The Art of Living Big | Subconscious | NLP | Mindset

Your subconscious mind is very powerful and it can work for you if you train it. In this episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy shares five ways to uncover the hidden beliefs that steer your decisions about your marriage, career, and life. She closes with a simple daily practice to help you re frame your mind, that starts with “show me what is true.” The message here is without a little training, your brain may only be showing you one side.

Transcript:

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

Hello, fellow adventurers. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show today So I wanted to talk today, which first of all, we are officially relaunching the show after 10 years, and I say relaunching. What’s different? There’s gonna be new podcast art. We’re doing this on video, so you can watch this on YouTube, and the episodes will be longer.

So you’ll start noticing over the next few weeks these episodes becoming longer and longer. I got a lot of feedback from people that they really wanted a little bit longer episode, and I thought, “You know what? I’ve been doing it one way for 10 years. Let’s mi- let’s mix it up just a little bit.” So, okay.

So I wanna talk about something that I have … A little magic from the universe is what I wanna talk about. Every morning, I go for a walk, and I take the same walk essentially. Th- there’s a couple different routes that I take. Sometimes it’s like an infinity sign the way that I do it. Sometimes it’s a circle, but the same w- routes every single day, and I have for years.

I’ve lived in this place for years, and I lived just up the road for several years. So I’ve been walking the same path, the same sidewalk, the same trees, the same houses, the same cracks in the concrete, you know? And some days, I will switch up which sides of the street I go on, and some days, I will go reverse order.

So it just depends on how I’m feeling. Some days, I do it all jigjaggity all over the place because I wanna keep my brain a- alert, keep my brain awake, and sometimes I’m not sure how long I wanna walk, and then once I get going, then I do a couple extra loops around. But essentially, it is the same walk. I could do it with my eyes closed.

And so for the last week or so, I have been doing, I’m gonna say a little experiment. But it’s kind of, you know, just like you, life gets hard at times, and things are stressful, and I’m managing a lot of things, and I live alone. And although there are some really magical things about living alone, I highly recommend, th- it also can be a bit isolating, but also there’s like a co-regulation that happens when you live with somebody.

Hopefully, you live with somebody that’s regulated and can help you co-regulate. But I think that’s one of the benefits of partnership, ? And I don’t have that, and although I have close friends that I spend time with, lots of times that’s on the weekends, and during the week it can feel a little bit isolating.

And so in the mornings, I have been asking the universe, because I totally believe in asking the universe for,, something specific that you really want. Like I ask the universe, you know, I did an episode, my birthday episode, not the Q&A one, but it was, like, the one after that where I talked about going down to Florida, and I talked about how I asked my mother, angel mother, I asked the universe I want a birthday present from her.

And, and voila, if you listen to that episode, that’s kind of a magical little story. So this past couple weeks, probably about, for about three weeks, I have asked the universe, , “Show me that I am loved.” And I have to say, you know, I feel like I get a lot of, interaction with people, like, online, and I, I, I’m not gonna lie, that is, it’s really nice.

I feel like some, lots of times it’s, like, the same people that I kinda see in my inbox on Instagram, and I feel a, a connection to them. I know they listen to the show, they interact. We kinda get to know each other in that way. And so it is always nice when someone says, “I love your outfit,” . but it’s different than if you had somebody in your home, you know?

It’s different than if you had somebody that was a friend that you met up with to get nachos. You know what I mean? So I have been asking, show me that I’m loved. , That’s it, just show me that I am loved. And I think my job in this is to be looking for proof, but also open to all the ways that that could happen.

It doesn’t have to happen from a husband that comes in, you know? I had that, and it, I, I I had that, and it didn’t ever feel, it didn’t ever really feel like I was loved. So it, it could come from anything. It could come from seeing a friend and seeing a big, huge smile on their face. For a little while when I would see friends, for the first time if I hadn’t seen them in a couple weeks, just ’cause life and that’s how life is when you’re an adult, right?

But I would turn on my video recorder on my phone. God love them for not being mad at me for this, but I would wanna see their face the moment they saw me. , I met my friend Elizabeth at a farmers market, and her face when she saw me, like, lit up. And, uh, my friend Audra, , her face lit up. , I… So I would take, I would take a little video, and then I would screenshot their face.

I have it in a little album on my phone of Happy Friends, I think the album is called. But I know that either they need something, you know, they need to see they were loved, or I need to be a better friend if they don’t look ha- if they’re like, “Hi.” Like… So I want, I want them, I, I lo- I feel loved when people are happy to see me.

That’s a, a way I feel loved. So, all right, so the other day, I’m out on my walk. I’m open to re- receiving love in whichever ways that it comes, but I am saying over and over again, sort of like a mantra, , “Show me that I am loved. Show me that I am loved. Show me that I am loved.” And I’m looking down, ’cause I’m walking, you know?

And I live in Atlanta, so the sidewalks can be uneven. So I’m looking up, but I’m also making sure I’m noticing where I’m going. And someone at some point took a minute and wrote in wet cement on the sidewalk. And I was, as I was walking, literally saying to myself in my head, “Show me I am loved. Show me I am loved.”

A little cat came up, and I thought, “Oh, maybe this is my little show me I am loved,” ’cause it followed me for a little while. And then I stopped, because someone had written in the wet cement three words, “You are loved.” You are loved. I stopped, I kind of laughed out loud because that … Well, first of all, that is very literal.

Show me you are loved. You are loved. The only thing that was missing was Betsy. You are loved, Betsy. But I asked to be shown, and it showed me, like in my exact words, spelled out in concrete. Now, did that message just appear, like out of thin air that morning? Not very likely. Although, we could have a whole discussion about quantum theory and maybe.

Is the cat in the box if you don’t see the cat? Like, I, maybe, maybe. But i- i- in the physical reality that I live in, , I would say cement doesn’t work that way. That writing has probably been there for a really long time. Or, the, the concrete looked maybe a year old, right?

But I have likely walked past it dozens and dozens of times. And so why did I see it that day? And that is what this episode is about. Because I think that this is one of the most important things that you can really understand about your own mind, especially if you’re in the middle of a big decision about your life, or your job, or your marriage.

Your brain is gonna show you evidence of what you believe. And so I wanna kinda dive into what’s actually happening here. So, l- let’s, let’s pause for a second, and I wanna just talk about what your brain is actually doing on, in every moment. So every second your brain is taking in a lot of information, and way more than you could consciously handle, right?

It’s taking in like the temperature, the sounds, , the feeling of your clothes against your body, um, every word on every sign that you pass. Like you have had to be aware of all of it unconsciously in order for it to come to you consciously. But if you had to be aware of it all consciously, you couldn’t function, okay?

So your unconscious mind has to take it in and process it, so your brain filters. It filters it, and it does it in about three different ways. It deletes, and it distorts, and it generalizes. So deleting is just like what it sounds like. Your brain just decides something isn’t relevant and so it never makes it to your conscious awareness.

It’s just kinda like hanging out there. Y- you know, it’s like you just don’t get the memo. If you’re watching this on YouTube, maybe you didn’t notice I have a little pillow and something else right there. I don’t know what that little white thing is. Oh, it’s a little book, a little notebook. You might not have noticed it.

I didn’t notice it when I started ’cause my brain deleted it. It wasn’t important, you know? Wasn’t important. And so how does your brain decide what is relevant? It is largely by what you already believe and what you’re looking for. So before last week, you are loved written in a sidewalk wasn’t really relevant to me.

Deleted, right? The moment I started asking, it became relevant, and then it became available to me, right? I, I could go down a whole rabbit hole here ’cause I do wonder, on the days when I switch up my route, why did I end up on the exact side of the street, going in the exact direction that I needed to in order to see that in the way that I did?

So I think unconsciously, some part of me, right, my subconscious already saw it, but never showed it to me consciously ’cause it didn’t think it was relevant. But now I’m saying, “Show me I’m loved. Show me I’m loved,” and my brain library is like, “Okay, well, bring her to that thing.” We, we happen to notice there was a little sign.

Bring her there. Encourage her to walk that direction. Uh, there’s no rhyme or reason for why I walk the way that I do other than I feel like it. I feel like going this way. I feel like taking a left. I feel like doing this extra loop. So did some part of me already know it was there and walk me right over to it?

I think that is very possible. I actually think it’s very likely. Your unconscious mind sees far more than it ever tells you, and w- we’ll go down that rabbit hole another day. But here’s the part that I really want to focus on today. If your brain will do this for show me I’m loved, then it will do it for anything that you believe.

It will do it for anything that you believe. So let’s say somewhere deep down you believe money is scarce. Let’s say deep down you believe he’s never gonna change. Let’s say deep down you believe your boss just hates you. Guess what your brain is gonna collect? Every forgotten text, every eye roll, every time you thought your boss gave a heavy sigh, every time he says he’ll handle it and he doesn’t handle it, your brain is gonna hand you that evidence like a m- loyal little assistant and say, “Here you go.

Here’s some more proof, more proof, more proof.” And that time that he did show up, or the time where your boss was excited about your project, or the time where something went right, deleted or distorted. You’ll say like, “Well, he only did that ’cause his mother was visiting.” Right? So let’s say that you believe you’re too old to start over.

Your brain is gonna start finding every article about how hard it is out there. Every friend who left and struggled is gonna show up in your newsfeed. Every story is gonna confirm it. And the woman who left at 58 and built something really beautiful, y- y- you won’t even notice that. It’ll scroll right by you.

And it’s because your brain is working, not because you’re trying to avoid it or ignore it, or because you don’t want the other thing. It’s about belief. So let’s say that you always pick wrong. I hear people say this, that, “My picker is off,” over and over and over again. It’s not off. Your picker’s not off.

Let’s say that you believe that if you leave, you’ll be alone forever. Let’s say you believe that you’re the one who has to hold everything together. Then the truth is your brain is gonna build you like a big mountain of evidence, and it’s gonna feel real. I always say this inside the Navigate Method. I say, like the trickiest beliefs of all are the ones that seem real, where you’re like, “Yeah, but that’s totally real.”

And I have those too, where I’m like, “Yeah, but it’s true.” It’s gonna feel true. It’s not gonna feel like belief. It’s gonna, it’s gonna feel like truth, and that, that’s the trap. That’s the trap. A belief doesn’t feel like a belief from the inside. It feels like reality. It feels like, “Bessie, I’m not believing anything.

I’m just seeing what’s out there. I’m just telling you what I see.” And I am telling you, I’m telling me, lovingly, that you are seeing what you are looking for. You’re seeing what you’re looking for. Your brain would rather be right than be happy. It wants the world to make sense. It wants, we call it the map to match the territory, that’s what it wants.

And so it will keep proving your beliefs, even the ones that, that really hurt you, ’cause it doesn’t, doesn’t care. And so how do you actually find a belief that you can’t see? We do so much of this work inside the Navigate Method, ’cause it really creates your reality. It’s some of the work we’re gonna be doing at the retreat this January, if you’re coming to the retreat in Punta Cana.

How do you find a belief that you can’t see? And you, a- and I’m gonna say it like this, but you can’t see it ’cause it, you think it’s reality. And that’s the real question, ’cause you can’t change a belief you, you don’t know that you have. And the most powerful ones are usually the ones that you can’t see.

And so here are some of the places that I would have you look. So first, listen for your, your words, but like your, your certainty words. Saying things like always, never, everyone, no one, of course, obviously. Like, “He always does this,” “I never get what I want,” “Men like him don’t change,” “Of course it went wrong.”

Like, those words, those kinds of words are like flashlights, you know? When you hear yourself say always or never, just stop and ask, “What do I believe here?” Okay. Number two is to look at, like, your, your, your evidence pile, let’s call it. Like, look, let’s look at your evidence pile, and then let’s go upstream.

