316: How Silence Can Help You Understand Yourself and Expand

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PODCAST

Betsy looks back on the journey she’s been on over the past year and offers some reflections that may help you if you have a lot of things changing in your life, you don’t know which direction you are supposed to go, or you’re unhappy but too afraid to make a shift.

* Connect with Betsy on IG @betsypake

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Art of Living big podcast. My name is Betsy pake. I’m an author, a speaker, and a trainer of NLP and hypnotherapy. And I’m focused on helping you understand and design your life with the power of the subconscious. This podcast is designed to help you think differently about what could be possible for your life. Now, let’s go live big. Hi, welcome to the show. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Art of Living big if you’re new here, thanks for joining us. If you’ve been here for a while, hey, hi, guys. Alright, so today, I, this morning, I got up. And I found like the last week or so that I’m getting up and like checking my phone, which is something I don’t really like to do. But I think I’ve been checking just to see if my daughter texted me in the night or, you know, I don’t know, if there’s something I have to respond to, I’ve been looking. And this is the slippery slope into a lot of wasted time. And so, this morning, I thought I’m not going to do that I’m not, I’m not going to pick up my phone at all. I’m going to get my coffee and you know, cuddle with my dog. And I’m going to get out my journal. Now, if you’ve been here for a while you know that I journal, I use a an app called day one. And I’ve used it for like, I don’t know, 10 years, I mean a long, long time. And so I really like getting out my iPad, I have a keyboard and like just typing, like just saying how I’m feeling and then I ask, What do I need to know today. And then I try and get really quiet and just listen in to whatever kind of truth is deep down that I need to connect to. Now you might be thinking that see it’s an iPad, it’s the same thing as your phone, but like a bigger version. But for some reason, I don’t do the same things on it, like I am able to open up day one and just start typing and not check all the things even though those things are available. So it is it is a little bit different to me. So this morning, I was on there and and with day one, it’ll keep track, it’ll tell you like, last year today, this is what you wrote, like, it tells you kind of like Timehop kind of thing. And you can scroll on back and see. But one year ago today, there was some significant changes that I was making in my life. And you know, if you’ve ever heard me speak, you’ve heard me talk about this about how I was making some really big decisions about my life around this time. And you know, the trajectory, how I wanted to move forward and some decisions in my marriage and in lots of things that were happening. You know, I mentioned this, I feel like I mentioned this every show, but you know, my dog had died last year in April. And it shifted the trajectory of things for me in a really profound way, which may seem kind of odd. But I do think that like, anytime our schedule is completely shaken up, it gives us a chance to reevaluate everything. And I was living in a place where I was getting a lot of my I don’t know, like my, my affection from my dog. And just like partnership, we were together all day, and we would walk and we would, you know, hang out at night, and she would journal with me, like all of those things. So when she left, it was very disorienting. And really over the past year has sent me on quite a journey that I don’t think I ever would have gotten gone on if she had stayed alive. So I saw last year’s entry and I was like, I’m gonna read that I was like, oh, oh, it wasn’t a bad. Even though the things I wrote were really sensitive things and kind of sad things and angry things and a feeling of being a bit lost at that time. And, you know, I have all the tools and I was using all the tools and sometimes it’s just okay to be a bit lost. And I think there’s something sort of beautiful in that because it gives us a space, this space to be able to, to reinvent, you know, to decide who we’re going to be when we come out of that season.

