The Art of Living Big | Subconscious | NLP | Mindset

In this episode Betsy recounts her trip to Florida and the signs that she experienced while traveling. She explains the ‘put it down’ practice and how it can best serve us in our lives as well as how our brains notice things based on our focuses. This one is a good one if you need a reminder to take stock and choose you.

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, everybody. Welcome to the show today. I recorded this yesterday, and it was amazing. You missed a really good show. My microphone wasn’t on, and I, if you are new here, I do these podcasts. I come up with an idea, and then I just talk. So the kinda cool thing is this will be a totally different show than yesterday, although the same topic. I s- I’m sticking to the same theme ’cause I do have a story that I wanna tell you, and it may be a story that you heard if you’re on my mail list. But I wanna dive in a little bit deeper, and I wanna give you some tools, as we go through this. I wanna talk a little bit about my, my trip to Florida and something very cool that happened, and I, I’m gonna call it magic. I believe that there’s magic that happens all around us, and I believe you have magic that happens all around you, too. So I’m gonna tell you how to find it and how to use it So I’m gonna tell you how to find it and how to use it so that you can actually make your life easier and, you know, maybe a little bit more fun too. So if you’ve been here for a while, you may know that my whole dang life I’ve wanted to move to the beach, and just a few months ago I got the idea that actually there was nothing stopping me and I could do that. And so this, th- I guess it was last weekend, two weekends ago. Memorial Day was this past weekend. The weekend before, I decided I was gonna go down to Florida and I was gonna look around. You know, if you listen to the episode about how I make big decisions, I really was leaning into California, and in fact, had a trip planned for California for this week that ended up getting rerouted. But I had decided that I was also gonna check out Florida for a lot of different reasons. You know, I grew up on the East Coast. Um, my dad is on the East Coast. He, he … And I’m h- I, I was about to say he’s elderly. I guess he is. He’s 85. I guess, I guess that is elderly. It just feels weird to call him that, but he is. He’s not sick or anything. He’s b- he’s a busy dude. But you know, it just feels good to be here. My son lives here in Atlanta, and so I, I would love to be a, a drive away or a 90-minute flight instead of, like, a whole day of travel, you know? So there’s a lot of things, besides the taxes and all of those things. I don’t have a runway like a 30-year-old. I have a runway like a 55-year-old that’s been divorced a couple times, you know what I mean? So we gotta be using our brains here. So I was like, “I’m gonna just go down to Florida and I’m gonna look around.” Tampa checks a lot of boxes because there’s the big airport, it’s a city, it’s by the beach, and, like, that St. Petersburg area. I’m like, “Okay. Well, this could be a place where I could see myself.” And so I thought, “I’m gonna go down there. I’m gonna rent a car and just drive all over.” And as it ended up, somebody reached out from Instagram, and she lives there, and she was like, “I’ll show you around.” And I had, like, the best w- I had the best weekend with her. So it was like I made a really good friend while I was down there. But here’s what happened. I decided I was gonna go down Thursday night. So I was gonna be here for my coaching that I do. We have the Navigate group on Thursdays, and I n- I never miss it. Like, it is a strange, strange moment if I miss it. Um, maybe once a year I will miss. Like, I, I mean, I, this is, like, my favorite thing ever, so I never wanna not be there. So I, although I have coaches that are amazing, and they would be amazing, but I’m just like, “I wanna, I, I wanna be there.” So I’m like, “I’ll do the coaching, and then- pack up my stuff, and head to the airport. I’ll take a flight that night. I’ll land in Tampa. I’ll just get a hotel right near the airport. That’ll be easy-peasy, and then in the morning when it’s light out, I’ll begin my adventure, you know? The next day, Friday morning, was my birthday. It was my 55th birthday. And here’s the thing. I thought to myself, “You know, I wanna be by the ocean on my birthday. That sounds really fun. And, you know, why not have a little adventure?” So that Thursday morning when I was prepping for the Navigate group, I thought, “I need to go bring my cat to the kitty hotel,” right? Like, get Dean Martin situated. Then I can do my thing and head out. And when I was walking around the house, I was, you know, picking up stuff and playing with the cat and doing whatever I needed to do, and I was talking to my mother. Now, if you’re new here, my mother transitioned back when I was in high school, when I was 16. She died when I was … Transition is such a… She croaked. When I was 16 she died in a car accident, and so I’ve never… You know, I haven’t gotten a birthday present from her since I was 16. And I said out loud, “You know, I talk to you a lot, and I trust that you’re here.” But I don’t know. You know, I was kinda like in one of those, like, prove it kind of moods. So I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know if you’re really here, but if you are, I would like a birthday present. Haven’t had a birthday present from you in a long time, and I would love a birthday present, and I would love if it was something really obvious.” Do you guys do that, too, where you’re like, “Make it a sign,” and then the sign comes, and then you’re like, “Make it a signier sign. I need it to be super signed.” So I was like, “I want a birthday present. I want it to be really obvious.” And I said out loud, “I want it to be really obvious, not like an Amazon gift card or something,” which is kind of a weird thing to say, ’cause I would happily accept an Amazon gift card. But I, you know, said it out loud, and I actually felt it when I said that. Like, it felt funny when I said it, and then I continued. I was busy, busy. I was a busy girl all day. And anyway, I get to the airport. I get settled into the Sky Club because I have a Delta corporate card. I’m about to tell you all of the things that I require to travel, but I’m also too cheap to pay for them, so I have like a million workarounds. So first of all, I got my flight for free using points. I buy a coach seat, but I am Platinum, so I always get upgraded. Why am I Platinum? It’s not because I travel all the time, but it’s because I use my Delta corporate card for everything, for all my business stuff, right? So we end up putting a lot through that, and it gets me to Platinum status, okay? The cool thing about Platinum is you get to choose, like, your present, you know what I mean? Like, you get to choose the thing that you get. And so I have chosen, and I think you have to choose for the year, and I have chosen that I would get upgraded. So I always buy a coach seat, and typically I’ll get upgraded at least to Comfort Plus. I’m a short woman, so it’s not like I need a ton of leg room, but I like … I, I, I feel like my thing is I like- space. Like I don’t like to be herded places, and I don’t wanna feel crowded or rushed. Like that really stresses me out. So I get to the airport, I go to the Sky Club, which I have access to because I have the corporate card, not ’cause I, I’m too cheap to pay for that. But I have a corporate card, and go to the Sky Club, I hang out. It’s time to board the plane, and I look and I’m still not upgraded. And I’m like, “This is really weird.” I mean, it’s a short flight, so like I can hang in coach, but I’m in the middle. And I’m always on the end. Like I, I, I know it’s only 90 minutes, but I always have to pee. Like I’m like, I g- I need to be on the end. I don’t wanna be like in the middle. Ugh. But I’m in the back of the plane. I’m like in seat 29 in the middle seat. But it’s 90 minutes. I’m like, “It’s fine.” I get on the plane. There I am, like, you know, with my shoulders in, I’m as small as I can be so that the people on either side are taking up so much room. And I’m thinking to myself like, “You know what? I hate this.” Like I just do. And it’s okay. I’ll survive, right? Like it’s, if this is the worst of my issues this weekend. But I hate it. And so then the s- airline, um, not the pilot, the flight attendant says, “You know, we’ve oversold this flight.” It was already like delayed. You know? It was like 10 minutes delayed or something. Like it was a busy and it was late, you know. And I could tell they’re tired, and they’re like, “We’ve oversold this flight, and we need somebody to get off the plane and get on a flight two hours later if somebody’s interested in doing that.” Can you ring your bell? You know? So I ring my bell. ‘Cause immediately I’m like, “I don’t even wanna be on this flight. Like, I, I would pay you to go to the next flight.” And they’re giving a $600 voucher, so I’m like, I mean, I travel enough, I have enough things planned, so I’m like, “Yeah, heck yeah, I’ll do that.” Ring my little bell, the flight attendant comes over. She says to me, like, “Do you have luggage?” I’m like, “It’s on the plane.” She’s like, “It’ll be there waiting for you.” I’m like, “That’s great. I trust, I trust.” So I get off the plane, and the people at the f- at the gate, like the f- attendants at the gate are like, “Oh, did you… Thank you for, you know, shifting and going to the later flight.” I mean, it boards in, like, an hour, so I’m like, I’ll just go back to the Sky Club, get a drink, and by the time it’s, I’m done my drink, it’ll be time to board. And nobody’s waiting for me. I’m just… I just got a hotel at the, at the airport. Do you know what I mean? So I’m like, this is no… Like, how nice for somebody else that they could get off the plane, and I am gonna get a $600 voucher. So she says, “Thank you.” I’m like, “Yep, no problem.” And then she’s like, “It won’t print.” And she keeps trying to print, print the voucher, print the voucher, and then she says to the woman next to her, “Do you know why this isn’t printing?” And she’s like, “Well, press this, you know, press that. Try it again. Can you refresh? Maybe if we…” Like, they’re, they’re, they’re going through it, you know? And like I said, it’s late. I can tell these people have had a day. Like, she’s just like, “I can’t get this to print.” So she calls, and she says, like, “It’s printing, but it’s not printing the voucher.” And she’s like, “Will you email it?” So then she looks at me, and she’s like, “Can you check your email?” I’m checking my email. I’m checking my junk. There’s nothing. She’s like, “Try to email it again. It’s not coming through.” She doesn’t have anything. They try it again. And finally she shoves a piece of paper in my hand, and was like, “Here, take this.” So I took the paper and went on my way. I got myself a drink, I sat down, and I looked down, and what did I have but a voucher for a $600 Amazon gift card. Now- Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. What is actually happening? What’s actually happening? Now, you could hear this story and be like, “Well, that was a coincidence.” Like random, like really good timing, funny timing. Or I could tell you that there’s magic, magic all around us, and it is just what we choose to believe. Everything is what we choose to believe. And both of those things are true. It could be a coincidence, could be random. It is funny timing, and it does feel magical, and that is what I would like to believe. But here’s what else is true, is that there is part of our brain that you’ve heard of called the reticular activating system, the RAS, and its job is to filter, okay? So your brain is taking in like several million pieces of information every second. And when I say your brain, I mean, like, your nervous system. So, like, you’re seeing things and hearing things and feeling things and smelling things. Like, all this stuff is coming in all at once. And you can only consciously pr- like, process 126 of those pieces of information, so that means there’s a lot of information that’s just getting lost. It stays in the back of your mind. It stays in your brain. You just aren’t consciously aware of it. So there’s like a little mailman in there that is filtering stuff. It’s taking in all the mail and looking at it and throwing you the pieces that it thinks are important. It decides what gets through to your conscious awareness and what gets tossed out as, like, background noise. So the RAS filters for what you’re focused on. I remember when I bought my car. I have a little white SUV. It’s not rare. But I bought that car and I thought, “I’ve never seen this car before. Like, this is so unique and special,” I thought. I bought it, and now sometimes I go to the grocery store and I’ll come out and there’s like four of them in a row. Like, they’re everywhere. Everybody has them. I just wasn’t looking for them before. My RAS wasn’t set to notice those. So when I asked my mom for a sign, and I said, “Make it obvious,” and when I joked about an Amazon gift card, I set my RAS to look for it. And so when it showed up, I felt something. I noticed. Someone else might have glanced at the voucher and thought, “Oh, .” Y- you know, whatever. . But I was looking for magic, and so I saw it. I felt it as proof So here’s what I’ve been thinking about since that trip. When we are sitting in the middle of hard things, you know, a hard decision. I, I was going down there to look for a place that I was gonna move to live, and I’ll give you the update on that. It’s… There’s… I, I still have questions. But when we’re in the middle of this big, hard decision, it can feel really crushing to carry it all by ourselves. You know, I was feeling that, the weight of it, the fear that I’m gonna choose wrong or miss something, the exhaustion of trying to figure out every single piece of this all on our own. And, you know, I talk a lot when I talk online, and I talk about the Navigate method, and I talk about how important it is for women to make decisions for themselves, and I believe that. I believe nobody else should make the decision for you, ’cause this is how we learn to trust ourselves. But what if we didn’t have to totally do it all on our own? What if we could hand something over, like, like, like, one little thing, and let ourselves be guided? You know, let ourselves be cared for. I, uh, this weekend or that weekend, it was last weekend it was such a lesson in allowing myself to be cared for. You know, did, did my mother give me the $600 Amazon gift card? I think so, but I think she also gave me the friend that took care of me, that took care of everything. If you follow along on Instagram, you know I got food poisoning. She took care of me. She mothered me. And I needed that so bad. And so what if we could let ourselves be guided, let ourselves be cared for, let the universe meet us part way? I’m not saying let somebody else make the decision for you, but I’m saying the decision can be easier when you’re not white-knuckling your way through it all by yourself. So here’s where I think the brain part of this gets really interesting. You know, when we grip, you know, when we’re in control mode, when we’re trying to force an outcome or manage every single variable, our nervous system is really in protection mode. And then what does my RAS do, is it starts filtering for threats, right? It starts looking for like, “Oh my God, she thinks something’s gonna go wrong. What could go wrong? What do I need to control? What am I missing? What am I not seeing? Show her the fear. Show her the unsteadiness.” Right? And when your brain is doing that, you literally can’t see the help that’s available. You can’t notice the signs. You can’t receive any new ideas or, you know, the other options and, you know, doors that you wanna be open seem closed, because your brain isn’t scanning for that stuff. Your brain is scanning for danger. It’s scanning for what could go wrong. It’s scanning for all the times you’re walking on eggshells or afraid you’re gonna make a wrong decision. But when you physically let go, when you open your hands, when you open your hands and you ask for help out loud, something shifts. I do think there’s something magical about speaking it out loud. I think when I was talking to my mom and I was doing it out loud, I could… There was something. Have you ever had that feeling where you’re like, “I feel something moving in me,” you know? And our nervous system reads that as safety, right? It stops filtering for threat- And it starts filtering for possibility when I’m speaking out loud, when