargic and not very motivated and even what I would say down. I’m gonna use the term down. Um, because my mood was just [00:16:00] lowered and after a couple, I mean, it was probably a week or so I would say, I was like, I am having such a hard time getting going.

Like, what is happening? And you guys have probably experienced this too, right? Where you’re like, what is happening? Like. Is it a hormones? I mean, anything could be possible, right? Am I getting sick? Am I burnt out? Am I just over tired? Do I need a vacation? Like what is going on? And in that experience, what I know from the work that I do is that I was in a pattern and patterns, and I wanna explain this because patterns are.

Things that our unconscious mind plays out that leads us from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. So when we have a pattern, there is a trigger, like something that happens. Like I get up, I get my coffee cup, [00:17:00] right? And then there’s a series of things that happen after I sit down. I get my book, I do my journaling, like whatever those things are.

Think about it like this. When you go to brush your teeth, you probably get up in the morning. You have a system, like a way that you do your teeth brushing, you probably don’t even think about it. It is so unconscious. Our habits are unconscious. So what happens with a pattern is that the feelings that are associated with that become part of the pattern.

So now I’m sitting in my chair, I’m getting my coffee, I’m journaling, I’m feeling. Melancholy, right? I’m feeling tired. I’m feeling those begin to get embedded in the pattern. So the longer that I do it, the way that I’m doing it and not getting the result that I want, the deeper I am creating that [00:18:00] divot in my brain, right?

For lack of a better way to say that. It’s like a well worn pathway, right? A neural pathway that continues to fire. The longer I do it, that neural pathway becomes stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger to the point where I could eventually just sit in the chair and immediately go into feeling melancholy.

Like those two things would become so patterned and entrenched that one trigger would lead to the next, and I would not even realize that there were like five or six steps. Internally that were happening, that led me from one thing to the next. It would just look like, I don’t know, in the morning, I just feel melancholy.

But no, there’s a series of things that are happening. Okay. So because I recognized that there was this shift happening, what I know about patterns is that I don’t wanna keep doing the pattern because I don’t wanna keep having the outcome in coaching in the way that I coach specifically. [00:19:00] We calibrate based on outcome.

We calibrate based on, well, what is that action? What’s the action at the end of that? Like, what’s happening? Not like, well, I wanna relax. Well, I wanna be thoughtful in the morning. Well, I want, it’s not what I want, it’s what’s actually happening, is what I’m calibrating on. And that can be hard to decipher as well because we, we know what it is we want.

We think that that’s the intention is sitting down to get motivated. I’m sitting down to be insightful, but no, I’m actually sitting down to be melancholy ’cause that’s what’s happening. So we’re calibrating based on the outcome. So I recognized that pretty quickly and I was like, all we have to do when we have a pattern that is running is we have to disrupt the pattern.

That’s it. And all we have to do is change one piece of the pattern. It doesn’t matter typically [00:20:00] what piece that is. We just want it to be before the outcome. Okay? Here’s what I wanna say about that. If I let the pattern run became melancholy and then tried to change something after, so that I was no longer melancholy, and I don’t even know that that’s the emotion I was having, but we’re gonna use that as.

For the example, if I have done it after, I already had the feeling, I’m not breaking the pattern. ’cause I’m already having the feeling and now I’m having to dig myself out of a hole, right? So what I wanna do is I wanna change before. So what did I do is I sat down with my coffee. Noticed was just one day I noticed, oh, I’m running this pattern.

So I stood up, I brought my coffee to my kitchen island and I put music on. So there’s this guy named Lincoln Jesser and his music. Is just peppy and happy. And I think he talks [00:21:00] on Instagram about how it is like a certain frequency to help your brain. So I picked up my co. The moment I noticed, I’m like, oh, here it comes.

It’s happening. I stood up, break the pattern that just by standing up, I broke the pattern, walked over to my kitchen island, was like, I’m gonna drink my coffee standing. At my kitchen island, I went over, I put Lincoln Jesser song on, and before I knew it, I was dancing, like I had my hands above my head, which I like to do.

My daughter doesn’t like it when I do that, but I feel like it helps elevate my mood and my body wants to move. Like I, there’s emotion, right? That wants to be moving through my body. Just like that, the pattern shifted, the, the pattern no longer existed now. If I had gone back the next day to sitting, I could have reestablished that pattern.

