In a world that glorifies visibility, productivity, and constant sharing, what does it mean to rest…not just physically, but spiritually? In this episode, Betsy explores the radical act of reclaiming your privacy and stepping out of the performance of being “seen.” This is about choosing peace over proving, stillness over striving, and alignment over approval. You’ll learn how to recognize the subtle ways you’ve outsourced your worth to validation, how to create sacred boundaries around your energy, and how rest becomes a reclamation of self-trust. Betsy shares her own reflections on quieting the noise, finding comfort in solitude, and remembering that your life belongs to you—not to the algorithm, the audience, or anyone else’s expectations.

Listen if you’re craving:

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. Hi. Welcome to the show today. I took out my Invisalign. I took out my Invisalign to be able to talk to you. I am almost done, you guys., I’m like three weeks out from getting these brackets off my teeth and getting to be done with Invisalign. , But it, it does make me sound a little lispy, so I am.

I’m proud of myself for remembering to take them out before I’m like halfway through this recording. So I’m excited that you’re here with me today, Invisalign free. I wanted to talk to you about something today and it’s been something I have been thinking about and I was really trying to think about like, [00:01:00] how do I explain this in a way that makes sense , and I’m gonna just be really honest.

It doesn’t make me, . I don’t wanna seem like there’s more self-importance in this topic than there needs to be. ’cause that’s not my intention. But I think the gist of it, you’re gonna get, because I think this is a universal, although the experience may be a smaller segment of the population that has experienced this, I think , the intent of it is something that’s universal.

Let me explain what it is that, I mean, so really what I wanna talk about , in the essence is about, is about rest and privacy and visibility. , And I think that I wanna talk about social media a little bit. I think that right now there’s so many things happening on social media and I think it can be so depleting.[00:02:00] 

I wanna talk about what happens when you are really seen on something like social media. You know, a few years ago I had a post that went viral. It, was a series of posts really. I had, I mean, a lot of posts over a million views, but I had one post in particular that I would say went mega viral. That’s how I would describe it.

Now, even as I say this, I’m like, you may have had a post that went more mega viral. , You may know people that have had way more mega viral posts than me, but I had, a, a lot of posts that were over a million views. And then I had one in particular that was 9 million, 8.9 million, so almost 9 million.

And it wasn’t something that I expected. It happened really fast when I started posting about the Navigate method and about women being unhappy in their [00:03:00] marriage and just trying so hard to make things happen. So I knew that it would resonate. I figured, I hoped that it would resonate. I didn’t expect it to resonate in the way that it did, and I didn’t expect the viralness and I, I didn’t try to to make that happen.

It just sort of caught fire. And in that one post I got, I think it was close to like 19,000 new followers essentially overnight. And I remember this really strange mix of emotions about it, like excitement. It was exciting. I remember one of the very first posts that I posted on this subject and it, I remember it was like at eight.

Thousand views and 9,000 views and 12,000 views. I remember it got to 13,000 views and I messaged with one of my friends and I was like, oh my God. This is [00:04:00] crazy. , It just keeps going and it’s wild. Now. That was just about two years ago. I get 13,000 views regularly in a day, so that doesn’t even phase me.

But I remember at the time having that creep up , , and feeling like excited and gratitude , , and if I’m being really honest, I think a level of overwhelm that I didn’t really know how to name at that point. It was. Beautiful and dizzying all at the same time. I was so, so happy with that. My message resonated, although simultaneously sad that it resonated because it was really about people being frustrated, extremely frustrated in their marriage and at their wits end.

But I was grateful that I helped people feel seen through that, you know. But what happened from there, I think was really something that I didn’t anticipate. And when that many people [00:05:00] suddenly have opinions about what you say and who they think you are, you know, it starts to change how you think. I started wondering what people might expect of me.

I felt like I had to keep showing up and explaining myself, and I felt like there was a lot of people in my real life who were unhappy or didn’t understand, but didn’t try to either, and I was living in this space , it was. It was kind of like being waterboarded by eyeballs as you, I mean, that’s the only way I can describe it.

So it was connection. Totally. And I felt seen because I was posting something real to me at the time, but it also had a underlying feeling of pressure. Right. You know, at first one hand it feels like a dream. I wanted my message to be seen. I wanted my message to reach people. [00:06:00] I loved the conversations that were happening.

It felt like real impact. And I had been in my business for a long, long, long, long time, like a decade, more than a decade before this post. So it felt like, oh, I’m, the hard work and the hard and the good work that we do is finally getting access to have a real impact. And over time I started. To realize how easy it was to kind of get caught in the performance of being helpful, you know, and to start creating from an expectation of, I’ve gotta have another big post instead of just from my intuition.

You know, during that time where things were really getting hectic , and people were really seeing my posts, it was a good like 10 months probably, where this was like ramping up sort of, I guess you could say. And I noticed , I would wake up sometime in the [00:07:00] middle of the night just to check messages.

It got, my nervous system was really activated from it. I checked notifications before I checked in with myself, and sometimes I would rewrite posts and I would think about all the different ways people could take this the wrong way and then try to rewrite so that it would land perfectly right? And little by little I started to lose track of what was mine and what was sacred and private and what had become part of this.

Exposure or this show. And it’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just what happens when you have like a piece of your life that becomes visible, right? So maybe you haven’t gone viral online, but maybe you know this feeling right? It’s this feeling of being needed everywhere by everyone all the time. It’s the same energy.

So you give and you give and you give until you [00:08:00] don’t know how to stop. Then, you know, for me, I was posting all this stuff. I mean, a year goes by, right? I had my own life that shifted. I went through my own divorce. So, you know, as divorce is like a, a really, really hard thing combined with a ton of relief, you know, and honestly, this changed me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.

It gave me access to healing that I didn’t even know that I needed. And over the past year. I have learned and grown and become quite a different person than I was when I posted those very first viral posts several years ago. You know, this last season, my daughter has been struggling with her mental health, and if you’ve been here for , a long while, you know we’ve talked about this.

She and I have talked about it on the show. She’s an adult. [00:09:00] This particular season has been a long, ongoing season, and I have been helping her and fighting through this. Well, we try to hold other things together and that has also changed me, and what I realized was that. I started caring less about being understood and more about being grounded, less about how something looked and more about how something felt.

I didn’t wanna keep explaining my life to strangers online. I wanted to live it quietly. For me and for people who really know me. And there’s something really humbling about that. You know, when life hits you really hard and you stop caring about optics, and you start caring, , caring about energy, about peace and the things that actually sustain you.

So here’s what I wanted to bring to you because for sure you’ve had these seasons too. [00:10:00] And what I found myself asking is what’s actually important. Where does my energy go? Who actually gets access to me? And I realized that I’ve been pouring from an empty cup, you know, for a long time as we do as women.

Like my story isn’t unique , and it’s, it’s manageable, right? And I think that’s what happens is it’s manageable, so you just keep going. But we can’t keep pouring from an empty cup. And when you’ve built a rhythm around being productive or being available, slowing down feels a little bit like betrayal and you probably know that too, right?

You’re juggling work, you’re drug juggling, family, emotions, responsibilities, right? And it all feels like if you stop, everything’s just gonna fall apart. So you keep on running, right? Even though you’re tired. Even though you’re exhausted and you tell yourself, [00:11:00] I’m gonna rest later, like this weekend, maybe I’ll have a chance to slow down.

But then that never really happens, right? Because somebody needs you or something happens, and underneath it all is this quiet question that’s asking you, how long can you really keep this up? So for me, somewhere along the line I realized I didn’t want to disappear. Like I don’t want to just opt out and run away, but I do want to be intentional about living differently.

I wanna stay connected to my purpose. The work we do at the Navigate Method is so impactful and I see so many women. Say to me like, my life is different than I ever would. And , I will tell you that is the, that brings me more joy than I could possibly even tell you here. Like just, , it’s the greatest thing.