Like, let’s work backwards. So what do you keep noticing? , What are you keeping tabs on? What are you collecting? And if you keep seeing all the ways that you’re unappreciated, then your brain is answering a question. And so the question might be something like, “Show me that I don’t matter,” “Show me that he doesn’t care about this,” “Show me that this job isn’t right for me,” “Show me that I really should leave.”

The evidence is gonna tell you what you’ve been asking for. And I know that one hurts a little bit, right? But, but stay, stay with me here, okay? Okay, number three. I want you to notice what you would argue about. The beliefs I find the most interesting are the ones where, , if I gently answered, or if I gently questioned, let me say it that way, if I gently question them, you would wanna fight me.

I had this experience this weekend. I was talking to somebody, and I questioned what they said, and they were like, “No, that’s just how it is. That’s how it is.” The heat in that reaction is a clue. We don’t defend facts that hard. We defend beliefs. One of the best things that I have ever done for any relationship that I’m in, friendships, working relationships, anything, I’m open to being wrong.

When I say I’m open to being wrong, but this is how I see this, instead of saying, “No, that’s just how it is,” because that shows the other person that I have some flexibility in there. Like, think about if you’re having a really courageous conversation with somebody, and they say, “Look, I’m open to being wrong, but this is what I see.”

That’s good stuff, right? Okay. Number four. Watch what you do with surprise. So when someone shows up that doesn’t, , fit your picture, what do you do with it? Like, do you get curious? Do you explain it away? Do you say, like, “That was a fluke,” or, “He was just being nice. He was just being nice ’cause he wants something,” or, “She only said that to be polite.”

, “My boss only complimented me ’cause her boss was around.” Discounting is one of the biggest tells I think there is. So if you are working hard to dismiss evidence, there is a belief that’s there that’s, like, standing like a guard. Okay. Number five. The fifth is I want you to finish some sentences. So just, like, out loud, so don’t think too hard, just I want you to just go with me, okay? So just, , what’s the next thing that comes out of your mouth or out of your brain when I say this. Okay, ready? Women like me at my age Marriage is If I leave

If I stay

I’m the kind of person who So whatever comes out fast, like before your people-pleasing brain, polite brain gets a chance to, catch it and change it, that’s the gold. That’s the belief talking. And you may have even noticed, like you thought something and then you kind of changed it after you initially thought it.

, You felt the impulse for something else, but overwrote it. Maybe even overwrote it before you knew what the initial impulse was, like your brain has gotten so good at doing it. So you really, really want to be able to question yourself and look at what it is that you believe. Okay so here’s what I want you to really sit with this week, is I want you to ask yourself what have you been asking to be shown? What have you been asking to be shown? , I walked around and I thought, “Show me I am loved, show me I am loved, show me I am loved.” I’m not doing that all day. I will say I have my own things.

But I promise you that you’re asking for something every morning, maybe not out loud, maybe not, with focus like that, not like a little mantra on a walk, but your mind is running a search. “Show me I can’t trust him. Show me I’m stuck. Show me this is too late. Show me I’d never be okay on my own.” And your brain is a very good search engine.

It’s gonna find you the results you’re looking for. So if you don’t like what you keep finding, don’t start with the evidence. Start with the search. You wanna change the search. So I wanna be really clear about something, because I’m not minimizing w- what your struggle is. I have s- my own struggles, for sure.

That’s why I’m, like, looking for love. , Show me I am loved, ’cause I don’t wanna focus on what I don’t want. I gotta focus on something else. I gotta ask the question that I want answered. So this is not about pretending. It’s not about, , slapping a happy thought on top of real problems and, you know, calling it a day.

That’s not what I’m saying. If there is real harm happening, that is real, and I’m not asking you to m- you know, manifest your moon water your way out of it. , I’m not asking you to do that. But what I am, eh, but what I am asking is that you give your brain a new assignment, and that’s what I did with show me I am loved.

I already knew there was tons of evidence that I’m loved. I just knew my brain wasn’t prioritizing it, and so I gave it the job. And here’s what I think the most powerful version of this for those of you who are in the middle of a decision about your marriage. And I say that, b- a career could be the same, but it, I’m gonna s- go with marriage simply ’cause of the Navigate method, and that’s the work that I do.

The version of this for you is not show me he’s gonna change. It’s not. And it’s not show me if I should leave. ‘Cause both of those things, , rig the outcome, ’cause you’re gonna find whatever you ask for. I remember at one point, and actually looking back it was true, although it likely needed to be.

But I remember at one point thinking, this was years before I, my marriage ended. I thought, “I know it’s gonna end because I want it to.” I had the belief that it would never change and never get any better. And it’s possible that that belief was true I tried a lot of things. We do a lot of experiments in the Navigate Method.

I did all the experiments. And so I felt confident in that belief, but I remember knowing I’m not… It’s going to end because I believe this so truly, so fully, you know? So we don’t wanna ask questions that rig the outcome. We wanna, we wanna try something different. We wanna say, “Show me what is true Now, that’s a question that your brain can’t really cheat on.

It has to widen the filter, right? It has to let back in the things that have been deleted, right? The kindness maybe that you’ve been explaining away, or the red flag even that you’ve been talking yourself out of. You know? Your, your, your own strength, which you’ve probably been deleting that for a long time.

I find that so many times women, in my comments on Instagram, these aren’t the women that actually come onto a call with us to see if we can help them. Not at all. These women are, are at a l- layer away from that, and what they say to me is, “I’m s- I’m trapped. I don’t have any money. I have little kids. I don’t have a job.

I don’t have family. This will never, ever … I’ll never be able to leave.” They’re so disempowered, and I get what they’re saying, and I’m not discounting it at all. Where they sit right now, that is likely true. What I’m saying is, “Show me, show me what’s true,” is how you get your map to start matching the territory again, and then you’re deciding about the rest of your life, and you, you deserve an accurate map, and that accurate map is one that says, “Show me what’s true.”

Sh- I … Lots of times I’ll walk around and sh- say, “Show me what I’m missing,” because I have no doubt that they are in the place that they say they are. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I have no doubt that it feels scary and overwhelming and trapped and the … like there are no options. I bet that feels very much like reality, and it would likely take not only a big brain shift, but then remember everything physical starts internally.

I can’t even reach out and touch my computer screen without first thinking it, right? So if they’re thinking what they’re telling me, then it makes total sense to me that that’s their reality. So, you know, h- here’s the practice to start shifting, and I say give yourself a lot of grace. If that’s where you are, give yourself a lot of grace, and you’re gonna wanna start asking totally different questions.

Different questions are gonna change your whole life. I swear to you. I swear to you. Now- Next week, are those women gonna have new jobs and, uh, half a million dollars in the bank and feel totally secure to leave? No. No. But they’re gonna get to a place eventually where they feel secure enough to leave, if that’s what they, what’s the right thing for them.

So here’s your practice. Every morning this week, I want you to pick one question. It could be like, “Show me I’m loved,” “Show me what’s possible,” “Show me what’s true.” And I want you to ask this over and over and over again. Ask it in the shower, in the car, on a walk. Uh, set a little alarm in your phone. Say it like a mantra if you want, okay?

And then at night, this is, the, the important part. And if you get in bed and you’re like, “Oh my God, I’m already in bed and I forgot to do this,” just do it in your head. But it’s just important you make a list. I would love it if you wrote it down. I want you to write down three pieces of evidence, so three things that you noticed that answered your question.

They could be teeny, tiny things. It could be, “I have, m- have, you know, $10 that I found in my coat pocket,” “I got a text from a friend, so I know I wouldn’t be alone,” “I ha- a stranger held the door open,” or a thought that felt good to you, or somebody you saw online that was doing it, and so it made you start to believe maybe it was possible.

And I want you to keep your eye out for that sidewalk moment,, the thing that has been there all along that you suddenly see, ’cause it’s gonna show up. It might not be written out like, ’cause that was freaky. Might not be written out, but it’s gonna show up. You already know. Here’s what I believe about you and I can say this with a lot of certainty ’cause you’re here listening to this, but most of what you need to see is already in front of you.

It’s on the walk that you take every day. It’s in the conversations that you’ve already had. Maybe it’s in something I’ve said over this past 30 minutes. It’s in the knowing that you have been deleting because it was too inconvenient or too scary to look at. So you don’t need new information as much as you need new questions.

And if you want help seeing which beliefs are steering your decisions right now, that is exactly what we do inside the Navigate Method. So you can find out more on my website or book a call with us. Go to betsypake.com/letstalk. Ask to be shown, and then look down. See if it’s in the cement.

And I think that, I think that is how you live a big life. All right. I love you guys so much. I will see you next week

Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.

You are made of stars. How about THAT? You’re what thousands of women before you held on for. Joy isn’t something that you have to go find. It’s never left you. It’s been right here the whole time just waiting for you to notice that you’re still breathing. So take the joy out of the waiting room. Notice it today, and then do it again tomorrow, and again the next day, and again the next day. What a great listen this week everyone, enJOY it!

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. Good morning. So we’re gonna do the show today , with with a lot of hopes and prayers that Dean Martin can be quiet. Gosh, he’s so chatty today. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but there’s nothing that makes me wanna jump right out of my skin more than a c- cat that’s overly talking.

So sometimes when I get going, that calms him down. So we’re gonna, fingers crossed for this one. So I’ve been thinking about the show and really what I wanna talk about this week, and, – Years ago, I went and saw a speech by Rob Bell. It was called Introduction to Joy. And so I thought, you know what?

Maybe I do my own introduction to joy. I actually think about that talk a lot. I don’t know that I remember specifically what he said, but I do remember him saying, “Life is but a vapor.” And then he sprayed a spray bottle of water, and I remember the lights and the way that it reflected. You could just see the spray and how it just went away, and it left such an impression in my brain.

And so I thought, , maybe you have never had a proper introduction to joy. I have been spending some time with somebody, and I think I told you. I, you know, months ago, when I was doing the dating episodes, and I talked about dating, and, and how I had met somebody that was nice. And y- we were talking about things that make you happy, and things that…

R- r- like how I see the world. And,, I think it’s been a little challenging for me, because I’m realizing, uh, I, I’m gonna say it like this, but I’m realizing maybe I’m a little weird in the kind of things that I think about. And I don’t know. I feel like if you’re here, you’re probably a little weird, too in the kind of things you think about.

So if you were never properly introduced to joy, or if you have thought about all the things, and you wanna hear about all the things I have thought about it, then welcome. Welcome to today’s show. , I bought some tickets to some things that are,, at the Fox Theater here in Atlanta. So there’s this old, beautiful, beautiful theater here in Atlanta, and they have, like, a lot of Broadway shows and things like that that come.

But they have a couple different events, well, a lot of different events at Christmastime, but a couple that I really wanna go to, and one of them is Mannheim Steamroller. Steamroller? Is that what it is? You know, they do, like, the Christmas music. They come just once a year, and I never get tickets, and then I’m always sad about it, and so I got tickets.

And I was thinking about it, because, , Christmastime, we think about joy. We see the words. I think I have the words, like, in, in little wooden letters that I put on my mantle, or now in my apartment I put by my TV. We sing about it, you know? We see it on greeting cards and coffee mugs, but I don’t think anybody ever sat us down and said, “Okay, here’s what joy actually is.”

So- I, I thought maybe this is an opportunity to do that. And, , as I’m doing this, I love the word joy, but also if you have been here for a little while, you know Joy works for me. Joy is her name, and she works for me, so I know as she’s listening to this she’s getting triggered ’cause I ke- I keep saying her name.