I’m calm, when my hands are open. You start noticing things you couldn’t notice before, not ’cause they weren’t there, but just ’cause your brain wasn’t looking for them. Okay, so there’s another piece to this. Your brain is also a, a pattern-matching machine. Like, it’s constantly scanning for patterns. It’s constantly trying to prot- te- uh, I wanna say protect, but no, predict. I w- it’s constantly trying to predict what’s going to happen based on what’s happened before. And when you’re stuck in hard decisions, when you’re stuck in looping on the same thoughts over and over again, you’re reinforcing those same neural pathways. You’re telling your brain basically, “This is the pattern. This is what we do here.” And your brain just keeps running that pattern over and over and over again. This is how come, like, y- y- you know, your partner may stomp around the house, and you go, “Oh, my God. I know what’s gonna happen ’cause I know what happened before,” right? I, I can feel it. I know something’s gonna go sideways. And so you start walking on eggshells. You start being… You’re hypervigilant. You’re listening for w- whatever sound, rustle in the grass you need to be aware of so that you can protect yourself, right? But when you let go, when you put something down, you know, it, your brain can, can shift to something new. It’s not like you’re doing something wrong by listening to those patterns, it’s just that your brain is doing what it’s designed to do, and it’s conserving energy, right? So it’s running a program that it already knows. But when you put it down, then you create space, and in that space, you can form all new patterns. You know, new thoughts can come to you, new ideas can come through, new possibilities can show up that weren’t available when you were gripping really hard. And this is why people say things like, um, like, “I stopped trying so hard, and then it just happened. Like, I don’t know, it just happened. As soon as I let go of needing it to work out, like, it just became obvious.” And it’s not magic. Well, it’s a little magic, but it’s neuroscience. You created space, and your brain had room to find a new pattern. Okay, so here’s how we’re gonna put this into practice. I’m gonna give you something you can try this week. I call it the put it down, put it down practice, and it is designed to shift you from really gripping to having your hands open and receiving. So it’s, it moves you from that, like, control mode to open mole- mode, and then y- you, you kinda stop… You stop scanning for threat, and then you start essentially scanning for what’s available. So here’s how it works. Step one is you’re gonna name what you’re holding. So say it out loud if you can, like the decision, the outcome, the how. So I’m holding the question of whether to stay or go. I’m holding the fear that I’m gonna choose wrong. I’m holding the need to figure out how this is all gonna work before I take my first step. So just name it, whatever it is. I’m holding the overwhelm of trying to find where to live. So step two is you physically put your hands out. There is a, a, a loop between your body and your brain, and I’m gonna use my body to send alerts to my brain. I know it sounds kinda simple, but your, your body and your brain are connected. So when you open your hands, you’re signaling to your nervous system that you’re receiving. You’re not grasping, you’re available, right? Not defending anything. It’s, it’s how your nervous system reads safety, okay? So you’re gonna physically put your hands out, palms up. And then step three is you’re gonna ask out loud, “What’s the one thing I can hand over right now?” Not, “What should I do?” Or not, like, “How do I fix this?” But, “What is one thing I can hand over?” And you’re gonna ask it to the universe, or to God, or, uh, to your dead mom. Like whatever it is, whatever it is that works for you. And ask it to the part of you that already knows. It doesn’t matter who you’re asking, really. It just matters that you’re asking. And then step four is that you’re just gonna wait. Don’t answer it yourself. Don’t, like, fill that silence with your own voice. Just wait and let the answer come to you. This is such a skill to learn to just, like, wait until you feel something. So then the fifth step, I guess we’d be on step five, right? Notice what shows up in the next 24 hours, 48 hours. It might be a thought you didn’t have before, a conversation that feels different than it would have a couple days ago. You know, maybe an opportunity that opens up, you weren’t even looking for one. Maybe it’s a $600 Amazon gift card when you specifically said not that. The point is, you’re not looking for something, like, specific. You’re not looking for a specific answer. You’re looking for movement. You’re looking for the thing that you couldn’t see when you were holding on so tight, you know? I did ask my dad, I said, “What are you sending me?” ‘Cause my mom gave me a $600 gift card. “What are you gonna get me?” It was probably a joint gift, I think. So this is what happens when you’re sitting in the middle of a, a big decision. You know, trying to move to the beach, trying to make a decision about your marriage, and you’re trying to logic your way through it all alone. You keep pushing. You keep thinking. You keep trying to see around corners and, you know, predict outcomes, manage things that you can’t actually control, and then your brain keeps running the same loop, right? It keeps asking the same questions and having the same fears and patterns. So what if, what if you didn’t have to carry all that by yourself? What if you could just hand one thing over and let yourself be supported, let yourself be guided, let yourself receive help instead of white-knuckling your way through it alone? I, I don’t think the decision gets made for us, but the decision gets clearer, I think, when you stop gripping so hard. So pick something this week. Maybe it’s something easy, something that doesn’t have a lot of emotional charge to it, and do the put it down practice. Do- just try it once. See what happens. Name the thing you’re holding, open your hands, ask the question out loud, wait, and then pay attention. Because magic is all around us. It’s, it’s just what we choose to believe, and if your brain is designed to find what you’re looking for, ask it to look for help. Ask it to look for signs. Look for the thing that you couldn’t see when you were in protection mode. And I think when you can do that, that is how you live a big life. If you want help on this journey, we’ve got some spots available on the calendar this week. Um, if you are interested in the Navigate Method, or if you’re not quite there yet, you’re like, “I don’t, I don’t wanna go all in on all that,” I have a process on my website called The Bridge, and it is a truth map that will guide you to the next right thing. And then maybe at that point you’ll be ready to do some of the deeper work inside the Navigate Method. But we are here when you’re ready. Be open to it and allow us to help pick up what you’re carrying. I love you guys 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 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.

Big things are on the horizon for Betsy! A book deal, a beach move, a birthday. Tune in to this Q & A to get to know the woman behind The Art of Living Big and The Navigate Method. With lots of laughs and a few tears, this one is a great one to watch or listen to. Check out the video version on YouTube.

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  All right, I’m excited. I’m excited to do this. I’m excited, and Feels very official. actually am, um, nervous, which is weird, ’cause I d- I mean, I’ve had this podcast for how long? Like 10 years. But I’m nervous, because I feel like we’re not… Yeah, we’re not just ask- can’t believe I’m not nervous, but I’m just excited for it. All right, I’m excited too. Okay, so let’s tell everybody who you are that’s listening. So I’m, I’m Joy, and I am Betsy’s ops person, um, her virtual assistant, go-to person hopefully. And, uh, I Yeah. job. It’s been an honor and a privilege to work for someone so innovative and caring and, , I , I can’t say enough good things about Navigate. I’m an No. member myself. I am Yeah. be working for you now years later after I completed the program. But, , I love my job. Yeah. Oh, that makes me happy. And now you can add podcast host Yeah, a resume. I don’t know about that. We’ll see. So this episode is gonna be a little different than typical. My birthday’s next week, which I wanna say, like, I don’t care, whatever, but I do. I think I do kinda care. I think I’ve always tried to not care, but I think it’s kind of fun that my birthday’s next week. , I’ll be 55, and my birthday is on 5/15, and I feel like the numbers are all, like… I feel like it’s kinda magical, and I don’t know why. I’m not, , a numerology buff or anything , but , it just feels like 55 and then this. So I’m excited to kinda do this. And so I thought what we would do is, , we asked on Instagram just for, , questions of what people had. ready. Yeah, and you’ve got them ready. Okay, and then you had some other ones of your s- your own that I don’t necessarily know all of them, , so yeah. So we’ll… we can just dive in and see where the conversation takes us. I know. I’m excited. Okay. So also I wanna say about 5:15, that’s a special number for you, isn’t it? Yeah, well, uh, uh, I think because it’s my birthday, I always am looking for 5:15. Like, I’m always… I think it’s, like, a message from my mom. I do too, because we post your podcast at 5:15. Yeah. Yes, that’s right, yeah. We post it at 5:15 a- on Thursday mornings. Yeah, yeah. That’s, I like it, and I feel like it feels balanced and also, , I know this is a weird thing, but like 5-1-5, it feels balanced, and it feels like the one is, uh… It’s not a hyphen, but a what would go this way? Do you know what I mean? Up and down. So it feels like 5-5, which feels like a mirroring and- Like, , it’s not infinity, it’s not an eight, but it feels like that to me. Like, kind of chaotic, but also measured, you know? So anyway, I love the 515, yeah. Yeah, I, I like numbers too, but I’m a, I’m an even number person. Yeah. pump gas without ending on an even number. It’s so weird. Oh, really? Yeah. I know it’s weird. I love that. It is weird. So But thanks. love that ’cause it’s weird. Are you ready for your first question? Okay. Yeah, I think so. Okay. ., So this is a question that kind of encompasses everything that you do, so it’s a good starting point, I feel like. Okay. you help women decide whether to stay or leave, and you left. , So looking back, was there a single moment that you knew, or was it a slow build that you only saw clearer in the rearview mirror? Oh, okay. That’s a really good question. I’m so scared right now. Okay. So here’s what I think to answer this question. I wanna, like, zoom way, way out, and I’m gonna start with, like I’m gonna s- I’m gonna start, like, when I’m a kid, and you’re gonna be like, “Oh my God. Is she gonna tell her whole life story?” But for those of you that are listening that are fairly new, so I believe that we are always doing things, our actions are coming from a place of trying to keep us safe. Like, emotionally safe or physically safe, right? And so even if we’re doing things sometimes that is clear that that’s not helpful, it’s because our brains think that it’s keeping us safe, and part of the reason it thinks it’s keeping us safe is ’cause we’re alive, and it’s our, our unconscious mind’s prime directive is to keep us alive. So whatever we’re doing is hypothetically working ’cause you’re alive, okay? So when I was in high school, my mom died in a car accident, and pretty soon after that my dad got remarried. Now, he was married to my mom and, , f- by all accounts was happy enough, you know? And then he started dating somebody, I would say within, , eight or nine months of my mom dying, and then they got married very quickly. It wasn’t, , the best relationship. They’re all still alive, so I wanna be careful of how I speak about it. But it wasn’t… I, I, I was se- 17 by the time they got married, and it wasn’t a safe relationship for me, and so I think I did a lot of accommodating to- Feel safe. So I would get in trouble for a lot of things, and I had never been a kid that ever got in trouble. Do you know what I mean? , My, my mother was always so, so kind and , respectful of my sister and I. So that whole relationship, I think, really changed the dynamic of how I experienced relationships. And I think I was pretty, like when we think about attachment theory, like I think I was securely attached and then became anxious after my mom died in that whole experience. Okay. So now, when the question is, like, when you got d- divorced, was it all at once or was it a, a, you know, slow burn? I wanna say… I- I’m gonna tell you my journey of … Joy’s like, “This is a longer answer than I expected.” But the, , the jour- the journey of, of… Let me tell you why I am so chic. Because I have been married several times. And so to answer that question I’m like, “Well, which time?” Okay. When I was in college, I got married right after college, and, I got divorced very quickly. … We didn’t have kids. Like, there was no… And so I know that that was a marriage. We had a wedding. It… But in my brain it doesn’t feel like one. It feels like such a blip, and I was so young, and honestly, I was coming right off the heels of my mom dying, like five years before or something. Do you know what I mean? , It all feels very blurry. And so then years later I met my son’s dad, and that was my second marriage, but felt like my first. It operated like my first. And more importantly, my third marriage operated like my second. I sound very chic, Joy. I’m very chic. Um, so my first marriage, I think I, I, I… What I have found in my relationships in general, marriages or otherwise, is that I have chosen people that I could try and heal that relationship with my dad. Like, I’m gonna tell you something’s wrong, and you’re gonna ignore me and tell me I’m misreading it, which is what happened when I was young. And so I would find people unconsciously that I could play that out because that felt safe, because that was so familiar, right? And so I, I think that I did that with my first marriage, and I was not mature enough to recognize that there was something going on within me. And then I got divorced when my son, m- and I have a trans son, so when my son was four. And then again, you know, replayed stuff. Had some terrible relationships in between all of that. And then married my last, my last and final. I will never get the government involved ever again. So my, my most recent marriage, and that was a marriage that lasted… We were married for 12 years. We were together, like, 15 years. And I think I was playing the same exact thing out, but the difference this time, and what I teach inside the Navigate method, is that we can trust ourselves, right? That we can find the, our side of the street and heal our side of the street. That we can use the relationship as a mirror to figure ourselves out so much deep, much deeper. And so I think I knew almost immediately that my marriage wasn’t good, and for a lot of circumstances, I stayed for a long time. I think I didn’t wanna fail again. I think my , r- you know, relationship with my, then my daughter at that time was complicated, ’cause she was getting sick as a teenager, and there was just a lot of things going on where, , it didn’t… I couldn’t leave. And I say I couldn’t. I had options, but, , I, I didn’t feel like I could leave, and I didn’t want to. I wanted desperately for it to be good. And what I realize now is that going through that whole process and actually using it to heal myself, and now I would say I’m absolutely securely attached, earned secure, because I earned it back. But that relationship, although, , one of the most heinous in my life I think, I’m the most grateful for it. It changed me in such profound ways because I did the work, because I looked at it, because I paid attention and didn’t say, “I’m gonna let…”, I was like, “I’m not letting…” This is, it, to me, and I’m gonna say this too as we continue this conversation, in my relationships, any of them, I’m not the only one in them. And so, you know, if you brought my former husband, any of select one, any of the many former husbands, like they may have a totally different story, and it doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It just means that’s our versions, and there’s a truth in there somewhere in the middle, right? But to me, I’m like, that relationship was so profoundly, , harmful to me that it forced me into change, and for that