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Today’s episode is a Q & A, answering your questions!
We talk about the disappointment after reaching a big goal, not knowing where to go with your career, meditation, and intuitive eating. I hope that they are questions you would have asked! If you have your own questions please submit them for the next Q & A by heading to my social media (anywhere @betsypake) or shoot me an email.
This episode is great for anyone who wonders how to use some of the concepts we’ve talked about in previous episodes in ‘real life’ or someone who wants some new thoughts and ideas in relation to their lives.
Thanks for listening and sharing the show!
xo,
Bets
Transcript:
Welcome to the art of living day. I’m your host, Betsy Pake, and this podcast is designed to share interviews and new ideas to help you redefine what could be possible for your life. Now, let’s go live big. Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. I’m excited to have you here today. We are doing a q&a today. So over the past few months, I’ve gotten questions about certain things that you may have heard on the show. And over the last couple of weeks, I’ve just asked people to submit questions. So I have a list of questions. And I’m going to kind of move through as many of those as I can. Hopefully, something in here will serve you and it’s a question you had as well. But if I don’t answer your questions, still find me on social media and ask away or shoot me an email Betsy at Betsy Pake calm. And let’s get your questions answered. So this is kind of fun. I’ve got a list here. And we’ll move through as many as we can. And yeah, so let’s go. Alright. So All right, here’s the first one. So I got a new car, and was really excited about it. But now that I got it, it feels sort of like a letdown. I like the car. And it’s got everything I expected. I just don’t feel like I thought I would. And I’m disappointed why and what do I do? So this is so interesting. Well, this is interesting on many different levels. One of the things is, anytime we have an idea of something that we want, right, so you had this idea of this car that you wanted, and probably what happened, and this is how you’re, I believe we move through the stages
of manifesting something or the law of attraction without really
recognizing it. But probably, as you had other cars, you decided what you liked and what you didn’t like, or maybe you talk to friends, and they told you what they really loved about their car or issues they were having with their car, maybe you read articles, or you just saw cars on the street, and you got contrast,
right? So contrast is you saw things you liked,
and you saw things you didn’t like. And many times we think that getting to the goal or getting to the end thing is going to bring us a lot of joy. I believe that it’s actually uncovering
what we want,
that can make things really fun. And I know we hear lots of times, like it’s all about the journey. But if that’s what you want to call the journey, it’s the uncovering in the contrast. So here’s what I suspect has happened is that you were having a lot of fun deciding what you wanted. And you probably felt some form of abundance, because you knew you could get what you wanted, right. And so you got super clear, you picked up the color, you picked up a kind of car, you maybe shopped around, you did all of that. And you thought this all feels so good. When I get it, when I get this car, it’s gonna be amazing, right? And so you’ve kind of hyped it up in your mind. And then you get the car. And you realize that it feels a little bit like a letdown doesn’t feel as great as you thought it would. Or even if it feels great. If you’ve ever gotten a new car, and you’re listening, you know it feels great. But then within just a couple of weeks is just a car you have, right, it doesn’t bring you the same level of joy that it did right before you drove off the lot. Right. And here’s where I think that comes from it. I’ve used this analogy with my daughter. And I don’t think it’s the greatest analogy. But I don’t have another one yet. And so I’m going to use this one.
But I there’s two
things in the sky, right? There’s the the moon and there’s the sun. And the moon, we look at and it’s beautiful. And we go Oh the
moon, but it’s lit up.
Because of the sun. It doesn’t have its own light, right. So it has to have the sun reflecting on it for us to see it. And when we when that happens, we go Oh, it’s so pretty. But if you don’t see the moon for a couple days, you don’t go like I haven’t seen the moon. Or if you don’t see it for a week,
or even I would say like a month. Let’s
say you don’t see the moon, I’m gonna guess that you don’t really notice. But when you don’t see the sun, even if you don’t see the sun for a day, you’re like, Where’s the sun, I wish the sun would come out. Now the moon needs the sun to be illuminated. But the sun illuminates all by itself. It is its own energy source. It doesn’t need anything else to make it bright. It just is it glows from the inside out. And I think that many times we have fun in that process. But we think oh my gosh, when I get the car, that’s when I will be illuminated that’s when I’ll feel really good. That’s when everything will be great. But the reality is that that’s not how it works because then we go on to something else that we want or then the thing becomes old news. But if you could become illuminated from the inside out Then you don’t need something else to illuminate you, you don’t
need the car to make you feel good.