But I always wished that was my name. Why isn’t my name Joy? It’s so good. It’s so good. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Get you some coffee. If you’re on a walk, keep walking. This one might be a little bit longer, and I think I just have a lot to say. Okay. So here’s what I see in so many of the women that I work with, and I’m gonna say it like this too, I preface everything that I talk about with I am the woman that I worked with, right? I, I once was the version of the woman that I work with. I mean, that’s why I do the work I do. I was talking with Elizabeth, who’s one of the coaches in my program, the other day, and she said something about let this pain that she went through, and I went through, and everyone that works at the Navigate Method has been through.

But she said, “Make this pain have meaning.” Ah, and I, I really liked that. I mean, that’s why we do what we do. So I am the version, or once was the version, of the woman that I work with. And I think that when I see those women, so many of them are putting joy in a waiting room. You think, , “I will have access to that once the kids are settled,” or once a decision is made, or when the divorce is final, when the house is paid off, when you lose enough weight to be worthy of it, you know?

When your mom is doing better, when everyone else is okay. And joy has become the reward that you get after you finish taking care of everybody. And y’all, the waiting room is full. It’s full of y’all. It has been full for a long, long time. So I wanna ask you this, and I want you to just answer, with the first thing that comes to your mind, but when was the last time that you felt joy without immediately thinking about what you should be doing instead?

And I also am curious if, when I said, “When was the last time you felt joy?” if you were like, “I don’t exactly know if I know what it is.” I think most of us can’t remember when we felt it. We don’t know that we’ve ever felt it, ’cause we’re not totally sure what it is. How is joy different from happy or kind or good or any of those things?

And I think we have gotten really good at,, being responsible. I think we’ve gotten really good at holding it all together, and then joy got sort of filed under, like, a later tab or, like, a when we have time, or the holidays, right? … joy became just the thing that we talk about and we write inside our Christmas card.

So today, I wanna take joy out of the waiting room, and I wanna give it back to you. I saw something on Instagram a couple months ago, and I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve brought it up to, i’m we’re gonna call him T. I’ve brought it up to T, the guy that I’ve been dating. , In any given day, around 170,000 people die.

So yesterday, 170,000 people died all around the world in one day, and 170,000 more are gonna die today. It’s about two people every second, so,, while I’ve been talking to you, a couple hundred people have taken their last breath. Some of them had dinner plans. Some of them had a trip booked. Some of them were gonna call their sister back this weekend.

And some of them were gonna finally say the thing that is true, finally make the decision, finally take the class, or buy the red coat, or write the book. And you, you woke up. And I, you know, I don’t say this to be morbid or to make you nervous. I, I’m just saying it ’cause it’s true, and we forget it. We walk around like being alive is just the default setting, like it’s owed to us in some way, like there’s always gonna be another morning, and it isn’t owed.

Not one of these mornings is owed to us. We’re owed nothing. You’re here today. You got this morning, and this coffee, and this moment to listen, and this breath today. And you might be like, “Well, I’m too young.” And likely you have known people who are young that died. I think about my mom. She died when she was 41 in a car accident.

She didn’t expect that. She had plans. She had things left undone. She had thoughts she hadn’t expressed, ideas of things she wanted to do or share. Don’t you think that changes how today feels, knowing that 170,000 people didn’t get this moment? And then, of course, my brain jumps to there’s at least 170,000 people that miss whoever didn’t make it through yesterday.

So I w- I want you to sit with it, but like I said, not in a heavy way, more like if you were kinda tapped on the shoulder and said, “Hey. Hey there. You’re still here. What do you wanna do with it? What do you wanna do?” And so let’s go back just a little bit further, because for you to be sitting here listening to this, your mother had to meet your father, right?

I know you know that. I know you’ve heard that. But the right time, right place, and then your grandmother had to meet your grandfather o- on both sides. So I wanna pause for a second ’cause your brain might be like, “Well, yeah, I mean, they met somebody.” They had to meet the exact people for you, for you to be here.

Then your mother had to meet your father, your grandmother had to meet your grandfather on both sides. Those specific people, in order for you to be here in the way that you are right now listening. If you go back 10 generations, you have over 1,000 direct ancestors. If you go back 20, it’s over a million people, and every single one of them had to survive long enough to have a child.

Through wars, I don’t know, famine, plagues. We’ve lived through the plague. Through winters with no heat, childbirth without any hospitals, and not one of them broke the chain, not one. There were women in your family line who kept going when they had every reason to stop, women who buried children and kept living, women who had no choice at all and still found a way.

And all of that, thousands of years of people surviving against all of that, all of the odds, it led to you. It led to you sitting in your car or folding laundry or listening to this podcast. Now, I don’t know if this makes sense, but when I think about it like that, I get chills. You are what all of those people were holding on for.

And so when you tell yourself your life is small or you’ve wasted it, or that it’s too late, I want you to remember that, th- that you’re the one that they made it through for That’s it So, okay, so what is joy? ‘Cause I think that we mix this up. How do we even know? I feel like there needs to be a whole class in schools about emotions, ’cause we just know happy, sad, angry, right?

I mean … And I think people mix up joy and happiness, but they’re not the same. They’re like cousins, you know? They’re not the same thing. If you’re inside the Navigate method, or you’ve heard me talk about it, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of the dictionary. Somebody will say something, “But he’s a good man.”

I’m like, “All right. Well, let’s look up the definition for good,” ’cause are- is he? Maybe he is. Let’s be clear. Let’s be clear, ’cause maybe he is good. Maybe he is kind. Maybe you are relentless. So happiness depends on what happens. I mean, it’s, it’s right there in the word, happy.

Hap- happen- happiness depends on what happens. Good news, it’s a good day, it’s a good mood, but if there’s bad news, then it’s gone. So happiness actually changes all day long. But joy, joy is a little bit different. Joy is the moment that you notice you’re alive. That’s, that’s what it is. That’s, that’s my definition.

It isn’t a feeling that you have to learn. It’s a fact that you notice, and because it’s a fact, it’s available all the time, even when things are bad. It is available in a hospital waiting room. It is available in your lawyer’s office. It’s available in the middle of the hardest decisions of your life.

You do not have to be happy to have joy. You just have to be awake to the fact that you’re here. So happiness, which I love by the way, but happiness says, “Hey, everything is going my way.” And joy says, “Oh my God, I’m here. This is a dang miracle.” So if that’s what joy is, let’s just talk about what it isn’t, because I think that joy has gotten kind of a bad reputation.

Because, maybe ’cause we pull it out at the holidays. I don’t know. But joy is not pretending. It’s not- Smiling through stuff. It’s not, like, good vibes only. It is not, , posting a gratitude list when you really wanna, you know, chuck something through the window. So if you have been told to look on the bright side your whole life, I hate that, but if you have been told that, then you might hear the word joy and just feel, , exhausted, right?, I get it. But joy is not performing. It’s not performing that you’re okay for everybody, ’cause we… God, as w- as women I feel like we’re really good at that, and that is not joy. Joy is not being bubbly, right?. Some of the most joyful people I know are actually really quiet.

They don’t have to say a lot, but they notice everything. And I think a lot of us also believe joy is for some other,, I don’t know, other kind of person. , Joy isn’t for us, or joy is only at certain times. It’s definitely not every day. It’s for lucky people, people with easy lives probably, or people who don’t have your history.

But joy doesn’t care about your history. It only cares that you’re paying attention, , right now. Right now. Okay, so let me show you how magical here actually is, okay? So the hydrogen in your body is about 13.8 billion years old. It was made when the universe began. So every glass of water that you’ve ever had has some of the oldest stuff in existence in it.

The iron in your blood was made inside stars, stars that burned out long before the Earth even existed. You are walking around with pieces of stars in your blood right now. And right now while you’re sitting in your car, or standing at your sink, or, , going for a walk, you are also flying around the sun at about 67,000 miles an hour, and you don’t feel a thing.

The, the sunlight outside that hits your face in the morning left the sun about eight minutes ago. It has been traveling to get to you, and it traveled 93 million miles to get to you. Today, your heart is gonna beat about 100,000 times, and you don’t even have to be aware of it. It’s just gonna happen.

You’re gonna breathe something like 20,000 times today, and it’ll just happen. You might notice when you do it, if you take an extra big one. Your body is gonna heal little cuts that you don’t even realize right now that you have. It’s gonna fight off things that you’re never gonna notice. You are made of stars.

You are flying through space, and you have a heart that shows up every single second, and you don’t even have to think about it And sometimes we think we need, , a vacation to feel something or a glass of wine or a new kitchen or a new man or a whole new life. I- eh, you are already living inside the most amazing thing that has ever happened.

It just got kinda normal, kinda ordinary. And, you know, I think that there is something that happens as we get older. You know, and I was thinking today, like, we’re already moving into Christmastime. I bought those tickets for the Fox. I, I’m like, “How is it already Christmas? It seems like it was just March.”

It’s like January, February, March, I’m hyper-aware that it’s a new year. April starts to feel a little more normal. My birthday’s in May. But then the summertime goes by, and I don’t notice, and then all of a sudden we’re going into Christmas. And then the years start flying by, and Christmas comes around, and you’re like, “I feel like I just did this.”

Somebody asked me the other day how old my son was, and I was like, “Oh, my God, let me think. I gotta do math. I- almost he’ll be 25.” And there’s a reason for that. You know, when, when you’re young, everything is new. First kiss, first apartment, first job, first day of school, first time driving somewhere by yourself, and your brain records all of that stuff in detail.

And so the years start to feel really long and really full. And then as we get older, I think we fall into routines, right? It’s the same, it’s the same damn drive every day. I don’t even think about getting in my car unless it’s new, right? Then you’re aware. Go to the same grocery store, same conversations with people, order a lot of the same things at the same kinds of restaurants, and your brain stops recording ’cause nothing feels new.

Well, I guess it’s recording all the time, but conscious. You’re not consciously aware. It’s just going, “Yep, yep, seen this, done this.” And so the weeks start to blur together, and a whole year starts to feel like a month. But there is good news. I’m here to bring the good news, and that is that we actually can slow it down, and it- we don’t have to do some big dramatic thing, but we notice.

When you pay attention, your brain starts recording again. A day that you actually notice is a day that actually stays with you. I have noticed this as I’ve been talking about this dating thing. I noticed it ’cause things felt new. You were experiencing things in a different way through somebody else’s eyes, and it made all of this seem really much more apparent.

And so joy isn’t just a feeling. It’s how you make your life feel long Okay. So I do wanna, I do wanna circle back and talk about the unconscious for a minute, ’cause this is, this is the part of work that I do every day, and I think it really matters. So your brain takes in a huge amount of information every second.

It takes in, sounds, and colors, and temperature, and, you know, the feeling of your clothes on your skin. It’s impossible to be aware of all of that, and so your brain really does a really outstanding job of filtering, right? So it decides what’s important, and it just lets the rest go. And so how does it decide?

How does it decide what’s important? And so what it does is it looks for what you’ve told it to look for. It looks for what you said, “This is important.” So you’ve spent years scanning for problems, right, for worry, for what needs fixing, for whose mood just changed the room, right? And so guess what your brain gets super good at finding?

Problems. Problems and moods. I think when I was married, I, I got so good at scanning. I could notice if there was a shift in the temperature m- a mile away. I would be able to be aware and be careful. And when I moved back into my apartment, or moved back into… When I moved into my apartment, it, it took me a little while to undo that pattern.

It took me a little while to stop being so hypervigilant, and I had to retrain my brain, which we really can do. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I do those good things post. I started just posting my outfit ’cause I was like, “I’m alive. I exist. Here I am.” And then I started posting the good things because I started trying to notice.

Somebody smiled at me in the hallway. I had running water coming out of the faucet in a hole in my s- it, it… w- that I call a sink, a hole that I call a sink in my kitchen. I could, I could flush a toilet. Like, that’s a dang miracle. So I don’t wanna scan for problems and moods anymore, and I don’t think that’s a flaw in us.