The pattern [00:22:00] still existed. It still was there. It probably wasn’t completely derated by by one day, but it would have been less because I did something different. So those neuro pathways can be formed and get really strong. The longer you do the same thing over and over and over again, or they can become less.

The more pause you put in things, the more you change things, the more you disrupt the pattern. So I, I don’t even know that I’ve ever really gone back to sitting in the way that I did. Sometimes I’ll sit just to drink my espresso, ’cause espresso cups are so tiny, it doesn’t take long. But then I almost always, now I’m moving into music, almost always music in my kitchen, moving around, moving my body became really, really important.

Opening up my blinds, getting that morning sun, especially now that it’s getting into summertime and the light is earlier in the day and it feels really [00:23:00] good opening up my sliding glass door and getting some fresh air. So I, I noticed this pattern and I began to change things. Now why do I tell you this?

Because you may have patterns like that, but I also want you to recognize, and I wanna point out. I wanna point out so that you recognize that that pattern I was able to shift because it hadn’t lasted very long. But even with that shift, it would, I could have gone back to the pattern if I had just reverted back.

Okay. Now I want you to think about patterns You’ve been running for years, patterns you’ve been running with your partner. Things that you don’t like. You know, I talk to women every day and I so get it, like I understand, but they’re unhappy in their marriage. They’re [00:24:00] unhappy with their relationship and with their union and the way things go.

They don’t like the patterns. They may not call it a pattern, they may not recognize it, but the important thing to know is that both people are running the pattern. I am guilty of this too, of being like, oh my God, it makes me crazy. Right? When I was married, he makes me crazy, but until I could recognize my part in the pattern, I couldn’t change it and I couldn’t change my nervous system regulation around it.

And if I had never done that work. If I had just been like, screw this, I am out, which I hear people tell me all the time on Instagram, I didn’t wait. I just left. I mean, that’s great. Do what you have to do. But if you’re not using the environment to understand yourself, you’re missing this huge opportunity because you are running a pattern.[00:25:00]

You are running these things too, and the truth of it is, is that your nervous system feels, it feels normal to you, so normal that you may not notice you’re running it. Remember I said the moment where you sit in the chair and you suddenly feel melancholy and you don’t realize there’s six steps in between that.

Imagine if you’ve been doing something for five years, 10 years, 22 years, 36 years. Like there’s a immediacy that happens, but there’s steps in between that you don’t even recognize. So yes, you could just leave. Yeah, go ahead and leave. It will solve your problem in the moment, but the truth is you are regulated to those patterns, and so as much as you will try, you will go out with other people.

All right? If you choose to date again, you’ll go out with other people. And then you’ll be like, I don’t really like them. I can see that they’re probably a [00:26:00] good person, but it’s just not my person. Right. And that’s fair. But then there’ll be somebody that you’ll be attracted to and then after six months or after a year, you’re gonna be like, oh my God, he’s doing the same things as my ex.

Why do I do this? I’ve even heard people say, I have a bad picker. You don’t have a bad picker. Your brain’s working perfectly to find something that matches what you’re comfortable with. So perhaps the other person would have been a great match if you didn’t have those patterns, but because you have those patterns, you’re just gonna replay with somebody else.

Now we can disrupt patterns in relationships in our lives. Like I said, just in my morning routine so that I am not. Living in a feeling, feeling melancholy. And that’s a really simple example, but I wanted to share that because I recognized it the other day. I was thinking, I actually was going through my [00:27:00] journal and just reading back.

’cause I always find it fascinating to like have that rear view mirror check to be like, how much have I changed? Like what’s happened? Do I think differently? We get a different experience when we are different. So I wanna say this is really important. I wanna say this again. My life right now today looks a great deal different than it did a year ago, I am different in relation to that, but I didn’t become different when my situation and my life experience changed. My life didn’t change, and then I changed. I changed, and then my life started to organize itself around that. So the changes that you make, whether it’s in those patterns or whatever it is, right?

And we talk about all of this in the Navigate method, but those patterns start to change. Your outside [00:28:00] circumstances are just suddenly gonna start to rearrange themselves. It no longer matches who you are because you are someone different. So when you start to look at the way that you are contributing to your own experience is the moment when you can start to live a big life.

So I hope that gives you food for thought. If you’re interested in learning more about how we do this, you know, inside the Navigate Method, I have a free video on my website. Like if you go to my website, it’s like the very first thing right there, and I lay out the steps. Five shifts. That’s a really great place to start and I’ll tell you, um, once you watch that, at the very end of that video, I explain how to talk to us to see if we can help you.

