Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
In this episode Betsy recounts her trip to Florida and the signs that she experienced while traveling. She explains the ‘put it down’ practice and how it can best serve us in our lives as well as how our brains notice things based on our focuses. This one is a good one if you need a reminder to take stock and choose you.
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. I recorded this yesterday, and it was amazing. You missed a really good show. My microphone wasn’t on, and I, if you are new here, I do these podcasts. I come up with an idea, and then I just talk. So the kinda cool thing is this will be a totally different show than yesterday, although the same topic. I s- I’m sticking to the same theme ’cause I do have a story that I wanna tell you, and it may be a story that you heard if you’re on my mail list. But I wanna dive in a little bit deeper, and I wanna give you some tools, as we go through this. I wanna talk a little bit about my, my trip to Florida and something very cool that happened, and I, I’m gonna call it magic. I believe that there’s magic that happens all around us, and I believe you have magic that happens all around you, too. So I’m gonna tell you how to find it and how to use it So I’m gonna tell you how to find it and how to use it so that you can actually make your life easier and, you know, maybe a little bit more fun too. So if you’ve been here for a while, you may know that my whole dang life I’ve wanted to move to the beach, and just a few months ago I got the idea that actually there was nothing stopping me and I could do that. And so this, th- I guess it was last weekend, two weekends ago. Memorial Day was this past weekend. The weekend before, I decided I was gonna go down to Florida and I was gonna look around. You know, if you listen to the episode about how I make big decisions, I really was leaning into California, and in fact, had a trip planned for California for this week that ended up getting rerouted. But I had decided that I was also gonna check out Florida for a lot of different reasons. You know, I grew up on the East Coast. Um, my dad is on the East Coast. He, he … And I’m h- I, I was about to say he’s elderly. I guess he is. He’s 85. I guess, I guess that is elderly. It just feels weird to call him that, but he is. He’s not sick or anything. He’s b- he’s a busy dude. But you know, it just feels good to be here. My son lives here in Atlanta, and so I, I would love to be a, a drive away or a 90-minute flight instead of, like, a whole day of travel, you know? So there’s a lot of things, besides the taxes and all of those things. I don’t have a runway like a 30-year-old. I have a runway like a 55-year-old that’s been divorced a couple times, you know what I mean? So we gotta be using our brains here. So I was like, “I’m gonna just go down to Florida and I’m gonna look around.” Tampa checks a lot of boxes because there’s the big airport, it’s a city, it’s by the beach, and, like, that St. Petersburg area. I’m like, “Okay. Well, this could be a place where I could see myself.” And so I thought, “I’m gonna go down there. I’m gonna rent a car and just drive all over.” And as it ended up, somebody reached out from Instagram, and she lives there, and she was like, “I’ll show you around.” And I had, like, the best w- I had the best weekend with her. So it was like I made a really good friend while I was down there. But here’s what happened. I decided I was gonna go down Thursday night. So I was gonna be here for my coaching that I do. We have the Navigate group on Thursdays, and I n- I never miss it. Like, it is a strange, strange moment if I miss it. Um, maybe once a year I will miss. Like, I, I mean, I, this is, like, my favorite thing ever, so I never wanna not be there. So I, although I have coaches that are amazing, and they would be amazing, but I’m just like, “I wanna, I, I wanna be there.” So I’m like, “I’ll do the coaching, and then- pack up my stuff, and head to the airport. I’ll take a flight that night. I’ll land in Tampa. I’ll just get a hotel right near the airport. That’ll be easy-peasy, and then in the morning when it’s light out, I’ll begin my adventure, you know? The next day, Friday morning, was my birthday. It was my 55th birthday. And here’s the thing. I thought to myself, “You know, I wanna be by the ocean on my birthday. That sounds really fun. And, you know, why not have a little adventure?” So that Thursday morning when I was prepping for the Navigate group, I thought, “I need to go bring my cat to the kitty hotel,” right? Like, get Dean Martin situated. Then I can do my thing and head out. And when I was walking around the house, I was, you know, picking up stuff and playing with the cat and doing whatever