I think it’s just training, right? You, you trained your brain to keep everybody safe and to keep yourself safe, and honestly, my brain did an outstanding job.- Well done, brain. Well done. But here’s what I know. After all these years of doing this work, is that your brain can absolutely be retrained.

So the same part of us that learned to look for trouble can learn to look for wonder. It takes some practice, it takes some repetition, but it does work, and I, I know this from myself, and I have watched it work over and over and over again. And what you look for, you find. So my question is, what have you been looking for?

What have you been looking for? And so if joy is that available to us, then why don’t we feel it? And I think a lot of us learned that joy is selfish. And if you have spent your whole life scanning a room and, you know, managing everybody else’s moods, trying to keep the peace, then feeling good when someone else isn’t okay feels wrong.

It almost can feel like a betrayal. And so maybe you grew up in a house where you couldn’t be too happy or somebody would take it from you. Maybe you were the, the one in your family who kept things calm. Maybe, maybe you learned really early that your job was to make sure everybody else was okay first, or to make sure you weren’t detected, and so you wait.

You make it smaller. You save it for later, right? You laugh and then you check to see if it was okay to laugh. God, I know that one. But your joy actually doesn’t take anything from anybody. It, it doesn’t fix them if you skip it. And it doesn’t hurt them if you have it. But holding back your own joy has never, ever, ever once made somebody else happier.

Not once, not ever. And when you feel joy, then people around you feel it, too. You know, your grandkids feel it. The people in grocery line behind you, I think they feel it. Joy actually, it isn’t selfish. It’s contagious. But I wanna, I wanna talk about something that might be coming up in your brain. And it might be something that, that impacts some of you directly right now.

You know, if you’re in the middle of making a big decision about something, maybe about your marriage, and you might be thinking like, “Betsy, this is very lovely. But there’s no room for joy right now. I’m trying to figure out my whole life.” I totally get it. I totally get it. I have , sat in a Zoom room with so many women in that exact place.

I have been in that exact place. And here’s, what I’ve seen. The women who get the clearest are not the ones who shut everything down until they figure it out. They’re the ones who stay connected to themselves while they decide. Because when you’re in survival mode, every single choice feels like an emergency.

Y- y- your thinking gets really narrow. And I think, you, you know, we get that like foveal vision where it’s like when you, when you’re looking at a computer, you know? You don’t even notice anything else. You’re just really honed in on one thing. Your body gets tense. And you cannot see all your options ’cause you really can’t see much of anything, just the thing, just the thing that you’re looking at.

But when you let a little bit of joy in, your nervous system settles down. You get to hear yourself again. And so joy actually isn’t a distraction from the decision. It’s part of how you come back to yourself so that you can actually know what you want. So you don’t have to wait until you have all the answers to feel alive.

You can feel alive right now in the not knowing And, I wanna say this too, because I know some of you are in the middle of a hard season, maybe about your marriage, but maybe about something totally different. I, I, I hear a lot of people right now that life isn’t the simplest right now, and maybe you’re in the middle of really big things.

And I want you to know that joy is not the opposite of grief You can be grieving right now. You could be grieving a marriage or a parent or a friend or a version of your life that you thought you would have. God, I have, I have more grieving to do about that, the life that I thought I would have. And joy can still walk in the room and sit right down next to it.

They can be in the same room. They have always been in the same room. Think about a funeral. Somebody tells a story about the person who dies, and the whole room laughs through tears. That’s joy and grief in the same exact moment Some of the most live moments in life happen in the middle of loss. Because loss, I think, is the thing that reminds you that this whole damn big, huge experiment is just temporary.

It’s precious. It’s precious. Pay attention Recently I went to Nashville with T to visit some friends, and we went to the father, the father’s house of the woman that we were visiting, and he was lovely. I really liked him. And his wife had died a few years ago, and he had quite a few pictures around of her, the, the day they got married, pictures just of their life over the years, and beautiful frames all around, like a real memory of her.

And we sat down outside, and we all had a drink, and we were talking before we went to dinner, and he mentioned something about how the week before it would have been 61 years they were together. And I said, “What was so special about her?” I was surprised how much… Well, I was surprised when the question came out of my mouth, to be honest, because usually we say, like, “I’m really sorry.”

But I wanted to know what was so great about her. Like, you got pictures of her all over. You’re talking about her. She’s been gone for a couple years. Like, what was so great? And he got a little teary, and he said, “Oh, you’re gonna make me cry.” And I said, “Oh, I’m not trying to make you cry.” But before I could even finish that sentence, he started telling me all about her.

And he lit up, and he talked and talked about her, and then his daughter started talking about her. I felt her. I knew why they were so enamored and still had pictures of her. I was enamored with her. She just sounded cool And so you don’t have to wait until the grief is gone. You get to have both. You’re, you’re allowed to have both And if laughing in a hard season feels really, eh, crunchy, crunchy for you, then I want you to let that go, just for today.

Laughing doesn’t mean you didn’t love, it just means you’re still alive, and the people who love and who love you want you alive. I think that we tend to think that joy has to be something really big. It’s like something we have at a wedding or the holidays or a trip to Italy or new grand baby, and all of those things, of course, are joyful and wonderful.

But if you only feel joy at the big moments, you’ll feel it, , a couple of times in your life or a couple of times in your year maybe. But the real thing is small. It’s, it’s that first cup of coffee when you pull, the most perfect shot. It’s when you get clean sheets. I love when my sheets are clean, like I got fresh sheets.

It’s a song that you forgot that you loved. Oh, gosh, I love when I have a song that I love and I hear it for the first time and I am aware that I freaking love it while I’m listening. It’s the way Dean Martin looks at me sometimes, like, when he wakes up, like he hasn’t seen me in a year and he’s like, “Oh, hi.”

, Makes you feel so special. It’s, this morning I get a text from a friend. It just said, “I’ve been thinking about you.” And it made me feel so good, I actually texted another friend of mine that I have been thinking of ’cause I thought, “That felt good. I want to keep that going.” It’s, it, it’s when you have, when you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re coughing and there’s a glass of water by your bed, and when you laugh sometimes and you’re like hear your own laugh and you’re like, “Oh my God.

I’m laughing so big. I totally didn’t expect it.” Those moments are everywhere. They’re happening all day long, and most of the time we walk right past it. There’s research on this. Researchers at UC San Francisco asked older adults to take short walks once a week and look for moments of awe. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I have been doing this for years, years and years.

I call it magic walks. You just… So the, the study was they just had to notice things. So they had to notice, , the light or the trees or something that was big or beautiful. And after a couple of months, those people said that they felt more positive emotion in their everyday lives. Their lives didn’t change Their lives didn’t change.

They just changed what they looked at, and that changed their lives. So small isn’t a consolation prize. Small is actually the point. Joy isn’t just big things. Joy is actually, I would say, even more so in the little things So I wanna do something with you right now. It’s gonna take, like, two minutes, okay?

So if you’re driving, just keep your eyes on the road and just listen and f- and follow along with, with your breath. And if you’re somewhere where you can stop, you can go ahead and stop. Take a slow breath in and let it out. Notice your feet wherever they are, on the floor or on the pedal, on the sidewalk.

Just feel them. Sometimes I like to wiggle my toes so I know exactly where they’re hitting the ground. Notice your hands. Are they warm? Are they cool? Are they touching something? Take another breath Notice the air coming in. This air has been around the planet for billions of years and right now it’s inside your lungs.

Is that not crazy? Notice if you can hear or feel your heartbeat. You might not feel it right away. That’s okay. Just know that it’s there

T came over the other day, and I hugged him when I saw him. And he’s quite tall, so my ear was, like, where his heart would be. I could hear it And I thought, “How cool. This has been going on all day Right? Noticing. You might not feel your heartbeat. You might not hear it, but you can know that it’s there.

Somebody else might be able to hear it. It’s never taken a day off. And now I want you to say in your head or out loud, “I’m here.” I’m here. And whatever you’re feeling right now, maybe it’s quiet, maybe, maybe you’re a little teary, that’s joy. That’s joy. It’s been here the whole time. You just stopped for a second so you could see it and say hello.

And so how do you kinda keep this going, you know, once you shut this episode off? You just practice noticing. Tomorrow morning before your feet hit the floor, you can say those same two words: I’m here. That’s it. Just notice that you got another one. And then sometime during the day, catch a moment. You know, warm water on your hands, someone laughing in the other room, you can hear ’em, the way that sun comes in and hits the wall in the afternoon.

And when you see it, when you notice, just pause for just a few seconds and let yourself feel it. I’m here. And then at night before you fall asleep, remember some moment from your day. Ask yourself, where did I notice I was alive today? Last night I laid in bed, and I could feel where my body was against the mattress.

It was so comfy. I was so relaxed. I’m here. You start training your brain to look for proof that you are alive, and the more you look, the more it finds. At first, , I think it feels a little weird. I think that’s normal. It always feels weird when we’re doing something new or something we haven’t done.

I think as kids we do this all the time. But give it a couple weeks, and one day you’re gonna catch yourself noticing something without even trying, and that’s how you know that it’s working. So here’s what I want you to take with you. About 170,000 people didn’t get it today. Didn’t get today at all, but you did.

You’re made of stars. You’re what thousands of women before you held on for. Joy isn’t something that you have to go find. It’s never left you. It’s been right here the whole time just waiting for you to notice that you’re still breathing. You already know how lucky you are. Somewhere, , underneath the to-do list and the taking care of everybody else’s everything,

and so take the joy out of the waiting room. Notice it today, and then do it again tomorrow, and again the next day, and again the next day, because I think that is how you live a big life. And if you’re still here listening, it’s been 43 minutes, and I let myself go a little bit longer because somebody told me that they never want it to end when they listen.

I thought that must bring them joy, and so I will drone on a little bit longer for this episode. So I hope you felt the joy. 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 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.

Where are you saying yes when you mean no? Where are you pretending something is fine because it would be really darn inconvenient if it wasn’t? We have all been there. We know exactly the moment that we make these realizations, but what if you didn’t bury them? What if you spent some time designing a plan or asking yourself ‘who am I, who do I want to become?’ It’s pretty exciting to think about…

Transcript:

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

Hello, fellow adventurers. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show today. So, uh, it’s October. How is it October already? I swear to God, it just was, like, March, but now here we are I usually get up in the morning, and I love going for a long walk, and I get to see all the kids. I live next door to a school, so the apartment building where I live is next door to an elementary school.

And although there are a lot of car drop-offs, a majority of the people, I would say a majority, a lot, many many of the people bring their kids to school on bikes. And so there is a bike bus around here. There’s a ton of bikes that come in where kids are riding their bikes and the parents are riding next to them.

There is a, a way bigger majority of bikes with, the kids on the bikes. Do you know what I mean? Like, on the back or whatever. Uh, or, like, even carts that people are, like, pushing in front of the bike. So there is b- bike kids everywhere. I don’t know, there’s something really magical about walking in the morning, and where I walk is, like, a lot of trees and overhang, and it’s so pretty, and it feels good right now ’cause the air is getting a little cooler and all the kids are biking.

I don’t know, it’s just happy. About a week ago I was walking and I, I got, like, a little teary because I was like… You know sometimes you’ll look back on your life and you’ll be like, “That time of my life was so cool”? Well, I got a little teary ’cause I was like, “Oh, I, I’m in it. I’m like, I’m in it.” This will be a time that I look back and go, “Oh, that time of my life was so cool.”

And I won’t always live in this apartment, you know. I’m thinking now about when my lease runs out, buying a townhouse or something. I know things will change, and life changes as it does, but it’s really fun to have those moments where you’re like, “Oh, this is so good.” So I’m enjoying the chillier air, even though, even though it means winter is coming.

But it is October, and as the weather starts to change, I think I start thinking about, you know, like, all the… I think it’s because it’s school time. You know when school goes back in session, then you’re like, “I get to refresh. I get to think about things.” And I’ve talked about this on the show so many times, but I love, I love a good Monday morning.