We tell people every single day, and I’m not exaggerating, we tell people every day, we’re not the right fit to help you. So if you’re [00:29:00] struggling with your relationship and you wanna see if we can help, we only help people. We know that we can help. And there’s certain things we talk about where we know if we’re a good fit.

Um, and then you can decide if that’s the right next step for you. So. If you wanna check that out, you can just go to my website, betsy p.com. Thank you so much for being here with me. And if you were here on video comment and let me know you were here on video. I don’t know why it feels exciting.

Hopefully this one, I don’t even think I have much to, to, to edit this one, so I should be safe. But I, I appreciate you being here with me. Thank you so much for listening today. Um, I will see you next week on YouTube with the Navigate Chronicles. Um. And I’ll see you then. All right. I love you so much. See you guys next time.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. [00:30:00] 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at betsy pa and on my YouTube channel. 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.

On todays episode Betsy talks about a big idea that could radically change the way you view everything in your life. Listen in and learn more about creating opportunities and miracles around every corner.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy P, 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. Hello, fellow Adventure.

Hi everyone. Welcome to The Art of Living Big. I have a couple thoughts. Well, I have a couple things I wanna tell you before we start and then I have some thoughts, things for you to think about as you kind of go throughout your week. So before I forget, did you know if, if you follow me on Instagram, then you know, but did you know that I started.

YouTube, I’ve had this YouTube channel. I, I’ll say that I’ve had a YouTube channel and what I’ve done historically, like years ago I used to do Facebook Lives and then I would put the Facebook Lives on the YouTube channel. So there was never any intention with it. It, [00:01:00] you know, there was never any. Real plan for a long time.

We had the podcasts automatically put out anyway. I just was like, I wanna do something on YouTube that feels more intentional and more meaningful. And so one of the things that I felt was a little bit of a missing link and also something that I really wanted to share was what’s happening inside the Navigate method.

You know, many of you are probably listening to me ’cause you found me on Instagram or you found the Navigate method and you hear me talk about all the things that I think about relationships and, and women and how we show up and how we’ve been encouraged to show up throughout our lives. And a shift, a really big shift that I think is happening right now in the world.

But. I never really talk about what’s going on behind the scenes, like what actually happens inside the Navigate method. Now, of course, I’m not gonna [00:02:00] talk about people’s individual stories of what happens, but there’s typically a theme or a thread. It’s so funny because we’ll do groups. We have a part of the program, it’s a, it’s a multifaceted program.

There’s a lot going on, but with the groups we meet every week. And there’s always a theme, like one person will say something and then somebody else will be like, oh my God, I wanted to bring that in. And someone else. And someone else. And we kind of joke that everybody’s married to the same person. Like how are we all having the same exact experiences?

Everyone in the group, so. With that, I really wanted to create a place where I could talk about some of those threads and be able to give you a little bit of insight as to what’s shifting for people and, and what happens and a new way to think about things. And so I decided that I was gonna do the podcast.

As you know, if you’ve been here for a while, I did the podcast every week for years and years and years now I do it every other week. And [00:03:00] now on those weeks we don’t have the podcast. There is the Navigate Chronicles, which is my YouTube show

so it’s like on the off week. So if you like this, you can get this kind of thing over there. I have it linked everywhere. If you follow me on Instagram, just go to my bio and click on the link. I send out an email with it every other week. If you’re on my email list, you’ll get that. But subscribe, it will alert you.

I suppose you could even go to YouTube and just put in my name and it would probably pop up with my channel. So I wanted to remind you of that and let you know about the YouTube channel.

I sent out an email this past week when the episode went live, which was like the first real episode. And. It was so hard to do. You know, I started doing the podcast every other week, several months ago with the intention of doing the YouTube, and I had a, well, first of all, I had a lot of technical difficulties.

This is gonna lead into what we’re gonna talk about, but I had a lot of technical difficulties, [00:04:00] like weird things where I was like, why is the universe trying to stop me or slow me down? And. E eventually, you know, I, I recorded, I mean I think it was like six times there. Either, either was an audio or the video screwed up, or, I mean, there was something always.

And so finally I got it locked in. We got the episode out. So it’s not the greatest in the world, but I’m doing it and it’ll get better and better. And just like when I listened to my old podcasts from years ago and die of cringey. However, I sound, you know, I’ll continue to get better and how cool that we can be beginners.