It, the navigate method [00:12:00] comes from years and years of, my own healing and work. And so to see , that was. Something that created change, not only for myself, but somebody else is really fulfilling. So it’s great, and I wanted to stay connected to that, but I also wanted to have a level of peace, and so little by little I was pulling back, not disappearing, but just being way more intentional and taking time to listen instead of perform and to rest instead of explain.

I used to think that my success was all about reach, like how many people heard my message, and now I think it’s about depth. It’s about how true can I be in what I share. Even if fewer people see it, I still wanna help people. I still wanna speak truth, but I wanna do it in a way that’s authentic and [00:13:00] sustainable, where I’m allowed to grow and change and to make different decisions, right?

Because we are multifaceted people, we have angles and layers and seasons, and we all evolve, like we should all be allowed to evolve. So if you’re listening to this, maybe you are in your own redefinition right now, so maybe the life that you have built doesn’t quite fit anymore. Maybe the goals that you once felt really motivated by just don’t even feel aligned anymore, and that can feel really disorienting.

And I also think it’s a really powerful piece of evolution. When I first stumbled upon this feeling and had to get true with myself, there was a feeling of being crushed. Like everything that I thought isn’t what I thought, but now I realize it’s actually an opening. It’s actually better. And I [00:14:00] started asking myself this question, and it might be worth asking yourself too, but it is, what is it that you truly want right now?

And I’m gonna explain a little more about this because I, I don’t want you to ask yourself like what you’re supposed to want, not what once made sense, but in this season right now, what matters in the navigate method? Lots of times I’ll tell women, put your hand on your heart and just say, if, if nobody got hurt and money didn’t matter, what would I choose right now?

About any decision you could do this with any decision, try it. Put your hand on your heart. If nobody got hurt and money didn’t matter, what would I choose? And when you strip away the audience and the approval and the pressure, what’s left is your truth, and that’s your compass. So what do I want right now?

Maybe it’s [00:15:00] not to be seen by 9 million people, but it is to be known. Not to be everywhere, but to be home. And for me, that means peace. It means being present with my daughter. It means work that feels honest. It means having a smaller circle, but a deeper one. It means knowing where I have the bandwidth and where I don’t, and being able to say no and surrounding myself with people who honor that.

It means quiet mornings, giving myself extra time, going for walks. Having deep conversations that don’t have to go anywhere. So success for me, how I’m defining it, is aliveness. I feel an expansion in my chest, and that’s how I know that I’m there. It’s not a rush from eyeballs or attention, but it’s the calm of alignment.

[00:16:00] Maybe this is where you are too, right? Maybe you have given so much of yourself that you feel depleted, you can’t stop, but you don’t wanna keep going like this either. And so I wanna just offer you an invitation to pause. We don’t have to exit our lives. A girlfriend reached out to me from home and said, how are you doing?

Can I do anything for you? Just knowing what a hard season I was in and I said, can you help me fake my death and we can move to the beach? And she said, I’m sure there’s a way to do that. And when she said that, it almost was like the permission and it made me realize that’s not really what I want. But I do want to check in.

I do want to pause. I wanna ask myself, where does this end? And so I wanna ask [00:17:00] you, maybe more importantly, where could it begin again, but differently. Slowing down or stopping doesn’t mean you failed. It means you’re listening. It means you’re evolving. It means you’re making room for what’s next. You’re allowed to change your mind.

You’re allowed to want peace to want less noise. You’re allowed to build a life that fits the person you’ve really become. When I think now about the things that I post online, if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll notice the post might feel a little different. I’m really leaning into what feels good to post, like what’s authentic.

And if you notice in my stories, I’ll post my outfit with my good things. That’s like one of my most favorite things to do. It gives me that feeling of expansion in my chest and I get so many messages about it. And so I know when we are in alignment, that’s what reaches people. [00:18:00] That’s what was reaching people.

Several years ago when I finally was posting my truth on online, I used to think that my power lived in how people saw me. But now I know in a visceral way that my power lives in how deeply I see myself. And so if you’re tired of performing or explaining or keeping everything afloat, I wanna give you a permission slip just to rest, to be private, to let life belong to you.

Again, you don’t owe the world constantly. Any part of you, you owe yourself. Your own presence to take a deep breath and to exhale and to be home. And I think when you can do that, that is how you live a big life. Thank you so much for being here with me. [00:19:00] I love you so much. If you know somebody that needs a permission slip to rest that has been doing everything and juggling all the things, has too many balls in the air and they just want a moment.

To decompress. Send them, send them this episode. It is your permission slip, permission slip to finally settle and to rest. All right, my cat is calling. I’ll 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 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 [00:20:00] reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.

We love to tell ourselves that some people are just lucky, born under the right star, in the right place, with the right opportunities. But luck is not magic, and it is not as random as we think. In this episode, Betsy explores the science and psychology of luck, and why what we call “good fortune” often comes down to patterns of thinking, awareness, and action.

You will learn:

This is not about superstition. It is about training your brain to see and step into opportunities. If you have ever wondered why certain doors keep opening for some people, and how you can make that happen in your own life, this episode will change how you think about luck forever.

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 everyone. Welcome to the Art of Living Big. Welcome to the show. Happy Thursday. I have been thinking about luck. I’ve been thinking about luck, and I wanna say I’ve been thinking, well, I’ve been thinking about this for like 54 years. I have always thought of myself as really lucky. You know, things always work out for me.

I always know that in the end, things are gonna go the way that I want. I am lucky enough to have. Really cool experiences and synchronicities [00:01:00] happen and many times I win things that are unexpected. When I was in high school, I won a gift card to $500 worth of shoes at a shoe store that I didn’t even remember putting my name in the fishbowl.

You know, which $500 of shoes back in 1988 was a pretty significant amount of shoes. I had shoes for years. I have won iPads at events and iPods at events. I have won everything under the sun from cakes and cookies to chicken sandwiches. I have always found a way to get the good stuff. I feel like I’m really lucky and not to mention, I think that it’s kind of luck how I grew up.

Who my parents were that they had money to send me to college. Like there was a lot of things that I think you could lean on and say those things were really [00:02:00] lucky. Privileged in many ways, right? And not to confuse those two things, I wanna stick with luck, but I just wanna point out that a lot of things weren’t necessarily something that I did Now.

If you’re already feeling like kind of some pressure here, I wanna tell you another quick story and then I wanna really talk about this because who doesn’t want more luck? Right? Why not? Why not have luck on our side? So years ago, probably five years ago, I took a class and in the class it was a business class, like a coaching class.

And in the class somebody mentions it might have been me, mentioned something about luck. And there was another woman in the class that got really upset and she said, I am not lucky. I work really hard for everything that I have. And I thought it was so interesting because she was so adamant about it. I just never thought that [00:03:00] my luck took away from my hard work.

’cause I work hard too. But honestly, if I could work in ease, like I. I don’t know that my goal is to like work really hard. I would like things to just kind of happen and have it be fun and flowy, right? Who doesn’t. But I remember how much this woman who was great, I really liked her, but I remember how much she fought to hang on to the idea that she wasn’t lucky that everything that she got was simply.

A matter of her hard work and determination, and I think both things can be true. But what I wanted to talk to you today about is really the idea that we could think about life as a little mystical, a little bit out of our control, and a little bit lucky and.

You know, sometimes you’ll hear [00:04:00] people say like, Ugh, she’s just so lucky, or, I never get those lucky breaks. Well, I wanna flip that story around because I don’t think that luck is nearly as random as we have been taught. And so I wanna talk about the science behind luck, why some people always seem to land on their feet, and more importantly, how you can make yourself luckier.

So this isn’t about like superstition or. You know, carrying a rabbit’s foot around in your purse. This is about mindset and about awareness and about action. Okay, so let’s get into it here. When we hear this word, luck, I think what a lot of us default to is that we think that it’s chance, right? Like winning the lottery or.

Stumbling upon the right job or meeting the right person in line at Starbucks. I mean, we watch romantic comedies that create these magical run-ins that seem [00:05:00] totally like Chance, and I believe those moments do feel that way. I think they do feel random, but the truth is that there’s a lot more patterns behind them.

