September 5, 2025 • 46 mins
What if the way you see your challenges could be the key to overcoming them?
In this episode, we dive deep into the power of perspective—how shifting your mindset can turn setbacks into stepping stones and obstacles into opportunities. You’ll hear how Bethany has used her own experiences of resilience and transformation to empower others, plus practical tools you can use today to change how you view—and live—your life.
This episode is with Bethany Stone.
Bethany, founder of Thriving by Nature, is a Master Mindset and Life Skills Coach with over 22 years of experience. She empowers individuals and professionals to overcome overwhelm and thrive by teaching essential life skills. Specializing in stress management and growth mindset cultivation, Bethany equips her clients with tools to achieve their goals and unlock their full potential in personal and professional settings.
Find out more about Bethany Stone by visiting https://www.thrivingbynature.com.
Bethany invites listeners to explore her Self-Care Course at Thriving by Nature. This resource guides you through five essential “self-care buckets,” helping you build resilience, protect your energy, and create a more balanced, thriving life.
🔑Rob Z Wentz is a Leadership Communication Expert. Rob teaches, trains, and develops people and organizations to become exceptional communicators and leaders. With Rob, leaders find clarity, take action, and succeed with integrity, making them “the expert” in their industry.
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Discover everything about Rob Z 📲 Linktr.ee/RobZWentz
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🔑Rob is also a Christian entrepreneur, founder of The Unstuck Movement (on all social & podcast platforms), best-selling author, social media marketer and strategist, award-winning radio personality, speaker, and influencer. For over 20 years Rob has been leading people to communicate at a higher level.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:24):
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Unstuck Movement.
I am your host, Rob Z. This platform is all about
finding breakthrough in your life through true testimonies of
breakthrough. Today, the incredible Bethany
Stone is with us on the platform.
And today we're gonna be talkingabout some incredible things,
powerful things like emotional intelligence, the growth
mindset, how to build resilienceinto your life, manage stress
(00:48):
and overcoming adversity. And Bethany, I like to jump in
right off the bat before we eventalk about who you are and what
you do, I want to get into a powerful question to frame this
episode. We're talking about perspective
today. And you know, often times in our
life, perspective can be really hard to shift.
And we've we've thought about something the same way forever.
We've seen somebody in the same light forever.
(01:09):
It can be hard to look at something from a different set
of eyes and get a new fresh perspective.
What is one of the first steps do you take when perspective
seems impossible to shift? I feel like when you're caught
in like perspective, just, I don't know, stuckness, you just
(01:30):
get stuck and you don't know whyyou can't progress.
The best thing you have to do isjust step back.
You cannot see anything when you're in the fog.
You can't. And sometimes we won't see
anything until years later and we look back and sometimes we
don't know why we're keep doing what we're doing until we look
back and see the progress that we've made.
(01:52):
Perspective is such an interesting thing because it's
all about movement. Yeah, so true perspective I
find. So I'm just going to go
personally, like I find certain things in my life that recur on
a, a daily basis of like, man, Iknow I need to look at this
(02:13):
differently, but right now it's really hard for me to look at it
differently 'cause I'm in it every single day, right?
So that movement can be difficult in the moment.
What do you do? Give me, give me a, a great
example from your own personal life of, of what that movement
looked like when you made the movement.
(02:33):
What kind of shift happened? Do you, do you have anything
that would help to illustrate that?
I. Have a couple of experiences
I've really impacted and changedmy perspective.
I have OK when I was three yearsold.
I am a little kid and I am determined and I am not the
easiest child and my mom can attest to this.
(02:53):
I am not easy but when I was 3 Ihad a Tootsie pop sucker and I
was really excited about this and I for some reason got it
taken away. So being the child that I was, I
decided that I was going to problem solve this and I decided
that I was going to go up into my room and take all the silver
(03:16):
coins that those are the ones that buy the Tootsie Pops.
I knew that I took all the silver coins and I got on my
little tricycle and I was like I'm going to fix this.
So I got on my tricycle and I rode my little tricycle on a
highway, on the side of a highway.
OK, but the town has 1000 peoplein it, but still this highway
(03:36):
went through the town and I was on the side and because I knew
enough to stay on the side because my mom would always be
like stay on the other side of the white line, you know?
So I was riding my tricycle, little red tricycle all the way
to the little gas station, went in, got my Tootsie pop, buy my
Tootsie pop with my silver coins.
And behind me this person goes, where's your mom?
(04:01):
And I was just happy because I had my red Tootsie pop and he
takes me and he puts my tricyclein the back of the truck and B
brings me home, knocks on the door.
My mom was not very happy to seeme.
She was not very happy about anyof this.
And I didn't get to keep that Tootsie pop either actually,
(04:22):
which was really sad. OK, now perspective wise, in my
3 year old mind, I thought that I had just solved the biggest
problem in the world. I had just solved this.
I had like made it happen and I couldn't even understand why my
mom was mad. Like, I fixed this.
This was an issue and I fixed it.
Now as I'm an adult and I would look back on this.
(04:46):
I cannot believe I did that. I would have responded the exact
same way my mom did and been like, what in the world are you
thinking? Do you know how dangerous that
is? Do you know?
You know, you could have been run over, taken by a stranger.
You could have like all the things, but a lot of the times
our perspective is so much basedon our ignorance as well.
(05:09):
I didn't know I was thinking that I was solving something.
I was thinking I was fixing things and I didn't have the
knowledge that I do now to really change my my perspective
and look at it and look at it and be like, wow, I really, I
really could have been hurting myself.
(05:31):
Things could have really been bad.