You don’t
need the shopping trip to make you feel like you’re light and bright, because you have that from the inside. Okay, so all of that said, doesn’t mean that you’re not illuminated from the inside, or that you’re an unhappy person, because you got disappointed about your car, I All I’m saying is that it’s totally normal, like what you felt is totally normal to have a little bit of disappointment, because you are probably the kind of person that really enjoys the unfolding. And that’s okay. I think sometimes we put a huge emphasis on getting the thing or getting the goal or reaching the goal, but instead, put the huge emphasis on being really happy illuminating from the inside out, because then you would see how fun the journey is. And you would get whatever it is that you needed from that. And by the time you got the car, if you didn’t, you wouldn’t even notice if you felt good or bad, because you just be like, it’s all part of the unfolding. It’s all part of the journey. But I’m happy. Regardless of the of the outcome, I’m happy, whether I get the car, I don’t get the car, I’m just having fun in the process. So I hope that that makes some sense, I need probably a better analogy. But if you can start to just focus on the happiness, I did an experiment over the past month or so, where I would try to get really, really focused and happy before I went to Target. I know it sounds silly, but I would go to Target to get dog food. And I have like sort of a biweekly run to get dog food and cat food and cat snacks and all that stuff. And I would end up kind of walking around. And then I would be like I need that mug I need, you know, to try this new lotion, even though I have you know, 15 other lotions in my bathroom, I need this, I need that. And when I left, I would feel sort of like, I bought a bunch of stuff. I didn’t really need a cane for stuff. How is it that my bills like $200, those things I came from were only 70. It’s because I thought because I was acting like the moon. And I needed something else to illuminate me. So as I’ve gotten really happy before I go, it’s weird. It is actually weird. I’ve gone with a girlfriend even. And we’ve walked around, I’ve seen lots of stuff, I can appreciate the things I can go, Oh, that’s really cute. I love that malgor I love that picture frame or whatever it is. But I don’t feel the need to bring it home, I don’t feel the need to actually buy it. So it is as if I’m being illuminated from the outside from the inside out. And it clears the way so that I don’t need something else. So all of that to come back to the car. Yeah, you know, be excited that you had such a fun unfolding, release yourself, give yourself some grace that you feel a little disappointed. It’s okay. It’s because you love the unfolding. Try to focus on being happy and appreciate the fact that you’re happy. Well, you are unfolding The next thing. And you know, just relax into it be happy before you get the thing and then you’re just always happy. And then you don’t need things. And then when you get the car you’re like cool. It’s part of the process. It’s part of the unfolding, perhaps, to something else. So
Alright, so next question.
I really want to meditate because the effects of it sound really wonderful. But I have one or two problems, either I can’t settle my mind down at all, or I fall asleep. Do you have any recommendations that can help me? And what is your favorite meditation app? Alright, so this I think is a really I feel like I’ve gotten this question. Probably this is a really common question, right? So people want to meditate because they really like what it could do for them and what they hear about what it could do for them. But they have like a super monkey brain, or they just fall asleep. So one thing I would say is to ask yourself when you’re actually doing your meditation. So if you’re in the habit of getting up in the morning, maybe and you have like a morning routine, right? So you get up in the morning and you get your coffee and then you go meditate. Well, if you’re getting coffee, first, you may be really overstimulating your brain, and your brain may just not be able to settle into the brainwaves that it needs to in order to be in a meditative state where you could feel really comfortable. The other thing I’ve heard people talk about is that they like to meditate at work. So they go out to lunch, and then they sit in their car and meditate for a little bit, but they get so sleepy. So meditate first before you eat. So when we eat all of the blood in our body, not all but most a great deal of blood in our body goes to our digestive system to help us digest the food. And when all of that energy is going into our digestive system, it doesn’t really have a whole lot to sustain everything else and it would be much easier for you to just fall asleep. Okay, so maybe you need the nap too. I mean, that’s something to consider. Perhaps you need a nap more than you need to meditate. But those are the things I would say Just start to maybe a notice when you’re doing it and what else has happened, keep like a little Journal of what else has happened around the time that you’re trying. And then if you find like, you just have a wild brain anyway, like your brain is just constantly moving. And I think that we get in sort of a habit of that in the world, right? Because we’re always moving, moving, moving, moving. Next thing, next thing, next thing, so maybe you just say like, this is the way I have moved through the world, but I’m choosing to change. And so I’m going to use the next five minutes to just breathe, and just concentrate on your breathing. You know, somebody, I went out to dinner with a bunch of girlfriends the other day, and somebody actually asked me about this, and about how they really have a hard time meditating. It was maybe she’s the one that
submitted this question,
I don’t know. But I said, when you learn to ride a bike, or even now, if you’ve been riding a bike for 20 years, and you get on your bike, are you constantly Are you straight on the on the,
on the wheels perfectly straight, just
evenly, smoothly going down the road?