And so I want you to think about the last time something really, really good happened to you. So did it just fall from the sky or did you put yourself in a position where it could happen? So most of the time, luck isn’t something that just randomly strikes you down in the driveway. It’s really about being in the right place with the right mindset, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about and actually recognizing something as an opportunity when it shows up.

Sometimes inside the Navigate method, somebody will talk about something that’s a problem, and I always like to call it something different. Is it a problem? Is it an opportunity? It’s an opportunity to [00:06:00] learn something new. Learn something about you. Learn something about somebody else. Learn a new way of doing things, and you might think it doesn’t matter what I call it, like you could call it not a problem, but it’s still a problem.

And I would say that you can call it whatever you want. But which one feels better in your body? If you say out loud right now, maybe you’re in your car driving ho, hopefully not like in an elevator with a whole group of people, but I want you to just say, I have a problem and I want you to feel how your body feels.

Does it kind of constrict a little bit? Maybe you feel that in your chest, but if you say, I have a challenge. How does that feel? A little bit better, right? Like it’s something I’ve gotta work through, but it’s a challenge. But what if you say, I have an opportunity. I know for me, I feel like my chest really [00:07:00] opens.

I almost feel like I’m sitting up a little bit taller. Like that feels different. And you might think that the way that you feel doesn’t matter. It absolutely matters because your brain and your body are talking, and when you notice that you feel something, that’s how you can recognize what your brain is actually talking about.

Sometimes people are like, how do I know what my unconscious mind is thinking if it’s unconscious? And I say, how do you feel? How do you feel? That is gonna be the gauge that’s telling you what’s going on upstairs, and I wanna be. In an expansive, open place in order for me to be able to see the most opportunity, the most synchronicities, the most ways I can solve this problem.

Look, there are infinite ways to solve every problem, but the more constricted you are, [00:08:00] the more narrow your focus becomes and the harder it is for you to be able to see. Other options that may be right under your nose. When we start to see all these options, what do we do? We go, God, I got lucky. I got lucky.

I just happened to walk in when there was a sale. Right? Maybe there was a sign a week ago that there was gonna be a sale, and you didn’t notice it consciously, but your unconscious mind did. These little things happen all the time. There’s a guy on the internet, there’s a guy on YouTube. Darren Brown, Darren, D-E-R-R-E-N, I think is how you spell it.

Darren Brown, and he is an illusionist, but he does some incredible things with putting out, he does these elaborate, I’m gonna call it a hoax, right? Elaborate. Experiments where he puts out little tiny signs all along somebody’s [00:09:00] path, you know, their drive to an event, , in the parking lot. Little things you’d never notice, and then he can get them to.

Say a certain song based on all of the different signs that they saw. They don’t remember seeing any of those things yet when they show up and he has them come up with any song they want, they say the exact thing that he has been dripping out to them throughout the day. So our brain is constantly picking up information.

Check him out on YouTube. His videos are fascinating. He’s fascinating. But I want you to be thinking like if my brain is always scanning for information and it’s gonna be scanning, like opening or closing, depending on what I’m telling it, then wouldn’t it make sense that if I told it that things were magically happening all the time?

And that there was constantly opportunity and that things always worked out for me. Doesn’t it make sense [00:10:00] then that they would, I’ve seen this trend on TikTok, it was probably a year ago, called Lucky Girl Syndrome, and basically it was the idea that the more luck you think you’ll have, the more you have it’s science.

It makes sense. So there is a science of luck and there’s this researcher named Richard Wiseman. He studied people who call themselves lucky versus unlucky, and what he found is that lucky people aren’t magically blessed, but they do think and act differently. So here’s what really stood out in his research, he found that lucky people.

They’re really open to new experiences. So if things don’t go the way they think they’re gonna go, they go, uh, well, what could be, what could be, what could happen for me here? Right? They don’t shut down before things begin, right? We have things that go sideways every single day. That’s just life. But if you close down [00:11:00] or you go, oh gosh, darn, uh, here we go again.

That is telling , your brain, and the universe that you’ve gotta constrict and get really narrow. But what we really wanna do is we wanna open up to new experiences. He also noticed that lucky people tend to notice opportunities that other people missed, and that’s because they’re relaxed and they’re paying attention.

Again, if you think about it, when you get really stressed or we get hyper-focused, everything narrows, right. We get really honed in. I mean, if you think about it from a biological perspective, this makes sense. If I am walking down a dark alley and. I see something that is a danger to me. I’m gonna get really high, like I’m going all of my attention, my peripheral vision’s gonna come in.

Everything’s gonna come in so I can really like focus in and fight or whatever it is I need to do. Right? Lucky people. They’re more relaxed. They [00:12:00] have a calmer nervous system. This is why we teach this inside the n, the Navigate method. They, know how to operate their nervous system, and so they notice things that other people would just let pass right by.

Again, when I say other people would just let pass by, it’s not that they’re trying to ignore things or they’re just letting things go, they literally don’t see it. You could be. In the same exact spot as somebody else. One person thinks they’re lucky, the other person doesn’t, and they will see and notice different things, different opportunities in the same experience.

The other thing about lucky people is they trust their gut. More importantly than that. ’cause I hear, I talk to people all the time. They’re like, I have an incredible intuition. And then when we are talking and then they’re like, Ooh, but I knew I should have done that, but I didn’t. So the trick is they trust their gut, but they actually follow it.

Gosh, this sense that we have [00:13:00] is so important, and I think we miss all the time. We think it’s not as important as our hearing or our seeing or our smelling or our tasting, but that gut feeling, that thing can be honed, that thing is important. It tells you so much. And the other thing he found is that.

Lucky people carry an expectation that things are gonna work out, which weirdly makes them more likely to act, and those actions create more luck. So I actually asked on Instagram, I put a poll and I said, how are you lucky? That’s what I asked. Are you lucky? Are you not lucky? Or do you think that luck doesn’t even exist?

14% of the people that filled out my poll that chose to interact said that there’s no such thing as luck, which I also wonder how are you defining it, right? 22% said they’re [00:14:00] not lucky, and 64% of people said they were lucky. Now the people that see themselves as unlucky. Are more likely, according to this research, to be stressed out or anxious or focused on what could go wrong.

So they get this tunnel vision. That means that they don’t even really see some of the good stuff that might be right in front of them. So here’s the thing. A lot of what luck is is really tied in to how your brain is wired to pay attention. So we have this thing called the reticular activating system.

You’ve probably heard of this, right? It filters what we notice. I think of it as like a little guy in a mail room and the male is coming down the chute, right? And the little male guy is looking at it and saying, is this important? And it tosses it to your conscious mind. If it is, if it’s not important, it throws it behind him and goes, eh, that’s not [00:15:00] important.

But this. Reticular activating system that’s constantly filtering is determining and deciding what you consciously notice. You’re unconsciously noticing everything. So, you know, I noticed this like when I bought a new car and I’ve noticed it. Every time I buy a new car, I’m like, nobody has this car.

I’m so unique. And then I drive down the street and I’m like, why is every car in the parking lot the same exact car that I got? Right? So your brain is gonna be showing you what matters to you, and it determines what matters to you based on what you spend the most time thinking about. Repetition or what has the most emotion.

So pause for a moment and imagine if you are worrying. Highly emotional, super repetition. Now what? Now your brain’s like, show her more of that or him more of that. [00:16:00] So lucky people are essentially programming their brain to look for opportunity. They just expect good things. And so their brain says that little filter, the little male guy says, Hey, look at this one.

Look at this one. Here’s another one. And the filter of the unlucky. People just expect the opposite, and then they get more of that. So it’s not just what you notice, either luck actually really favors action or motions, right? So if you’re taking little small risks, you’re saying yes, or starting conversations, you’re, you’re doing things different.

I know one of the things I’ve really been focused on, hyper-focused on is, um, I’m gonna say it like this, but Neville Goddard, if you are familiar with Neville Goddard, I should do a whole. A whole podcast on him, uh, inside one of my programs, um, Voyager, which is for people who have already made the decision or [00:17:00] decided to stay or leave in their marriage.