I love the start to a new month. I love New Year’s resolutions,, I really do. And I have a practice that I’ve done a couple times a year for the past many years, and typically I’ll do it around my birthday. I like to do it in May because it’s sort of a reset, you know, for my, my next year around the sun.

But I also like to do it at New Year’s time. But right about now is when I start thinking Are the things I put in place in May, are those things happening? But even more importantly, I start thinking about January. Because I don’t believe January starts in January. Like, if we want change for 2027, if you’re like, “I am not living 2027 the way I have lived 2026 or 2025 or 2022,” whatever it is, then I think it has to start now.

I think that making shifts right now gets us in position to catapult ourselves forward in January, and we don’t have to. You don’t have to. So everything I’m saying, if you’re like, “Oh my God, I don’t want one more goal,” you don’t have to. This is, this is just me just being honest with who I am. Who I am and what I want.

And so I wanna talk about that a little bit today

I will say that some of the biggest shifts that I have had in my own life didn’t actually start on January 1st. They started in October or November, probably early October, you know, sitting down with a notebook when I finally let myself be really honest about who I was and what I wanted. And so today I wanna tell you what I’m actually working on right now in the fall so that when January gets here, I am ready for it.

All right. So this is what I hear from women all the time, and maybe this is something that you have said, maybe it’s something that you’ve said this week, , is like after the holidays, like we’re already getting into… It’s almost Halloween. I, I said– I’m actually recording this at the very end of September, and I said the other day, “It’s almost Halloween.

Once Halloween is here, then Thanksgiving’s here, and then Christmas is here, and then it’s all over.” You know? And so I’ll just think about that in January, or I’ll put that on my January list, you know? Once the new year starts, then I’m gonna get really serious about all this. I’m gonna, I am gonna really show up come January.

And, you know, that might be about your marriage. I know I had said that many times. You know, it might be about your health. It might be about working out. It might be about your business. It might be about friendships that you wanna reevaluate, maybe things that have been draining you for a long time, or a house you don’t wanna live in anymore.

Like, whatever it is, you know? You’ve already picked the date. You’ve decided January is when things are gonna be different. Or as you kinda go along and things come up in your mind, you’ll be like, “Oh, that’ll be a good resolution thing.” It’s kinda like when my kid will say they want something. By, by this time of the year if they’re like, “I really want those shoes,” or I re- I’m like, “Well, that would be a good Christmas pre- Christmas present.

Christmas is three months away, but it’s okay. That’s… I’m gonna put that on your Christmas list.” And I think we do that sometimes with ideas of things that we want for our life. When we put it into the future, I think it creates a bubble of possibility that feels really good. We don’t have to fail, and it can stay intact and h- a happy thought, something that is available to us, although not something that we’re working on right now.

And, you know, I think that if you’ve decided that January 1st is when you’re gonna start working on some things that you have in mind, I want you to just think about what happens between now and then. And I know there is something a little magical about January 1st, I’m not gonna lie. But I think that when I think about January 1st, I think about, like, the changes that I wanna be in, the changes I wanna make, requires a different version of me than the version of me right now.

Otherwise, I would already have those things. And so from now until January is my time to become the kind of person who… Right? And I think that’s when magic can actually happen in January. So let’s talk about these dates, okay? January 1st, after my birthday, you know, when the kids are settled, after the, , holiday season, right?

Once things calm down. And those things can feel really important, I think so. You know? They can feel like a plan, like you have done some responsible thing and scheduled your change ahead of time, and I think that feels important, right? It feels like a plan. And so most of the time, though, I wanna offer you the thought that you’re giving a reason to put it off so that you don’t have to feel it right now.

And I say that with so much love because I have done that. Every woman I’ve ever worked with has done that. Prob- every woman has done it, every human. Your brain is really good at this, right? So it finds a date that seems reasonable, and it lets you feel like you’re doing something without actually having to do it yet.

And so in this, you could just ask yourself what, what specifically is gonna be different in January that isn’t true right now? And I think the honest answer is, is probably nothing, other than it’s like a fresh start. The, the busy holidays are over. And I think that when we really look at that, that date isn’t a plan, it’s just more waiting.

It’s just m- , like a validation that you can put it off more. I don’t know. You know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna say this. I kind of am inter- interrupting my, my flow here, but, , there are times when we need to put things off. There are times where we cannot focus on things that we can’t focus on, and there’s also times where we know we’re just putting off the inevitable, where we know there’s something we could be doing that would make our life different or better, and that’s what this is about.

If you have something in mind, whatever it is, that you’re like, “That would make my life better, but I’m waiting-” And, you know, if you’ve been here for a long time, you’ve heard me talk about the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, and your conscious mind is a goal setter, right? It’s the part of you that says, “I really want this, and I really don’t want that.”

It, it makes a list, right? It’s the thing that, like, writes the New Year’s resolution thing. Your unconscious mind is the goal getter. It’s the part of you that’s actually running your habits and your reactions and your patterns. You know, it’s doing most of the work in your life. It, it is. You’re…

Consciously, you’re really doing very, very little. And so if you’re consciously thinking something, but you notice you’re not doing it, then I want you to just notice who’s actually running the show. And so your unconscious mind’s main job is really to keep you safe and to keep you alive, yet that’s the prime directive.

It… That really is it. It doesn’t really care what It doesn’t care what we consciously decided. It just cares that you lived through yesterday doing things the way you’ve always done them, and for your unconscious mind, that is really convincing evidence. And so I want you to think about what a New Year’s resolution usually is.

It’s your conscious mind. Like, one day you’re gonna wake up and have a whole new life. At least that’s how I do it. I, I’m like, “Yeah, but my whole life is gonna be better as soon as I wake up.” But then it’s your unconscious mind that wakes up on January 1st, and nothing underneath has actually changed. You know, you, you still experience yourself the same way.

You still have the same beliefs about what you’re allowed to want. And so, of course, it’s gonna pull you back into what you know. Like, that’s what your unconscious mind is supposed to do, and that’s honestly why so many resolutions are gone by the end of January. We always hear that. That’s a true statistic.

January 20th, I think, is the date because consciously we can focus and make changes for that long. It’s not about discipline. If you have ever had a New Year’s resolution and screwed it up, it’s not about discipline. It’s not ’cause you’re not disciplined. It’s really not. It’s that you tried to change what you’re doing without changing who you think you are.

That’s it. So that’s why I start in the fall. That’s why I start now. So January is where I design, you know? That’s when I sit down, and I really want to build the next year of my life and what it’s gonna look like, but I can’t do that really well if I haven’t gotten myself in position to do that, to, to deal with all the deeper stuff.

And so the deeper stuff is what I start working on right now, which means January is when I execute the design. Now is when I design. It’s sort of like- , what are the– like planting tulips. You know? You don’t plant them in the spring, you plant them in the fall. And then when it looks like nothing’s happening, all of the sudden you wake up in the spring and they’re just like up, and they’re just like up.

Why does that happen? They’re not around your mailbox when you go to bed at night, and then the next day they’re like full-fledged tulips out there. And so, so this is what I’m actually looking at right now. It, it, not so you can go, go like do a worksheet, but, but so you can, can see what I actually mean.

Okay? Because this is about deep identity kind of stuff. And so the first thing that I look at is how I see myself right now. Like who do I think I am? I know that sounds like so… Who do I think I am? But who do I think I am? Because we all carry a picture of ourselves around, and a lot of it is just junk that we have picked up a long time ago.

I’m the one who holds it all together. I’m a problem solver. I’m not a risk-taker. I’m the one everybody counts on. And I think that may all be true, but some of it might just be old, and then you make it true. It’s who you had to be at some point. And then we never really go back to check to see if who we were told we had to be actually fits with who we wanna be or how our life is now.

And I have learned that if we walk into January with that old picture of ourselves, that we’re just gonna build the same old year again every single time, and then it’s so frustrating. I remember when I first moved into my apartment a couple years ago, I have used this app called Day One. It’s a journaling app.

And I would write in it every day for like 15 years. Almost every day. Like I was really consistent. I’ll, I will say over the past year I have not been as consistent. I write in it a couple times a month. I feel like I’m happier, and there’s not as much to write about. But I, when I first moved into my apartment after I got divorced, I would look back, ’cause it’ll show you, this is what you wrote five years ago, and six years ago, and three years ago, and 10 years ago.

And my God, if it was… I mean, I was so annoyed with myself because it was the same stuff over and over and over again. Like six years would go by and nothing was changed. Little things would be different, but the core wasn’t different. And honest to God, it was until I worked on the core that I was able to actually catapult my life forward in a totally different way.

And, you know, for me, that meant leaving a really unhappy marriage. But I can almost pinpoint the day that that shift happened for me, and I had done a great deal of identity work that day. And then all of a sudden I was like, “Oh, whoa, wait a minute.” And I remember, I have girlfriends that I Voxer with.

Voxer is like an app, like a walkie-talkie app almost, where you can leave messages for each other. And I have a very best friend that I’ve had forever and ever, and we Voxer alm- like every day typically. Sometimes not on the weekends, but s- but many times on the weekends. And I didn’t Voxer her for like a couple days because I was really processing where I was.

‘Cause I was like, “I’m in a different place.” And I remember after a couple days I messaged her and said, “I’ve been thinking about it for two days and I’ve decided to l- to leave.” And it was, it was a, it was like a key had unlocked, but it was identity work. And I’m not saying if you do identity work you’re gonna leave your husband, but you’re gonna do the thing you know to be true for you, whatever that is.

And so, you know, when I think about an old picture of myself, I need to upgrade that picture before I can even start working on the things that I need to be able to make changes. And so here’s the thing that, , that I kinda do when I look at what’s happening in my life. I’m gonna preface this by saying it’s not the version of your life that you tell people about.

It’s the version of your life that you’re actually living. And I, I wanna say that in a different way. It’s not the version of yourself that you would like to be true. It’s the version of yourself that you’re actually doing every day. There are times where I have said like, “Health is so important to me.”

In fact, I think I said that the other day, “Health is so important to me,” and you know I haven’t been to the doctor all year. Like, I haven’t been to a checkup. Like, is health that important to me if I’m not going to the doctor? And in my head even now as I’m saying this, I’m like, “I just don’t have time. I don’t have time.

I don’t even… I’d have to figure out with my insurance who…” I pay them kajillion dollars a month for my insurance. I should use it. I say it’s important, but it’s not, because I’m not doing it. And there may be other things that stop that process, but I want you to think about not the version that you tell people about, but the version that is real You know, w- where am I tired?

Where am I saying yes when I mean no? Where am I pretending something is fine because it would be really darn inconvenient if it wasn’t? You know, where do I think health is important, but I’m not acting on it? And I think, you know, those take some courage because you have to be willing to see something that’s true.

And I know for myself, I cannot design something new on top of something that I won’t look at. And so I have to really look at how I wanna live, not h- not what I want to accomplish, but how I want to live. What do I want my days to feel like? Who do I want around me? What do I want my mornings to be like, and my afternoons, and my weekends?

How do I want friendships to be and close relationships, r- romance, money? And for me, a, a lot of that is, like, afternoons with friends and a life that feels really relaxed but still really driven. And I didn’t always know that about myself. I had to really pay attention to get clear And then I had to really look at what my standards were for myself and for others, and what my values were.

Like what matters to me now, not what mattered 10 years ago, not what somebody else told me should matter, and not what, like, should matter, you know? Like, not what the internet or society tells me should matter. You know, society told me for my whole life, and you likely feel this too, that the most important thing was to get picked, have a relationship.

And when I decided to just be alone, that was really going against a lot of who I was told that I was. It took some undoing, and when I did that undoing, and I’ve talked, I’ve had an episode out here about, like, no longer orbiting around anyone else. When I could finally orbit around myself is really when all of the sudden I was like, “Oh, you know what?