I needed to do, and I was talking to my mother. Now, if you’re new here, my mother transitioned back when I was in high school, when I was 16. She died when I was … Transition is such a… She croaked. When I was 16 she died in a car accident, and so I’ve never… You know, I haven’t gotten a birthday present from her since I was 16. And I said out loud, “You know, I talk to you a lot, and I trust that you’re here.” But I don’t know. You know, I was kinda like in one of those, like, prove it kind of moods. So I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know if you’re really here, but if you are, I would like a birthday present. Haven’t had a birthday present from you in a long time, and I would love a birthday present, and I would love if it was something really obvious.” Do you guys do that, too, where you’re like, “Make it a sign,” and then the sign comes, and then you’re like, “Make it a signier sign. I need it to be super signed.” So I was like, “I want a birthday present. I want it to be really obvious.” And I said out loud, “I want it to be really obvious, not like an Amazon gift card or something,” which is kind of a weird thing to say, ’cause I would happily accept an Amazon gift card. But I, you know, said it out loud, and I actually felt it when I said that. Like, it felt funny when I said it, and then I continued. I was busy, busy. I was a busy girl all day. And anyway, I get to the airport. I get settled into the Sky Club because I have a Delta corporate card. I’m about to tell you all of the things that I require to travel, but I’m also too cheap to pay for them, so I have like a million workarounds. So first of all, I got my flight for free using points. I buy a coach seat, but I am Platinum, so I always get upgraded. Why am I Platinum? It’s not because I travel all the time, but it’s because I use my Delta corporate card for everything, for all my business stuff, right? So we end up putting a lot through that, and it gets me to Platinum status, okay? The cool thing about Platinum is you get to choose, like, your present, you know what I mean? Like, you get to choose the thing that you get. And so I have chosen, and I think you have to choose for the year, and I have chosen that I would get upgraded. So I always buy a coach seat, and typically I’ll get upgraded at least to Comfort Plus. I’m a short woman, so it’s not like I need a ton of leg room, but I like … I, I, I feel like my thing is I like- space. Like I don’t like to be herded places, and I don’t wanna feel crowded or rushed. Like that really stresses me out. So I get to the airport, I go to the Sky Club, which I have access to because I have the corporate card, not ’cause I, I’m too cheap to pay for that. But I have a corporate card, and go to the Sky Club, I hang out. It’s time to board the plane, and I look and I’m still not upgraded. And I’m like, “This is really weird.” I mean, it’s a short flight, so like I can hang in coach, but I’m in the middle. And I’m always on the end. Like I, I, I know it’s only 90 minutes, but I always have to pee. Like I’m like, I g- I need to be on the end. I don’t wanna be like in the middle. Ugh. But I’m in the back of the plane. I’m like in seat 29 in the middle seat. But it’s 90 minutes. I’m like, “It’s fine.” I get on the plane. There I am, like, you know, with my shoulders in, I’m as small as I can be so that the people on either side are taking up so much room. And I’m thinking to myself like, “You know what? I hate this.” Like I just do. And it’s okay. I’ll survive, right? Like it’s, if this is the worst of my issues this weekend. But I hate it. And so then the s- airline, um, not the pilot, the flight attendant says, “You know, we’ve oversold this flight.” It was already like delayed. You know? It was like 10 minutes delayed or something. Like it was a busy and it was late, you know. And I could tell they’re tired, and they’re like, “We’ve oversold this flight, and we need somebody to get off the plane and get on a flight two hours later if somebody’s interested in doing that.” Can you ring your bell? You know? So I ring my bell. ‘Cause immediately I’m like, “I don’t even wanna be on this flight. Like, I, I would pay you to go to the next flight.” And they’re giving a $600 voucher, so I’m like, I mean, I travel enough, I have enough things planned, so I’m like, “Yeah, heck yeah, I’ll do that.” Ring my little bell, the flight attendant comes over. She says to me, like, “Do you have luggage?” I’m like, “It’s on the plane.” She’s like, “It’ll be there waiting for you.” I’m like, “That’s great. I trust, I trust.” So I get off the plane, and the people at the f- at the gate, like the f- attendants at the gate are like, “Oh, did you… Thank you for, you know, shifting and going to the later flight.” I mean, it boards