So join me over there. That’ll make me feel better if you come, if you come and visit. And then I also wanted to tell you a little update on my cat. So if you were here a couple episodes ago, I talked about how I got this cat, and if you haven’t listened to that episode, I, I, it’s, [00:05:00] it’s, it’s a, it may be an entertaining story for you, but I ended up, they gave me the wrong cat, so I had this strange cat under my bed for a day until I could get the cat that I had actually adopted.

I just wanna give you an update that I have not been a a cat person my whole life. Like I’ve always historically had dogs, you know, my daughter had a cat, but. It was her cat. I it, it has been a new adventure and it’s been an adventure getting used to not having something totally obsessed with you. Like dogs are right, but it’s also a lot less work.

So I feel like the trade off there is really good.

So, all right. So I wanted to talk with you today. I have, this will be a little bit of a shorter episode, but I wanted to talk with you about this idea that things are gonna go differently than you want them to, and when they [00:06:00] do, how do you deal with it? So when things don’t go the way you want, what do you do?

How do you respond? What’s your reaction? What is it that you are thinking now if you are new here? I wanna kind of give a frame around this conversation. So when we experience our world, it really is our world. It’s not the world, it’s our world. And what I mean by that is everybody is experiencing something just a little bit different.

It may be a lot different. It may be a little bit different, but it all depends on what your brain thinks. Is really important. And so your brain, your unconscious mind is scanning constantly for information that it is taking in from your nervous system. And it is putting that through a set of filters.

And the filters are gonna be things like what you believe and it’s really like what your [00:07:00] parents taught you was true, right? What, what your values are. Also what your deepest identity is, what you think about yourself and who you are. And so all of these things kind of come together and they create a filter and so your reality is yours.

This is how come inside the Navigate method, we talk a lot about understanding our own reality and. How to understand our partner’s reality so that we can find that overlap, right? We can find that consistency and we can talk in ways that help each other actually understand what kind of reality we’re trying to communicate about.

Right? So this is not a small thing. This is a huge thing, and I think when people get this wrong, it leads to a lot of suffering. So. We have our own reality, and that is giving us our version of the world and how we see it. And this is how come, you know, we have people that you’re [00:08:00] like, how? How do they not see that this is wrong?

Right? Something happens in the world and you’re like, how do people think that’s okay? That’s not okay. It’s because it’s your reality. Their reality is different. Now, I’m gonna take a wild leap that’s going to make you unhappy, but I want to just say it for the. The fact of this conversation. Okay, what if there’s no right or wrong, but there just is.

Now right off you may think like, I know there’s things happening in the world right now that are wrong. I will agree with you because we probably have a similar frame. Okay? Our reality probably overlaps, but the truth is that it’s not the thing that’s wrong. It’s that. Our thinking about it is what makes it wrong.

I’m gonna give you a totally different example, so just hang with me. There was a interview that I saw years ago. [00:09:00] With Dr. Wayne Dyer and he talked about how he was doing a speech. If you’re inside the Navigate method, you’ve heard me say this, but he was doing a speech on nine 11, right on the actual nine 11 and on the days that he would give a speech, he wouldn’t watch the news.

That was part of his locking in and you know, keeping out any. Outside noise. He wouldn’t watch any media. He would just get in a really good feeling place, show up and do his speech. And when he got there at the event to do the speech, he’s like, everybody was so upset, he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

And then somebody told him backstage, it’s, this thing happened. This is what happened. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. We can all agree. It’s terrible. Right? But what Dr. Dyer said was. I didn’t know about it, and so I didn’t feel bad. So it’s not that it was terrible, it’s that my processing of it is what made it [00:10:00] terrible.

It’s my view, my lens, and I’m looking at it and that’s what’s making it terrible. He was like, I didn’t have a terrible morning. I wasn’t worried. I didn’t know anything was wrong. Then when I found out what was wrong. Is when I felt bad because then I placed all this meaning on it. Right? And I think that that’s a, it, it, that can be a hard concept, right?

’cause you’re like, some things are just wrong. And, and I get it and I want for this conversation just to open up to say maybe life is neutral and what makes things right or wrong is our view of it. Okay? So life is happening. So with all of that said. What do we do when things don’t work out the way that we want?