And so that’s where I was last year. When I was in Scottsdale a few weeks ago with my friend April. We actually talked about it and I was like I need to get clear on this journey and and I’m and write a book, I feel like there is so many stories in here that people would see themselves in it, you know, I don’t believe that we’re alone in our, in our struggles or in our celebrations. Like, I feel like we are all so connected. And I see evidence of that all the time. So last year at this time, I was really struggling and and as I looked in, in day one, I, it kind of, I would like go back a day, go forward today, you know, and read and see what I was saying. And at this time, I was saying very specific things about how I was feeling, the emotions and my dreams, I was writing a lot about my dreams. And as I was going back today, it was really fascinating. It was fascinating now, because I have hindsight. And you know, I think that hindsight is, is just such a beautiful thing that I wish. I mean, I wish we could get it in the moment, right and to be able to see, but I do think that there is a trust that we can have that even in these really hard things. Someday I’m going to look back, and this is going to be part of my development, that I’m going to look back, and I’m going to be like this was the worst of times. And it was so great, because it led me on this journey. And that’s where I was last year, I knew, as bad as it was that it was leading me out of the desert, you know that it was leading me to someplace else. And so I wanted to share some things that as I was scrolling through today that might help you. If you are in a place where maybe there’s a lot of things changing, or you don’t know the direction that you’re supposed to go or like you’re unhappy, you’re too afraid to shift. And that’s where I had been for a long time, unhappy in in some big areas and too afraid to shift because what would happen? And how would that work. And I think that the journey that I’ve been on over the past year, 18 months now has been one of like, truly, truly connecting in and finding myself and creating a world where I felt so much more confident that I was able to have a way bigger impact on myself and my family and on on the world. And I think we all have that capacity. And I think there are some things that we have to go through that we have to steps we have to take. And one of the biggest things that is a reoccurring theme, as I looked through all of those entries was that every day I tried to be quiet. You know, every day, I sat with myself and said, What is it? What is it that you need to tell me now? You know, if you listened to the episode with my friend Trish, Episode 313. Trish, here’s other things right, Trish, here’s spirit guides and other things. I’m talking about sitting and listening into your own soul. And I think that is something that is highly highly disregarded. And people don’t understand how that is the thing? Like, do I have spirit guides? Yes. Do I want to connect with them? Sure. Is it more important for me to connect with me? Absolutely. Because when you can take time to be still you can realize who you truly are. And when you know who you truly are, it makes it so much easier to make decisions. It makes it so much easier for you to know yes, that not this, it makes it easier for you to go I’m going to take that direction, or I don’t want to do that thing. It becomes a level of clarity and confidence. Because this outside version of us like the persona of me, the Betsy that you guys here is my personality. You know, it’s the stories that have made up my life, that make me respond in ways that make me say things in certain ways that make me see the world in certain ways. And, and there is this deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper part of me. That is like my that is my soul. And that deeper part of me I’m I’m allowed to connect into that. I don’t feel like we’re really taught that and you know, I grew up

Catholic, I grew up Catholic and we weren’t really ever told to like go deeply, deeply within. You know, and I think in many religions, I think many religions it isn’t necessarily taught to go deep deep into who you are and to be quiet. and make time to be still, as I learned more, I think that probably the intention of a lot of the things that Jesus said were to be still and to listen in. But I don’t know that I was taught that. But that wasn’t the way that that wasn’t the lessons that I heard, you know, every Sunday when I went to school or to church, or to Sunday school on Wednesdays, so maybe your experience was different. But I think that it is. I think that it’s something that’s so so important to be able to sit and be truthful with who you are, you know, so many times when, when, and I’ve gone through this myself where I’ve been where people will come to me and they’ll say, like, Oh, I just gotta find out, like, who am I now? And I think I’ve said this over the last like, year, who am I now? Who am I now that I’m not a dog? Mom? Who am I now that my daughter is grown? Right? Who am I now that, you know, I’m not a homeowner, I sold my house like who am I now that and, and when we can connect in, we can realize that we’ve always been here. There is a steadiness, a steadiness that doesn’t worry that isn’t concerned with the things of this like personality world. And that we can take a big deep breath and be quiet and discover who we truly are. Are you looking for a speaker for your next event? Are you part of an organization or a company that holds annual sales conferences or leadership events, I’d love to talk about the path to possibility and how to use your pain as fuel for your breakthrough. I leave guests feeling expanded, inspired and ready to break through personal barriers, so that they can live big reach out to my team at support at Betsy pake.com, or head to my website, Betsy pake.com, for all the details. And one of the things that I noticed as I was looking through all of these entries today, which like I said, looking through them, although they were like sad, and I was angry and desperate waterways and all of those things, if I felt so steady, reading them, because I knew I had come through it, right. And what I realized when I was looking at all of those is that I was trying to understand that I was let me say it this way. In my previous journal entries, years before, I was dreaming about who I wanted to be, in these last year entries, I was uncovering who I wasn’t. And when I was uncovering who I wasn’t, it made me realize who I truly was. It was like a release of I’ve been telling myself a story. Or my parents told me this story or society told me this story. And, and that story isn’t true for me, that’s not who I am. Oh, that’s not who I am. That’s not who I am. And then you get to realize who you truly are, then I think then it makes it so much clearer, what makes you happy. One of the things that I found in my life that I did a lot and you might resonate with this is that I would go after, like success. I would, I mean everybody wants to be successful. But I would go after it in a way that when I achieved it, I would not spend even a moment celebrating that. Truly it wouldn’t, I might post something about it, but I there was not true celebration like in my soul. Because I was trying to go after the next thing.