I am incredibly, incredibly grateful. So to answer the question, it didn’t happen all at once, but the clarity of, oh, I’m healed enough to do this on my own, I get it, sort of unraveled within, , I would say, like, the last six or eight months. If that makes sense. That is a very answer to that question. sense. and you needed the backstory to, to complete that, Yeah. Yeah. that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, Okay. question. Okay. It’s okay, it’s okay. Okay. What’s something that you believed about your own marriage right up until the end that turned out not to be true? Oh, question. God, that’s a good question. Is that one of yours, or is that one that we got in? That’s one that was the myth. What is some… Say it again, something that’s true What is was true. about your own marriage right up until the end that turned out not to be true? That’s… That there was something I could have done to save it. I don’t think there was anything I could have done. I think lots of times we try and make sense of things, and we’re like, “If I could have done this better,” or, “Maybe if I had just learned how to cook dinner better,” or I had… Do you know what I mean? Like, we think of all the things, and now I recognize that what was happening, just like for him, none of what I was doing had to do with him. It was, had to do with this old story. The same thing for him. What he was doing and how he was responding and how he was interacting with me had nothing to do with me, and there was nothing I could have done, and I think that actually brings me a lot of peace. But it, uh, it took me a,, a long while, even after we were divorced, for me to get to that. Yeah. good answer. I think, I think that’s probably a common answer because as women, I think we feel like we maybe could try this, maybe we could try this, Yeah. and, and maybe there’s nothing else and I, yeah, and I think, not to interrupt you, I’m sorry. , That’s why we go to couples counseling, and I don’t have anything against couples counseling. But I think that what happens is we go, and then we talk about problems that have happened, and you’re talking about the problem, but the problem actually isn’t the issue. It’s the reasons that you got to the problem. So if everybody would just go their own way and figure out their own crap, you, y- you wouldn’t have to, like, rehash a situation for two months, you know? Like, I, I could have rehashed so many different situations, and we never, ever, ever… It’s clear we never could have come to a conclusion ’cause it was our own crap we were bringing in. I, I was responding to stuff because of me and who I was, and he was responding s- to stuff because of him. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. It’s okay. It’s okay, Bessie. you’re great. You’re doing really good. I know. I don’t know. Okay, people assume the woman who teaches this work has it all figured out. Mm-hmm. ending are you still making sense of? Oh, I think one of the biggest things, and I think if people follow me for a long time, I think they understand that I often will even say, people, like, “I’m on this path with you. I don’t think we ever have it all figured out.” And I think one of the biggest mistakes I could ever make as a leader or as a coach would be to make people feel like I had it all figured out. ‘Cause I never want anybody to, um, need me forever. Like I always say to my clients, “I want you to want me forever, but I don’t want you to need me. I want you to have your own tools and your own ways of thinking so I, I’ll never have it all figured out, and I think there’s always things to uncover. One of the things that I think I do really well is I will sit and think about stuff, and I won’t… Or I, I say I won’t. It’s not that I never, but I try. I do, not avoid hard thoughts. I make room for hard thoughts. And so as I come up against things I haven’t had, don’t have figured out, there’s always new things to uncover and I will figure them out. If that makes sense. So I know I’m not necessarily answering the question, but it’s just, like I don’t have the, to let, make a list of all the things I don’t have figured out. It’s everything. You know? Like there’s so much, ’cause I am not one that, that pushes the idea that I do. I think that’s– I mean, because we’re always evolving and, and changing and figuring stuff out as we Yeah. And you question, but… yeah, and you know sometimes when I get really overwhelmed, uh, with work, and then I’ll say like, “I’m just gonna go sit,” and you’re always like, you’re good at “What the…” Yeah, and you’re like, “What the hell? What the heck?” I’m like, “I’m just gonna go sit and just be quiet for 15 minutes and see what happens.” normal.” Yeah. “Let me do 800 things that Yeah, you always tell me. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so this is about your birthday. Oh, okay. um, okay. So you’re about to turn 55. Mm-hmm. that you thought you would have figured out by now that you haven’t, have you made peace with that? I think I thought I would- grow up and have, like, a family and, like, the father of the bride house and the white picket fence and a husband that adored me. I’ve never ever, ever, I’ve never ever had anybody in my life that adored me. I think I thought I would, have, uh probably more kids than just one. I think, you know what I mean? I think there was, I, I think there’s so much of my life that isn’t what I thought it was gonna be and I think it’s because what I thought it was gonna be was created before my mom died and when she died it, like, scrambled eggs, you know what I mean? And, and I really like where I ended up right now, you know? So I think it’s not… Martin adores you. Dean Martin does adore me but only See? wants to. He’s ve- he’s al- he’s taught me more about consent. Like, consent is, is a, a subject that comes up sometimes in the Navigate group, right? Like with your husband, like, you know, if he wants sex and I don’t want sex and how, can I say no and all of those things. I swear to God I learned more about consent from my freaking cat. Like, it makes sense. , You have to ask permission to grab at somebody. So yeah. Okay. Um, let’s see. Oh, I love this question. I love this question. , What is a pattern that you see in almost every woman who comes to you that she swears does not apply to her? . I know what it is and I’m just trying to formulate it. Um, I think, well, I think first of all every woman thinks that their husband’s behavior is their fault. Like if they could do something different then things could be different and I think that they take a lot of ownership of his behavior instead of letting him own it and that becomes really heavy. And you think that Yeah, I think- that at the time? Yeah. Yeah. I think they don’t realize it and then I think as we move through the program then they start to recognize it but I don’t think it’s just like if you’re listening and you’re like, “Oh yeah,” I think that’s not a thing you can just hear and go, “Oh okay.” I think you have to, like, internalize it and I think going through the program helps you, like, viscerally understand that and I think that’s like the shift, a big shift that happens for people Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, maintaining somebody else’s life is impossible. Okay, this is another question that pertains to the work you do in Navigate. , So you’ve been clear that you don’t push women towards staying or leaving Mm-hmm. the Navigate program. Um, has that ever cost you a client that you’d wish you’d been more direct with? Like where I wish they had left or I wish they had stayed? I know, I know personally, I can tell you that as a, a former Navigate person, hearing some of the stories, sometimes, you know, part of you, the girlfriend side of you wants to be like, you gotta get out of there.” Yeah. you, you’re very good about not, , Yeah. that on anyone and letting them arrive at those decisions themselves. So I guess, that is the question. — Has it ever cost you a client that you’ve y- you would– were more direct with? yeah. I, I’m gonna say no, and the reason that I’m gonna say no is because it’s not that I think, “Oh, they should leave,” but I left, and then I went back, and then I had to leave again a couple years later, which we can talk about that. But, like, that process was so important for me that I need people to have their own process because that’s the only way we trust ourselves. And part of this program is, is getting women to a place where they know themselves so deeply, and if I’m putting any pressure on any of that, then that whole foundation crumbles. Mm-hmm. is there part of me that’s like, “Give me his phone number”? Yeah, and sometimes I’ll say that. Do you know what I mean? Like, ’cause there is the girlfriend side of you that’s like, “Girl. Oh my God.” But, but also, , the overarching goal and purpose, and I… , and again, I’m gonna go back to, like, when I said I was so grateful for my former husband this last relationship because I feel like this is my purpose. This is why I’m here on this planet, and I never, ever, ever could have got here if I hadn’t had that relationship. Oh my God, I’m so grateful for that relationship. But that’s how come I know not to push anybody anywhere. Mm-hmm. Yeah. good answer. this is kind of a piggyback question,, what is a piece of your own advice that you’ve struggled to take? A piece of my own advice I struggle to take I, I’m gonna say this.  I don’t typically give advice unless I’ve lived it. I think that one of the things that anyone that’s worked with me would say is that I will say, I’ll even say, like, “Hey, I’m open to being wrong. You decide what feels right to you.” And even in my personal relationships, I’ll say, “I’m open to being wrong,” ’cause I’m open to learning. I’m really open to learning and seeing things in a different way. I love when I can see things in a different way., I think in my… If I were to say, is there something that, advice I should take, it’s just that I can’t control everything. Like, I, uh,, you know, we all have that desire to want to have some sense of control of the world and the universe, and you just can’t. You can’t make people do what you wanna, want them to do. You can only invite. You know, the you can’t lead a horse to water. It’s the same with me, I guess.  Like, I can know the things, and there’s gonna be days where I’m, I bypass myself just because I’m human. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Good. Okay, let’s see. Hmm. Okay. You live alone. What does a hard night actually look like for you, and what do you do? A hard night. So, Is there any hard nights alone? yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I know, right? There’s been some debate on Instagram on any of my posts where I say I’m not lonely. I don’t get lonely. I get bored. I don’t get lonely. And so now I’m gonna say something, and I’m open to being wrong if this w- people were to label this as lonely. But one of the things that I found is that I had limited friendships when I was married, and those friendships- Sort of disintegrated, and I had to create all new friendships. And I think I had hard nights in the beginning in that that was really confusing to me. Nothing happened. I, I still w- I wouldn’t be shocked if somebody reached out to me and said, “Oh my God, I haven’t talked to you in so long. You wanna go get a coffee?” ‘Cause nothing happened, but there was just a shift, and I think there was an energetic shift to me, and that felt confusing because I… Nothing had happened. So, so there were nights, especially in the beginning, I think, where it was more like confusing of like, “How do I make friends? Like, what did I do? Why w- at this, , vulnerable moment did the people that were in my life disappear?” And I think there’s, again, it had nothing to do with me. And so, um, I think the hard nights were just that like, “How do I rebuild my life?” And kind of figuring that out. That makes And then the… And there’s ice cream for nights like that. But I think most of the time, like, I have pretty good nights. , I have my routines, you know? I, I work, and then I make dinner, and then I sit on the couch, and I like to watch YouTube videos. I, I have YouTube, like the subscription, so I don’t have commercials. And I love going down the rabbit hole of documentaries, and I watch all a bunch of stuff about the Gilded Age, and I’m into, like, uh, uh, you know, how they run stuff. Like, I watched this documentary the other day on how they run the Atlanta airport. It’s so fascinating. How they run cruise ships., So I, I’m into stuff, and I’m interested and curious. And then when I get tired, I get in bed, and you know, people have heard me talk about my evening routine with the bed. But like, I get in my BedJet heated up bed and crick it away while I read or watch TV. , .. and I have a lot of friends that I message with. , We use Voxer, and you and I use Voxer. But , we message about stuff all the time. Like, you’re having a glass of wine and you’re like say- You know, like, there’s a lot of interaction that I have with people now that’s friends that live all over., It does take up time and, and space in a good way.. And that is the part that’s like I’m never really lonely, ’cause I have all these structures around me that if I w- want somebody, I could just reach out. But I think in the beginning it was that, like, reorienting and how do I recreate my life. Mm-hmm. Well, I think every woman too that, , is watching will, feel like, you know, when they’re alone or their husband’s out of town, it’s almost like a Yeah, really. Yeah. cool. Yeah, yeah. I got a message from a friend the other day, um, and she reached out to me a couple months ago, and I hadn’t heard from her, like, in years. And I was talking to her, she lives in New York, and I was talking to her a lot on Voxer when we met, and,, she’s a business owner, too, and you know what I mean, we commiserated on all that stuff. Uh, and it was when I was living with my husband. We were married at the time. And anyway, the other day we were messaging and she said, “You know, Betsy, you need to go back and listen to your voice in the messages that you would leave me back in like 2023, 2024,” early 2024. She’s like, “You sound like a completely different person, like it doesn’t even sound like you.” And I was like, “Really? That’s so weird.” And she was like, “Yeah, like you’re… The joy, you’re way more excited, like you sound alive.” And she kept saying, “Go back and listen. Go back and listen.” So I scrolled back and I saw, like the last time we had messaged, like 2023, I think it was, October, and I couldn’t listen. I just was like, “I don’t wanna revisit her.” Like I, I looked at the message for a long time. I could see it, you know? And I just couldn’t hit play. I was like, “I’m just gonna let her rest,” you know? Yeah. It was interesting. Yeah, that’s interesting and, and profound really. It’s Yeah, yeah. like you’ve moved on from that person all the way. Yeah, yeah. And I just didn’t wanna like… It felt like digging up a grave, you know? It felt like, like a, I don’t know, like a betrayal. Like just let her be. So yeah, it was kinda interesting. Okay, this, this one may be a long answer, so Oh. ready? Need opposed to the other ones where I feel like I’ve talked. Okay. Okay. Okay, so, um- Tell us the moment that you realized it was time to leave in your marriage, your Yeah. Um, I think that in my marriage, I was very depleted, and I think I tried really hard. When I look back, and I don’t recognize this as much now, but I remember at the time, and even maybe like a year after I lived in my own apartment, if someone said, “Describe your marriage, give me one word-” It would have been frustrating and, like, frustrating. Like, it was very frustrating. It probably was for him, too. So again, I’m just gonna reiterate that this isn’t anything… This isn’t about him. This is about me. It was very frustrating, and I think that I had a moment when I… I’m gonna say something very strange, I think., I hired somebody to hypnotize me because some of the feedback that I would get online felt really crushing in a weird way, and people would comment on my clothes or my big glasses or whatever, but it felt very deeply injured me. And I was like, “What is that?” Now, if I had been in, , an incredible relationship where I felt, , supported and loved, like, maybe it wouldn’t have, but it did. And it got to the point where I remember one day I was laying on the floor in my home office, and I was like, “I don’t know if I can keep doing this.” Now, I started the Navigate method when I was still married, so that’s something we can talk about. But I, I was laying on the floor, and I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” Like, this feels like such important work to me, but I… And was given to me, which we can talk about that. And so, “But I don’t know if I can do it.” And so a friend of mine was like, “You need to hire this guy, Joseph Cloth.” He and I were in a coaching group together, and she was like, “You should hire Joseph.