I would like to have a partner in my life, but only if they’re a unicorn, and amazing, and been therapeutized,” and all the things. But that came from me orbiting myself. That came from me knowing what my standards and values were, what mattered to me, and not what am I just not doing anymore? What am I not accepting?

Because your standards are really where your identity shows up in real life. You know? They’re how you know who you are when things get complicated. And when I’ve done an honest amount of work around that and gotten clear, then January becomes much simpler. And then I’m not making resolutions, I’m designing.

I’m an architect. I’m an architect of a life that I want for the woman that I actually am right now. Okay. So now I wanna talk about something. I wanna shift this just a little bit and, and I wanna talk about you, and I wanna talk about who you know you are, and maybe a big question that you’re sitting in.

Now, getting ready for 2027, if you’re listening to this in 2026, but if you’re listening to this at any year, getting ready for the next thing, the next month, the next Monday, the next quarter, the next year, doesn’t mean that you have to make any big decisions about those things by that date. Okay? So hear me on this.

I, I’m not saying you have to make some big decision. What I’m saying is that you can’t make clear decisions that are big decisions if you don’t know who you are anymore And for a lot of women, myself included, that is exactly what’s happened. We’ve been so busy holding everything together that we kind of disappear And now here we are in October, the holidays are coming, and for a lot of women, the holidays are busy ’cause you are the holiday.

You are the magical, magical, mystical piece of it. And so you’re going to feel all of it a little more over the next few months. So you can just let that happen to you, or you can use the time to come back to yourself, to get clear on how you really see yourself, what you really want your life to feel like, and what your standards would need to be in order to create that life.

Because once you know that, you’ll be able to hear your own self and your own answers, you know, whatever that is. So like I said, you don’t need the new year, you don’t need a birthday or a Monday or whatever, but the best time to start becoming the next version of yourself is before you want to become that version.

I think there’s just, like, a little extra magic at this time of year. You know? E- everybody’s gonna start talking about a fresh start. Everyone’s gonna start talking about resolutions or their word of the year. Honestly, I, I love the word of the year, I wanna say that, but I also love resolutions and I love…

But I think the word of the year gives us an out from feeling like we’ve failed on resolutions. But we haven’t failed, it’s just we’ve been doing them wrong. And I would love for you to be able to show up to January 1st just already knowing who you are, just knowing that this is the version of me that I am stepping into.

Okay. So there’s a couple different ways that we can go about this. And actually, if, if you are struggling in your marriage, if you’ve been trying to figure out what to do, if you’ve been sitting on that question of, do I stay or do I go? I, I lived that question for, like, a decade. Ugh. And I know how hard that is.

And so I also know that deeper identity work with support is the way to get clear on what’s right for you. Now, I wanna say something. The people that come into my program, the Navigate Method, they, they don’t all leave. A lot of them stay. They find themselves and then realize that the relationship…

Everybody that comes in, I’m gonna say this, everybody that comes in, the relationship that they have ends. They don’t necessarily leave the partner to create something new. They create something new, or they say, “This is complete, and I’m gonna create something new for myself So if you wanna do that work with me, then that is what we do.

We take a look at how you see yourself, what’s going on, what you really want, what your values and standards are, so that you can get really clear on your marriage from a place that you’re actually present in your own life. So if you would like to do that work, I’m gonna give you two options, okay? You can go to my website.

You can book a call with us right from the website. You can watch my video that sort of explains what we do, and you can book a call from that. But also, in January, I am taking a group of women to Punta Cana, you’ve probably heard me talk about this, for a process called Breaking Ground. It is four days together to really become the architect of your own life.

It’s January 21st of 2027, and that’s where we can do this deciding, right? That’s where we can start designing how things go. And again, you don’t have to start January 1st. You can be prepped, and you can be ready, and then on January 21st is where we design it and figure out what we need to do. And that’s not just about a marriage.

That, you don’t even have to be married. You could be happily married. That is about, hey, my life I want to reclaim, and I want to become an architect. And w- I’m gonna teach you over those three days, in the beautiful sunshine, by the way, where we will have a pina colada in the afternoon. But I’m gonna teach you how to become an architect, what that means, and what are the steps to do it.

And there’s a link on my website, or you could just message me anywhere, and I will jump on the phone with you and answer any questions. So think about it. If you would like to really make shifts right now so that by January 1st you can be off and running in a life that feels aligned, then reach out to us.

Come into the Navigate Method if you’re struggling with your marriage, or come to Punta Cana. Take a little… I always say the best investment I have ever made on things in my life are when I invest in myself. I’m a sure thing. I, but I, but I know that about myself. I’m a sure thing, so if I put money into myself, I will get my money’s worth, and I want you to be like that, too.

So just reach out to us. We’ll be happy to direct you to the right place. But even if you don’t, there’s so much information here on the podcast. There’s so much about redesigning and realigning so that you can have the identity that you need to be able to reach the next level of where you’re going. And I think when we can do that, that is how you live a big life.

All right, everybody, I will see you next week. Have a great week. I love you so much. Bye-bye.

Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with 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.

Looks like she made it, look how far she’s come! This episode marks a decade of The Art of Living Big, and in it, Betsy shares 5 things she has learned during that time. Well, let’s say she narrows the many things down to 5 stand outs. She asked me (Joy) to edit some of the ending but as you listen, you will know why I couldn’t. We don’t need to be shielded from emotion, because as we have learned from Betsy, that is where the real connection is made and when we get to see our growth. Speaking of connection, we really hope to see you in Punta Cana in January for the next retreat!

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. Okay, so you already saw the title, so you know. This is a really special show, probably not as special to you as it is to me, but we, you and I, have been doing this show for ten years. Ten years. I mean, ten years is a decade.

It’s a whole lot of change. When I started this show, I was in my 40s, early 40s. I had just sold my CrossFit gym. I was married. I owned a house out in the suburbs. I mean, I’ve moved many times. I’ve been to… on lots of trips to many countries, changed a lot , grown a lot. So many things. Ten years of me sitting down with a microphone every week and talking to you.

And I’ve been thinking, you know, about what to say for a couple of weeks now because I wanted this to be something good, you know? Something that was worthy of ten years. And I kept trying to write things out or think about, like, this big anniversary episode, and maybe I would have clips from earlier episodes and, and then I ran into all kinds of issues with that.

And then I thought maybe it’s an episode where I tell you everything that I’ve ever thought that I never said. And then I thought, you know, I’ve gotten a lot of lessons over the last ten years. Lessons about podcasting or life or business or whatever. And when I really, really sat with this, the only thing that I actually wanted to say is, what I’m about to say, and I’m gonna cry probably when I say it but you, you were never abstract to me.

Not once. Not in 10 years. I never sat down to talk, like, to an audience. I’m using air quotes. I ne- I never once pictured a number or a download or a, a abstract person. I, I pictured you. I pictured one person, usually in your car or walking or standing in front of the sink with headphones on because it was the only, you know, 10 minutes that you got to yourself every day.

And there’s so many… I’m gonna cry. There’s so many episodes where I wanted to hold your hand when I talked. You know, I wanted to have coffee with you. I wanted to hear what was really important to you. And so in this episode, I thought maybe the best way to do, a 10-year episode , is to say that and to let you know how important it’s been to me that you’ve been here with me.

And I wanted to share with you some things that I have learned in the last 10 years, and every single one of these things is actually about you. So I’ve got five things. So my first lesson here we go here. You have to start where you can start. So here’s the thing that I think most of you don’t know is that the first 50 or so episodes on this show were me interviewing people.

I just reached out to people I liked, and I interviewed them. That’s all I did. And those episodes don’t even exist anymore. You, you can’t find them. They’re gone. If you went looking right now, and I did, I went to look, the, the archive just starts later after those episodes. And for a long time, I felt kind of embarrassed about that.

Like, oh, well, in the beginning of my show, it did exist, but now it’s just gone. And the sound was bad, and I was interviewing people a lot of it was about business, I think I was interviewing other people because I , did not believe I had anything to say. But that’s not actually what was happening. What was happening is that I started where I was really comfortable. I couldn’t start with my own voice yet. I wasn’t there yet. And so I started with somebody else’s voice because that was the door that opened into this podcast room.

And so I had to do it like that. I had to sit in that chair like 50 times before I could sit in the chair and do it alone. And nobody tells you that the first version of the thing is allowed to be a bridge. It doesn’t have to be the destination. It’s not even supposed to look like the destination.

It’s just supposed to get you up from where you are to where you can see the next step. And so I want you to think about your own life for just a second and where you’re waiting to start until you can start the right way. Because 50 episodes that no longer exist, which is almost a year, that’s the reason this show exists.

That had a bad sound. You could hear me breathing. I used to get feedback from people on iTunes. Like, “I really like her show, but I can’t stand the breathing,” the nervous questions, like the whole thing. That was the tuition that it cost me to get in the room with you And we don’t get to skip that part, and I don’t think I would have wanted to.

It got me so much more comfortable, and it helped me know what I wanted to talk about, and it showed me how much I actually had to share. , It was such a great bridge, and you have that in your life, too. Okay.

Lesson number two is, that I am the worst judge of my own work. Okay. So some of my very, very favorite episodes, the ones that I worked the hardest on, the ones where I thought, “Oh my God, this one is so good,” those are not the ones that you guys really liked. They’re not the ones that you guys wrote to me about.

The ones that you wrote to me about are the ones that I almost didn’t publish. I have episodes where I got up in the middle of the night at, like, 2:00 in the morning and took it off auto-publish for the morning, ’cause you know we post them in the morning on Thursdays. And so I would set it up, and then I would get this, like, feeling of like, “Oh, my God, I don’t know if this is any good.”

Those were the episodes that you loved, right? There have been episodes where I hit record on some random morning. I did… Do you remember I did a series of episodes where I was like, “I have no idea what I’m gonna say. I’m gonna turn on the mic and see what comes through from the divine “? And it was always something good.

It’s when I just said what was actually on my mind, and then I sat there afterwards thinking, like, “I have such a vulnerability hangover. That was too much,” or, “That was too small,” or, “That was something nobody will care about.” And then, you know, four years later, I get a message from a woman who said, “Hey, I just listened to that one, and I sat there in my driveway and I cried.

And then I went inside and said the thing that I’ve been wanting to say.” And she heard that one years later. And so what I have learned is that we are a terrible judge of our own work, right? I bet you are a terrible judge of yours, too. And the thing that you think is unremarkable about you is actually the thing that somebody else really needs.

The part of your story that you’re embarrassed by is the part that makes somebody else feel less alone. You know, we just can’t see ourselves from the from the outside. I, I just don’t think that’s how it works, which is why you have to put the thing out anyway. Like, not because you’re sure, but because you can’t be sure.

And so that is not a real option. We’re never gonna be certain, and you’re never gonna be a good judge because it’s too close to you Okay. All right, lesson three. You’re allowed to change the whole thing. This show is not what you thought it was. In the beginning, it was about all kinds of things, adventure, and business, and mindset, and living big in a big, huge, wide, general, very generic way.

And as my life has changed, the work that I do has changed, and I started spending my days with, with women who were making really big decisions, and eventually women who were sitting inside a marriage trying to figure out whether to stay or whether to go, women who were exhausted from being agreeable.

You know, women who have disappeared, I think, a little bit, you know, a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit over time, over a lot of years, and they can’t quite trace themselves back to when that started. And so the show got more specific, you know? And I know some people left. They did. When you get specific, some people go, and that is genuinely okay because the women who stayed got something, I think, a little bit better, and they got a show that was actually about them.