No. And if you’re going up a hill, you’re really going side to side to side to side, right, that’s how you’re balancing, you’re going off a little bit and coming back, you’re going off to the other side and coming back. So like relieve yourself of the thought that if I meditating, I was supposed to be in this like super Zen like state because really, it’s all about like bringing it back to center, I noticed my brain drifts off, that’s okay, now I’m gonna think about my breathing. Oh, it’s drifted off again, bring it back to my breathing, and just see if that helps settle you down. Now, not to scare you. But it will take me if I’m doing just a simple meditation like not a guided meditation. So just a meditation where I put like the sound of the oceans on like, I go to YouTube and I get an ocean sounds and I just listened to that. It can take me close to 40 minutes before my brain settles down enough. And I’m have been meditating for years and years. And so just give yourself the grace that any experience I have, I’m not going to be like a monk that can completely get into like this beautiful trance state really quickly.
But I’m on the I’m on the road.
And where I am on the road right now is that I get five minutes where I’m constantly bringing it back to my breathing. And then like a month from now, maybe I have five and a half minutes.
So
watch and pay attention to when you’re meditating and what else is happening around you. But then also give
yourself a break.
Like we don’t have to be these like, like super meditation creatures, like really all it’s about is giving yourself a moment to just settle down, right, just giving your brain a rest and to be present. And you know what, on to take that one step further, maybe being present for you is like kissing your dog and cuddling with your dog. Here’s something
now I’m going to go
off on a little tangent, but I see on Facebook. Lately, I feel like a lot of my friends have lost animals, they’ve lost their pets. And it’s so sad. I have two dogs and a cat. And I mean, I love those animals so much, right? They bring me so much joy. But I believe part of that is because when I’m with them, and when I pick up my little dog, and I pick her up and hold her in my arms, and I kiss her, I’m not worried about the future. I’m not contemplating the past, I’m in the moment. And now I’m a meditator. And so I’m in the moment,
a lot during
the day compared I think compared to most people. But if most people don’t aren’t, if most people aren’t into meditation, or they don’t have a way, if their life is moving so fast, it may be the only time they are completely in alignment with who there they really are. And in the moment is when they kiss and cuddle with their pets. And so when their pets are gone, yes, they miss their pets. Yes, they miss their pets, but they also are missing. The one thing that brings them into alignment every day. And so if you’re really struggling with the meditation, if you’re just like it’s causing you more stress, find something else that just makes you feel like for a moment you’re aligned and you’re in the moment in your being. You’re not worried about the future. You’re not contemplating the past. You’re just in the moment. And for me, that happens when I do the podcasts. I’m not thinking about other things. It happens for me when I have a monthly Meetup group happens to me when I’m speaking at my monthly group happens to me when I’m coaching I’m totally in the moment. I’m not thinking about anything else happens to me when I’m picking up my little dog. So, you know if you’re trying to meditate, but right now it’s not working. It doesn’t mean it’s never going to work for you. Maybe if you think of this as a really long road with the monks down on one end of the road, and the regular meditators like me, on the other end of the road, maybe you’re just like a step or two behind me on the road. And for you right now, it’s just breathing a few times a day, or it’s just petting your dog, or it’s just, and then it doesn’t mean you’ll never get to where I am. And it doesn’t mean I won’t ever get further down the road. Like it’s just a continuum, you’re just on the road. So kind of relax and release the expectation and see if you can just start to move forward in being and being a little bit more alert. Alright, so that would be my thoughts on that. Let’s see, how long have we been going? We got time, we got time for a little bit more. All right, we’ll do one more here. I get well, I get two more that are good. Okay. So I used to be really clear about what I wanted in my life. But now I’ve spent years getting here. And I’m not sure this is really where I want it to be or where else I would want to go? What do I need to do to get clear, or just not to feel so panicked about what’s going to happen to me? So, you know, this is a lot like getting the new car, right? So we think that we have an idea of where we want to be. And then when we get there, we’re a little disappointed, right? Or maybe like with this person, I’m not sure this is where I wanted to be. I want