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, I should.” So I reached out. It, it wasn’t cheap. I mean, it was thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to be hypnotized so that I could get rid of feeling awful when people commented. But we had to get to, like, the root cause, and the root cause was I am bad. Now, if somebody said to me, like, “What do you think is the root cause of your…” I would never, ever, ever had said I am bad. So he had me do this whole exercise. It took me, like, two weeks of, like, crying all night. Like, like I really sat with it. Like, what is this? And I… And, and I think because I’m a coach, I could get to, like, this deep, deep, deep root. And go back to the first story I told you. When, after my mom died and my dad started dating somebody, and when they got married, I would tell him, “This isn’t… This doesn’t feel right. Like, the things that are being said to me feel terrible. I… This isn’t good.” And he would say, “You’re misunderstanding. It- you’re wrong.” You’re misinterpreting that and, you know, stop trying to mess up my life. And I think I internalized that to, like, don’t trust yourself. You can’t rely on your own feelings. They’re not right. And, you know, uh, y- y- you’re bad. And so w- he hypnotized me, and I came out of that hypnosis with clarity, like, “Oh, I’m not bad.” And I… That means that I deserve good things and good people around me that love me. And, uh, and I, and, and it shifted. I n- I, I don’t g- give a rat’s ass about what anybody says online in the weirdest way. In fact, I love it. I’m like, “Well, that making you feel something, and that’s good.” You know? Um, but I think that was a big part in my shift of, like, what is it that I deserve? And that’s something that we work on in the Navigate method. Like, what is it that I deserve? Is it true that this is what I deserve? You know? And, and I’m gonna keep saying this just because I feel like it’s so important, my former husband deserved different than he had with me. It wasn’t the right match. Do y- do you know what I mean? And so, um, when I got that, I think that was a huge piece of my clarity. But again, it’s layers. You know what I mean? Like, you gotta, like, do the work and look at the stuff and, like, unpack it all. That’s good. Yeah. I have not yet been hypnotized. That’s why I wore my non-black glasses today because can’t handle the negativity. I think it’s funny. And then it’s funny ’cause people will be like, “I hate your glasses. I love your glasses.” And then sometimes they’re like, “Why do you dress in such big clothes?” That’s a big one I get. “Why are you dressed in such baggy clothes? You’re so little. Why are you in such big clothes?” I’m like, “‘Cause I don’t want you looking at my body.” how people feel like they can say whatever they wanna say. It’s so terrible. Like, It’s funny ’cause they, I don’t think they’d say it in real life, you know? But- they probably don’t. It’s all Yeah a screen and on a keyboard. Keyboard it, it makes it way more obvious if somebody loves my glasses and says, “Where’d you get those?” And somebody hates them, then it’s not the glasses. It’s the person that’s viewing the glasses. so true. Yes. So I just go, “Oh, whatever. I ain’t bad.” I actually was like, “Let me do these today,” because Yeah. no one will say, “Why sh- why are they both wearing black glasses?” Wait. Hey, I know. Freaking damn big g- black glasses, yeah. That one’s funny okay. Um, okay, so… Oh, okay, so you’ve… This is kind of an all-encompassing. So you’ve built a business, a podcast, a method, a book deal. Yeah. is the thing that you’re quietly most proud of that no one knows about? Um, so I will say, let’s see. And the book, let’s just comment on the book ’cause someone will be like, “She has a book?” Years ago, years and years ago, I wrote a book, but this isn’t the book that we’re talking about now. So we’re in the process of writing a book. I have an agent, and we’re writing a book., And we’ll know more about that around Christmastime, but it’ll be out next year. , So what is the thing that I’m most proud of that nobody knows about? Mm-hmm. I think my ability to be open to new ideas. I got divorced from my second husband, ’cause I’m very chic. Just a reminder, I’m very chic and I’m not afraid of change. , But I got divorced, you know, from my son’s dad, and we remained really good friends. And years and years later, I asked Oliver, I said, “Have you ever heard me say anything bad about Dad?” And he said, “No. Why would you?” And that made me so proud, because he was like, “Why would you say anything bad?” ‘Cause he had never, ever heard me say anything bad. And you know what? I love his dad. I love his dad. His dad is part of him, and I’m really proud of the relationship that we have. Is it perfect? No. Do I wish parts of it were different, especially over the past few years? Yeah, absolutely. But we have really been good partners and good co-parents in the best way that we could, and I think that’s because, uh, of him as well as because I am open and not afraid of being wrong. And when I say wrong, like, I’m not afraid of, of being like, “Okay, maybe that wasn’t right. Maybe I didn’t handle that right. Maybe I c- … I’m open to hearing other people’s experience of me and taking that into account and apologizing where I need to.” So I’ve always been really proud of that. When Oliver was little, we did holidays together with his wife, and then I’ve I mean, his kids have been to my house. Like, we’ve maintained a, a f- really friendly relationship, which I’m always been really grateful for. That’s awesome. Yeah. It’s awesome for Oliver. Yes. uh, something that’s just, uh, you Yeah stress away from the child of any Yeah. whether married or, or, you know, going through a divorce or a separation, just to take that away, that stress away from the, child in that Yeah. is awesome, so… we still have every Friday, every Friday at 3:00 we have a family meeting. Now Oliver is 24, but he’s got some challenges. And so every Friday we meet and talk with him, see how his week has been, where he struggled, where we can support him. And so, you know, that’s always been like a team effort. So I think that that’s like just an important piece of my whole journey, you know? Awesome. Okay, let’s see where we’re at. , Oh, this is probably my favorite question. It’s one of the– my favorite. So I have a,, I have a question that has nothing to do with Navigate Okay. Okay. Okay. that you wish someone would ask that they never ask? , What is something I could go… I should’ve… I, you mentioned this, this question to me earlier and I thought, “Oh, how would I answer that?” And I still don’t know. I wish they would ask that they never ask. it and come back to it? Well, you know, one thing I’ll say is I think, and this goes back to one of the earlier questions, is that I think lots of times people think, and I’m not gonna be answering the question exactly, but a roundabout way. I think lots of times people think, “Well, Betsy’s fine,” because I present as fine. And I think just I’m a human like anybody else, and I think there have been challenges. I know when I moved into my apartment, I had a lot of challenges in my nervous system when I moved and lived alone, not because I didn’t like being alone, but because I was so used to scanning to manage other people’s emotions, that the lack of knowing if I was, I’m gonna use air quotes, “in trouble”. But again, remember like I had this thing from when I was young, it had nothing to do with my husband. So, uh, is that I, I, I didn’t know if I was in trouble ’cause I wasn’t around anybody. And so I… So I think the thing that I wish, not necessarily people would ask me, but I think that people could recognize, was that everything that I share is truly because I have done the work. Like, I have walked through it. Like, I have thought about it deeply, and I think that if, you know, if somebody were to ask me something, I think it would just be like something totally different from anything that we talk about. Do you know what I mean? , Like what do you, why do you love the ocean so much? I, I’m gonna cry. Like, why do you love the ocean so much? Like, I think … Well, that’s weird. That’s gonna make me cry, Joy. We’ll, we’ll cut that out. Um think you should cut it out. By the way, I’m I mean, your audience already knows you’re looking to move to the Yeah. proud of you for making that decision and doing that. It’s so brave of you. And, Yeah. um, you clearly, you clearly love it so much that it’s emotional for you. So I’m Yeah. for you to do that. And I think that, like, for a long time the ocean was, like … When I thought about the beach, and if people have listened to the podcast forever,, That– I, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you tear up, so I, I think Yeah. something you shouldn’t cut out because it’s real Yeah. Yeah. I, I’m so happy for you because, um, like you said the other day, you know, we were talking with, um, a group of women that, that were s- that was saying like, “Uh, just wish I could get on the other side of this. Like, I wish I could take out all of the middle ground, the hard stuff.” Yeah. you said something so profound, which was, you know, that’s going to be the stuff that makes you that next person. That– Going through that is going to yield, you know, the, the person that you’re growing to be. So sometimes you just have to go through those hard things first. It’s like getting forged, you know? It’s like pottery, is like you mold it and then you stick it in the fire, and it’s the fire that makes it so beautiful. And so yeah, I think that trying to cut out the middle or t- not trying to go through the hard stuff, I think, like you don’t have to know what it’s gonna be like to get… Like, how long is it gonna be? How bad is it gonna be? You don’t have to know. All you have to know is today. All you have to know is, like, this moment. Can I handle this moment? Okay, I’m good. I’m good. What about this moment? Okay, I’m good. Like, I think we get so far ahead of ourselves, but it’s such important work to, like, move through. And, you know, I could go into the whole woo-woo, which I love to do, , i- which is like y- you know, you were meant to come here and go through this. You were meant to, like, have this experience. And, you know, I have a belief that… And other people can believe differently, but I think,, if I hadn’t gone through this, like, thing where I, I believe leaving my former husband this last time, becoming the person that I needed to become, and then leaving, was my life’s journey. I know that sounds so weird, but, like, that was a huge part of my life’s journey, and I think, I think, I would have come back in some other reincarnation and had to do it again. And now I get to, like, graduate from it ’cause I freaking went through it, you know? And I was… And we always say in the program, with bravery and integrity. Like, how do we move forward things with bravery and integrity? And I feel like I was able to do that. Did I do everything perfect? No, but I tried really hard to be in integrity with, with… And clear, you know, in, in what I wanted. Yeah. this question. What’s Okay. favorite movie? Okay, so my favorite movie ever, when you first w- asked me this question, like when you mentioned it yesterday, I think, um, I al- I loved Elizabethtown years ago. I have ADHD. it. Yeah, it’s really good. But, but I have, like, ADHD, so, like, I don’t remem- if you told me to tell you what Elizabethtown was about, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I, I’ll leave a m- a movie and I’ll be like, “That was so good.” And then outside the theater someone could be like, “Tell me about it,” and I’ll be like, “I don’t know, but I was entertained.” You know? So, uh, so but I will say my favorite movie ever, and I could tell you all about it, is Everything Everywhere All at Once. And when I… I’ve seen this movie like three different times. Every time I’ve seen it I wanted so badly to talk to somebody about it, like, in depth. Like, everybody in my life, I was like, “You know, you need to see that movie. Can we talk about it?” But it is a movie about the, like, the unis- universe, like collective consciousness, basically. And you get to see every piece of your life all at once as if you had made every decision differently than you did, and you, in the end, still recognize that this life matters, that this, where you ended up, was exactly right. Even with all the other metaverses in the world that could’ve happened, where you are is exactly right. And there’s also a greater story about a mother and a daughter, and it’s about her having, the mother having to see the daughter in every other universe to see all the sides of her before she could really love her in this one. And I just think it’s so profound. It’s such a good, it’s such a good movie. And, like, it’s the kind of movie you watch it once and you’re like, “What the fuck just happened to me?” And then you gotta watch it again and, like, every time I’m on a airplane I’m like, “Oh, let me see if they have it on there.” It’s so good. You know what else was a really good movie? And I’ve watched it twice, and the second time it didn’t hit the same time as the first time. But it was called, um, Nine Days, I think it was called. And it was about these souls that are auditioning to get to have a life, and they want it so bad. Oh. Oh, wow. and it’s, it makes you go, “Oh my God, I’m so lucky to be here.” Like, I’m, this is so fucking cool that I get to be here. And hard stuff. They want hard stuff. Like, they don’t just want fun, great stuff. Like, they want the hard stuff, too. Like, it is the range of emotion that is, like, the biggest gift that we have, and I think we- Try and stay so far away from anything that feels, like, uncomfortable or bad, but it’s part of the gift, ’cause when you do that, then, m- you know, like I cry thinking about going to the beach. Like, I can’t even say it because I g- had the fucking bad, and now I get to have the good, and I can’t even stand it, I’m so excited. It’s happy tears. But I think we move away from hard, and, and I see this in the program too, and I get it. Of like, I don’t wanna go through this, it’s gonna be hard. And I say like, “Let it be. What’s gonna happen on the other end?” Like, what if it ends up great? Like, I have this sign in my bathroom, and it’s in my bathroom only because, um, I see it every day, but sometimes on the internet people are like, “Why is that in your bathroom?” But it says, um, what if it’s great? What if it’s great? Like, we are really good at catastrophizing, being like, “This is terrible. My kids are gonna suffer.” Like, well, what if it’s great? What if your kids get to see you do something totally different? What if they get to see a whole new side of you? What if they get to experience you in real love or their dad having real lo- like, what if it’s great? I just, I, like, let’s spend as much time there, you know? Yep. