285: Are Your Stories Serving You?

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PODCAST

Betsy gives an update on her trip to Iceland and talks about a thought that became clear to her while standing in the middle of a snowstorm.

What we do, what we experience is all really neutral. The stories that we have about it are the things that give it meaning. She’s here to tell you, if your stories are not serving you, you get to just change them. It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to be “right”.

>>> Listen to episode 279 to learn more about the conscious to subconscious ladder: https://betsypake.com/alb279/

>>> Listen to episode 253 to hear about her daughter’s journey: https://betsypake.com/alb253/

>>> Connect with Betsy on IG @betsypake

Transcription:

Hello fellow adventurers, how are you? Welcome to today’s show. Welcome to the Art of Living big if you’re new here, welcome, welcome.

So I am here. I’m excited. I’m excited to talk to you guys today. First of all, I’m here in Iceland. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing me talk about it. If you’re watching on Instagram, every moment, I think I’m putting in my Instagram stories. But I have been here not quite a week. And the last couple days, there has been a severe storm warning. So it was interesting because I was like, thinking about all the different things that I want to talk to you guys about and all the different things that I want to share. And lots of times I’ll have like a running list, you know, in my phone, and one idea kept coming up and coming up. And you know, when I’m working with clients, I get ideas from that, because i i You know, I think so many of our, our challenges can be universal, you know. And so this one theme kept coming up, and it’s been coming up for me. And so anyway, I thought this is so interesting, because here I am in Iceland, this is what I’m about to tell you is what I wanted to talk about. And then I’m having this experience that like I feel like it like teed it up completely perfect. Okay, so here I am. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. If you’re new here, and you don’t know that I live in Atlanta, Georgia, but I grew up in Vermont. It’s cold and it’s snowy and I grew up right on the Canadian border. And we always had loads and loads of snow. But I laughed. Like, right after college. I mean, like, days after college, I didn’t even know where I was going. I got in my car and was like we’re going south. I think I thought I could drive to the Dominican or something. I think no, St. Thomas is where I thought I was gonna go like, but I’m gonna drive as far as I can. And then I only had enough money to get to like North Carolina. Anyway, that’s a story for another time. But I grew up in Vermont. And so now here I am in Iceland. I came to Iceland. It’s cold. It’s snowy. I mean, it’s it’s February, right. And the last two days they have had a, like a huge, huge storm come in. I know in Atlanta, like all up the East Coast like Florida, Atlanta all the way up through the East Coast has been this huge, huge rainstorm, right. So now I think this has turned to snow and hit Iceland anyway. hurricane force winds like everything is closed. I mean, for Iceland, like it’s one thing in Atlanta if everything closes, because there’s snow, but it’s Iceland and everything is closed. And so it kind of halted our travels, you know, like our adventures got a little delayed, we had to rearrange. And we did like some work days instead on the weekends so that then we could go off and have an adventure during the week during the time we would normally be working. So we’ve tried to be really flexible and rearrange. Well today, we were all sitting in the living room and a few people were doing some yoga on, like on YouTube that they had streamed to the TV. And the rest of us were all sitting around like on our computers and the wind was howling. I mean, like I’ve never heard I kept thinking like are the windows gonna break but it’s built for this right? So the wind is howling, the trees, the snow is whipping and swirling. And I look at this other guy that’s here on the trip with me. There’s nine of us. And I was like, I want to go out there. And he was like me too. Let’s do it. So we put all of our gear on and I mean, it reminded me so much of Vermont, you know, putting on my ski pants and my mittens and like a neck gator and my hat and my winter coat and my boots and like the whole thing. It just, I mean it took so long you couldn’t just spontaneously run out like I do in Atlanta. It was such a process you know? And I got out there and I mean we could barely read videotaped it we could barely walk. I mean I was falling down the wind gusts. I couldn’t look into the wind because the snow was like pelting your face. It just hurt so much. And I mean we were laughing I was hysterical laughing It just felt so funny and so fun to me. And I said out loud although Rubin that I was out there with couldn’t hear me. The wind was loud but I said, I grew up in Vermont, and I never go back because it’s too cold. It just struck me as so funny, because now here I am. But the story that I have is that I know all about Vermont, I’ve already been there. And I don’t know anything about Iceland. So it felt worth it to risk the cold, to have a totally different experience. So the story in my head is that if I go to Vermont, I’m going to have an experience I’ve already had. And that doesn’t feel worth it. Now, why am I even telling you this? Because who cares? The reason I’m telling you this is because it suddenly became this really obvious thing to me that neither of those things could be true. Like I have experience, I just explained to you how I booked my cold weather stuff on it reminded me of when I was young, which means that’s an experience that I’ve already had getting ready and having a belabor Summon, and having all these different layers and all this stuff, right. And I think that what we do, what we experience is all really neutral. But the stories that we have about it, are the things that give it meaning. And our brains are meaning making machines. That’s what our, our minds just want to make meaning out of everything. It’s constantly searching for meaning. And if we don’t have enough information, I’ll jump to this. But if we don’t have enough information, we make up the story that fills in the blanks. So I want you to think about the things that you think about your life, maybe there’s something that’s really hard right now, something that you’re going through, and you’re like, Betsy, this is legit, difficult, I have this situation, and I’m dealing with this thing.