in, like, an hour, so I’m like, I’ll just go back to the Sky Club, get a drink, and by the time it’s, I’m done my drink, it’ll be time to board. And nobody’s waiting for me. I’m just… I just got a hotel at the, at the airport. Do you know what I mean? So I’m like, this is no… Like, how nice for somebody else that they could get off the plane, and I am gonna get a $600 voucher. So she says, “Thank you.” I’m like, “Yep, no problem.” And then she’s like, “It won’t print.” And she keeps trying to print, print the voucher, print the voucher, and then she says to the woman next to her, “Do you know why this isn’t printing?” And she’s like, “Well, press this, you know, press that. Try it again. Can you refresh? Maybe if we…” Like, they’re, they’re, they’re going through it, you know? And like I said, it’s late. I can tell these people have had a day. Like, she’s just like, “I can’t get this to print.” So she calls, and she says, like, “It’s printing, but it’s not printing the voucher.” And she’s like, “Will you email it?” So then she looks at me, and she’s like, “Can you check your email?” I’m checking my email. I’m checking my junk. There’s nothing. She’s like, “Try to email it again. It’s not coming through.” She doesn’t have anything. They try it again. And finally she shoves a piece of paper in my hand, and was like, “Here, take this.” So I took the paper and went on my way. I got myself a drink, I sat down, and I looked down, and what did I have but a voucher for a $600 Amazon gift card. Now- Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. What is actually happening? What’s actually happening? Now, you could hear this story and be like, “Well, that was a coincidence.” Like random, like really good timing, funny timing. Or I could tell you that there’s magic, magic all around us, and it is just what we choose to believe. Everything is what we choose to believe. And both of those things are true. It could be a coincidence, could be random. It is funny timing, and it does feel magical, and that is what I would like to believe. But here’s what else is true, is that there is part of our brain that you’ve heard of called the reticular activating system, the RAS, and its job is to filter, okay? So your brain is taking in like several million pieces of information every second. And when I say your brain, I mean, like, your nervous system. So, like, you’re seeing things and hearing things and feeling things and smelling things. Like, all this stuff is coming in all at once. And you can only consciously pr- like, process 126 of those pieces of information, so that means there’s a lot of information that’s just getting lost. It stays in the back of your mind. It stays in your brain. You just aren’t consciously aware of it. So there’s like a little mailman in there that is filtering stuff. It’s taking in all the mail and looking at it and throwing you the pieces that it thinks are important. It decides what gets through to your conscious awareness and what gets tossed out as, like, background noise. So the RAS filters for what you’re focused on. I remember when I bought my car. I have a little white SUV. It’s not rare. But I bought that car and I thought, “I’ve never seen this car before. Like, this is so unique and special,” I thought. I bought it, and now sometimes I go to the grocery store and I’ll come out and there’s like four of them in a row. Like, they’re everywhere. Everybody has them. I just wasn’t looking for them before. My RAS wasn’t set to notice those. So when I asked my mom for a sign, and I said, “Make it obvious,” and when I joked about an Amazon gift card, I set my RAS to look for it. And so when it showed up, I felt something. I noticed. Someone else might have glanced at the voucher and thought, “Oh, .” Y- you know, whatever. . But I was looking for magic, and so I saw it. I felt it as proof So here’s what I’ve been thinking about since that trip. When we are sitting in the middle of hard things, you know, a hard decision. I, I was going down there to look for a place that I was gonna move to live, and I’ll give you the update on that. It’s… There’s… I, I still have questions. But when we’re in the middle of this big, hard decision, it can feel really crushing to carry it all by ourselves. You know, I was feeling that, the weight of it, the fear that I’m gonna choose wrong or miss something, the exhaustion of trying to figure out every single piece of this all on our own. And, you know, I talk a lot when I talk online, and I talk about the Navigate method, and I talk about how important it is for women to make decisions for themselves, and I believe that. I believe nobody else should make the decision for you, ’cause this is how we learn to trust ourselves. But what if we didn’t have to totally do it all on our