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Today Betsy talks about keeping your focus even when it appears from the outside that everything is falling apart and inspires you to believe that if your dream is still alive, it can still come true.
Transcription:
Hello, today’s episode is called eye on the prize, how shifting your focus changes how you experience your environment. It’s really interesting because I have been sitting here for an hour, like sitting here for an hour, staring at the screen. Starting stopping, erasing, starting stopping erasing starting stuff we read, I think, maybe five times. Then I went and got an English muffin, got a Red Bull. And then I came back and I stared some more. And then I got on Instagram, you know what I’m talking about, you know, those days, right. But when I was journaling this morning, that was the title I on the prize, which I find hilarious, since I could not get my eye on the prize, which was actually recording this podcast, you know, usually what I do, is I get like an idea. And then I come in here, and then I start recording, and then I just shut my eyes. And then I just talk. And today is like really interesting day is a day of completion in a lot of ways. So today, my daughter is moving into the dorms at scad. I know and maybe you’ve been through that, or maybe you’re looking forward to that. Or maybe you’ve seen a lot of friends that are moving their kids into the dorms at whatever school they’re going to and I have to tell you that that it feels it feels so I’m gonna pause for a second. Unbelievable. It feels unbelievable. And here’s, here’s what I’m going to talk about. So you know, if you listen to I think was Episode 253, my daughter was on. So you may have heard her story, she wanted to come on and tell her story. She suffered with extreme anxiety and depression all through high school, junior high, it started high school, to the point where she couldn’t attend school. And we did a lot of things, you can listen to that episode and hear more about it. But ever since she was a little kid, like little kids, she loved to draw. And she was amazing. I remember like seven or eight years old, she would draw stuff and I would hang it in my office like in my cube when I worked. And people would ask me, oh, did your daughter color that. And I was like, it’s not a coloring page. She drew it. And then she colored it. And they would be like, what? And then like she was seven years old, you know, like little her whole life. She wanted to go to scad scad is the Savannah College of Art and Design. And we live in Atlanta. There’s an Atlanta campus, there’s a Savannah campus, and there is a campus in Paris. There used to be a campus in Hong Kong, but I think that one has closed. So her whole life, that’s what she wanted. And then when she got sick, you know, I felt like that dream. I mean, she had no dreams, you know, everything fell to the side and all the things that had been important to her no longer work during that period of time. And she stopped drawing. I remember that was one of the things that made me feel the most sad. She used to draw, and then she would think they weren’t good enough. And so she would crumple them up and put them in the garbage. And I used to put it on Facebook that they were like, garbage art. The garbage art was amazing. It’s incredible. I still have a lot of it. But people would be like,
Oh my god, she threw that in the garbage.
But she was always wanting to learn and get better and so nothing else seemed good enough. I remember at Christmas time it was like she would get so many gift cards to Blix, which is on the Savannah campus. It’s like amazing art store like with I mean it’s huge, you know, with every every thing you could ever think of and I remember bringing her and one day I have a picture I need to find it for today but of her standing there with a receipt as tall as her. I mean she was probably eight or nine years old and so happy smiling. And then when she got sick, you know that kind of went away and she didn’t draw at all and I remember I knew she was getting better when she started drawing again. And so today to have her move into the dorms, feels like more. It feels more it feels bigger than what it may be on the outside. It feels incredible. Like the amount of pride that I have for her, and excitement that I have for her. I mean, I know how much fun she’s gonna have and like how amazing it’s going to be. And, you know, when she was so sick, she decided to get her GED and not go back to high school. And you know, when I grew up, school was really important. Like, we didn’t miss school for anything, you know. And my dad worked at the university. And so we talked about going to college ever since I was like three years old. You know, we were talking about when you go to college, when you go to college, when you go. And so then to have her decide to get her GED, I remember that was a stretch for me, that was me like having to, to settle into the idea that she had to do what was right for her. And it wasn’t about what was right for me. Right. It wasn’t about what my values were about things. She had to do the things that were right for her. And so she that’s what she decided, but in the back of my head, I kind of knew like, she’s never gonna go to scad you know what I mean? Because like, you got your GED, like, just just seemed like she was going to be giving that up. And I think I even mentioned that to her. And she said, No, I’m still gonna go, I’m just, I got to go somewhere else first and get really good grades. And so that’s what she did. She went to Georgia State and got amazing, like amazing grades, and then applied and was able to transfer I can’t even tell you the the amazement
that I have about it.