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So I just realized by your movies that I, um, may need to try some different movies out, ’cause I was thinking about Steel Magnolias, Parenthood, and yeah. Yeah, totally. You need to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeah. think, well, I’ve r- Is that a book? ‘Cause I think I might have read the book. Oh, I know. yeah. But it’s a movie, like Jamie Lee Curtis is in it, and it’s really good. Yeah, watch that for I sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, we’re, we’re getting to the bottom of these questions. You’ve done a great job. Uh, let’s Okay. I have one. Um, so are you open to dating? Oh, no. Why? I know, that was so fast, wasn’t it? Okay, so let’s tell the story about, like, the… Okay, so I wanna say this. I feel whole and complete, and I would w- and I, I’m gonna make sure I’m not telling myself a lie. I feel whole and complete. I don’t feel like I’m missing anybody. The idea of having somebody and finally having someone in my life that actually likes me, like, I don’t feel like I don’t, I don’t feel like I have been in relationships in the past where people even liked me. So, the idea of having somebody like me, that actually would feel really good to have somebody like me. , I think I have had to fight my own ageism and really look at that from my own perspective. When I look outside of myself, I see women in their 50s and 60s that are beautiful, and I think absolutely they deserve love. And then when I look at myself, I immediately go, “She’s too old. I’m too old. Nobody’s gonna wanna date me at 55.” Like, I’m, I have gray hair. I… Do you know what I mean? Like, I do the, a little of that. So with that said, it would have to be a… I am s- I have such a filter now. , I s- smell, like, red flags. , It would have to really be someone that’s really spectacular. If you ever hear, if anybody listening ever hears of me dating, just know that they are, like, the freaking bomb. And I have joked that I would only date somebody if they had a yacht, which was very safe here in Atlanta ’cause nobody has a yacht. But now I’m going to the beach, so I feel like my v- my v- Venn diagram of overlap could be different. So with that said, I think that, yeah, I think it would have to be somebody great. There was one day that Joy and I were talking and w- I was like, “We’re gonna… I’m gonna get on a dating app.” And I had applied for, um, Raya, which is like which is, , for celebrities basically. But I was like, “I have enough followers. I think I could get into Raya.” But I didn’t. I- they put me on a wait list. And so then I was like, “Well, it could be my age. It could also be my content.” Do you know what I mean? Like, my content is gonna fil- filter out a, a lot of guys that wouldn’t be the right match, and so I feel grateful for that. So what did I get on? , I don’t– Was it? Hinge. It I got on Hinge. Oh, okay. Yeah. I lasted 24 hours, Mm-hmm. I asked for my money back and got it. It was a I got… 24 It was a whirlwind 24 hours. I was just disgusted by every freaking question. I, the… Men tried to introduce intimacy so quickly, and I am, like, I have a super filter for that. , Oh my God, was that funny or what? oh my God. hours, but it was s- I mean, I, I’m, I don’t mean to say it was funny, but It was funny, yeah. Betsy called me, she’s like, “I’m out, I’m off of it.” Yeah. joined it.” It was like, I joined it that night, and I was like, I think I had a glass of wine, and I was like, “I’m gonna do it.” And then by the next morning, I was like, “Screw this.” And somebody asked me out, and I said yes, and I liked that they were decisive. They were like, “Meet me here.” And then when I said, “I can’t do that on a Friday at lunch. , I run a company. Like, I don’t know what you think I’m doing.” And they wanted me to drive 40 minutes to meet them for lunch at like a cafeteria. And, and, and they were like, “I don’t know. The app says it’s 20.” And so I was like, “Oh, are you calling me a freaking liar? Are you try-,” like, I… And I got in the shower, and I was angry because some man was telling me what to do or telling me who I was, and I was like, “Oh, I’m not… This isn’t for me., I’m just not there yet.” And I, I don’t, I don’t know that there’s more evolving that I have to do, but I definitely think I need to, um, I wanna say like relax a little bit, but also, no. , I sensed that as like a… There was a rhetorical pattern there, right? Of like, “You don’t know what you’re saying. I know the truth, and you can- you’re gonna do what I say,” even though he didn’t say it in that way. That’s the… , and he gave this emoji of the what? I don’t know. You know, like, huh? my God, wow. And so I just was like, “I’m not doing that. I’m not… I am not ever playing that out with somebody else,” of like, “You know better than me.” I know m- the most about my life than anybody else. Like, I know me, and, and I know that’s too far for me to drive because I do important things too, buddy. But I was so… I, I mean, you can even hear it in my voice now. , I just… So no, I’m not dating ’cause I don’t want to. like a quick answer, a quick Yeah. tell you that’s probably the right answer. I was on a podcast recently, an, an interview. It’s not live yet. But she asked me like what d- what’s dating like, and I was like, I, I, I was almost confused by the question ’cause I was like, well, I… And I was like, I, I, I don’t know. I, yeah, I j- I was like, “I don’t know.” Like, I don’t know. I don’t know. Ask somebody else, not me. I have an a- amazing life, and to fit somebody else into that life… And you know, I’m moving to the beach, and I’m going down next weekend to look for my apartment, and I decided I’m gonna rent for a little while till I figure it out. The people who have come out of the woodwork to be kind to me, to… And, and actually, when people are listening to this, I’m probably on a airplane. So have come out of the woodwork to be kind to me, to offer to bring me out. You know, my birthday, I’m gonna be there on my birthday. There’s people bringing me out on my birthday that I don’t know, that know me from the internet, you know? Um, it- that ha- offered to help me find pla- that videotaped, like- These, this is one place you’d might really like at the beach. And, , took so much time to help me. I- it was a lesson in, like, you deserve to have people be kind to you. It’s okay to let people help you. , It was a moment, you know, where I was like, “Okay, this is a lesson in, , let people love you,” you know? And so maybe I’ll get there, and this is, like, the first piece, you know? That’s awesome. I’m excited for you. And, too. you I’m excited for you to come down and visit. least expect it. I’m talking about if there’s Yeah. a, you know, Yeah. partner in your future, it will yeah. least And like, it, I think. yeah. And like I’m, I’m g- I think I, I am a great partner. Like, I think I’m a really good partner, so I just gotta find the really good partner to partner with that. , I’m not afraid to have hard conversations. I listen. I’m a- available for new ideas. I like to try new things., I will do the things you’re into, but, like, I need the reciprocal, you know? So I will wait until I find that. Also, the yacht. Awesome. Yes. Got that. Well, we’ve gone through, um, a lot of these. Yeah. And we’ve been talking for an hour, which we could talk for two hours. It’s fine. But, I know. yeah. Are we done with all the questions? There’s one more, , it’s if the podcast ended tomorrow and you never coached another woman, would you feel like you did what you came here to do? Oh, you know what’s so weird is even when you said that, I was like, “No.” Like, I, like this is such, like, my purpose. I don’t know that I’ll ever not do it. Do you know, like, sometimes I think about retiring. My sister just retired, and I’m like, “I can’t imagine not doing this.” , It’s just so much of how I think and who I am. , Okay, so wait, what’s the question? If I ever don’t do it, then If, is. To do? I came here to do. Yeah. Years ago, I had this mentor when I lived out in the suburbs, and I had this mentor in my life who, you know, would give all these examples of things he had done or worked with people on or… You know, when we were working together, he would say, like, “I had this client once who…” And I remember saying to him, like, “You’ve, uh, I can’t imagine, like, having such a big impact on everybody. , you’ve had such a big impact.” And he said, “Yeah, if I died tomorrow, I know I would have given more than I took, and that feels good to me.” I, I think that only recently, like maybe in the last year, have I started to recognize Mostly because women on the internet are so incredibly kind to me. But only recently have I started to realize how much of an impact even just the podcast has made, or those videos that I do on Instagram. A- and I wanna mention something about that. But those videos, I think, , people are so kind to tell me how much that impacted them and changed their life, and changed how they thought about themselves. And so I think I could safely say that I’ve given more than I’ve taken, and, and I don’t know that it needs to be that way. I don’t need to give more than I get. That, I’m open to that being more of both. D- does that make sense? , Mm-hmm. like, I, I am open to receiving, and I think maybe for a long time I wasn’t. We talked about this in the group the other day of like, how open are you to receive, and to receive help, and to receive? And I think that I was closed for a long time ’cause I had to be so hyper independent. But anyway, so I would say yes, I, I think I’ve done what I came here to do, and I wanna keep doing it ’cause I think there’s more. Yeah. That’s a great ending. I think you are a phenomenal asset to women. I think that watching and working with you and watching you do what you do Yeah. it’s amazing. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I’m grateful to do it, and I’m grateful that you were able to help me today with all these questions. Yeah, we Thanks, Joy. Our first it. official podcast. May th- may there be more. Thanks so much, Joy. You’re welcome. Have a great day. 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.

What if you were given a human being and that human was in your ‘custody’ would you do everything in your power to take good care of her? In this episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy emphasizes that loving yourself isn’t a feeling but an approach and a job, built through repetitive, practical daily acts. The custody and care of you is up to you, don’t hand that job off. Have a listen and allow the profound message in this podcast really sink in.

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 show Today. I saw something online this week. I saw something and I think it was kind of an old clip. It was something that Drew Barrymore shared. And , I wanna tell you about it and I wanna kind of talk about this. ’cause I’ve been thinking about it and it was like, weirdly not, she had somebody on the show that isn’t somebody that I’m almost embarrassed to say, I don’t even know who this guy is. I guess he’s an actor. I’m gonna say his name and then you’re gonna be like, how does Betsy not know that? But I don’t, , so I saw it and then I thought about it and then it was the kind of thing where I must have, it must have really. Hit something. ’cause I thought about it and woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Do you know what I mean? When you’re trying to put something in the appropriate bucket in your brain? So. I was scrolling and I came upon this clip that Drew Barrymoore shared from her show, and it was this guy named Matthew Hussy. . Hussy Hussy, I think. And he said. And I went back to watch the clip and I want, I’m gonna get it as close as I can. But what he said was, imagine that you got handed a human being at the beginning of your life and your one job, like the one job for the rest of your life is to take care of that human. And most of us don’t realize that that’s our job. So we finish being parented. And then we kind of walk out into the world looking for somebody else to show up for us. But the truth is, we are our human. The only person who is here to take care of me is me. And then he said she’s in my custody. The custody word, I think is the part that really stuck with me, you know? I have been thinking recently and , if you’ve been here for a while, you know, I was married for a long time and , decided to leave my marriage, I don’t know, maybe about five years ago. And then after a short period of time, six months or something like that, decided to come back, I had hope that maybe things could change or work out. And then after a couple years I realized that they weren’t, and I had the wisdom to leave. Fully. And one of the things that I have personally been grappling with, I guess you could say, is the idea that I don’t feel, and I bet many of you feel like this too, I don’t feel like any time in my life has there really been somebody that was. Looking out for me or taking care of me. There was, when I was young, when my mom died when I was 16, I think that shifted and I became hyper independent. I know so many of you are that same way. I know we are the same, but hyper independent, which I could go down a whole rabbit hole about why that is really appealing too. , People with different attachment styles really like hyper independence, but I always have been able to do everything on my own. I’ve always been able to, , pay my own bills and do my own thing and make my own decisions and all, all of these things. And I’ve been thinking recently. As I have been packing up a lot of my stuff, I’m gonna get ready to leave to move to the beach in August. So I still have a little bit of time here. , And there’s several really good reasons why I am delaying. I have a retreat that I wanna focus on and some other things I have to give 60 days notice at my apartment. And the timing just worked out really well to, to give it in July and to leave in Midaugust. So when I think about this, as I have been going through old papers and pictures and all of this stuff, I have really been thinking about , is there, is there ever, is there ever a moment where I’m going to meet someone who. I wanna say like wants to, wants, that’s, this is the ideal word, to take care of me. And I don’t think I’m, I know I’m not looking for somebody, I’m absolutely not looking for anybody right now. But I would like to be open to the idea that someday I would meet somebody who could really, truly meet me where I’m at. I’m no longer willing to. Bend or make accommodations for somebody, it has to be right. Okay. So I have been thinking this thought of like, is there gonna be somebody that could take care of me? And then I hear this, the only person who is here to take care of me is me. She is in my custody, and I wanna talk about what that word means because I’ve thought about it a lot. And what it means for women in the kind of decision that so many of you, I think are in, because if you have been following along on my Instagram or, or maybe just been here for a long time, like that decision of trying to figure out whether to stay or leave your marriage might be right, top of mind, right? And so that whole idea of. She is in my custody may land a little bit differently for you and I wanna walk through kind of the why. So, , here’s how I see this. Like the math kind of goes, like goes like this. If he would just see me, I would be okay if he would just do the work. I would be okay if the marriage would heal. Right then I could make this be okay. Or if he became the kind of man that I have been hoping he would become, then I could finally, ah, feel safe. I could finally like rest. Right, and I’m gonna guess that you’re a lot like me, but I don’t feel like I’ve ever really rested. I think when I was in high school, if I took a nap on the couch, somebody would be like, get productive. Do you know what I mean? Like I, is there ever gonna be a place where I can finally rest where my human, the one I’m supposed to be taken care of, would finally get taken care of? And I have been so good at that taking care of myself that even now when I say I wonder if there’s ever a time where I’m going to meet someone who would want, and this is such an important, who would want, this is the important part to take care of me. I don’t need to be taken care of, but I want somebody to want to. And underneath all that math of like, what I could be okay. I could, , I could rest, I could catch my breath underneath all that. I, don’t, I don’t even feel, and even when I look back on my own journey, I don’t feel like there is anger. It’s, maybe not even sadness, but it is exhaustion. It’s like, it feels like a kind of tired. Like where all your blood’s been drained outta your body, like in your bones. People say like bone, I’m bone tired. When you have been waiting for somebody to meet you or to come and pick you up, and they keep not coming or they keep saying, I’m coming, but they never do. And you just , keep adjusting. You keep telling yourself like, okay, maybe today, maybe he’ll hear me. Maybe this will be the time that they will finally understand maybe there’s like this one next conversation that’s gonna make all of this happen. Or a therapy they’re gonna decide to go to. I wanna say they, ’cause it could be a man, it could be a woman they will go to. Maybe it’s a new book. And the reason that you’re tired is not because the marriage is hard. I mean it, it’s likely really hard, but that is not why you’re tired. You’re tired because nobody has been minding you. Nobody’s been minding your shop. Not him, but not you either, because a long time ago. You handed that job over. So you know, when I heard Matthew Hussey say she’s in my custody, the word custody, it’s a legal word, right? It’s a very formal sounding word. It is the word that we use. I think when we’re talking about like deep responsibility. Right when we’re talking about whose responsibility a person actually is, like who’s on the hook? Like who’s gonna