And one of the things that I think is really important is to understand anytime something doesn’t go the way you, you like or you want, is to [00:11:00] recognize that the reason that you wanted it to go a certain way is because you thought that was gonna make you happy. You thought, if this thing works out, if this marriage works out, if this job interview works out, if this conversation with my kid works out, if I pick up the, the great coffee, like this is gonna make me happy, and then I get home and I brew the coffee and it’s crappy, then I’m really disappointed.

Right? Then I’m like, this didn’t work. This is bad. We label it right? So. In our world, and it’s really normal, but we begin to label things good or bad. It goes in one of those buckets and typically the good bucket is gonna be the thing that you think is gonna make you happy. So when it doesn’t happen, then you’re left with a whole bunch of stuff going on.

And that’s really what I want to talk about is all this stuff that’s going on. I [00:12:00] have a belief and you can believe differently, but I wanna share my belief, and this is how come when I start the podcast so many times, I say, welcome fellow adventurers. So I have a belief that we are spiritual beings. We have come here into this physical experience to experience life.

To experience the highs and the lows, to have a really wide range of all of the emotions. I think one of the saddest things that happens is when people really limit their emotions, right? They have something traumatic happen and then they go, I never wanna feel that again. And so I’m gonna really limit and bring things in and I’m never gonna get disappointed ’cause I’m never gonna get excited and I’m just gonna live in this kind of meh.

And then they get older and I think they get sick of meh. And they wanna live, you know? And so when I say fellow adventurers, that’s what I mean. We’re here having this adventure. And [00:13:00] if that’s true, then shouldn’t we feel all the things? Shouldn’t it be okay to feel something really bad or something really disappointing, or something really great, or something that’s a lot of love or something that is going a different way than you wanted?

So I have this belief that we came here to have all these emotions and that this is just an adventure. And so I wanna offer you the thought that if things don’t go the way you want, then maybe it’s opening you up for a different adventure. Maybe it is a way for you to experience an up or a down that you didn’t expect, and it might not be a down.

It may be things don’t go your way, and then you have this amazing thing that happens and then all of a sudden you get this experience that you never even dreamed of. I think that we limit ourselves so much in terms of [00:14:00] experiences and miracles and amazing things that can happen because we try and reign in our emotion because we don’t wanna feel something uncomfortable.

So what do you do when things don’t go the way you want? Do you constrict? Do you push against it? Is it the kind of thing where you’re like, no, no, no, no, no, I don’t want this to happen. Or can you start to train yourself to relax into it? That your thought process could be, well, this adventure I didn’t expect.

I wonder what could happen from here. Do you see how that can shift so many things? Not only because of what I said at the very beginning, that your experience, it’s your reality and your brain is funneling through information and showing you things that it thinks is important. And if you are allowing [00:15:00] instead of constricting.

Your unconscious mind is gonna show you way more opportunity. It’s gonna show you way more options, way more excitement, way more ups and downs, all of it. But we’re here to have that experience. And so maybe when we constrict, when we go, oh, this isn’t going the way I want now. I’m not going to be happy.

Maybe that’s not true. So maybe everything that you’ve thought about, things going right or wrong, good or bad, maybe it’s not even true. And if you can open up yourself to the possibility that it’s not even true, then you can start to imagine what could be instead. How does it get better than what I had?

I think we have this idea that when we don’t get what we want, it’s going wrong, right? We’re not getting what we want. And so that is wrong, that’s bad. [00:16:00] That’s now heading down a path I don’t want. But what if that’s totally false? What if you don’t get what you want? It’s because you’re going on adventure or a path that’s even better. So when you can accept what is a couple things happen. You limit your suffering. You know, we get this idea, I want this thing now I’m not gonna have it. Oh no, now I’m sad and I’m creating my own suffering, right? Because think about what Dr. Dyer said. Nine 11 happened, but I wasn’t upset because I didn’t know so, so.

I can open up to what could be. I’m not suffering anymore. I’m not creating my own suffering. Now I’m on an adventure. And now I can say, well, I wonder what it will bring from here when we can do this. I think we really [00:17:00] start living way more in the flow. I think we become overall a lot happier, right? A lot more what some people may say aligned, right?

’cause we’re not. So constricted. We’re not so stressed. We probably don’t feel as much tension in our body. Our nervous systems aren’t as activated or alert when we can, and this is simply a thought process. So I, I want you to recognize that that may have felt like a huge jump. Like if something goes wrong, I, I’m not gonna be all of a sudden like in the flow and being like, oh, great, I’m done.