And what I would say is to evaluate the stories around it. And I’m going to talk a little bit more about this and how to do this. But I want to say this again, in a different way. Everything and just be open. Like if you’re new here, like just be, like be open to like some other new idea. And this might not be a new idea. But if and if you’ve been here for a long time, then you know me relax enough to imagine that what I’m about to say is real is true. Okay? So the truth is, is that every single thing is neutral. Every single thing is neutral. Every good thing that you see every bad thing, every complex thing. Everything is neutral. Me coming on this trip neutral. Me sitting in this chair neutral. me having like thinking about experiences in my life that were hard, right? I’m using air quotes hard, neutral, every single thing is neutral. Now you might be jumping to like, what about really terrible things that have happened? Neutral. The thing that makes them good or bad or terrible, is the stories that we have around it. It’s it’s the the deep side of all of the beliefs that surround it that help you make up the story. It’s the values that you have that swirl around the beliefs that then help you build the story. So my story being here was that if I go to Vermont, I’m not going to have a new experience. But it’s worth it for me to travel a jillion kajillion miles and hours and hours on a plane in an expense and meeting a bunch of people I’ve never met before and then coming to this place in Iceland, because I thought it was gonna be new and I craved something new. But maybe that’s all neutral. Maybe me going to Vermont could be totally totally different. Now, who cares if I go to Iceland or go to Vermont? Like that isn’t what matters. But what I think matters is the stories that are stopping you. The stories that are holding you back the stories that are defining who you are. Well, I can’t have what I want, because I can’t have a really great relationship. Because I’ve been divorced. I’ll never find anybody because dating is so different now. Right? I can’t build a life that I really want because I don’t I never got the chance to go to college. Right? If my husband hadn’t taken off with the Secretary, then I would be able to have more confidence and then I would probably be in a different place. If I hadn’t gotten fired from that job, which was something I didn’t even do wrong, then I would be able to have a much better job now, and I’d be able to live where I want. Now, like, those are all made up scenarios, but maybe there’s something in there that you identified, there’s a reason why I have the life I have right now. And is because of this stuff that happened. It’s because of this story. Now stories can be really good to write. Like, I’m a super optimistic person. And so I always find the bright side, that could be a story that you have, and that can be great. There’s a lot of good stories. Now, here’s the trick. Here’s what I want you to be thinking about. As you think about the stories that you have for your life, and you have a million of them. Is, is the story that I have right now for my life serving me. So that’s the question. There’s an overarching story for your life? Is the overarching story for my life serving me. Have you been thinking about becoming a coach, but you’re not sure where to start? Are you already a coach or a therapist, and you really want new ways to help your clients transform, I want to invite you into the alchemy Institute. It’s a place where we create world class, board certified coaches, trained in nlp hypnosis, deep streaming EFT and time techniques. With this knowledge, you can upgrade your business and create your life. Go at your own pace with our on demand trainings, or attend one of our live events. You can get more information at Betsy paik.com. Or head straight to the academy at V alchemy institute.co.

I’ll see you there. And then you can look at some of the things in your life right now that are hard. What’s the story that I have around this? This is why this is such important work. And you don’t have to sit down for three hours and meditate on it. I just want you to just pull out a piece of paper and make a list of the things right now. Right? What’s the overarching story for my life. And here’s how you can like if there was a song that defined your life, right? If you’re like that song is my life, right? Like if there’s a song, or a story that you’re like that i So identify with that right or a quote, this quote just sums me up. When we were in the van driving here yesterday, the first day, we all got together, we all met in like this random parking lot in Reykjavik. It’s overall so I got there first, unlike the taxi cab driver dropped me off. And I had told him the story. And he was like, Are you going to be okay? Like, I’m just leaving you in this parking lot. I said, as long as you’ve brought me to the right place. And then when no time at all, everybody started showing up. We all got in the van. And one of the things that they said were they Julia, one of the girls that’s helping coordinate everything she passed around her phone and said, Everybody put in a song that defines you. Like, what an interesting thought, right? What is the song that defines you and some people just put songs that they were really listening to right now. But immediately I knew what song it was, like immediately it Bryan Adams because of the artist defines my childhood and the his song shine a light, I think is how I think about my life, like immediately. So if I were to think about the overarching thing for my life, what’s the story? That’s the story, right? That grew up in a small town I shining my light