We, every other week we dive into some concept and Neville Goddard is one that we’ve been working on, and really, Neville Goddard talks about being in the feeling, again, remember what our feelings are doing, right? So being in the feeling of it is done. Whatever it is you want, that’s the outcome that you have.

It’s done. You just have to linger in that feeling, right? So luck really loves this. Because as you linger into the feeling of it is done, you’re, first of all, you’re not worried anymore, you’re totally relaxed and your brain is looking for like, how did this happen? And suddenly you’re gonna be feeling like doing things.

So I have been hyper-focused on Neville Goddard, and I have been living in the future in terms of how I’m feeling. The goals that I have, they are done. And I have [00:18:00] noticed that I am way more apt to do things that I would have put off or been shying away from because I’m already living in as that other version of me and that other version of me had to do those things to get there.

And so. You dramatically increase the odds of bumping into something good when you’re taking different actions, right? You’re seeing totally new things ’cause you’re taking different actions and when you believe that those things are gonna work out, you’re more likely to follow through. Right? I’m doing those things because I believe it works out.

’cause I know what it feels like to be at the end result. Essentially, you’re turning possibility into reality. Okay. So if you’re with me on all that, let’s just talk about how you can actually become luckier. So here’s some practical shifts that you can make. One of the things that I think is super important is to [00:19:00] pay attention to the people that you surround yourself with.

So when we surround ourselves with people who are lucky, right, who see opportunity, who think differently, we begin to become like them. So they say, you know, we are the top. We are the average of the top five people that we spend the most time with. This is why I think groups like I’m in a, I am a coachee.

I’m being coached in a group that I have been in for a long time. The people that are in there are really big thinkers. They create their opportunities. They don’t wait. They are excited about life. They want to have new experiences and. That’s important for me because I will become the average of the top five people I spend the most time with.

So I wanna curate who I’m spending time with. I don’t want it to just default. Now, you may [00:20:00] be working at a job where you don’t like it, or the people you work with are just. Terrible or makes you unhappy, like all of that stuff is fair. You might be in a relationship that doesn’t feel like it’s feeding your soul.

You might feel, you know, just really unhappy and unsettled in that. And so in those experiences, if you’re like, I can’t do anything about that. Like I can’t just pick and choose everybody I spend time with, sometimes the people are picked to by my boss and who I have to do projects with or all those things.

I can still curate my group, and I do that sometimes by checking on podcasts, who do, whose voice do I wanna be hearing? I do it by reading books. I do it by attending different groups or events, saying yes to invitations. So every new connection that I make is [00:21:00] essentially a doorway to a different possibility.

Almost like I could open the door, look through and be like, do I like this one? Mm, that one’s probably not for me. Find another one. So expanding your circle can actually make you luckier because you’re gonna be exposed to different people. The next one is shifting your state. So stress, like I was saying, makes you really blind to opportunity, but when you start to regulate your nervous system, this is, this is I, I swear this changed my life.

Really knowing how to regulate my nervous system and doing it every day, you can actually start to see opportunity that’s in front of you because you’re not constricted and laser focused. So this is why we teach this to women inside the program because. You need to be able to see opportunity if you’re unhappy in your marriage.

Our program does. It doesn’t mean you, you stay and it doesn’t mean you go. It means you get to really see, and you get a totally different vantage point so that you can make a really clear [00:22:00] decision. So, shifting your state, noticing when you’re dysregulated and knowing how to shift it into a regulated state life, changing it, it’ll, that’ll shift everything.

The next thing is to really practice optimism. You know, if you follow me on Instagram, you know, almost every day I post my outfit, nobody sees my outfit, but you guys, because I sit in front of the computer all day, I joke that I do it for that one picture every day, but it, it makes me feel good, right?

That I’m dressed. It is a creative outlet. It helps me feel motivated and like I’m ready for the day. But if you notice when I post that picture. Because nobody really, ’cause, well, some people care about my outfit, but nobody really cares. So on the side I put all these things that I’m thinking about that are good things.

So every day I have a list of good things and I try and think about stuff that I never would think of, you know? ’cause I can say [00:23:00] like, well, it’s a good thing to have a paycheck. It’s a good thing to, like, there’s things that are obviously good things, but what about the things that we forget about? So the things that I tend to post are like, uh, I go into my kitchen and I just flip a switch and clean water.

Clean water just comes pours into a basin in my kitchen. Do you know how many people would kill for that? Like that is insanity. I can go into a grocery store, like it’s a giant warehouse full of food. Like every kind of food I could think of. Do you know how many people. Would be in. Complete awe of that.

Like there are magical, , lucky things happening all the time. So train your brain to practice optimism and gratitude and noticing those three things. You don’t have to write ’em down, but you could just have a rampage of appreciation. You know, sometimes I’ll take my coffee and I’ll be like, [00:24:00] I love this coffee.

I love that it’s the perfect color. I love that it’s warm. I love that I get to drink it, and it feels good. I love that it wakes me up. I love my mugs. I usually will pick a mug based on my mood, right? So I get to pick my mug and how cool is that? And I have different mugs, like, do you see how it’s simple?

Simple. But this is what lucky people tend to do just automatically. They also, they micro risks, so they try something, right? They have a, a competence enough to make little, small, bold moves. Then they end up stumbling into like a lucky break, right? Like that was lucky. Well, I mean, she did 19 other things before that thing happened.

So taking micro risks to reach for something, to go for a goal, and when it doesn’t work, those other 18 times that it didn’t work and it goes wrong, ask yourself, what was I [00:25:00] learning here? What, door might this have opened? How. Did this actually work for me? That’s a question I love to ask. How is this working for me?

What are all the ways that I’m learning new things from this? How is this gonna move me forward even faster? I always think this with my setbacks. Not always. Often I think this with my setbacks, like, this is actually working for me. How are all the ways this is working for me? When I ask a question like that, then my brain.

Has to answer the question, how is all the ways this is working for me? Instead of, wow, why does this always happen to me? Do you feel the difference again, feel it in your body. Expansive or constrictive. So here’s the thing, with luck, you can just choose. You can choose right now, you can be like, I’m the luckiest person ever.

’cause it’s not about fate, it’s about focus. [00:26:00] So you don’t sit back and wait for luck, you create it. And I think about that lady that said I worked really hard for everything I did. Absolutely. And that’s why you’re so lucky. So I wanna leave you with the challenge. So I want you to notice one opportunity today that you might have overlooked.

I want you to say yes to some really small thing that normally would’ve dismissed, and I want you to just see what happens and pay attention to your body and how it feels. So when you can do that and you can start to create and be the creator of your life, I think that is how you live a big life.

Alright, it was so good to see you. Thanks for being here with me today. I love you guys so much. And again, if you want some help, you wanna join the Navigate Method or even Voyager, just reach out to us. You can message me on Instagram or just go to my website. You can book a call with us right there and I’d love to talk with you.

See you guys next [00:27:00] 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 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.

I.

In the 3rd and final podcast in the series entitled Finding Clarity in Your Marriage, Betsy talks about the importance of inner strength and how we can create it for ourselves. Betsy goes over the ‘ladder of change’ and offers listeners practical exercises like stability statements to help us train our brains to create stability from within.

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 and welcome to the show today. So this is part three of the three part series. This is lesson three, making Confident choices in an Uncertain World. Look, the world feels so unpredictable and really kind of scary in a lot of ways. People feel really divided, and it’s hard to find your grounding. So in this episode, we’re gonna talk about how to do that, how to find that, and a tool that you can use.

All right. I hope you enjoy. Welcome back. This is episode three of How to Find Clarity in Your Marriage, even when the rest of the world feels uncertain. So far, we have covered in episode one why this uncertainty sort of feeds indecision and why your brain keeps you frozen. ’cause your brain works really well, right?

It’s keeping you alive. So that’s a great thing. And in episode two we talked about the hidden cost of waiting. How postponing decisions actually costs you a whole lot more than you think, right? Energy, peace, self-trust, all of those things. And now in this final episode. What I wanna do is give you a bit of a path forward.