to say something that might help give you a little bit of peace. But
maybe where you wanted to be isn’t really your final destination. But maybe you had to get there in order to get to your final destination. So how about that? How about where you are right now? Might not be what you thought it was going to be? Because it’s not where you’re going to end up. It’s not what feels good to you right now because it doesn’t align. Here’s what I think when we feel uneasy when we feel like oh, this isn’t right. That’s because we’re being in congruent. Our outsides are not matching our insides that gut feeling that instinct of where you’re supposed to be. So you’re going, I don’t feel this is not where I’m supposed to be. I just feel it right. I might. It’s a gut instinct. And so I think that that is where your outsides aren’t matching your inside. So your insides is going, this isn’t where I’m supposed to be. But your outsides is going, this is where I’ve been working towards this
is what I wanted. So
that’s okay. That’s awesome.
Because you’re sensing that this, isn’t it?
I kind of keep going. Now, how do I keep going?
Like, what do I do now? And I think that many times we think I have to know, I have to have a plan. I have to have this mapped out I need to know for the next five years, what’s going to happen, right? But what about if right now, right where you are, you said that you’re here. And you don’t feel like this is where you’re supposed to be. But you don’t know where you’re supposed to go. So don’t panic, relax and know, this is where you’re supposed to be at this moment. But it’s probably not where you’re intended to be forever. And so, start to listen, start to listen, there’ll be little signs of things that you should do next. Now, how do you know you’re supposed to do those things next? Because they feel right, they feel good. They feel happy. Back in November, I was really wanting to, I felt like there was something more I was supposed to be doing with my coaching. And I really felt like it was supposed to be live. And I did a lot of speaking gigs earlier in the year last year. But by the end of the year, I wasn’t like people just weren’t meeting speakers. And I was missing that. And so I was like, This isn’t where I’m supposed to be like this isn’t right. Like I knew this wasn’t right. And so I just started really listening. What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? And when you can start to do that? I found one thing and one thing and one thing. And then I found a meetup. If you know what meetup is, it’s like a online event planning thing where you can plan your own little events and people are logged into the meetup system. And they’re notified that this might be something that they’re interested in, and then they can come. So I was like, I’m going to do my own meetup. Like, if nobody’s hiring me to come speak, I’m going to go speak to people that want to come hear me. And so that’s what I’ve done. And it’s it’s been full and on a waitlist every single month that I’ve done it since. And I didn’t know, I did not know at the beginning of October. That’s what I would be doing. But I
knew I was missing something. And so I just started listening
to the science and the science brought me to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And
so that has made me
feel like Ooh, this is where
I’m supposed to be. This is right. So if where you are right now isn’t where you want to be. That’s okay, because you noticed it. And now just relax and just look for the signs and the signs are going to be the things that make you feel good. The things that seem right. You know, when you get that gut feeling, ooh, my gut tells me this is right. That’s the thing and it might be really Small things, it’s probably not some big huge thing. Like my thing was paying 15 bucks to be on meetup and have my own group like, it was not some big thing. I go to Panera. Like, I’m not, you know, it’s not like I’m like, I didn’t think like, Oh, I got to nobody’s hiring me to speak. So I’m gonna create my own, like 500 person event. No, no, I just went on meetup and like, took that next little step. So remember, it might not be some big huge step, it might be something small. Just be looking for the next thing. And the next thing and the next thing that feels right. So all right, I hope that that helped. I’m gonna do one more. What do we got? 20 minutes. Okay, I’m gonna do one more. I feel like I’ve been dieting my whole life. And I’m tired of it. I