This is, I’m down for whatever happens like, and. That really can happen quickly. We have been told this, what I believe is a lie, that change has to take a long time. Right? We, we have to. Work at things for a long time. We have to struggle and and really figure things out. My point is that change happens. When your thoughts [00:18:00] begin to shift, when you can see a totally new way of doing things, and that comes from a lot of different ways of thinking being introduced, right? That comes from listening to podcasts like this or other ones that you probably love, like that change in that shift.

Doesn’t have to take you 10 years to be like, oh my gosh. I have always been really worried when things didn’t work out the way I wanted. And I’ve been in a lot of suffering and I’ve been worried about things and thinking about things and like worrying things were gonna go wrong and, and, and wouldn’t it take a long time to undo that?

Okay. So now you’ve, you kind of got your mind around that, but now you’re thinking. What about really bad things though, Betsy? Because bad things happen. You know, my kid gets sick. My, my best friend dies. Like my, like bad things do happen and I’m gonna label ’em as [00:19:00] bad, bad things can happen. You know, when I was in high school, my, my mom died in a car accident when I was at school one day, it would I change that?

Like, would I love to have my mom around? Heck yeah. I never got to text her. We didn’t even have cell phones then. You know, like I, I’ve wonder about all these things. She didn’t go to my high school graduation, my college graduation. Like I didn’t get to experience so many things. My first apartment, buying my first house, I mean, a million things bad.

Right, right. Sure. And it also led to some of the. Purpose in my life, some of the greatest things that have happened to me happened to me because my mind was shifted by that experience because I chose to grow. Right. And you’ve had things like this too, where you’ve chose to grow when things have gone, air quotes bad, so Absolutely.

Would my life be totally [00:20:00] different? My life would absolutely be totally different. You wouldn’t be listening to this for sure. Right. If my mom had. Not died that day. Absolutely. But I don’t label it as bad. It’s, it is, and I suffered a long time, but I don’t suffer about it anymore. It’s, I’ve really changed the way that I think about it now.

Did my suffering go away? Did my suffering evaporate? Did my, does it mean my suffering never needed to exist? No. I think we have processes. We’re humans. But remember, I believe we came here to have this experience, this adventure, and so I want to have all the emotion. I wanna deeply grieve my mom. When my dog died four years ago, deeply grieved.

I wanted to, I wanted to feel how bad that was because that. Showed me how much love there was. There wasn’t a good or a bad. The [00:21:00] grief wasn’t labeled as bad to me. Now, I don’t have this all figured out. I’m not trying to sound like I have everything figured out, but I do think that maybe there’s a thought here that will click something in you, right?

Maybe you’ve been. Partway here or had thoughts about this, about what do you do when things don’t go the way that you want? And maybe this will give you another way to see things to say maybe. I get to have all the emotion. All of that is totally normal. Please don’t think you need to have no emotion. I, I like having all the emotion.

That’s part of the, this whole experience having tears and having joy and laughing. All of that is part of it. But when you accept what is, is the only way that you can grieve what isn’t right, that you can decide that you’re gonna lean in to What else could be possible from here?[00:22:00]

You know, I have a really cool relationship with my mom. Now, she’s not in the physical, but I don’t believe that she’s very far away. I got to create a new relationship with her in a different way. Do I miss her physical form? Yeah, absolutely. But I got to create something new. Something else came from that that I never would have had or I would’ve had when I was much older.

So when we grip really tight, we stop the flow and the dance of what we’re here to do and experience. So if you start to think of instead of disappointment. There can be discovery, right? What else is here for me? Instead of attachment, it’s gotta go the way I want it to go. It can be flow. You get to pick, and that’s really what I wanna say.

Life isn’t about controlling everything that’s in your path. It doesn’t work that way. I wish it did. I would [00:23:00] map it all out. You know? I would be so organized. I would have a whole map of how this was all gonna go, but that’s just not real life. And so expanding your capacity to move with life’s current events, that is really what shifts you into a place where you can feel aligned and you can feel like that is how you live a big life.

So I hope this gives you a little bit of a different way to look at maybe some of the challenges that you have going on in your life right now. Maybe where you’re constricting instead of flowing, and maybe reframe what it is that you do when things don’t go the way that you want. All right. Thanks so much for being here with me this week.

I will see you next week on YouTube. Then I’ll see you back here on the podcast the following week. Thanks so much for being here. I love you so much. I’ll see you guys next week. Thanks for joining me on The Art of [00:24:00] 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 someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pay and on my YouTube channel. 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.