on a journey on a quest, right to find the things that make my light bright so that I can shine those all over everybody else and help them shine their light too. Right. So that was like my defining. That’s the story about my life. Now I have a lot of stories inside of my day to day life. So if you have a piece of paper and you’re writing, like, what’s the story for my life? What’s the overarching theme? What’s the quote? What’s the song? And then I want you to think about what are the individual stories that I have for my life for the things that aren’t working. And you can just make a line down a piece of paper and on one side, just write all the things that aren’t working. Like I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this. It doesn’t have to be something big. It can be anything. Like I hate the way my bedrooms decorated right now. Like write it out. Because you have a story about it. You have a story about the good stuff too, but we’ll leave that alone because why put our energy there if it’s making us happy, right? So look at each each of those individual things and then just ask yourself what’s the story I have around On this and all you have to do is tell me why. You know, I don’t hate my bedroom, but I’m gonna use that as an example. You know, I might say like, I hate my, the way my bedroom is there’s been a time where I’ve hated my bedroom. I didn’t like the comforter, I felt like it was rearranged weird. You know, there’s a huge even now there’s a huge mark on the bed footboard from like, a dog that we were babysitting or something, like jumped on the bed and taken his big nail and like, put a dent in my furniture, right? bugs me doesn’t bug me too much, but bugged me a lot at the time because I had a story about it. Okay, so this is a good one. So my story about it. My story about it was that I didn’t want this dog at the house. This dog was so big. He wasn’t friendly. He was scaring little Miley. Why do I have to do all this? Why does everything get ruined? Why can’t I have good stuff? Because at the time, I have like a bunch of dogs and a kid. Right? And you know how that is like, everything does get ruined? So why can’t Why do other people? How come? There’s people I see on the internet that have beautiful bedrooms? How come? I don’t have stuff like good style. I can’t put together a good bedroom to save my life. Like I would literally need to have like a Garanimals for bedroom decor like I don’t not good with that. How come? I’m not good with that? How come I never learn that? So I have a whole story. Right? The story is, I never was taught that I don’t have a design i And that’s probably something you’re born with. And I don’t have it. And I don’t have the money to just pay somebody just come in every time I want to rearrange, right. So it’s a story I have. But none of that’s true. None of that is true. And I could go through each individual parts, each of the individual aspects of that story. And challenge it now mean understanding or believing whatever I believe about home decor probably isn’t of the utmost importance. But it can be a good lesson just to see how we’re making up these stories. And if the story isn’t serving you, I want to give you permission to just change it. You get to just change it. It doesn’t have to make an air quoting it doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to be like air quotes, right? It doesn’t have to, because you get to choose. One of the things that I wrote on the top of my calendar this year, I wrote it on top of January. And then I wrote it again on top of February because I believe that it was changing the way I’ve been thinking. And it says Remember, dot dot, dot, it’s all a dream.

It’s all a dream, you get to choose, you get to pick. Now why does it even matter what my stories are? Why does it matter? If I am? If I’m thinking it’s like awful things about my decor? i What does it matter? Well, it matters because that’s going to change my actions. And when my actions change, then I get a totally different result. So you’ve heard me talk before about the conscious to subconscious ladder. And if you haven’t, I will try to find the episode where I talk about that and put it in the show notes. Or you know what, I’ll talk about it next episode, because I think that’s a really important thing to revisit. But basically, we’re starting at the bottom of this ladder, and it’s your environment and your behavior are down there totally conscious things. And if I’m always spending my time there, I’m hustling all the time. But if I can change from an identity level, if I can change from like the highest levels of my unconscious, so behavior environment down at the bottom of the ladder, I go up the ladder, and I get into beliefs and values and identity at the very tippity top. Well, my stories are a direct reflection of that of my identity, my values, my beliefs, it’s unconscious, the stories that I have are unconscious, and you can bring them into your consciousness by understanding and knowing what they are. And once you know what they are and immediately starts to change, because once you see something, it’s different. That’s science, once you see something, it’s different, we could do writes down a note to myself to do an episode on that. I think that could be like there. I think when we can understand that, that whole that whole experience of I’m creating what I’m seeing in my environment, by the story that I have in my head without even trying without even trying. So if there’s something you’re trying to create in your physical reality, start getting really clear on what the stories are around it. You know, there are some aspects of our physical reality that we cannot change, there are some aspects of our physical reality that we are exposed to, or that come to us. And, and we also have an option of what the story is around it, you know, when my daughter was really sick, you know, I could I have changed it on a by Super changing my mindset, I don’t know, maybe if I was like meditating for hours and like, got really zoned into the quantum field, I don’t know. But in my life, which is like a real life, I have, I had a story around her illness about her being sick, and about what that meant and what that meant for me, I might not have been able to change like her illness, but I could change the way that I saw it. And I could make it easier on myself. If I saw it in a different way. If I saw it as like the worst thing that’s ever happened, and I did an episode with her a while back, I’ll put it in the show notes. But she came on the show back in like August of 2020 when she came on the show. And we talked about her deep, deep depression and anxiety. I kept it at her at a school for years. It was devastating and debilitating. And, and my story for a long time was that I would I’m a How come? I’m a victim of this, I only had one child. And now I don’t get to enjoy her. I don’t get to do the things that normal parents do. You know, everything is hard. Everything like that was my story for a long time. And honestly, it wasn’t serving me It certainly wasn’t helping her.