hear people talk about intuitive eating. I even think I’ve heard you talk about that. Yeah, I was just thinking that when I read this, I even think I heard you talk about that. And I’m wondering, how do I do that? And will it really work to help me get this weight off? Okay. So, you know, I totally get the you’ve been dieting your whole life and you’re tired of it, I don’t think that’s really how we’re supposed to live, I think that there’s something better out there. And that I, I do believe that it can be intuitive. So there’s a few different ways you can do that. One is really just being you’re going to have to settle yourself enough to really listen to what really works for you, if you want to really be intuitive, you know, you may keep a food journal, so that you can write down immediately after your meal how you really feel. So if food is fuel, and you are supposed to feel energized after you eat, then if you eat a lunch, and then you really want to go take a nap like really sleepy not just like a regular, like my digestive system is working, but you feel really drained, you may want to take a look at what you’re eating, I would say intuitively, that’s how you could begin and then maybe play around with things, you know, I would take the focus off your weight. And really, you’ll want to get in the vibration of the person that weighs less. And I talked about that in the last episode, which I think was like Episode 87. The one about hustle alignment versus hustle, listen to that, because I think that could really help you. But I think that if you want to be intuitive get in the space of you are the thinner, thinner person, the person that is happy, happy, healthy with lots of energy, how do they behave, and then is my food choices making me feel that way. So that’s one way you could start to notice that. The other thing is you could start to muscle test before you eat something. So muscle testing, there’s a number of different ways you can do it. You could look it up on YouTube and just see if you can find it. But I like to take my thumb and my pinkie and press them together. So if I have both fingers, my thumb and my pinky, but then I kind of interlace them so it’s sort of like a daisy chain so that you know they’re connected right? And then I asked myself and you can start by asking yourself like What’s your name? Or is my name Betsy Pake? Right? So is my name Betsy Pake and I pull quickly and if it holds, that’s a yes. Right. And if it releases that’s a no. Now you here’s the trick with this is that you can’t pull a pole pole pole pole pole pole because then you’re conscious of it. Right? So I want to be like pretty quick. And I want to make it sort of an unconscious knowing a yes or no. So am I Betsy Pake? Yes, it’s holding. Okay, so then I want to say like, should I eat this yogurt? Should I be eating yogurt, I gotta know. And I actually think that’s true, I shouldn’t be eating yogurt, I think it makes my nose run, I think dairy is bad for me.
So if I were to be really eating intuitively, I might go, I’m going to cut out dairy for a week or so. And just see how that makes me feel. Taking the taking the emphasis off your weight, because if you’re too restricted right now about the weight and listen to that other episode to fully understand what I mean. But if there’s restriction around, I weigh too much, I want to lose weight, I can’t lose weight, I can’t lose weight, I can’t lose weight, there’s a restriction around that I want to take my mind off of that totally. So shift to something else. So shift to something you can focus on, which might be like the muscle testing and being aware of how things make you feel and focusing on energy instead. Because when you get the energy balance, that’s when you’ll start to see the changes in your body. Right. So that would be my suggestion on that just to get started with intuitive eating, and see how that starts to transform things and maybe shift things a little bit for you and hopefully kind of shift the way you’re thinking about things too. So I hope that that helped. Thanks so much, everybody for listening. Remember if you have questions, be sure to submit them so that I can use them for next time. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate you listening. Please share it with your friends and I appreciate everybody so much that has subscribed and reviewed the show. I mean, just
sharing it with
your friends. It makes me want to jump up and kick up my head. So thank you so much for that. I’m honored. So have a great week and we’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening. Remember, you can find me all over social media
at Betsy Pake
and, as always, here’s a little message from my husband.
That’s it.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