It’s she kept your eye on the prize. You know, all this crap went on in between. And like, Did she slipped? Did she not look at where she wanted to go? mate? Probably, there were probably times. But in the end, that vision was so clear that it ended up being a guiding light so that no matter what happened, she was always drawn back to that. It was her alignment. Right? It was her thing that like, well, I can do this, I can still do this, I can come back to this, I can still have that dream. I can still focus there. And so this morning, when I was journaling, I was like, you know, keeping our eye on the prize when everything else is happening, and big things might be happening. Things might be happening in your life, that right now, you’re like, there’s no way. There’s no way that what it is that I want is going to make it to me. And I want to offer this, this story and this idea that maybe there are times where you have to say my dream is not happening right now. And I’ll get back to it. And instead of worrying about where you are and noticing all the struggles and all of the obstacles in your way, how they might be moving you away from what you want. Instead, maybe just shelve it for a minute and say, You know what, I know somebody who knows somebody that had a lot of obstacles and was still able to make it happen. They were still able to come back to that dream and realign themselves when the time was right. I think that it’s such a powerful lesson. It’s powerful lesson for me. You know, recently I shared with one of my clients. A story about when I was at the Phoenician so about a month or so ago I went to the Venetian it’s the episode about waffle fries. If you look back two or three episodes ago, I went to the Venetian for a long weekend by myself. And at the Venetian it’s a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona and they have like multiple levels of pools and some of the pools are adult pools. And then some of them you can have kids and I was at the adult pool most of the time but the very first day I went to the pool that I thought was the adult pool but it turned out to be a kid’s pool. And as I sat there, I noticed that there was a couple on mother with her kid her son and behind me which I hadn’t realized because it wasn’t turned on when I first got to the pool because I got to the pool at like seven o’clock in the morning. Behind me there was like one of those kids pools you know, that has like the Mushroom thing, you know what I mean? It was like a whole fountain and all of that. And so the mom was there with the little boy. And he saw the kids pool and decided he wanted to go. And so his mother kind of was getting up to go with him and he started to run. He was maybe two, you know what I mean? Like little kid, in like, the swim diaper thing, you know. And I noticed that as soon as he started running, I was like, oh, careful, don’t run at the pool, they fell down. But you know, when they’re that short, you don’t have very far to fall. So they kind of get right back up and go. But what I noticed was that when he fell, he put his arms out, but he kept his eyes on the pool, he kept his eyes on the kid fountain thing. And then, like, got up and kept running
the trip in
the fall, it didn’t derail him, or even really slow him down at all. He kept his eyes where he wanted to go. And so the tripping didn’t matter. Because he was so clear
about where he wanted to go. You know, there’s that fearful part of me as a mom,
of like, I want everything to be okay, you know, and when all of goes off to college, I want everything to be okay. And I want her to know that there’s, it’s that life, it’s not going to be perfect. But then I’m like, I don’t want to put that in her head that that something’s gonna go wrong. But I felt like I needed to say, you know, sometimes it will be hard. You’ve never lived with other kids before other kids your age. And sometimes it might be hard. Just know, when that happens that that’s part of living in a dorm. And that’s part of the amazing, the amazing part of living in a dorm is getting used to so many different kinds of people. And so when it gets hard know that it’s supposed to, and that that’s actually part of the journey. And she seemed to listen to that. And she nodded. Yeah, yeah. And I want when she trips for her to keep her eyes, still on the prize, and know that that’s part of running towards what you want. Sometimes our journeys are different than what we thought they would be. And that’s because there’s things we need to learn before we get there. There’s things we need to understand before we reach the prize. And sometimes it feels like just awful, it doesn’t make sense. You know, when I look back on my daughter’s journey, like, does she have to learn all that stuff that she had to learn by going through that horrific time in her life? I don’t know. I’d like to think that there’s some greater purpose in that. That’s how I would like to experience the world, that there’s a greater purpose. And that there’s a reason, and that there’s something that she learned that she couldn’t learn any other way. And that little thing is going to help other people, it’s going to help shape her into a better version of her. You know, if we are pieces of source coming down to have this experience, then that’s an experience that she got to play out. You know, and I think sometimes when we look at our challenges, we, we and we understand that it’s part of the process. It’s part of getting to where we want to go, it’s part of like keeping our eye on that prize,
then
it becomes easier, right? It becomes part of what we’re going through it comes part of our experience. And I think that when we can shift our focus, it can start to change how we experience our environment. So a little bit shorter show today because I just wanted to come on and share that thought as I get ready to leave and move her into the dorms.
What is
the prize that you need to keep your eye on? Where have you been derailed? Where then you thought, it’s not for me and where it made you sad? Sometimes we get derailed and it’s good. We’re like, you know what, that wasn’t the way for me, and that’s okay. But if there is something that you still desire, just know that even if your present reality doesn’t look like how you thought it would on the way to that thing.
Doesn’t mean that things not coming. It just means you’re taking a route that you didn’t expect.
And when you can be like that little kid, and just keep your eye where you want to go, instead of looking down and spending too much time, debating how this happened and how you fell and how it hurt your little toes, you know, and you can just keep focused on what’s coming and how this is supposed to happen. So that you can become this fullest version of you when you get there. So I hope that that helps you think a little bit differently about what could be possible for your life.
I love you so much. Have a great week. Thanks so much for listening today. If you want to take a moment to leave us
a review on iTunes. Take a quick screenshot before you hit submit an email it over to us at support at Betsy Pake calm, and we will send you a special audio hypnosis to help you overcome a limiting belief. Thanks so much and I’ll see you next week.