feed ’em and get ’em outta bed and keep them safe? And when I heard him say that, my brain went right to lawyers and courthouse. My former husband was an attorney. So like, I immediately was like, we think about. Custody arrangements or language that we use about children in divorce. And then I was kind of like, oh, I didn’t have children with my former husband that was an attorney. I had children with my other former husband because I’m very chic and I’ve had a couple. But that wording made me go, oh, I do have a human in my custody. I have her, like right here. I have me and she has been with me my whole life and I have been pretending that someone else was on the case, right? That someone else was gonna do this like that. If I could be paying attention to them, they would be paying attention to me. And I, I sat with that , for a long time because I was like, well, I don’t know. That feels nice. I would be paying attention to them and they would be paying attention to me. That feels really good to me. But the trick I think is knowing, and I thought about this for a long time and I thought about all the women that I work with, right? Women in this same exact place, maybe a place where you are. And I realized that this. Is what is sitting in the middle of every single clarity decision that I have ever sat with another woman in my program. Right? Is the, is it true that if I’m taking care of him and he’s taking care of me, everything will be okay? And that may be true, but the trick is to be partnered with someone who is doing the other side of that. Or to be able to take care of yourself first and give the overflow to someone else, and that feels a little bit more aligned when I start thinking about it and feeling through what is correct for me. What is correct for me? You decide what is correct for you because the truth is, and when I sit with so many women in this decision, is that they have done that side of it. The side of, I’m gonna take care of you, I’m gonna make sure you’re okay. And the house is okay, and the kids are okay, and the bills are paid and the lawnmower gets done, and the scheduling of the dentist appointments happen and the food is prepared and picked up from the grocery store and planned it. Like, I’m gonna do all of that. But then the other side is never happening. And if you’ve been waiting for him to take custody, maybe not consciously, maybe you would never use that word. I mean, that word stuck out to me, right? ’cause it’s not a word I would have used. But when you trace the thread of what it is that you’ve been hoping for, I think of that. Is actually what’s at the end of that rope, right at the end of that thread. And so if you have been hoping that if he changed you would be okay. You have been hoping that if the marriage got fixed, that your insides would settle down . You would have been hoping that if he just could see you finally the way you wanna be seen, that part of you that has been alone. For a really long time would not be alone anymore. And when I have been thinking about this over the last couple weeks, since I saw that last week or so, is that even if he became the absolute best possible version of himself, even if he did all the work, even if he showed up exactly the way that you have been asking. The job was still always yours. He cannot take custody. Even the best version of him can’t like custody is, yours. He can love you. He can show up, he can witness you, he can be a partner, but none of that is custody. Custody is the day-to-day work of keeping a human alive and well. And nobody can do that for you. Not because they don’t love you enough or love isn’t real or it’s fake or any of those things. Not because partnership is fake, but because that’s just how being a human being works. The job was assigned to you the day that you got here. And the part , that Matthew said that I lingered on. Also, and that I wanna talk about here is the part where I think kind of shift when we’re in pain. And he said, loving yourself is not a feeling. It’s an approach. It’s a job. So you don’t even have to like yourself today to love yourself. And I was like. You don’t have to like yourself today to love yourself today. And when you’re in a season of things, being really, really hard and loving yourself starts to depend on a feeling, then that’s where I think you’re like screwed. Because feelings change every day. They do not cooperate. I would love my feelings to cooperate. But they don’t always cooperate. And so then you’re in a season where you wake up and you don’t feel like the version of you that you used to be, and you wake up and you feel like you don’t like her, and you wake up and you feel like you don’t really recognize her anymore. Well, if loving her, if taking custody of her depends on you liking yourself first, then you’re never. Gonna choose her. You’re gonna wait for the day when you wake up and you feel confident. And that’s still , not how it works. I so wish that it was, I so wish that it was, I posted on Instagram yesterday about my process of cleaning out some bins that were in storage and going through the bins and finding these old pictures, I mean. Pictures from high school, pictures from college, not a lot of pictures from college, pictures from early in my twenties. A lot of those, and there was this version of me that was so hopeful that somebody would love her and pick up the pieces where somebody else had left off. And I think I waited in a lot of ways and I allowed. People that weren’t, well, first of all, they weren’t equipped for the job because that was me that was equipped for the job. But they, were waiting for somebody to take over, and I stepped in and did that, and that just depleted me even more. And so every morning when I woke up, of course I didn’t feel confident, of course, I didn’t feel like I liked me. I was exhausted and depleted. And that’s not. A flaw in me, in her, that version of me. It was just somebody that wanted to be loved. But that again, it’s an inside job and it’s a job you get to do, and it’s a job that requires you not to actually feel anything. I know that sounds weird, but you don’t have to feel like it. You know, we feed our kids even though we don’t feel like it. Right. There were so many days I wanted to be like ketchup packets for everybody, but people need to eat every damn day. I’m like, it’s never ending. You people always need to eat. We have custody. We do the thing that we need to do to take care of them, and you can still show up on a day where you don’t have faith in yourself. And I think that liking yourself. It shows up when you start showing her she’s important. It’s like a result of that job, not like a prerequisite for that job. And so when I was going through my storage bin and I was wondering like, when did this shift happen? I mean the grief I went through over those two weekends of going through those photos and yearbooks. You know, I, I think I, I was trying to figure out was there a moment, and I think it goes like this, right? You’re like a little girl. Your parents take care of you. You grow up, you learn what love looks like by watching them. , And then, you grow up a little more and then you leave home and then. That next chapter where you really step into your life and become an adult and a woman and , you, perhaps you partner. And in that partnering up, like in that marriage, somewhere in there, the job of taking care of you, transfers. And I think it’s baked into how we are culturally shaped. So it’s not something that. I think biologically now there’s maybe a piece of biological of taking care of somebody else, but not abandoning ourselves. It’s not a guidebook. Someone says, okay, so now here’s where you’re gonna abandon yourself. So you could have made the choice. It was just like baked into how we do things. So, you walk outta your parents’ house holding a human in your arms, and that human is yours. And the marriage is not the place where that human of yours gets handed off. The marriage is a place where you bring her with you, where she comes with you, ’cause she is yours. And I think what happens is a lot of times women, by the time they get to me, have been carrying around this, like, hope that someday somebody would notice the human in their arms and, and pick them up. You know that their husband or their partner or their wife, their career even like somebody, somebody finally take her so that they could rest. And that’s, I think, the part that makes clarity so freaking hard. It’s probably why we avoid it because we’re like, oh my God, , I allowed this, I, , and I. I am not taking him off the hook or her off the hook. Trust me, I’m, I’m just saying there is a point where we can stop and if we haven’t stopped it, then there’s something else. part of getting clear is realizing that the someone who is supposed to take care of her was never going to, if it wasn’t you. ’cause the job wasn’t his, the job wasn’t your partner’s, it was yours. Okay, so let’s just assume that we’re all on the same page here. The custody of you is you and you’ve gotta take care of her first, and then the overflow can go to everybody else. And that is not what we’re taught and that is not what we’re modeled. So now here you are with this job on your hands that you’re like, I don’t know how to do this really. , Sometimes I see these posts like on Instagram where it’s like self-care and it’s like someone getting a pedicure or whatever. No shame to that. I do that when I have a in, but it’s not just, , manicures and bubble baths. Like sometimes it has those things for sure. But that is not the work. The work is actually a whole lot more boring than that. The work is these little questions. You know, inside Instagram, when I do those talking reels, I always say, this is your North Star. That’s the work, like that’s the job. And I think it can start out with really small things like, did I feed her well today? Did I let her sleep last night? Did I move her body like even a little bit? Did I take her for a walk? Did I get sunlight and fresh air? Did I let her say the thing that she actually thinks today? Or did I make her jump around and perform? Did I keep her around? People who drained her? Did I tell her not to cry when she needed to? Did I let her say no to something like that’s, the work. That’s the job. It’s small, it’s boring. It’s very, very repetitive. I think it’s very much like taking care of a child that you love and most of taking care of a child that you love is not like the birthday parties and the special things at school. It’s the. 8,000 million peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or the laundry or the reading, the QuickBook at bedtime, right? It’s just showing up for them. And the job of being your own custodian I think is the same. It’s these small little acts of showing up for the human that’s in your custody. You know, last month I got my teeth cleaned. And I don’t know why our insurance doesn’t cover the bones in our teeth. Those teeth bones are different, but last year I spent probably about $7,000 on my teeth. I’ve mentioned this before. I had to get my teeth cleaned twice. I had to get some x-rays. I needed a crown. I had two cavities that needed to be replaced from my youth and I got Invisalign and then I had to get a retainer and all of that added up. Even as I say it, it was likely more than, it was a lot of money. It was a lot of money. It was, that was my investment in myself last year and when I went to get my teeth cleaned last month, they no longer had like the in-house. Insurance. It was like 350 bucks and that covered two of your cleanings and your x-rays and they didn’t have that. And so when I went to check out, I said, well, I wanna renew my insurance. And they said, oh, we don’t do that anymore. It’s 600 bucks. But they didn’t tell me before. And at first I was like annoyed. I’m still probably a little annoyed. I would have done it anyway. But to have known would have been nice. But the job of being my own custodian would have been the same. I take care of my teeth because that is what she requires, and it is boring and it’s annoying ’cause that costs more money than I wanted. No, pedicures are manicures for me this month. And so I wanna say, this. If you cannot answer yes to a lot of those questions that I just asked. Like, do you let her sleep? Do you let her rest? Do you bring her for a walk? Do you let her get sunlight? I, I want to, to say, if you cannot say yes to those, it’s not a sign that you’re a bad person. It’s just a sign that you need to take the job back. It’s like the moment of recognition that you wake up and you go, oh, that, that job has been mine. And there is the practical side of dentist appointments and mammograms, and there is the other side of the small daily repetitive, boring things that we have to do to take custody of ourselves. And when we do that and we show ourselves that she is valuable, that she is worthy of investment, that she’s worthy of taking care of, then I think it’s easier to start to put her first and give the overflow to everyone else and there will be enough overflow. That may be the question in the back of your mind. If you are such a good custodian, there will be overflow. And then everyone flourishes. Nobody is depleted. And so if you’re sitting in this question of like, do I stay or do I go right? , The question that’s in your head typically is gonna be something like, but he’s a good guy. Is he good? , Is he bad? He’s not bad. I’m like, does he love me? Uh, I don’t,, I don’t know. I is, did I do enough? Is he enough? Is he gonna change? Am I being fair? Am I being too harsh? Am I too hard on him? Maybe I want something more than I need, like maybe I’m asking for too much. Maybe I should just be happy. He’s a good provider, right? I hear this all the time. So the conversation is about him. It’s always about him. So I wanna give you a different question. Take the question away from him. The question is, in the marriage that you currently have, is your human getting taken care of? Not by him, by you? Are you allowing yourself to be your own custodian inside this house? That’s the question. It’s not. Is he a good husband? It’s not. Is he trying? It’s not, does he love you? Those questions can come later, but the question in the room that you currently live in is, can you do the job that is yours? Can you feed her? Let her sleep in, take her out, get her some fresh air and a sunshine on her face. Let her cry. Can you keep her around? People who do not drain her now? In some marriages and I this last month, we’ve had several people come through the Navigate method that their marriage has really been renewed. It’s so awesome to see. And when they shifted to them, the answer was yes. The marriage is not the problem with custody. You can do your job and he can be his own person, and then you both function as humans next to each other in other marriages, the answer is no. When you start taking care of yourself, then you see that the answer is no, not because he’s a bad person, but because the structure of the marriage as it currently is, keeps you from taking care of yourself. So she can’t speak, she can’t rest. She can’t stay, no, she can’t be in the room as herself. And so it’s not necessarily that he’s a villain or you have to decide if he’s a good guy or a bad guy. It’s is the human that you have custody of safe in your custody. That’s the question. So the good news here, I think, is that the job that you have been given of being the custodian has always been doable. You can do it. You can do it even on days where you don’t feel like yourself, even on days where you’re exhausted, even on days where you just don’t feel like it. But you can wake up tomorrow and ask yourself the one question, which is, what would I do today if I was actually taking care of my human? And then do that one thing. And then the next day ask it again, and then the next day and the next day, until the woman that you have been waiting for somebody else to take care of, starts to recognize that she is finally home, that she has been picked up by you. And I think that is how you live a big life. Thanks so much for being here with me. I will see you all next week. i. Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.

In this week’s episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy reminds us that we can become the version of ourselves that we need at that moment. How we do one thing is how we can do everything. We have the power within us to navigate bad news and hard times as well as the power to make decisions that will move our lives in the direction we want to go little by little. Take a listen and remember that the next step you take, you are ready for because it’s all yours.