own? What if we could hand something over, like, like, like, one little thing, and let ourselves be guided? You know, let ourselves be cared for. I, uh, this weekend or that weekend, it was last weekend it was such a lesson in allowing myself to be cared for. You know, did, did my mother give me the $600 Amazon gift card? I think so, but I think she also gave me the friend that took care of me, that took care of everything. If you follow along on Instagram, you know I got food poisoning. She took care of me. She mothered me. And I needed that so bad. And so what if we could let ourselves be guided, let ourselves be cared for, let the universe meet us part way? I’m not saying let somebody else make the decision for you, but I’m saying the decision can be easier when you’re not white-knuckling your way through it all by yourself. So here’s where I think the brain part of this gets really interesting. You know, when we grip, you know, when we’re in control mode, when we’re trying to force an outcome or manage every single variable, our nervous system is really in protection mode. And then what does my RAS do, is it starts filtering for threats, right? It starts looking for like, “Oh my God, she thinks something’s gonna go wrong. What could go wrong? What do I need to control? What am I missing? What am I not seeing? Show her the fear. Show her the unsteadiness.” Right? And when your brain is doing that, you literally can’t see the help that’s available. You can’t notice the signs. You can’t receive any new ideas or, you know, the other options and, you know, doors that you wanna be open seem closed, because your brain isn’t scanning for that stuff. Your brain is scanning for danger. It’s scanning for what could go wrong. It’s scanning for all the times you’re walking on eggshells or afraid you’re gonna make a wrong decision. But when you physically let go, when you open your hands, when you open your hands and you ask for help out loud, something shifts. I do think there’s something magical about speaking it out loud. I think when I was talking to my mom and I was doing it out loud, I could… There was something. Have you ever had that feeling where you’re like, “I feel something moving in me,” you know? And our nervous system reads that as safety, right? It stops filtering for threat- And it starts filtering for possibility when I’m speaking out loud, when I’m calm, when my hands are open. You start noticing things you couldn’t notice before, not ’cause they weren’t there, but just ’cause your brain wasn’t looking for them. Okay, so there’s another piece to this. Your brain is also a, a pattern-matching machine. Like, it’s constantly scanning for patterns. It’s constantly trying to prot- te- uh, I wanna say protect, but no, predict. I w- it’s constantly trying to predict what’s going to happen based on what’s happened before. And when you’re stuck in hard decisions, when you’re stuck in looping on the same thoughts over and over again, you’re reinforcing those same neural pathways. You’re telling your brain basically, “This is the pattern. This is what we do here.” And your brain just keeps running that pattern over and over and over again. This is how come, like, y- y- you know, your partner may stomp around the house, and you go, “Oh, my God. I know what’s gonna happen ’cause I know what happened before,” right? I, I can feel it. I know something’s gonna go sideways. And so you start walking on eggshells. You start being… You’re hypervigilant. You’re listening for w- whatever sound, rustle in the grass you need to be aware of so that you can protect yourself, right? But when you let go, when you put something down, you know, it, your brain can, can shift to something new. It’s not like you’re doing something wrong by listening to those patterns, it’s just that your brain is doing what it’s designed to do, and it’s conserving energy, right? So it’s running a program that it already knows. But when you put it down, then you create space, and in that space, you can form all new patterns. You know, new thoughts can come to you, new ideas can come through, new possibilities can show up that weren’t available when you were gripping really hard. And this is why people say things like, um, like, “I stopped trying so hard, and then it just happened. Like, I don’t know, it just happened. As soon as I let go of needing it to work out, like, it just became obvious.” And it’s not magic. Well, it’s a little magic, but it’s neuroscience. You created space, and your brain had room to find a new pattern. Okay, so here’s how we’re gonna put this into practice. I’m gonna give you something you can try this week. I call it the put it down, put it down practice, and it is designed to shift you from really gripping to having your hands open and