So this is where the fog really starts to clear, and this is how you’re gonna learn a little bit more about creating stability inside of yourself. So that you can start making confident choices, even when the world outside is so unpredictable. So let’s start off this episode with talking about why stability actually matters, right?

So let’s start with the truth, and that is that clarity doesn’t come from your husband changing. I know this can feel really hard because like me, you’ve probably thought at some point or maybe many times, if he would just change. If he would just listen to me. If he would just hear what I had to say, if he would just take into account how I see the world, right?

However it is that you say that, then things would be better. But the truth is that it doesn’t come from him changing. It doesn’t come from your kids needing you less. It doesn’t come from the world calming down. Clarity comes from you. It comes from you feeling stable enough to trust yourself, but that’s why you felt stuck for so long.

Because without stability, every choice feels like danger. But with stability. You can finally see clearly. So I want you to think of it this way. Just imagine that you’re standing in the middle of a storm holding an umbrella, right? The storm is wild, like there’s rain coming in sideways, there is wind toweling.

You can’t stop the storm. But if your feet are grounded, if your grip is really good, if your umbrella is steady, then you can stand there without being blown away or drenched. That’s what inner stability does. It doesn’t take the storm away, but it does let you stand in it and feel confident. So one of the things that I wanna frame here as we talk about a shift that I want you to make, and this is really an identity shift.

This is the root of really all the work that I do and have ever done. I want you to think of our, our brains as a ladder. So I want you to just imagine a ladder leaning up against the side of a house, and this is gonna be one of those, it’s gonna be one of those decorative ladders that you put towels on.

Okay? So a smaller ladder, just a few rungs. But I want you to think about the very first rung of that ladder is environment. It’s your house. It’s where you are. It is the gym. It is an environment. Okay? The next one, the next rung up is your behavior. The things that you do, the patterns you run, the way you show up.

Now I’m gonna go up one more level and this, this level, this level we’re gonna call capabilities, right? What you think you’re capable of. Now, behavior and environment are very conscious. You choose those, right? I’m gonna choose to go to the gym, I’m gonna choose to meal prep, for example. So my behavior is the meal prepping.

My environment is the gym. Right. So if we’re thinking about our family life, so the environment is my home, my behavior is the patterns that I run. I might notice those things, right? And those are conscious. I’m aware of them, I’m choosing them. I’m making dinner. That is something that I, my behavior that I’m doing at night, at the house.

Okay. Now when I move into this next thing, potential right or capability, this starts to get unconscious. Now what is unconscious? What does that even mean? It just means things that operate without me thinking about it. When I go brush my teeth in the morning, I don’t even hardly remember. I just know I’ve done it right?

It’s sort of unconscious. I don’t have to watch a YouTube video first. I know how to do it. My body just sort of does it right. It’s unconscious. I know how to do it so well that I don’t have to think about it. So I’ve got my rungs on the ladder. I have my environment, I have my behavior, I have my potential or my capabilities, what I think I’m capable of.

And then the next few rungs up are gonna be my values, my beliefs, and the very tippity top is gonna be my identity. Now the cool thing about this ladder is that whatever is above it influences what’s below it. So as I get into my beliefs, my beliefs don’t matter as much as my values matter. Those are generally really deep seated things, right, that I probably learned as a little kid.

And then when I get into my identity, it’s who do I think I really am? And this can be because it’s unconscious. Can be hard for you to figure out or to identify, but many times it’ll come from when we say something like I am. That’s like my deepest part of my identity. If you could think of an Olympic athlete that was prepping for the Olympics, would it matter if they were in a room?

With a whole bunch of Sweetss, like, probably not. ’cause they’d be like, I am an Olympic athlete. I don’t eat that kind of food. I eat the kind of food that supports my sport. So my identity, who I think I am an Olympian, impacts everything below it. So with that said, the way to make real long lasting change.

The kind that is like brushing your teeth that you don’t even have to think about is by going to the top of the ladder. It’s by changing your identity and who you think you are. So when we start thinking about what happens when I delay, and in the last episode we talked about that cost of delaying I am creating over and over and over, and reinforcing.

My identity isn’t a one of someone who makes decisions, who is worthy of more of all of those things. And when we’re living in this kind of situation, we are in reactive mode. So I talk to women every day that say they react to their husband’s moods, um, their scanning for how he feels every day. They react to their own fears, right?

They have their own thoughts about fears or things that could go wrong. Typically, they’re not spending a lot of time thinking about all the things that could go, right, right? And that’s normal. But they’re reacting to their own fear, thoughts, they’re reacting to politics or the economy. All of these things outside of themselves.

And when you’re reacting, you’re always chasing that stability someplace outside, which is impossible. So the shift is to become intentional. It’s to stop waiting for the outside, to calm down, and to start creating calm inside. By becoming the identity of the person who doesn’t matter what’s happening outside, inside, all is well, and I control how I respond to things and what happens to my life.

So that shift again is to become intentionally intentional. And the best way to make that shift is to ask yourself, what do I wanna model for myself and for my kids? And if you don’t have children, or your children are grown, what do I wanna model for myself? How do I want to show up for myself? Because here’s the thing, whether you realize it or not, you’re teaching your kids right now.

My daughter is 23. She sees everything I do. She notices every little nuanced side comment that I make that I think doesn’t even matter, and she’ll see it and say something. That’s the kind of relationship we have, but she’ll point it out and it just makes me realize how much they’re really watching. I talk to women every day who are the best moms and want good things for their kids.

When we start talking about their kids, they say, I don’t think they really know. They don’t know that we’re unhappy. And I, I disagree. Even if they don’t know the extent that you’re unhappy, they feel the tension. You know, when you walk in a room and you can feel that they watch you freeze. They watch you postpone.

They know that you’ve put your life on hold for things, right? They learn that that’s what adulthood looks like, and maybe you learned that by watching somebody else, right? We come by all of these things. Honestly, the one thing I know about our brains is that it wants to do the thing that is looking out for us, right?

It wants to do the thing that it thinks is safety, and so. Although what happens might not be good for you, your brain thinks it’s good for you, and I think that’s a really important thing to notice. You’re not doing any of this stuff to harm yourself. You’re not doing any of this to harm your kids.

You’re not doing any of this to make life harder for anybody. You’re doing it because that’s what your brain is telling you is safe. And so if your kids watch you. If you watch, you freeze and postpone and put everything on hold, then you learn that’s what it’s supposed to look like. That’s what relationships look like.

That’s what adulthood is. But if they watch you stabilize yourself, if they watch you ground your energy, if they watch you move forward with with intention, they learn courage, they learn resilience, and you get to live that, not just hope for it. I wanna share a quick story. Uh, we have inside the Navigate method, after, after people are done with the course, they move into our alumni group.

And our alumni group gives them continuing access. To get help, and we have groups every single month to support them. So the program is done, they’ve completed the program, but we still get together. And I always joke that this is really for me because I grow so attached to everybody, but inside one of our groups a few months ago, someone said that when they started, they came so overwhelmed, right?

Overwhelmed by her marriage. Overwhelmed by money, stress, overwhelmed by what was happening politically. And she said, I, I, I felt like I couldn’t make any decisions. Like I just kept thinking I’ve gotta wait for things to calm down. But I mean, the truth is things didn’t calm down right. And the longer you wait, the louder it gets.

And she realized that she couldn’t keep living like that. Like it just wasn’t working anymore. And so through this work, she started practicing. Little small acts of stability, journaling, telling herself one truth a day, making one small choice instead of circling, becoming curious about something her husband said, and something shifted.

She said Everything didn’t get less chaotic. I just got way more solid and once she felt solid, she could finally see her marriage clearly, and that clarity brought her relief. Okay, even before she made her final decision. So I wanna give you the same practice that she used. It’s a stability statement, and so every day you’re gonna write this down and you’re gonna finish it.

Okay? So, and I sometimes will have this, depending on how chaotic things feel in the world. I will write it on a post-it note, and I’ll just put it on my mirror. So when I brush my teeth, I see it, right? So that’s just a really good way to create a habit. Because I’m stacking it onto a habit I already have, which is brushing my teeth.