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 everybody. Welcome to the show today. I’m excited. I’ve got all these little like updates that I wanna give you. Um, and I swear when I do this show the, the leaf blower lawn men do not come until I start this recording. So we’ll see. I can see them out there, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna hope for the best. Okay? Okay. Quickly before we get started, if you have seen, we have launched. A retreat in Belize in July. It is going to be. Really amazing. It’s called The Reimagined Life. And we are gonna move through creating a whole blueprint for you and how you really want to live your life. And so we’ve got workshops like twice a day, but the then the like in the morning and the evening, and then the whole day is full of snorkeling and laying in the sun and chatting and processing and journaling. And then in the end you move forward with. A blueprint for how you wanna move through the rest of the year, the rest of your life. So. Join me. We filled up really quickly. There’s only like, like half the spots are full already, so if you would like to come, please don’t delay. If you have questions, email us at [email protected]. I will jump on the phone with you and answer any questions and see if it’s a good fit. I think it’s gonna be so fun and some of the ladies that are in already are. Women that I know from my program, some of them are people that I don’t know, and I’m so excited about that and I’m excited for them because I know they’re gonna make all kinds of besties in there. So, um, you can find the link to it in my Instagram profile, or you can go to my website under live events. You’ll see it there, but it’s gonna be at this really beautiful resort. And I heard that the snorkeling there is like snorkeling in a fish tank. Like it’s amazing. So. Please join me if you would like. All right. This week I went with a friend to a fashion show that was a fundraiser for Cancer Research and this center here in Atlanta. And, you know, I thought it was, it, it was so moving. Honestly, it, it, it, I was so honored to be invited and to be with her and her friends and to, you know, get, to get to experience the whole day. And the thing that I kept thinking when I was watching the fashion show, because it was caregivers, doctors and nurses, and it was women who had been through their cancer journey and it was family members and they were all modeling these really beautiful clothes from local boutiques, and it was really fun for that. Also my little, my little aggression, my microaggression towards the patriarchy was to call all of the men with the, they, they would carry a white rose if they were a, a caregiver. And if they were a man, I, I assumed they were nurses. And if they were a woman, I assumed they were the oncologists. And that was kind of fun to be like, oh, I wonder what kind of nurse he is. So. I’m watching this thing and I’m watching these women and I, it’s, it’s really so moving. ’cause you’re like, how do you move through something so big? Right? Like, how do you get presented with that? And so many of them were like, I had no idea this came out of the blue. Like, I wasn’t expecting this. And you know, I think with a lot of big things in our lives we’re, we’re just not expecting it. And so we can’t be prepared. For things. We can’t be prepared for everything. And what I started thinking about when I was watching them is, you know, of course like we go to like, oh my God, what would I do? What would I think, you know, who would I call? What would happen? And I realized that the women that were walking down the runway were likely different women that were told. That they had the diagnosis and that they didn’t have to be that final version of them in the beginning, it was going through the process that made them that way. Now, nobody wants to go through that journey in order to grow or to become a a, a, A D, I wanna say a different or improved version. I don’t know. Uh, that’s a subjective thing. But I think with all of our journeys, and you know, so many of you listen and follow me because you’re struggling in your marriage, but the version of you who has a clear decision, who knows the path she’s gonna take, who’s walking that path, isn’t the version of you that listens here today. And that’s by design. You’re not supposed to be. So it’s okay if it feels really scary. It’s okay if it feels like you can’t do it. It’s okay if it feels like overwhelming. How would I figure this out? Because you only have to figure out the thing that’s right in front of you and then you begin to become the kind of person who is able to walk through the journey. And I wanted to share that ’cause I just was thinking about it. I mean, the lens that I see the world right, is through this work in so many ways. And I thought it was just like such a beautiful example of, of victory, you know, on the other side of that. And it was really cool. Anyway, I was honored to be there. It was, it was great. You know, my birthday’s coming up. I, I’m about to be 55, I gotta say. I remember on my 50th birthday, I remember I brought myself to the beach. Yeah, my former husband went with me, but I planned it. I paid for it, luckily, and went to the beach. And I remember sitting by the beach going like, I am not gonna do my fifties like this. I, I’ve never been as miserable on a birthday as that birthday. And I was at the beach, which is like my favorite place ever. And I have a picture of me like just pulling the. My hoodie down over my face because I was crying. I don’t know that anybody noticed, but I noticed it was so miserable. And this year I’m going to the beach on my birthday to look for my beach house, and that is really fricking cool. And so we get to make a choice. We get to notice it’s okay to be in the crap because then we get to make a totally different decision. And we get to become the person who can make that decision. So I’m gonna be going down to Florida, actually. And if you listen to my episode, several, maybe like a month ago about how to make big decisions and I was talking about making this big decision and I felt so strongly, it’s California. California is the thing, and I feel a little differently now. I have done a hella research over the last month. I got really into the research so much that it began to get paralyzing because here’s what I teach, is that you can’t make pros and cons lists. And then what did I do? So I was like, let’s make a pros and cons list. Let’s figure it out. And you know, I recognize that in every decision, and even with the women that I work with inside the Navigate Method, there are. Practical decisions that also need to be made. So the decision from your gut and the practical choices that surround that. And I’ll be honest, I did my Q1 taxes for my business and we had a huge tax bill, which was great. I, you know, very proud. I saved the money every month, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, although it’s always painful and. I put, I figured out like what the, you know, looked at the p and l and if I was in California, what that tax bill would be. And that was for one quarter. And then if I multiplied that by four quarters for a year, and that’s just on my business. And then to be practical, I’m 55 years old. I’m not 30 where I have room for a lot of, you know. Mistakes, I guess, or, uh, I, I have room for mistakes, but, but the, the trajectory is shorter for me to retirement, right? So I wanted to pay attention to those that felt in alignment to pay attention to that. And so then I started down this rabbit hole of Florida and where in Florida. And when I tell you you can go on YouTube and you can find a walking tour of every city you can find apartment. Um, walkthroughs, home walkthroughs. I mean, you could real estate shop, like you could do all the things from YouTube. It’s, it’s pretty amazing. And so I went up and down the coasts and, um, you know, my aunt lives in Sarasota. It. She’s only there part of the year and then it gets too cold. So she goes to Puerto Rico to her place in Puerto Rico. But I, you know, there is somebody there, right? So like. My dad would likely come down. He would see his sister. I would be able to see him. Like there was things about it. I have several friends that live in the Tampa area area, Sarasota area. There’s a huge airport there, which I, it was important to me. I want to be close enough to the water and be able to afford to be on the water. Like that feels in alignment to me. So I started doing all this recon, like paralyzing amount of recon. I cleaned out my little, I had like a little storage closet. With some things I had put in there and totally cleaned that out, narrowed everything down. I got my whole life into one bucket, you guys? One bin. One bin. And then I just kind of got where I was like, you know what? There’s things I really love about Atlanta, where I live, there’s things I’m gonna really miss. And I started noticing when I would make plans or I’d hear from a friend, I’d be like, oh, I’d really miss that. And so then I thought. You know what? I think what I’ll do is I’m gonna just buy a little condo in Midtown in Atlanta, and then I’ll just snowbird. I’ll spend my winters in different beaches. I’ll go to California one year. I’ll go to Florida one year, and I’ll just start checking it out. And I told my sister. And my sister said, but would you? But would you, or would you just sit in your condo in Midtown and wish you had taken the leap? And I was like, oh, you shut your mouth. You shut your mouth. It was so true. It was so true. So I decided to give my notice at my apartment, move late this summer after the trip to Belize, and I’m going down to find a place to live on my birthday on year 55. So we always have an opportunity to. Feel what we’re feeling and to be unhappy with where we are and to make a new choice. And to make a new choice. And I started thinking over the last couple days, like how with this new version of me, right, the version of me that walks the runway and is like through the storm and is now choosing my life, is this in big decisions? And small decisions, or am I just doing this with like big decisions because my life is in the tiny things that I do all the time. Now I’m gonna tell you a very silly, silly, silly story, but I wanna just illustrate what I mean. So when I moved into my apartment, I bought. A very well fancy for me, a very fancy espresso machine. I wanted to create a new ritual for my mornings. Okay? So I wanted to have like something different that I did. I wanted to have, and bear with me here when I say this word, but I wanted to have a hobby. Like I wanted to really understand coffee and I wanted to order. From private roasters, small roasters all over the country. So every month I get different beans from a different small roaster somewhere in the country, and I wanted to like really get into coffee. It felt really fun and it gave me something different to start my day so that I wasn’t thinking about what I would have done or how I missed my dog or, you know, any of those things that I, that I lost in, in the separation. And so. I, I got this coffee maker and, and, and had to get a grinder for my beans. Okay. So I bought a grinder. It wasn’t cheap. I don’t know if I’m just really cheap, but I was like, it was a couple hundred bucks for this grinder, you know? And it was great. It made great coffee. I was, I was pumped. And then last week it died. It like completely died and I’m like, I’ve only had it like, not even 18 months, you know, 18 months, 20 months. I don’t know. I just was like, why is this dead already? I did a little Google search and found out that that isn’t really a, a grinder that you can use every single day, and I used it multiple times a day and lots of times my kid would come over and I’d make coffee for them and so it was getting used a lot and you know, a good grinder. Slices the beans instead of crushes the beans. And that’s what makes it better. ’cause it makes the water flow food better. Anyway, the whole thing just jammed up. Like it just was going tick, tick. And it wasn’t, and it wasn’t gr nothing was coming out. I tried to fix it. I ordered parts. I mean, I did the things. And then I thought, you know what? For my 55th birthday, I likely am not gonna get anything. My dad might send me flowers or something. He’s very sweet. But I was like, I’m likely not gonna get anything, so I’m gonna buy myself something. I’m gonna buy myself a fancy grinder, but I’m gonna get a grinder. That’s. Gonna last more than a year, I’m gonna get a grinder. That’s like a substantial piece of equipment that I’m gonna have for 10 years. I know this sounds, I don’t have a lot of, I don’t have a lot of things that I do, but I was like, I want a really nice grinder. And so I found the kind of grinder that I wanted, and Eureka, I think was the brand anyway, they had it in Chrome. They had it in this like enamel white, that was really pretty. And they had it in Ferrari Red, it’s Italian. It was Ferrari red is what it was called. And I was like, oh, I want the, I want the Ferrari red. Like I, as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh my God. And then I thought, that doesn’t go in my kitchen. Which I live in an apartment. My kitchen can be anything I want. But I was like, that doesn’t really go. And I was like, I don’t know. And then I think I put it unconsciously through a filter of what other people would think if they came over. Now hardly nobody comes over. Gosh, why is that my filter? Because that was the filter I was handed as a young person, right? So I put it through the filter of like, well, what will people think? It doesn’t match. It doesn’t go, I got this like weird red appliance in my. Coffee bar, you know. No, I wanna pause ’cause I wanna say I get that this is insignificant. Like I get that this isn’t, you know, uh, some big catastrophe. I just am saying in the small things. In the small things. And so I put my hand on my heart and do what I tell people to do and I, and I just really breathed into it. And if it was just me. What do I want? And right off I was like, I want the red one. I want the red one. And so that’s what I ordered. It wasn’t the safe option, it wasn’t the option that goes with anything. It wasn’t the option that maybe made the most sense. Like if I buy a place at the beach, do I really don’t? I want neutral appliances, or chrome or white is so cool. No, I want the red, I want the Ferrari red. That’s what I want. I want Ferrari red. And so that’s what I ordered and I found a small distributor in upstate New York to buy it from and then didn’t buy it on Amazon. And so that felt really good to, to give my, my money to a small business. So when I talk about like these big things like moving to the beach and like where do I go and how do I. Distinguish between what I want and what’s the right thing. You know, I’m using air quotes, or if I wanna make a change in my relationship or my marriage, or whatever those things are for you. How you do one thing is how you do everything. And I was like, I have to really pay attention if I want to build a life that is fully mine, that fully embraces the me in all of this. Then I have to pay attention to the little things too until it becomes second nature to just choose what I want and move forward. So that’s the story of my Ferrari coffee bean grinder. I’ll post it on Instagram if you follow along over there. I will. I will make sure to let you know if you wanna know how to do this like this, like deep work of like, how do I know what I really want? I have a, a, a path for that. Like if you go to my website, it’s called the Bridge. You can comment on anything, like on my Instagram or whatever. Just put Bridge and it’ll send you a link to it. But if you go to my website under, I think it’s like work with me, it’ll say the bridge and the bridge is like six chapters to move you towards this deep inner knowing about six different chapters of your life. And so I ask like there’s a little audio to listen to, kinda like a little mini podcast. I have a little. Process for you to do. And then you’re gonna take what you learned one sentence and you’re gonna move it to something I call the honesty map. And then you’re gonna fill out your whole honesty map, and at the end, you’re gonna be able to create a little declaration for yourself and about where you are. So check out the bridge if that. If that appeals to you, but definitely check out my Ferrari red coffee grinder. I think it comes next week, so I will post about it. Um, and yeah, thank you so much for being here today. I know this was like a short little catch up with all the things I wanted to tell you, but those are the things that I wanted to tell you. All right, have an amazing week. I will hopefully see you in Belize and if not, I’ll see you next week. Alright, 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.

Oh WOW, this one hits different for sure. In this episode, there are many ah-ha moments as Betsy outlines three signs to watch for when your partner promises change. Is it performance change, or real transformation? This podcast will leave you with the clarity you have been craving. You may even want to take notes during this one!

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 show today. Our trip to Belize has been finalized, so if you heard me on last week’s episode, talk about this retreat that I’m doing the Reimagined Life in Belize this July. It’s the 23rd to the 27th, please join me. There is a link, on my website. In the header bar if you go to live, and I’m posting about it every day on Instagram. I think we got, we opened yesterday afternoon and we’ve already got a really great group of women coming, so I am so excited. I’m like thrilled. This is gonna be just really so much fun. And we had our first live coffee here in Atlanta, and that was so fun to see everybody. I was planning on going to California in May, and I was gonna do one of these in May, and then my trip got changed. But we are still looking at all of these and, and trying to plan. Times to go. And also, and also why is the airlines, the flights are so expensive ’cause of gas. It’s so exhausting. I remember years ago when I took that trip to Iceland, I flew from Atlanta to London and it literally was like. 30,000 delta points, what would translates to like 500 bucks. Now it’s like 1500 bucks. , It’s just so sad. And so to kind of circle back to Belize, I know that if you come to Belize, I know that it is a challenge and I’m gonna show up for you. There’s still, I think, one spot left, maybe not by the time you hear this, but maybe, , for the VIP swag bags, so, you know, get in there and who knows it. Maybe all the early people that get in right away will get a swag bag like that. So we’re working on all that stuff in the background here too. So today though, what I really wanted to talk about was this thing that I have posted about online. And it’s something that people ask me about all the time. It is something that many women have seen me post about. And so when they have seen that particular post is when they decide to investigate working with me. And then they go through the whole program. And then when it happens to them, I think they’re like, oh my God, what? What is this? And I’ll tell you, it. It is a really, really hard thing when you have been working so hard and fighting for your marriage and not feeling as if you are heard to then get to the heart wrenching decision that you can no longer stay intact as a human in this relationship. To then decide to leave, to ultimately save yourself, and then to have your partner go, Hey, I’m gonna do the work. And so I wanna talk about that moment because it is something that I have a lot of thoughts about. And also, even as I go to talk about it, I wanna preface, and this is something I say inside my program all the time. Is that there is no right answer here. It’s just about what’s right for you and honestly, what’s right for you today may not be the same thing that’s right for you six months from now, , or two years from now, and you’re allowed to move through things and change your mind and lean into hope and get your bearings and make a decision. Like all of those things are really, really valid. And so even as I say all this, I just wanna say there’s no right decision, and I am certainly not coming here telling you what to do because if I knew what to do, then I would be, I don’t know, sucking on a pina colada somewhere in, in the deep Caribbean. But my point is that if I knew what to do. Then that would have made my whole journey easier. I was in indecision too. So I understand deeply this place, and I think that this place of indecision has value. I know that sounds so crazy, but I think there’s something to learn in every single part of our lives. And so I wanna talk about this and I wanna talk about this specific moment where you get to the place where you decide you wanna leave. So first of all, I wanna talk about. What is historically what I have seen and what I have experienced