And I realized as I was like looking back over this year that that was changing. And the reason is because I was finding success internally. Like it no longer was an external reaching. It was like an internal knowing and like a settling. And I think that started to expand so many things. Because it made it so much easier for me to concentrate like my vibration on what was really great about me and what I wanted to expand of myself, instead of like reaching for something else. Oh, what about that? What about that? What about that, like instead it was a big deep breath and like a settling internally. Like this is I’m not these things. So now this is the root of who I am. And now I get to just expand this i And what started to happen from that, as I kept going through the journal entries was like, this interest in other things, and you guys know the story about how I went to Iceland, and all of that, like, all of that was really a big part of this, of like, getting this confidence and, and, and, and being willing to risk things, being willing to risk things, so that I could really feel joy. I felt like that was really being alive. And that was a theme that kept coming up, like, how can I be really alive today, because I think that we come here to have this physical experience to experience all of it. And so if I’m making choices to avoid unhappiness, or to avoid discomfort, then I’m never really going after anything. Like I’m never really finding this true, like an inhibited joy. Because it’s all balanced. And I didn’t want to be balanced in such a narrow scope, I want it to be balanced in a really wide scope, like I’m going to risk things, and I’m going to get this huge payback. And sometimes things will be really wrong. I’ve had some things go really wrong this year. And I’ve had some of the most amazing, fun, joyful experiences of my life this year. So really sing that idea that I needed to restrict and be careful. And I think a lot of that being careful. Be careful, like be remember who you are, like, show up as you who you are, which is like this idea that like who we’re told we are. But when we when we go in, and we go, this is who I really am, I can expand on that, then the risk becomes less risky, you know, it becomes less scary, it becomes more of a an, an experience that you’re open to have. And that even if things don’t go the way you thought they were going to it doesn’t mean they’re going wrong, it means that you’re getting to learn something you didn’t expect. And that’s a totally different thing. And I don’t know, and I almost cringe saying failure, but it’s it is this risk of not getting what you want. And then you get this feedback, you get this learning, you get this experience that was different than the experience you want it. But it doesn’t mean it’s a awful experience or a bad experience, it means it’s a different. It’s like a different experience. And one of the things that I found that I was rejecting so much. And as I was scrolling through my journal, I was like, it was rejecting so much, many of the things that were going on in my personal relationship with my husband, right, there was a lot of angst there. And that’s truly a story that someday I will share because it’s so powerful, what has happened with us. But I realized in the middle of that, that I can actually discover more of myself, by using the reflection of myself in this relationship, to expand that it’s actually like fertile ground for a spiritual growth, to be able to be going through this awful thing. And to be open to whatever the experience holds for me, which is different than like holding on to a really tight aspect of how I want it to go.

Because how I wanted it to go wasn’t maybe wasn’t what you thought you might be thinking, like how I wanted it to go was like I was just so done. That’s how I wanted it to go. And I decided to be really open to just investigating this reflection of myself that I was seeing back and I journaled so much about that, about using the reflections of myself to see, like what it was I was really fearing. And, like who I really was an understanding that and understanding why I did a lot of the things that I did, and, and understanding how I could grow in that even if I ended up getting what I want. How could i How could I use this fertile ground to expand as much as I could and you know, you might have a great relationship or no relationship and that might be great. Or, but you might have another kind of relationship where you have that same experience. You know, it might be a co worker that just drives you crazy. Like why what is the reflection of you in that? And how can you use that to understand yourself and to access those relationships to really expand it and to heal stuff. When I look back now I see so much evidence of my healing. And that’s one of the biggest things. Sometimes I’ll notice someone says something. And I think that would have really triggered me, you know, something political or something that’s, you know, that’s polarizing. And I see it from a different point of view. One of the books that I read this year was early early this year, like might have been the end of last year was the Oprah, a book by Oprah and somebody else, I’m sorry, because I don’t have it in front of me. But it’s called, like, what, what happened to you? What happened to you? And the whole idea of that story, that book is that we are all responding based on like, things that have happened to us, right, that’s how we’re building the shell, building the shell building the shell, right, because all these things happen, good or bad, start to create who I am to create this personality, how I show up, what I’m triggered by how I respond to things. And so I think if we can take time, every single day, and go we inside, without all have those layers and that shell use, you know, use our relationships, to be able to access a deeper part of us and to see ourselves in another way, right, expand into the things that we really like or don’t like getting clarity on that. And I think it begins with getting really quiet. It begins with getting really centered, and say, Who am I at this very, very core. And if I am that, then it means the way that I’ve been living is a lot of who I am not. And when we can start to shed who we are not, we can start to begin to be truly authentically ourselves. And I think that that is how you live a really big life. I hope this helped give you food for thought shifted you in some way. You know or, or made you reflect on something in your life too. So I love you so much. I will see you all next week. Bye bye. 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 pake, and that’s my website to Betsy pake.com. And you can find out all about the work that I do. having me speak for an event that you might be helping 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.