So now when I go to brush my teeth, I see the little post-it note, and then after a while I didn’t even need the post-it note. But what it says is, even when the world feels uncertain, I choose to create stability by and then just fill it in with something different that you’re gonna do every day. So having a real conversation instead of avoiding.

One of the big things we work on is creating a space between if you start having a conversation and you feel yourself, right, getting activated, creating a space so that you can just be quiet and listen, and then have your response so powerful. It makes you feel so steady and solid. So having a real conversation instead of avoiding right, courageous conversations.

Going for a walk to clear my head. Right When the world feels uncertain, I’m gonna create stability by making one small decision instead of spinning, reminding myself that I am capable of handling whatever comes. So one of the things that I say all the time in group is you don’t have to trust that it’s gonna work out.

How about that? You don’t have to trust that it’s gonna work the way you think. You just have to trust in yourself. You just have to trust that you’ll know what to do. When the next right thing happens. So here’s why this statement works. It’s because your brain is always scanning for safety. And so when you start to give it evidence that you can create the safety, it relaxes.

And when your brain re relaxes, then clarity can come into focus. So do this for a week. Put that little post-it note up on your mirror. You won’t even need it after a while, and that will become your default thinking. It starts to become your identity. So you’re gonna notice after you do it for 5, 6, 7 days, you’re gonna feel so much lighter.

It’s not magic. It might be a little miracle. It’s not magic though. It is you training your brain to see yourself as stable instead of waiting for the world to stabilize for you. So let’s step back across these three episodes and just kind of talk about what we’ve gone over. In episode one, we talked about why uncertainty freezes you in indecision and how to start with 5% more stability every single day.

In episode two, we explained why waiting isn’t neutral, right? It’s actively costing you energy and confidence and joy, and I will just say it again, even though I know I talked about it in episode two, but the confidence piece that is just so far reaching. It’s so far reaching, and I think that might be the most heartbreaking.

I think that was the most heartbreaking thing I saw in myself, right? And maybe that’s why my heart breaks for women when I talk with them, and I can see how much that’s corroded and they may not even notice. And then episode three, this episode we talked about how to create inner stability with daily practice so that you can finally trust yourself to make decisions with confidence.

Now. Now you know, now you know how to get unstuck. You know how to stop circling and how to start moving, and you know how to begin to build a foundation of stability that’s gonna hold you steady no matter what’s happening around you. So here’s a little truth. These tools I think are really cool. They happen really quick and easy.

They’re not hard, it’s not complicated or a lot, but they’re just the beginning. So having a framework. Guidance, it’s gonna make all the difference. And that’s what we do inside the Navigate Method. We do not tell you whether you’re gonna stay or go in your marriage. We have lots of people that decide to leave, and we have lots of people that decide to stay and they see things with fresh eyes.

But what we do is we give you a proven process to clear that fog, to build the stability, and to make decisions that feel solid and true to you. Here’s my invitation to you. You’ve got some momentum here. You don’t wanna let that die and you don’t wanna go back to the way things were. Remember, that’s how your brain is gonna work.

It’s gonna tell you that’s the safest thing, and what we’ll do is we’ll book a call with you. It is a clarity call and it is a time for us to help you get really clear on what’s really going on. If we think we can help you, then we will explain to you how that can work. And if you book the call before your week is over, you’re gonna get some special incentives.

So we’re gonna see that you booked it before your call, your time expired, and we’ll make sure on the call to give you those new options. So don’t keep waiting, don’t let indecision keep costing you more days of your life. You already know now how to create stability. So let’s walk this out together. So if you go to betsy pay.com/ let’s talk and you can book your clarity call there.

This is your moment. Let me know what you decide. Thanks so much for being here with me on this three little mini podcast episodes. It was really nice to be with you. Talk to you soon. 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 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.

Here is part 2 in the 3 part series entitled How to Find Clarity in Your Marriage. In part 2 Betsy delves into how waiting impacts one’s unconscious mind which can drain energy and erode self trust. Stay tuned until the end when Betsy offers an exercise to identify the effects of waiting.

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 and welcome. Welcome to the show. So this week, if you listened to the last episode, we are doing a three part series. This one is lesson two. It’s the hidden cost of waiting. It’s the things that actually happen to your unconscious when you choose to delay. I hope this gives you some new thoughts, new ideas, and helps you along your journey.

So without further ado, here’s the show. Hello everyone. Welcome back to episode two of How to Find Clarity in Your Marriage, even when the rest of the world feels uncertain. So last time we talked about why your brain keeps you frozen and indecision and how to start stabilizing yourself. And today we’re gonna be talking about something that most women don’t ever really see clearly, and I include myself in that.

This is a hard thing to see. When you’re in the middle of it, and it is the cost of waiting. So today’s episode is called The Hidden Cost of Waiting, and Why Delaying Clarity hurts you way more than you think. I think this is, I think this is such an important one, especially as women because we handle so much stuff, right?

We are the ones that are handling so many of the things in our families. And for our children, for our homes, just to keep our homes running. And we’re also working and making decisions at work and being counted on for things. And so all of this starts to build up. And when on the background, like we learned in the last episode, there’s this.

This underlying current of I’m not making a decision. I’m allowing things to stay in a way that does not feel good to me. And I will go to the liberty of saying, and that’s what I deserve, right? Because if we thought we deserved more, that’s what we would get. And so I think there’s an illusion here of safety.

When you say, I’m gonna decide about that later, or I’m gonna push that off till after the holidays, or I’m going to wait until somebody graduates from college or high school or dance, or whatever it is. It feels like you’re hitting pause, right? Like you’re giving yourself a break. But waiting isn’t a pause.

It’s still playing in the background. It’s not like you shut this off or you stop thinking about it. You just have delayed a decision. And what that does, because it’s still playing in the background, is it begins to drain your energy even when you are going about your day. So now, if you could think about this, if you have a hundred percent when you wake up in the morning, your battery is on a hundred percent, which whose is?

’cause you’ve probably spent half the night tossing and turning thinking about this. In the back of your mind, so, but let’s just say you wake up at a hundred percent, but 20% of your brain is still thinking about the fact that you’re putting this off, or it won’t be that much longer. Or you might be calculating or thinking, or wondering or changing your mind, going back and forth.

You’ve only got 80% to do everything else that you’re doing. And so this is what this looks like. It’s gonna show up like thinking about your marriage like on a loop, right? It’s gonna show up as feeling really distracted or disconnected from people that you actually really love and that you wish you were closer to.

It’s gonna look like carrying tension right in your body. ’cause you’re avoiding decisions. So you might notice your shoulders are like up in your ears. You might notice that you’re breathing really shallow. You know you’re gonna start to notice that you’re waking up in the middle of the night. Maybe you’re tossing and turning, or you get this idea in your head and then you just can’t let it go.

And it’s gonna manifest in ways that maybe you’ve got a lot of headaches or you’ve got belly aches. Or before you go to bed, you like grab the Zillow and you’re like, I’m just gonna look up just to see what it would cost. So like your brain needs that moment of relief, right? And so what ends up happening is a compound effect.

It’s like adding. A stone into a backpack every single day, and at first you kind of don’t notice. You’re like, it’s okay. I mean, it’s fine. I know it’s on my mind. But after months or even years, you are completely bent under that weight and it starts to erode your self trust because every day that you don’t choose, you reinforce the idea that you can’t choose.

And it robs you of a lot of joy you could be having in the present, right? Because you can’t fully live in today when your mind is tied up on what ifs. You can’t fully enjoy the time with your kids. ’cause in the back of your mind, you’re scanning for something that could be going wrong, that you’re gonna have to handle, or that you wanna see if you can have a preemptive strike against, right?

Some way that you can start to control things so that things don’t go outta hand. And so. You are constantly churning on the sidelines thinking about this, and so you can’t be fully present. You can’t be fully enjoying things because you’re always in scan mode. Now, here’s the truth is that waiting is actually a decision.