in my own life experience of what happens before you get to this moment. Now, I believe you can choose to believe differently, but I believe that women will stay long after it has fizzled out for them because they want to have. A partner, . They wanna have a partnership. They wanna have a life that they had hoped and dreamed about. , When women get married, we want this vision. We, have an idea of what partnership will be, what it’ll be like to possibly raise kids with that person. What our vacations will be like and how we’ll make joint decisions and what all of those components of building a life with somebody actually entail. And when those things are never realized, I truly believe women. I’m using a lot of blanket statements here. I get that. So if you’re a man listening, this can go both ways. , I work with women, whether they’re married to a man or a woman. So I’m just talking from a woman’s perspective here. I believe that women will just try to make things work and they will try. If the vision that they had doesn’t work, they’ll try to adapt to a new vision. I don’t believe that it’s that women only want their way or the highway. I really believe it’s that they’re trying to navigate, well, what does this mean? And when there’s communication issues or when hard decisions are being avoided, or when they as human beings aren’t being seen and met. It becomes this really confusing swirl of, I don’t know what to picture from here, because this isn’t, not only not what I imagined, but it’s also not clear what it is. And I think that moment for a lot of women is where the indecision and the circular thinking about it sets in. Because they can’t make a decision to stay or go when they don’t fully understand what they have. Some moments he meets them where they’re at some moments he doesn’t he’ll, ask for what they’ll need and he’ll say that he’s going to do it and then never does. So that confusion starts to really set in. And so, , the men in my comments sometimes get really angry with this particular post. Because of their own experience with it. But I believe that when you get to this moment where the woman says she’s gonna leave, there is a whole lifetime of work and exhaustion and pleading and trying and adapting that happens before they ever get to that place. And so when they get to that place. It is really a moment where they’re throwing their hands up and saying , I don’t know what else to do from here. And I believe it is a moment where their life force energy is rising up and saying, I will not be lost in this. I cannot be lost in this. And I think the women that really get to the place where they are grasping for their own air in this. And so now here you are. You have been through it trying to get him to hear you and step up and do things differently and become a partner. Even if it’s not the partnership you had in mind. You are willing to adapt and to discover and to create something different, but you never get any clarity or any communication. To tell you what this is, and now you’re taking your one last big deep breath of air before you feel like you just will drown and you say, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve decided that this marriage no longer works for me anymore. And what I see so often in my program is, there’s a moment he maybe takes a beat, maybe he gets mad, maybe he just ignores you. But what I have found in the program is that there is always a pause of some sort, and then it sort of settles. And as it settles, he begins to understand that his experience is about to change. And when that awareness happens, when he recognizes that you are no longer willing. To just keep doing things the way that you had been. Then he wants to show up differently. He wants to talk. He wants to go to therapy. He’s reading the books. He’s saying all the things. Maybe he’s even crying, which you haven’t seen maybe in years. He’s asking you what is it that you need, and he’s telling you that he’s willing to do it. , He will do anything. He’s telling you I am changing. Like it’s been three days. And he’s like, I am changing. , I’m looking at this book, I’m reading this, listening to this podcast. I’m whatever. He’s just telling you to give him a chance.. And so what I wanna talk about today is what, that is what happens inside you when that happens, and how to tell the difference between. Real change and , the same kind of pattern, maybe showing up a little bit differently. And I think most importantly, how do you hold onto what you know to be true without turning into a shell of yourself trying to do it right? Because I think that’s the trap, right? Like in order to protect yourself and your clarity, you think, okay, well I’ve got. Get hard, like I’ve got a armor up here. And so you think that you, need to stop feeling stuff because it is a shell shock. It’s like you got whiplash from it. And so what I wanna talk about is how to move through that whiplash and finding where it is that you really need to go. So I wanna talk about what is actually happening. Inside your body when this change happens, right? When he says this is gonna happen, and when he says, I’m already changing, I’m already doing the work. And maybe he’s learning some words, right? He’s learning some new vocabulary words that make it sound like hopeful and that maybe it’s true and. So that version of him, , that’s showing up. Now, this engaged version, the one who wants you to know, the one who wants to listen, right? And the one who wants you to know he’s changing that version, is the version that you have likely been asking for years, maybe decades, , depending on how long you’ve been doing this. And your nervous system does not know what to do with this. So when I say nervous system, if you’re newer here or not, in my circle in my world, our nervous system, what do we see? What do we hear? What do we smell? What do we like? These are all the ways that my nervous system takes in information and inside my body it’s how I’m processing what’s happening. So I’ve got like cognitively what I’m thinking about it, , Ooh, this sounds like everything but what’s happening inside my nervous system. So your body remembers. Every single time that you begged him to, listen, right? Every conversation where you tried to explain yourself or, , felt defeated and, cried about it every moment that you made yourself smaller. And when I say smaller, I mean like where you realized that asking for something. Was met with avoidance and so you learned to not ask, but instead to just internally turn inward and just get tiny so that the relationship could keep working. And every time that you told yourself, , maybe it’ll change maybe after the holidays or , maybe we can work on this after the kids’ graduation, or once this project at work settles down, or whatever it is. And now you have gone come to this painstaking decision and now he’s here doing the thing. So , , it scrambles you, right? Internally? Of course it does, because one part of you, the part that was holding on for years is going like, oh my God. He’s finally, he finally gets it. He finally sees me. And then there’s this other part of you that, finally was able to stop holding on it. Like grasping for air is going. , Wait, I, just put this down like I finally made a decision and put this down. And you are caught between those two things. And this is like your whole history colliding and, dealing with this new present reality. And honestly, it feels terrible. It feels terrible, and I don’t think that. The person, the partner who is all of the sudden showing up recognizes how terrible it is. I don’t know how they could, , because if they had been ignoring you for so long, then how could they just suddenly understand? And if they truly understood, then they would know how terrible it felt and they would stop asking you to do something that you’d finally decided to do. So. The question , that I want you to sit with in this whole thing is like, why? Why? Why is it now? Why now? Because the things that you are leaving over have been there for a long time. You’ve been saying them, you’ve been asking him to change or her to change. You’ve been signaling it right? In a lot of different ways. So why are they showing up now? And there’s a version of this that I think can be true, absolutely can be true, which is like they finally heard you, they finally get how severe this is, and that is possible. , There’s the version where maybe they finally did it, understood it, or there’s a version where they finally felt consequences to what they were doing. And those are different sides of the stick because when someone changes because they heard you, that’s change coming from them seeing you. When someone changes because they heard you, that’s change coming from them seeing you. When someone changes because they felt consequences. That’s change coming from them feeling the loss of what you provide. And you have to be honest with yourself about which one this is, because one of them is a response to fear and one of them is real change that you can actually work with. One of them deserves hope and one of ’em is the same pattern, running in a different way. A response to fear lasts until the fear goes away, which, happens the moment you decide to stay or they feel safe enough that you’re going to stay, that you’re not going to leave. And so when you think about this, you have to get honest with yourself about what is he actually responding to. Is he responding to you like the whole you, the, you that maybe he hasn’t really. Paused to look at in years? Or is he responding to the possibility of losing his life as he knows it? And those look the same from the outside, right? The words are the same. The going to the podcast and going to the therapy and finally getting a coach and doing all that. All of that looks the same, but they’re coming from completely different places and they go in completely different directions. So. I wanna talk about how to actually tell the difference, but I also wanna, interject this thought too as I’ve been talking. You know, when we think about values, like what’s important to me, what’s important to me about a relationship, what’s important to me about a friendship, what’s important to me about work, what’s important to me about any of the number of things that I do in the world? Those are my values. Now, if I had a, friend, even a coworker that came to me and said, what you are doing is really upsetting me, I would pause and I would say, help me understand because I don’t wanna upset you. Now, if it was a partner, absolutely I would stop everything that is in my value system. I would be like, wait, what? That’s not how I’m gonna move forward. And if your partner didn’t do that, that’s a difference in values. And a difference in values is a whole lot different than we just like different things for dinner. This is like. How we actually operate and how we experience the world is different. Okay, so now how can you tell if this is like a real change? So I’m gonna give you a couple things to watch for, not to analyze him. I don’t want you putting him or her on trial. I just wanna give you something to look at when your nervous system gets this overload and you are like, I don’t know what to think. Okay, so number one is that real change is actually slow. Real change is slow. , If inside two weeks he has become a totally different man, like that is not change. That is the performance of change. Performance of change is really fast. Real change in a human being, especially around patterns that are decades old, don’t happen in two days or two weeks. It doesn’t even happen in a month. It happens over a long time, and it has a lot of, I’m gonna say like reflection or ugly, messy parts. Right. There’s like, this is what I want to accomplish. This is what I’m trying to figure out. I’m trying to understand myself and why I do this. Oh my gosh, did I do it again? Tell me how that felt to you. This is what I’m thinking about. This is what I’m afraid of, like there are backslides, there’s discomfort on their side about who they used to be. Like they get a, a realization. Of the pain that their behavior has caused. Right now, so many women in my program say, but I get it. Like his family was, you know, he had the, it’s okay, you can understand it, and his behavior can still cause real harm. And if he thinks he’s changed in two days, because you said you’re gonna leave, that is performance change. And so if what you’re seeing is super. Smooth, , super polished. I want you to pay attention to that. Okay. So real transformation with a person that’s really wrestling with their behavior. And, and, and potentially being embarrassed of themselves, of getting it wrong. Like that person is showing up much differently than someone that’s like, Hey, I’m doing the work. I know I’m a Apex man. Or whatever the, the bro podcast say. Okay. So number two is, and this one is, this one’s tricky. Okay. But number two is that real change isn’t about you. It’s not about you. It when he is doing the changing to accommodate you, to make you happy, to get you to notice how he’s doing things. If every gesture is aimed at you right when he’s doing it, to get you to change your mind. When every single thing is about how he’s going to be different for you, that likely isn’t change. It’s just a more, I’m gonna, I’m gonna say like sophisticated reason or sophisticated version maybe of making you responsible for him. Right. Now you are responsible for his behavior instead of him being responsible for his behavior. Real change when someone actually is doing the work, it includes them going and getting themselves help. That has nothing to do with you, right? It’s not a. It’s not you guys sitting down and just talking about stuff. It’s him working on his own stuff, his own shame, his own patterns. Just like you have likely done, right? This is why you’re listening to this show, stuff that has its own separate life outside of your marriage, because if the entire project of him changing is happening because of you, then it’s all aimed at you and the minute you are not there, or the minute. That project stops then it’s not his, it’s yours, and then you are still carrying it. But just in a different way. Just in a different way. And I have often thought when I hear the stories and my own lived experience, like if you really understood what you’ve done, you wouldn’t be asking me to do anything different than what I’m doing. Okay? So number three is that real change doesn’t pressure you. In your decision. Right. Just what I just said. This is, this one is, big and I think sometimes confusing, right? Real change looks like him saying like, oh my God, I’m getting it. And I understand why you have decided what you’ve decided. And I’m gonna go do this work because it’s mine and I’m gonna do it. Whether you stay or don’t stay. And I am so sorry. And maybe someday we will meet again and you’ll meet a different version of me performed. Change looks like him saying, you know, look at, I’m trying, look at, I brought out the garbage. I did all this stuff for us. Right? Please don’t. And they’re like, please give me a chance. You owe me a chance. The kids need you to give me a chance, right? I don’t wanna live without you. I don’t wanna do this without you. And on one of those aspects, , there’s this person that you decided to do your life with, that you want to be with, and the other one is treating your decision. Like something he’s in charge of that he gets to decide what you do and you’ll feel the difference in your body. You know you’re gonna feel it. One of them leaves you feeling more spacious. I always say , if you can feel your chest expanding, that’s likely the direction you wanna go if you feel yourself constricting. That’s a lot of really good information and so. , Even if you listen to those three things that I said and you’re like, okay, he fails all of those, I can see clearly that this is a, you know, it’s fear. It’s not real change yet. All the things you are still gonna feel like you wanna stay. It’s totally normal. It is not like a sign. You’re making the wrong decision. It’s just a sign that you’re human. So it doesn’t mean that you’re making a right decision. It doesn’t mean you’re making a wrong decision. It just means that you are a human being who loved someone for a really long time. , You built a life with this person. You possibly had children with this person. You shared pets and history, and maybe inside jokes or a house. You know, you both love the holidays the way you do them. Maybe you have coffee with them in the morning. Maybe there’s parts of him that you’re like, he can be a good friend. And the pull is that part of you doesn’t wanna lose that world. And that part of you isn’t bad. It’s not weak, it’s not wrong. It is just the part of you that knows how to love. Then you don’t wanna get rid of that part of you. You just don’t want that part of you to be the one making the decisions. When the pull comes, I, want you to do something. I want you to stop and let it speak. You know, Elizabeth Gilbert has this really good line in her book, big Magic about Fear. And how it can be in the car with you, but it can’t be the driver. It can’t operate the radio. It has to sit in the backseat. Will you decide? So don’t argue with it. Don’t try to put it down. Just put it in the backseat and let it say whatever it is he wants to say. It’s gonna say things like, I love him. It’s gonna say things like, but what about the kids? What about if this is a wrong decision? Or I’m scared, I don’t wanna go through this. What if he can change? What if I don’t know who I am without him? Let it, let it say all of that, and then when you get in a really settled place that you have worked so hard to get to, you get to answer that. And whatever way is a right for you. , I’ve talked about my own journey here. I, I decided, I, I got the bravery. I mean, it took me a long time to get the words to say I’m gonna leave, and he said, I’m gonna work on it. And I leaned into hope, and I think that’s so important. And I stayed for a few more years until I had the wisdom to see that the change in my experience , wasn’t real. It wasn’t the way that I wanted to move forward, and so I finally had the wisdom to leave and to not turn back and to just keep going down the path that was right for me because you can still love him and leave, like you can still get to the place where you are just like, I can’t continue to live in a container. Where I feel like this all the time, loving him and staying are two different decisions. And I know that sounds really confusing and if that doesn’t feel right to you, that’s okay. I think we can love someone, who is the, parent to our kids. Somebody who we have experienced a lot of life with and not love who we are in the relationship with them. So I wanted to talk with you about how to get through this without like, turning into a shell of yourself really. So here is something that I see women do when their husband start fighting for the marriage after they decided to leave, is that they just go kind of cold. Like they, they don’t even know what to do. They kind of get like frozen, you know? They get distant or they armor up and they don’t know what’s real and what’s not. And I totally get that because I think the pull can be really, really strong to be, to keep going the path you had decided, which was painstaking to come to, and the pull of being afraid you’re making a wrong decision, but you don’t have to just turn. Into a shell of yourself in order to make any decision. The, feeling of being frozen is, just a, sign that you’re afraid. That’s all. It’s not a sign that you’re unclear. It’s not a sign that maybe you were wrong about your decision. It’s just a sign that you’ve got fear. So I think. That if you are in this right now, I want you to know that I know it’s hard and I know you’re freaking exhausted. I know it feels like you can’t really find any solid ground anywhere, and I know that there is a part of you that’s wondering if you should just go back. If you should, just give it one more try. Lean into hope and just see what happens, and I would never tell you what to do, but my job is to help you hear yourself. And so I want you to do that. I want you to know what you already know before any of this started. That’s how you ended up at this decision. It didn’t come from nowhere. And you can give yourself the space of seeing if the change is real or if it’s performance, and you get to decide that you don’t wanna go through that as well. Both options are fair because it’s up to you, it’s your life and you get to keep what you know. Nobody can take that from you, not his fear, not his change, not his pleading, not even your own pull back and forth. You get to keep the clarity of what you know, and I think that is how you live a big life, not by getting cold. And not by winning an argument, but by staying with yourself, even though every single thing is gonna try to pull you out of it. I love you so much. 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.