I had to step back and reevaluate my story. And sometimes we need a lot of help with this. You know, sometimes it’s not even obvious. Sometimes just someone who’s skilled in asking really good questions can help us see things that we never thought we would notice before. And then when we see it, we’re like, oh my gosh, no wonder, no wonder that’s my reality. No wonder that shows up. No wonder that’s the thing that’s continues to be in my life. No wonder no wonder, and when we can see it, then we have the opportunity to change it. So I want you to just be thinking, you know, over the next week, notice when things feel hard. Notice when you have a thought about things or a belief about things. Notice when you don’t like things. Notice when you’re scrolling and what your reaction is, anytime your body doesn’t feel good. Anytime you have a constriction, I want you to stop and ask yourself, What’s the story. Now, I’m adding a little disclaimer here at the end, because it doesn’t mean you don’t do anything in the physical reality, because you’ll end up doing it unconsciously. And you also can choose you can choose to put up boundaries, you can choose to do things different, you can choose to make a change. But when you understand the story, it gives you the power and the leverage, to be able to have a lot more ease, a lot more joy, a lot more happiness, and to be able to make those changes with a lot less stress. Imagine if the things right now that were the most constructing in your life, the things that were causing you the most pain, the most conflict, the place where all your energy is going, right, your mental energy, your physical energy, everything is going towards this thing, I can’t stop thinking about it. And I want you to just think and just imagine if you could shift that. So that the element, the physical element might still be there, but your energetic space around it has totally changed. And then you get to choose, you get to choose how you experience that thing. Everything the feels that we’ve labeled bad is neutral. And you can label it a different way. And bring your life to a totally different place. You have the power to do that. You’ve chosen the one that you’ve chosen now. So you can choose a different one if you’d like. Take your power back. Empower yourself and be fully at cause for how you’re experiencing things. And then you can start to really what I think is start to live big. I hope this gave you food for thought. I hope that you take a minute and just do this exercise. Take a look at your stories. Send us a message let me know how I can help DM me, email me be sure to get on the email list so that we can communicate if I can do anything for you. But I want to know if you did Do it, post it on your stories, hold yourself accountable and tag me so I can celebrate you. Alright, have an amazing, amazing week. And I will see you next time. Hey, thanks so much for listening to today’s show. And thank you for sharing the show with your friends. I love when you guys do that, I appreciate it so much. And thank you for leaving me a review on iTunes. I know that it matters because when I go to find a podcast, I always look to see what the reviews are. So it really means a lot to me that you take a minute to like, figure out how to even make that happen. Now, if you want to find me find me on social media. I’m usually on Instagram, starting out on Tik Tok. It’s just my name Betsy Paik and that’s my website to Betsy pig calm, and you can find out all about the work that I do. having me speak for an event that you might be hoping to plan or getting trained inside my alchemy Institute. But to make it really easy, if you want me just shoot me a DM shoot me a direct message on Instagram and I will be at your service. Thanks again for listening. And I will see you all next week.

HI, I'M YOUR HOST

Meet Betsy!

I'm Betsy Pake!

*Ocean obsessed

*Probably hanging out with my dogs

*Optimist

*Deep thinker

Hey There!

About Betsy

Hi I’m Betsy and I’m a subconscious change expert.
By day you can find me digging deep into the unconscious beliefs and identity of my clients so they can move past self-sabotage and lack of confidence and gain traction in their career and life.