It’s not neutral. It’s a choice to stay stuck. Once you know you’re stuck, it’s no longer a habit. It’s a choice. And it costs you way more than making a move ever Could. Once you begin to make any kind of decisions about anything, the angst is really in the lead up, not in the actual doing, and I’m sure you find that over the course of your life.

I even remember way back when I was in college, I’d have a paper to write. Writing the paper wasn’t as bad as the two weeks that I put it off and thought about it and let it stick in my craw if I had just done it and got it over with, things would’ve been a lot more simple. Right. So the decision is being made, the decision is waiting, and that is not a neutral thing that has a high cost to it.

So what I want you to do is I want you to grab a piece of paper and I want you to draw across on the paper that makes four quadrants, and I want you to label them like North is Thoughts, south is feelings. East is actions and west is results. And in each quadrant I want you to write what waiting has created in your life.

Okay? So the thoughts might be like, I don’t know what to do. The feelings might be anxious or frustrated. The actions might be procrastinating, or I have to have a glass of wine every night just to like deal with what’s going on. Or I’m venting to my friends all the time, whatever that action is. And then the results still stuck.

Less energy, less joy. I feel drained, I feel nervous, I, whatever that is, what are the results? And I think that when you see it mapped out, you can’t keep telling yourself that waiting. Is harmless. There’s no way to look at that and walk through that and see that there’s no impact. I believe that when we can get really honest with ourselves, that is when we can start to create change, because we can’t, if we’re still living in denial, like I was saying, once something is seen, it’s no longer a habit.

Now you’re choosing. It may be that even as I say this, you’re like, I’m not gonna do that little exercise because I already know. I already know I’m drinking a bottle of wine every night, or I’m. Just opting out or I know that I’ve shrunk. I know that I’m like getting smaller. I know that I’m overeating to compensate to make myself feel better, which that too makes a lot of sense once you understand your nervous system and what happens when you eat to calm your nervous system.

There’s so many things here. So although we think I’m being safe, I’m I’m, I’m gonna wait until conditions are right. The conditions are already wrong. Well, you’re waiting because that choice isn’t a choice that’s actually healing or moving you forward. So I really want you to do this even if you’re like, I, I don’t need to do this.

I already know. Do it on a couple different things, right? What is the thought that you have? And maybe there’s a thought that you have, you can look back on like last night, what was it like in the evening last night, and what were the thoughts I started to have? Or during the day, maybe you’re at work and a thought comes into your mind.

Use that our unconscious minds present information to us so that it can be healed. And it presents it at the time that it believes you are ready to deal with it. That’s why we get so many thoughts when we’re driving in the car or we’re standing in the shower because we’re having a moment where our brain isn’t full of other stuff.

And so the information that’s being served up to you, the ideas, the thoughts, the concerns, they are so important because they are things that your unconscious mind has sifted and sorted through and decided this was important and. She’s ready to deal with it. And if you push it away and say, I am not ready to deal with it, you’re telling your unconscious mind that it is wrong.

You are not ready. And the more you tell yourself you’re not ready, the more and more deeper you get stuck. So. Do this today. ’cause in our next episode, we’ll, we are gonna cover the path out. So how to create inner stability and finally make really confident choices in a really uncertain world. 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 3 part podcast titled Finding Clarity in Your Marriage, even when the rest of the world feels uncertain, Betsy explores how we can find inner stability when the world around us feels chaotic. Betsy offers a helpful tool at the end of each podcast in this series so listen into part 1 and enjoy.

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.

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Art of Living Big. I am doing something a little bit different this week, so I created a three part series called How to Find Clarity in Your Marriage, even When the rest of the World feels Uncertain. Now, you could take the like clarity in your marriage and input anything, so if you don’t have.

Non clarity in your marriage. If you’re not confused about your marriage or wondering if you should stay or go, this still may be helpful information to you because it’s really about resting your nervous system and how to get centered when the world feels like a little crazy on fire, right? So. What I’m gonna do, I created this three part series and I was offering it on, on Instagram and it, I had it set up as like a, a private podcast.

I don’t necessarily know why I did that, other than I wanted to keep it like this three part series that people could enter into to get this information. But the truth is more people will get it if I just put it on the podcast. I, I, sometimes I try to make things more complicated than they need to be.

So we’re gonna do this, it’s gonna be three episodes, but I’m going to give it to you all at once. So that you can get it all at once, so you can just listen if you want. So altogether, it’s maybe only like 45 minutes, so it’s kind of like one big long episode. But I do think it may be helpful to listen to one of the mini episodes and then try it.

Because I give you a tool at the end of every single one. Um, and then the next day, maybe listen to the next one. So even they’re all available. So lesson one is really about why uncertainty feeds indecision. So we’re gonna talk about like what’s really happening inside your body. The second lesson is about the hidden cost of waiting.

This is something I don’t think we think about very much, whether it’s your marriage or anything else, like what that indecision is actually doing. And then our third lesson is about making confident choices in an uncertain world. So how on earth do I make decisions about things big or small when I don’t know what’s happening?

Right? And the truth is we never know what’s happening, so we will, we’ll teach you how to find some certainty and get grounded. I think you’re gonna really like the episodes. I hope you do. So without further ado, we are gonna give you these next few episodes all at once, and let me know what you think.

All right, see you in a See you next week. See you next week. Hi everybody. Hi. Welcome to our private podcast mini series. This is called How to Find Clarity in Your Marriage, even When the Rest of the World Feels Uncertain and Uncertain is probably such an understatement. So I’m really happy that you’re here with me.

I hope that this gives you a lot of value, gives you some new ways of thinking about things, and some tools to be able to shift a little bit. If you’ve listened to my podcast, the Art of Living Big, or been around me or in my vortex for any amount of time, you know that I believe that these shifts that we can have, these little aha moments can happen.

Without any kind of delay. They can happen all the time, and they are little pieces and reminders that miracles happen all the time, and so I’m happy that you’re here. Let’s have some miracles here together as we spend the next three episodes together. If you’re pretty new here, my name is Betsy P. I’m the founder of the Navigate Method, and I’ve hosted the podcast, the Art of Living Big for like the past.

Eight or nine years. So it felt like a really good idea to be able to do this private podcast for you and share this information because that’s the format that so many of you have heard me and listened to me over all these years, and I feel like this information. Can really be a big shift in how you’re experiencing the world.

And you know, when I say like, even when the rest of the world feels uncertain, like uncertain is probably like a huge understatement, right? So over the next three episodes, I am gonna walk you through why you feel so stuck. Indecision and probably about a lot of things. You know, we’re gonna be framing this around your marriage, but it’s probably a lot of things and there’s a real reason for it, a biological reason for it.

It’s not your fault, it means your brain’s working really well. So we’re gonna dive into that. In the second episode, we’re gonna talk about the hidden cost of waiting, how postponing decisions actually drains way more from you than you realize. And finally, the last episode, we’re gonna talk about your path to inner stability so that you can start making confident choices no matter what’s happening outside of you.

And I wanna say. And I will reiterate this as we get to episode three, but that is a practice. It is something that you learn and you continue to practice and get better and better and better at it. So if you have been circling the same questions like, should I stay? Should I go? What’s happening? What if I go and I regret it?

What if I stay and I lose my life? How long do I stay? When is this gonna end? Can it get better? Look, all of those things. Then this series is gonna give you some relief. Finally understanding why you’re stuck and how to start moving forward. And by the end, you’re gonna know exactly what steps to take to stop living in limbo and start building stability in your life whether the world comes down or not.

Alright? So right now I’m gonna state the obvious, which is that the world feels really chaotic, right? There’s politics, there’s the economy, there is the news cycle. I know when I go on social media, maybe I’ll get on TikTok and I try to swipe really fast if it’s not something that will bring my vibe up, right?

I try to teach the algorithm that I really want fun, happy things in cat videos, you know, because I go there to get away and to have an escape, but it’s inescapable. Right. There is constant division and there is constantly people telling you their side of things in a very authoritative way that. Then leads everyone in the comments to begin arguing, right?