receiving. So it’s, it moves you from that, like, control mode to open mole- mode, and then y- you, you kinda stop… You stop scanning for threat, and then you start essentially scanning for what’s available. So here’s how it works. Step one is you’re gonna name what you’re holding. So say it out loud if you can, like the decision, the outcome, the how. So I’m holding the question of whether to stay or go. I’m holding the fear that I’m gonna choose wrong. I’m holding the need to figure out how this is all gonna work before I take my first step. So just name it, whatever it is. I’m holding the overwhelm of trying to find where to live. So step two is you physically put your hands out. There is a, a, a loop between your body and your brain, and I’m gonna use my body to send alerts to my brain. I know it sounds kinda simple, but your, your body and your brain are connected. So when you open your hands, you’re signaling to your nervous system that you’re receiving. You’re not grasping, you’re available, right? Not defending anything. It’s, it’s how your nervous system reads safety, okay? So you’re gonna physically put your hands out, palms up. And then step three is you’re gonna ask out loud, “What’s the one thing I can hand over right now?” Not, “What should I do?” Or not, like, “How do I fix this?” But, “What is one thing I can hand over?” And you’re gonna ask it to the universe, or to God, or, uh, to your dead mom. Like whatever it is, whatever it is that works for you. And ask it to the part of you that already knows. It doesn’t matter who you’re asking, really. It just matters that you’re asking. And then step four is that you’re just gonna wait. Don’t answer it yourself. Don’t, like, fill that silence with your own voice. Just wait and let the answer come to you. This is such a skill to learn to just, like, wait until you feel something. So then the fifth step, I guess we’d be on step five, right? Notice what shows up in the next 24 hours, 48 hours. It might be a thought you didn’t have before, a conversation that feels different than it would have a couple days ago. You know, maybe an opportunity that opens up, you weren’t even looking for one. Maybe it’s a $600 Amazon gift card when you specifically said not that. The point is, you’re not looking for something, like, specific. You’re not looking for a specific answer. You’re looking for movement. You’re looking for the thing that you couldn’t see when you were holding on so tight, you know? I did ask my dad, I said, “What are you sending me?” ‘Cause my mom gave me a $600 gift card. “What are you gonna get me?” It was probably a joint gift, I think. So this is what happens when you’re sitting in the middle of a, a big decision. You know, trying to move to the beach, trying to make a decision about your marriage, and you’re trying to logic your way through it all alone. You keep pushing. You keep thinking. You keep trying to see around corners and, you know, predict outcomes, manage things that you can’t actually control, and then your brain keeps running the same loop, right? It keeps asking the same questions and having the same fears and patterns. So what if, what if you didn’t have to carry all that by yourself? What if you could just hand one thing over and let yourself be supported, let yourself be guided, let yourself receive help instead of white-knuckling your way through it alone? I, I don’t think the decision gets made for us, but the decision gets clearer, I think, when you stop gripping so hard. So pick something this week. Maybe it’s something easy, something that doesn’t have a lot of emotional charge to it, and do the put it down practice. Do- just try it once. See what happens. Name the thing you’re holding, open your hands, ask the question out loud, wait, and then pay attention. Because magic is all around us. It’s, it’s just what we choose to believe, and if your brain is designed to find what you’re looking for, ask it to look for help. Ask it to look for signs. Look for the thing that you couldn’t see when you were in protection mode. And I think when you can do that, that is how you live a big life. If you want help on this journey, we’ve got some spots available on the calendar this week. Um, if you are interested in the Navigate Method, or if you’re not quite there yet, you’re like, “I don’t, I don’t wanna go all in on all that,” I have a process on my website called The Bridge, and it is a truth map that will guide you to the next right thing. And then maybe at that point you’ll be ready to do some of the deeper work inside the Navigate Method. But we are here when you’re ready. Be open to it and allow us to help pick up what you’re carrying. 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 Pay 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.