And here’s the thing that I want you to take away from that is that you are allowed to change the whole thing. You’re allowed. You’re allowed to be 10 years into something and saying, “Eh, this isn’t it anymore. I’m not gonna keep performing a version of this that used to be true.” That’s not quitting.

That’s paying attention. That’s listening to yourself. That’s moving forward. And I think a lot of times we get confused because we have been taught that consistency means never changing your mind about anything. But consistency isn’t about staying the same. It’s about continuing to show up really honestly, even when being really honest looks different than it did before. I remember how hard it was to say on here that I had finally left my marriage. Do you know if you listened in the very beginning, at the end of every podcast my former husband would say…

I don’t even remember what he would say. It was a clip of him going, “That’s it. Woo. Woo. That’s it.” And I had that clip on there for a lot of episodes. I hated it. I hated that he was part of it even back then, if I’m being honest. And I remember there was something that happened in the world that allowed me to take that off because that felt so frivolous.

Compared to what had happened in the world that I was talking about. And then once I took it off, I couldn’t bring myself to bring it back. And people would ask me about it. People liked it. It was kind of funny. It was his one humorous piece, you know, that he offered to the whole thing. And then I remember when I left the first time, and then when I left finally, and I had to say it on the show, it was hard.

So we’re allowed to change and show up as authentic and real, and to say the things we need to say, ’cause the right people will go, and the right people will stay. All right. My lesson number four, showing up every week is the, like the whole thing. This is the least glamorous one, but I think this one might be the most important, honestly.

You know, through a divorce, through moving several times, selling a house, going to an apartment, going to a different apartment, buying a house, selling a house. I mean, like, all the things. Rebuilding my entire life from the ground up at an age where people told me that the building part was supposed to be over.

You know, through days when I did not really feel like it even a little bit. Days early on when my daughter at the time was sick, and I had to show up and do this show. And I’m not saying that to impress you. Everybody has hard things in their life. But I’m saying it because I think it’s the actual answer to a lot of the questions that you guys ask me.

Women ask me all the time, “How do you build trust with people?” People ask me that all the time, like in entrepreneurial groups, like all kinds of things. “How did you get so many people to trust you, to believe you?” And you just have to keep a promise over and over and over again for a really long time. You have to do it when nobody’s watching, and there’s not any big reward for it.

I remember my first few episodes, I had seventy-nine listens, and I could not believe I had so many people listening. I couldn’t believe it. And then when it got more hundreds and thousands, I couldn’t believe it. And so I was not gonna not show up for those people, even 79 people, even if it was 15 people that were counting on me to show up, didn’t mean I had to talk about the same thing.

It just meant I had to be honest and I had to be consistent. So that’s it. That’s my whole entire strategy. And I think it’s the same in your life, by the way. The trust that you’re trying to rebuild with yourself, it doesn’t come from one big, huge, dramatic decision. That helps, but it comes from all of the small promises that you make to yourself and then you actually keep.

You don’t trust people who tell you the truth once and then do whatever they want. You trust people who tell you the truth, and on the hundredth and fiftieth time, they still are doing it, even though maybe nobody would have noticed if they didn’t. And you get to be that for yourself. Okay, the final lesson.

There’s so many lessons, but the final one for today is the last one, which is the, the big thing that I really wanted to tell you, and everything else was kinda just how I got here. But in 10 years, I have never once t-talked to an audience. I don’t know how to do that, and when people talk about growing a platform or building a following or reaching listeners, I understand that.

I understand that there’s like a, I don’t know, there’s some kinda like concept or strategy to it, but it has nothing to do with what I’ve been doing here. What happens here is that you are not abstract to me. I think about you. I, I think about specific people. I think about who you might be, and if you’ve ever reached out, I think about you.

I, I sometimes think about you years after you’ve reached out to me. I think about what you’re thinking about today, what you’re carrying, what you really wanna say to people. I think about the fact that you’ve probably been holding something for a really long time, and I wanna sit across the table from you, and I wanna buy you a coffee

And I wanna hear what’s actually important to you I don’t-. God, I’m such a baby. I- it’s not the update. I don’t want the summary that you give to people. I really wanna sit with you, and I wanna hear the real thing, you know? And I know I can’t do that with all of you. Oh- although you should come to my retreat.

But I, I know that I can’t do that with everybody, and so I do this instead., I get to be in your ears, and I know… God, I’m such a baby. I’m sorry I keep… Joy, mi- you might wanna delete some of my crying. But I get to sit in your ears, and you’ve told me that we’ve lost weight together, and we’ve made big decisions together, and we’ve decided to leave jobs and take new jobs and decided to have kids, and all the things.

And so the fact that you put me in your ears makes me wanna talk to you in the way that I would if you were right here, and that’s why I don’t do this in a polished way. That’s why I just cry on this show. And that’s why I stumble, and I go backwards, and I tell J- I tell Joy to delete it, but she doesn’t.

Because that’s what it sounds like when a person is actually talking to another person instead of performing on a podcast. And you were never abstract to me, not in year one when I was just doing interviews and not now. Every time that you emailed me or you sent me a DM at midnight and said, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but…”

Every time you sat in a parking lot and you didn’t go home yet because there was an episode that wasn’t over, and I felt that, and I know, and I know about those moments, and I have thought about them a lot over the past 10 years. Ah. So, all right. So let’s land this plane. You’ve probably got a version of those 50 missing episodes in your own life, right?

Some stretch of years that you think you’ve wasted, a marriage or a career or, you know, a whole personhood, self that you built for somebody else. And now you look back and you go, “Well, that’s gone. I don’t even know who that person is anymore.” Well, what if that was just the tuition? What if you couldn’t have gotten to the part where you use your own voice without first spending all that time borrowing somebody else’s?

You know, you didn’t waste that time. You were learning. We were in Earth school. And Earth school is hard. And now, here you are at the precipice of the next 10 years, and I hope we can do them together again. Same promise every week. I will still show up here. So, thank you. Thank you for the 10 years, truly.

I don’t take one single week of it for granted. Ugh. And thank you for helping me to live a big life. I love you so much. I’ll see you guys next week

And before I go, I do wanna pop in n- back now that I’ve got my, my wits about me, and tell you that our next retreat is live. It’s in January in Punta Cana. It’s the 21st to the 25th, and we are making you the architect of your own life. You can find details about how to join, but the first 10 people, and I think there’s like five slots left, four slots left, gets VIP, which is like extra coaching with me before the event.

You get a discount, and you get a special VIP swag bag. So you can find the link for the retreat on Instagram in my bio. You can find it on my website, and you can message me, and I will send it to you happily. It’s in my Shop My… It’s everywhere. So think about it. Join us. Make a decision before the end of the month so you can get that discount.

And then I can sit with you in real life, and I don’t have to just pretend I’m having coffee with you. We can have coffee together every morning for five days. Okay. All right, I’ll see you there

Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.

Honestly, to announce this week’s episode of The Art of Living Big, we just want to say LISTEN. This one addresses one of the most common questions women ask themselves and ask Betsy. She offers new ways to evaluate this situation; understand what children are actually living in, and how they read tension at home.

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. Okay, so today, I’m gonna do a show,, I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say it like, like this. Today, I’m gonna do a show that I don’t wanna do. I know. It’s not that I don’t wanna do it, it’s that I know it’s tricky, and sometimes it’s hard to do a show on something that’s tricky because things in life are so nuanced.

So we can move forward together and do this show with the understanding that things are nuanced. This might or might not apply to you in your situation. You’re allowed to disagree with me. I’m not the overarching truth of all, of all truths. I’m offering some thoughts and some new perspectives here. So what I wanna talk about is about when you stay in a marriage for the kids, and I get messages, I get a lot of messages about this.

And there is this version of one message that I get sort of over and over again, like a couple times, I was gonna say a couple times a week, but sometimes it’s a couple times a day, you know, who, from people on Instagram or, or, you know, people who found the podcast and then they go to Instagram. And they’re, they’re very careful in how they write these messages to me, and I can see,, I can feel all the pain behind it.

And what they say is either, like, “I’m ready to go. I, I want to leave my marriage,” or, “I just decided to leave, and now we have to tell the kids,” or, “We told the kids, and it isn’t really what I wanted. It’s not how I wanted things to go. You know, even though I know in my heart of hearts this is the right choice for me, it’s really painful because I don’t know if it’s the right choice for my kids.”

And that’s the one that I hear all the time. And, you know, before I go any further, I wanna pause. I wanna pause for just a moment because I’m, I’m coming in here, m- you know, as a, as a trained master coach. I’m coming in here as a podcast host that’s had a podcast for 10 years. I’m coming in here as a woman who actually left a marriage with a four-year-old.

So I have done this also, and I know that it’s not easy. I could tell you a, a lot of success stories. I could tell you my own success story. My son’s dad is truly one of my closest friends. It’s not that I talk to him all the time. He’s remarried and has kids that are young teenagers now, but, but when we talk, I know he’s known me, like, the longest of almost anyone I know.

He’s known me since I was in my 20s, and so… And he’s the father to my kid. And so, you know, years ago, he was on the podcast, and we, we removed a lot of podcasts that were interviews from early on. We did, like, a lot of interviews, , business people or o- other things that weren’t really relevant, and a lot of those people didn’t even have their businesses anymore, so it just wasn’t relevant.

But I did a podcast with him, and I should bring that one back as, like, a special event. He’d probably come on today and talk, but I- I will do that. Th- you’ll see a podcast that will pop up that won’t be at the regular time, and we’ll just put that one in between because I think sometimes when we have evidence that things don’t have to go sideways, even if they start sideways, they don’t have to end sideways, that things can get better and be better.

So, but I wanna get back to these messages that I get, right? So, you know, the last part is always like, even though I know, like in my heart of hearts I know this is the thing, I, I feel terrible about it. And so- You know, in those messages, I hear, like, two things sort of that are sitting right next to each other.

One is, she knows, and she feels sick about it, and both of those can be true at the same time. They don’t cancel each other out. And, and, and here’s another thing that I wanna say before anything else. I had a lot of… This episode comes to you with a lot of disclaimers. But the other thing that I wanna say is, is guilt is not evidence.

Guilt is not a signal that you made the wrong decision. Guilt very often shows up when a woman does something for herself after a prolonged time period of not doing that. So your body does not know the difference between wrong and unfamiliar. It just knows that this is not what we usually do here. So

we’re gonna have this talk today about the kids, and I wanna be really careful about how I do it. And so I’m not gonna be telling you what to do. Like, I don’t know your marriage. I’ve never met your husband. I have never sat at your kitchen table on a Saturday night and watched what happens, you know, when he comes in in the afternoon.

And, , a- and I’m not here to hand you any kind of verdict. And so if you have been listening to me for any length of time, you know that that is not the work. The work is that you decide. Not me, and not your sister, not your therapist, and you know that. You know that. But what I’m doing today is a little different, and so I want you to just know what you’re getting.

I think that a lot of you are running one calculation in your head, and you’ve been running it for a long, long time, and it hurts every time you run it, and you keep running it anyway because you think that is the only calculation that there is So here’s an idea that I use with my clients a lot. I- in this, like, picture, okay?

So you are down in the brush, right? You’re lost, okay? You’re lost in it, and you are sure that there is one pathway out, and you have been hacking at that one path so long that your hands hurt. And I’m upstairs, I’m in a helicopter, right? I cannot tell you where to go. I genuinely cannot see your life from up there the way that you can see it from down there.

But I can see that there’s more than one path, and that is all I’m doing today, is offering you a couple of other paths, not because your thinking is wrong, but because the way that you’re thinking about it right now does not feel good to you. You’ve told me that in a million messages. I’ve gotten a million messages, and you’ve all said that.

And you tell me that in every message, and I believe you. And so Here is the sentence that I hear the most, is people say things like, “We stayed,” or, “I stayed because of the kids.” And I want to ask you something that I think people forget about, and that is what are they staying in? What are they staying in?