So many times we see this and you know, people comment and argue in the comments around CAT videos as well. So it is just everywhere. And then I go to Instagram or I go to Facebook and people are arguing there. And gosh, sometimes it’s people that I’ve known my whole life and I think like. How do I disagree so deeply with what they’re saying?

And so we’re seeing all of these things all the time that that cause us to feel constriction. If we watch the news, we feel constriction there. And then if we have constriction at home in our own marriage, just over little things that are happening or big things in our lives, right? So the truth is you really just cannot get away from it.

It’s everywhere. And when the world outside feels really unstable, it’s natural to tell yourself, now isn’t the time to deal with my marriage. Like I have to wait for things to settle down. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I hear this from women over and over and over again. Like, I need to wait till I know what’s happening in the world before I deal with this.

But here’s the truth. That is that waiting actually isn’t the thing that gives you safety. Waiting’s actually the thing that’s keeping you stuck and that stuck feeling. That is a really exhausting place to live. And the longer you stay there, the more depleted you actually get and the more depleted you get, the less able you are to be able to cope with what’s happening.

So. Let’s talk about why we get stuck in the first place. So when the world starts to feel really unpredictable, right? Our, our what we’re seeing out in the world, but also inside, right? When our world, the world, our world, our brain naturally defaults to survival. So. I have said probably on the podcast a million times, but I, I like this example because I think we can think about this from a biological perspective.

If I am walking through a field and there’s a rustle in the grass, I have to know that there’s a tiger, right? I have to know that there’s something that maybe unsafe to me, something that might harm me, and so I begin to become, become acutely aware of the rustle in the grass. But the truth is now I can go outside and walk my dog and I don’t have to worry about a tiger, right?

But my brain. Still has that high alert and so it kind of like swoosh really up close. So now it’s scanning for patterns, right? Patterns of anything that I see that will also trigger that, oh, there’s a tiger in the grass. It might be a a. Something on TV or a comment or something that our brains are like, that’s the pattern.

And right now we’re being fed so much information that it can become really alarming and our brains don’t know what’s real, what’s not real, when to shut off. Uh, I will go from a horrific. Video to the very next one of somebody’s birthday party. And my brain’s not designed to go from tragedy to happiness in, in a swipe.

And so what happens is that fight, flight, or freeze kicks in and it kicks in at times where I, it may not have in the past. And in marriage limbo freeze can tend to really take over. That typically is the, the version of that that I see really, really often is just freeze. I get stuck. I don’t know how to make a decision, so I just stay where I am and I’m just doing everything that I can to maintain the status quo.

Like just to keep things like, so it feels like there’s an equilibrium, right? And so that looks like running through the same pros and cons list in your head. You know, I’ve even talked with people that have like a running list and a notebook by their bed, and every night they pull it out and look and add things to it and delete things.

Um, it looks like avoiding conversations, right? Because you’re really afraid of what the fallout is. Or you’ve had this conversation before, or you know, this doesn’t go anywhere. Or, you know, no matter how many times you try it, it’s not gonna make you feel better. And so when you feel that pattern start to happen, you just like opt out.

You’re just like, I’m gonna go in my own room and I talk to women every day that say. You know, right. As soon as dinner’s done, like I just leave, I go in my room, do my thing, he goes and watches tv. Like there is just this separation, right? Um, that can look like telling yourself like, I’m gonna figure this out, but it’s gonna have to be later because the graduation is coming.

Or it’s my son’s final year of school, or, I have that trip planned. Or Christmas, the holidays are coming, all of these things. But the truth is later just never comes. And every day that you stay in that purgatory. You’re spending energy that you’ll never get back, right? I mean, the day is done. You’ve spent the energy on those things, and you’ll never be able to get that back.

So here’s what’s really happening, is that your brain is actually wired for safety. So it’s not wired for happiness, it’s not wired for joy, sadly, that would be amazing. But our brain is actually wired to just keep us alive. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to our brains if we’re happy doing it, safety means stick with what we know, even if it hurts.

So when you imagine leaving, alarm bells go off, right? What about the kids? What if I regret it? What if I have to move to a different town? What if I, where would I go? What would happen? And when you imagine staying. There are more alarms, right? What if this is all there is? What if I waste my life? What if I, you know, turn 70 and then realize I should have left when I was 50?

Like, what if, what if, what if? And because neither way feels safe. Your brain decides that the safest option is gonna be to do nothing. It’s just gonna cause you to freeze, and that’s why you feel so paralyzed. So here’s the thing that I have recognized that most people don’t realize, and that is that indecision isn’t neutral.

It costs you sleep, it costs you energy. And I think from my own experience, one of the biggest things that it costs you is self-trust. So the longer that you sit in purgatory, the heavier that cost gets. I know when I was going through my own indecision for years and years in my marriage, I would have ups and downs.

I would try so hard to get myself to a place where I felt like this is sustainable. I just didn’t wanna be thinking about it every single day. But the truth was that it was taking up most of my brain power. And when I look back, I think of all the things I could have done for a decade. That I didn’t do, that I didn’t experience because I was frozen.

And I also can look back now that I am living a different life, which, we’ll, we can talk about, but I can look back and I can say, I. I, I hum. Like I got myself really in a huddle, right? Like, I didn’t go out and meet friends. I didn’t go out and create relationships that I wanted or have experiences that I wanted.

Now that might not be anybody, everybody, but what I’m saying is it starts to pull you in. This indecision starts to pull you into a protective pattern, however that looks for you. So it may be that you just get really quiet. It may be that you just disengage. It may be that you exit and you spend more time with friends because you don’t wanna be at the house.

Maybe you spend more time at the house ’cause that feels safe. So, however your brain is processing this, I just want you to notice that the indecision isn’t neutral. It’s causing you to do things that you wouldn’t do if you were on a stable trajectory. So here is the grounding question for you and the tool.

So we wanna start breaking down that freeze response. And so there are some practices and you know, inside the Navigate method, do we really teach nervous system regulation? And I think this is something that is, that everybody should learn. Everybody should learn because it serves you in so many ways. It change your life, being able to regulate your own nervous system.

And for this, we’re gonna give some gr a grounding question that is gonna be a way for you to start to get in touch with what’s really happening inside yourself. You know, we tend to have so many things on our mind and so many places that we’re being pulled. So when we get out of bed, the first thing on our mind is, I gotta get going.

I know that’s like the first thing I think is I gotta get going. And so then I get going. And if you’ve got kids at home, if you’ve got like just a busy schedule, if you’ve gotta get to work, if you’ve got multiple things that you’re juggling, then you’re moving forward into the future and bringing that instability with you.

And so it’s sort of shutting down this place that you. Could get grounded and starting your day off in a freeze state, right? Just doing what has to be done to be able to move forward and it becomes rote like the things that you do or the things you always do, and that’s how everything plays out. Yeah.

Then we start moving into all of these patterns that we play out in our relationship that create the same thing over and over and over and over again, right? So here’s how I want you to start breaking up this freeze response every morning. I want you to ask yourself, what would make me feel 1% more stable today?

Maybe it’s what would make me feel 5% more stable or 10% more stable. As you start to get a handle on what that would be, just kind of play with that. But giving yourself that percentage, what would make me feel 5% more stable today? And then write that down and then do it so it doesn’t have to be something big.

Maybe it’s go for a little walk and I tell people, start very small. Walk down your street and turn around and come back, right? Don’t leave your phone at home and just walk for a minute and come back. Maybe it’s telling yourself one truth that you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s something simple like cleaning out a junk drawer, right?

So that your environment feels calmer. Getting into work and really organizing your desk before you get going. Maybe it’s clapping your hands together and rubbing them together. You’ll notice, take a big deep breath when you do that, and you’ll start to feel a little bit calmer. So these small actions create an internal safety and the safety is the foundation for your clarity.

So that’s your challenge for today. Find your five. And in our next episode, I’m gonna show you why waiting feels like the safe choice, but it’s actually costing you way more than you think. And how to finally see the price that you’re paying for staying in that limbo. All right, I’ll see you over there.

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.

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.