Because when we say we stayed for the kids, what that usually means is that we kept the house intact. We kept the location the same. We kept the Christmas card looking like the Christmas card, right? But your kids are not living in an address. They are living in a home with two people in it. The kids are the best readers of a room on the entire planet that I have ever met in my life

They have to be, ’cause it’s a survival skill. They cannot leave. They cannot pay rent. They cannot drive. And so they get extremely good at reading what’s happening inside that house. And you know this. You know the way your house is when it’s fine, and you know the way it is when it’s not fine. And you know that your kid can tell from the way that you walk in and throw your keys on the counter.

So think about what happens to your voice when his car pulls in the driveway. Like, does it change? Does it go up a half a step? Do you get careful? Do you sigh a lot? Do you scramble around and start picking stuff up? Do you jump off the couch if you were sitting down? Because they hear that. They’ve always heard that.

They don’t have a word for it. You could ask them about it, and they wouldn’t be able to identify it, but they have years and years of data. And so here’s what I think is the actual thing, is your kids are not learning about divorce from you. They are learning about marriage every single day. You are the template.

That is the model in the house, and that is the only one that they have gotten to see up close, likely. They have gotten to see what a woman is allowed to want, whether a woman gets to be tired, whether she gets to be loud or quiet. They get to see what you do when you’re unhappy for a decade, which is apparently nothing.

You just get really quiet, according to the messages. And that is their curriculum, you know? Whether you label it that way or not, that’s what they are learning. So the question is, if your daughter came to you when she was 45 years old and described your exact marriage to you, sentence for sentence, right? N- n- just exactly what you are living, and asked you what she should do, what would you say to her?

This is not me giving you an answer. This is just a question that I think a lot of us need to ask ourselves. If she came to you, what would you say to her? Right off the top of your head, what would it be? Okay, so now there’s another side of this, and this is something that I also hear a lot, and I wanna say it also very clear, ’cause I think when we hear it out loud, something shifts, right?

And here is the fear, and this is a real fear, so it’s not something silly. I’m not making fun of this, okay? But this is what I hear. “If I stay, if I stay, then I’m in the house, then I can see if something negative is happening. I can smooth it over. I can get in front of it. If we split up, then he has them every other weekend, and I’m not h- I’m not here.

I can’t fix it. I don’t know what he’s gonna say to them. I don’t know if he’s gonna lose his temper. I don’t know if he’s gonna be sharp with them, if they’re gonna cry. There’s gonna be nobody to take care of them. I do not know what kind of mood he is gonna be in, and I will not be in the room.” Fair.

It’s valid. So I wanna walk that f- you know, I wanna walk through that with you What you just told me, and this is something I hear all the time, okay? So what you just told me is that time alone with him is the thing that you’re worried about. That’s the risk that I hear named all the time, and the solution to that risk is to have them around him 100% of the time instead of 50%.

I wanna say that again. Your solution to that is to have him be around that person 100% of the time instead of 50% of the time. So, like, the math right off doesn’t work, but I know what you’re saying in your head, so just bear with me here. The math doesn’t work, so if exposure is the problem, more exposure isn’t the fix.

Now, there is this version of what I just said that is wrong, and I’m gonna talk about that. If what you are describing is danger, like actual danger, like if you are staying because you believe your kids are physically unsafe with him or because you have seen him do something that scares you, that is not a, a mindset conversation, and I am not the person for it.

That is documentation. That is a lawyer. That is a custody arrangement built by somebody who does that work, and there are people who do that and are really good at it. So don’t let anybody, including me, talk you out of a real safety concern. But if your gut is telling you something different, then that’s what I wanna talk about.

I wanna talk about today is way more common, and it’s the one where he’s not dangerous. He’s just not good at it. Mm-hmm. He’s just not good at showing up for his kids. Like, he’s checked out, or he’s short with them, or he’s on his phone, or he gets on video games or whatever, or he just goes cold for days, and nobody really understands why.

And that’s the one where that math actually matters. Because I don’t think that, that the fear is that he is bad. I think your fear is that you are the translator, and you’ve been standing in the middle for years. You’re able to, you know, soften things that he says at dinner. You explain him to them in the car when you’re on your way to practice.

“He’s just tired, honey. He just has had a long week.” You watch his face, and you get ahead of it, and you d- redirect the conversation before it can get bad. So you are essentially, like, the shock absorber in the house. And honestly, of course you’re tired. You’re tired. That’s an impossible job to have, and, and, and I promise nobody has ever said, “Thank you for doing that.”

‘Cause that’s a job that is, like, an invisible job, right? It’s an ultra important and very invisible. Because if it was visible, you’d have to acknowledge that something was going wrong. And so when you imagine not being in the room, you’re not imagining him hurting them, you’re imagining them getting the unbuffed or unbuffered version of him, the one that you have been standing in the middle of and translating for years and years.

And that’s, you know, that- that’s love, you know? I wanna say that. That impulse to do that is love. And, and I want to show you that the cost of it is still real. So two things happen when you are the translator. One is that they never learn how to read him without you. They never get to have their own relationship with their own dad, with his actual, like, being-ness, his actual temperature, right?

They never get to form their own opinion about it. You’ve been handling that for them. And the second one is, and this is the one I really want you to hear, is that they are watching you do that job, and they are learning that this is what a woman does. She manages a man’s weather, temperature. She stays alert.

She stays small so that the room stays calm. Your daughter is taking notes on that. Your son is taking notes on that in a different way. And what he is learning is that somebody will always do that for him. You call it protecting the kids, and I wanna offer you that it might also be managing his emotions, and those are not the same thing

Okay, so I wanna talk a little bit about the language that I’ve heard people use for this, and I mentioned it a little bit before. But I think that the words actually do a lot of damage. Now, you know I’m, I’m a lover, I’m a lover of words. I’m constantly looking in the dictionary for definitions of stuff, but this is what I hear people say.

I hear them say, “I, I don’t wanna blow up the family. I don’t wanna break up the family, or destroy the family. I don’t wanna ruin their childhoods.”, What else have I heard? Oh, shatter is a word. I, like, “I don’t wanna shatter this for them.” And the words people use to describe this, and I get it, I get it, but those are, like, explosion words.

Like, those are words for, like, a bomb going off in a building, and maybe even as I say that, you’re like, “Well, it is like a bomb, a bomb going off in the building, Betsy.” But what I wanna say is that when that is the language that’s running around in your head, of course you cannot make a choice. Of course.

Nobody detonates their own house on purpose. And so you stay, and you stay, and you stay, and you stay, and more time goes by. And so what I wanna do is I wanna offer you a different sentence, and this is one that I actually really believe. You are not blowing anything up. You are just changing the way that it operates.

That’s it. That’s all you’re doing. They still have a father, they still have a mother, and honestly, they might end up with a better version of both of those, because when you are a woman who can hear yourself, then you become a better parent than the woman who is disappearing every day in the middle of the kitchen.

A family is not a building. It’s not where everybody sits at Thanksgiving time. It is a group of people who belong to each other, and belonging does not require one common roof and you’re not deciding whether your children get handed this really hard thing. They already are in a hard thing. They are already living in a house with careful voices, and tiptoes, and walking on eggshells, and arguments perhaps, and all of the things. It’s you deciding that’s the hard thing and, and deciding whether this has an end.

So again, I am not telling you to go. I wanna be really clear. I don’t know anything about your marriage. It may be that just the version of your marriage you’re living needs to go, and you could rebuild it depending on where you are. It’s what we do in the Navigate method. But this is me telling you that the comparison that you have been running is not fair to you, because you are comparing a, a happy, intact family to a broken one, and neither one of those are the choices. The real comparison is exactly what it is for however long it’s been against something else that you haven’t let yourself imagine yet.

So compare the real thing to the real thing So let me come back, let me come back to the messages that I get where people tell me that, you know, they need to have this conversation with their kids, and they’re trying to come up with a plan, and they just, they don’t wanna fail. Or they message me and they’re like, “I think I totally screwed this up.”

And so what I wanna say is that you cannot grade yourself on the delivery of one conversation. Your kids aren’t gonna remember one sentence. Almost nobody remembers the sentence. In fact, a lot of kids don’t even remember the conversation. But they remember the next two years, you know? They remember whether the house got calmer.

They remember whether you seemed really happy, you know? They remember whether you were around at 9:00 at night when they wanted to chat about it. You know, and the second thing is about repair. You know, n- if you have a conversation with your kids and it doesn’t go the way that you want, you get to go back.

You get to go back, walk in their room and say, “You know what? I don’t like how that conversation went. Like, that came out wrong.” We don’t have to be perfect. We’re human. You know, I say this to my kid all the time. I’m just a girl. It’s my first time here, trying to figure this out. But do you know what that teaches your kids when you go back and you say, “That came out wrong.

I kinda screwed up. I’m just learning. Can I try that again?” Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how many grown women that never once in their entire life have ever had a parent come back and redo a conversation? That’s the thing that your kid’s gonna remember, not the one bad sentence or the conversation in the car that didn’t go right.

It’s the coming back. It’s the repairing. It’s the you having and finding joy again And, you know, it may be that your kids ask for some truth. You know? Maybe you hedge the conversation, and they ask the question, “Are you gonna, are you gonna get divorced?” And you answer honestly, a real answer from their mother.

Your kid is not gonna remember how you said it or what was happening around it. They’re gonna remember that you didn’t lie to her, even when it cost you something. So I know some of you are listening to this in the car right now with your hands, with your hands at 10:00 and 2:00. That’s how I drive all the time, with your hands at 10:00 and 2:00.

And, you know, you’re listening, and this is just getting filed in the back of your brain. You’re not gonna do anything about it today, and that’s totally fine. Like I, I’m not asking you to. I just want you to notice which part of this that you kinda argued with me when I was talking ’cause that’s the part for you to figure out.

And like I said at the top of the show, you get to choose. You get to choose what part of this works for you, what part of it doesn’t. Maybe it’s some new thoughts. Maybe it’s all things you’ve already thought before. But I want you to notice if there’s something you argued with in your brain about, with me because maybe that’s just some place for you to explore because we don’t argue with things that we know are true.

We just go, “Eh, they’re wrong.” We argue with things that push on a bruise. And so I want you to just think about that one. That’s something that you can sort through. And, you know, this is the work that we do with women inside the Navigate Method. So, you know, book a call with us, and we can talk you through that.

And, you know, if you just wanna get really honest, did you know on my website,, under self-paced courses, like in the menu bar, there is something called The Bridge? It’s like 79 bucks, and it’ll walk you through how to get really honest with yourself about lots of things. Maybe that’s a place to start.

All right. Before we close up, I just want to let you know that our retreat is gonna be live next week, next Tuesday. If you’re on the email list, you’re gonna get an email about it. It’s gonna be in Punta Cana. It’s gonna be on January 21st to the 25th. It includes everything but your transportation, and it is gonna be amazing. It’s gonna be a real adventure. I think we’re gonna dive deep into some really cool things. We’re gonna really develop a life that you really want. We’re gonna think through a lot of hard things that maybe you’ve been rolling around in your brain.

And for those first 10 people, you get 400 bucks off. So make sure you’re on the list, ’cause I think it brings the price way down to like, I don’t know, 24, 2,500 bucks with that, with that discount. So make sure you’re on the mail list, or follow me on Instagram, ’cause I’ll be announcing it on Tuesday, and come with me to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, January 21st through the 25th, 2027.

And if you’re listening to this long after that, we’ll probably doing it again. We, we got a lot of them. Every… T- twice a year probably we’re gonna do them. So I would love to be able to see you and talk about all this stuff in real life. All right. I think when you can look at all that hard stuff and be really brave, I think that is how you live a big life.

All right. I love you so much. I’ll see you guys next week

Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy 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.