I didn't have that perspective, and so it's really how you look
at things. Yeah, I think about though, the
boldness of that three-year old you were, you were so bold
'cause sometimes the, the ignorance, the lack of
perspective creates that boldness of just like to go for
(05:52):
things you just like went for it'cause you went after the thing
that you wanted. And there's a lot of power there
too. So I want to, I want to talk
more about that. First, let's back up.
I just want to reintroduce everybody to the platform, the
unstuck movement. I created this platform because
I've been stuck. Bethany, I know you've been
stuck in different places in your life.
We all have. And I love to find breakthrough.
I love to find those those key ingredients, those core elements
(06:13):
that help us to find breakthrough in our lives
personally and professionally. We're sponsored by the Connected
Leaves Academy, which I know we are both a part of.
The CLA has over 500 heart centered entrepreneurs from all
over the world helping each other, serve each other and
grow. And also by the Pro Podcaster
Academy. If you're somebody who wants to
launch a podcast, wants to make it a reality, but you're not
(06:37):
sure about all the nuts and bolts to how to make it a
reality, how to make that actually happen.
I love to walk people through that process, to have a platform
that creates incredible impact in peoples lives, that makes you
the go to authority in your space, and also creates
incredible personal and professional relationships for
yourself. If you have a podcast, how do
you streamline it, make it easier to execute, and also
(06:57):
monetize it where you can make money off of it?
I'd love to help you with that. At robzwentz.com.
You can sign up for the wait list for the Pro Podcaster
Academy today with us, Bethany Stone, a mastermindset and life
skills coach who helps people turn overwhelm into empowerment.
With over 22 years of experience, she equips clients
(07:18):
to build resilience, shift perspective, and thrive in both
personal and professional life. So this Tootsie pops Tootsie pop
story, obviously a formative memory that defined your problem
solving. You know, as I was doing some
research about you for this episode, I found, you know, a
(07:40):
story where you had started to lose yourself in in in marriage
and you started to lose maybe kind of your identity.
And I'm curious, you know, what was like the internal
conversation like when you had to rediscover and reclaim that
core part of your identity, thatthat part that Tootsie pop girl
who went out and did that, right?
How did you reconcile all that later on in life?
(08:03):
Well, it's interesting because when you're, excuse me, when
you're having emotional trauma, weather or physical trauma you
have, I feel like this is how I look at it ANYWAYS.
I feel like within you, you havethese amazing seeds of like
potential and just growth. And when something or situation
(08:27):
happens and really it's your, you know, your potential, the
way you look at things, your perspective, all of these
things, depending on what happens in your environment,
those things can get damaged andthey can get poisoned and they
can get destroyed. And when that happens, you have
(08:48):
to start at square 1 and grow again.
And growing is uncomfortable andgrowing takes a lot of effort.
So I was married for my first marriage, 10 years, and it was
he, he is, he is a good man, buthe has mental illness.
(09:10):
And at the time he had a lot of addictions and a lot of demons
that he could not handle himself.
And when he drank, he was abusive.
That was the way it was. And I ended up getting battered
wife syndrome from staying for 10 years and looking for the
little glimmers of hope. Because when you're in a
situation like that, you try to keep a positive perspective
(09:33):
because you can see this one good thing out of all the yuck.
Oh, there's the one good thing and the yuck.
And really what that does is damages you in a whole other
like level because you're tryingto create something that really
isn't there. And I left that marriage having
(09:55):
battered wife syndrome and really not OK.
And I quickly rebounded into even a more abusive marriage
where this one was very much so emotionally abusive and very
much so finished just stomping out the my love for life, my
(10:17):
love for everything. So I really did have to start at
just square 1. I mean, I didn't even want to be
around anymore. You just come to the point where
you're like, why am I here? And you're stuck in such a
vicious cycle of negative thought that you are so stuck
that you can't even see any morelight.
All the glimmers of hope are gone.
(10:38):
And when I was there, that's when I actually discovered,
well, really the key to everything and everything that I
am today. And I was actually able to
rediscover that lollipop loving girl, you know, I was really
able to rediscover myself. And it was when my darkest
(10:59):
moment when I was laying in bed and I'm thinking about pills I
could take to make everything goaway and all the stuff you know.
And, and I'm an educator. I'm a teacher and knowing a lot
about birds and zoology because I'm a Montessori educator and we
teach very, very in detail thesethings.
(11:21):
And looking outside my window, Isaw a Hummingbird couple and
they were making a nest and right outside my window when I
was feeling all these things andI watched them and I had one
thought come to my mind, Wow, what a cool experience that I
can sit here and watch this. This is a really rare thing.
(11:42):
I know that hummingbirds make their nests out of the softest
materials they can find in nature.
I know that it is really rare because they camouflage their
nests better than any other birdthat in this area.
And I'm like, what a cool thing.I am so glad I'm able to see
this. Whoa.
One thought of gratitude shiftedmy thought process and it
(12:08):
started growing that little tinyseed and it just watered it a
tiny bit. But all of a sudden I was so
grateful and I there is no way Iwanted to take pills because
guess what? There is a Hummingbird making a
nest outside my window. And I know what a gift that is
from God. I'm like holy cow.
And he knew I needed to see it right then.
(12:29):
And it just sparked that shift and all of a sudden I was able
to look outside of myself and see gratitude.
And as soon I was able to see gratitude, I was like, wow, I
can't believe I'm so socked intothis vicious cycle of yuck.
And now that I have that one thought of gratitude, it kind
(12:50):
of, if you start nurturing that,it kind of grows.
And I was then I started to learn, wow, I really need to
start taking care of myself. Wow, I really need to.
And I was able to rediscover myself.
I was able to stand up for myself.
I was able to, you know, restartmy life.
I was able to be the single mom and work 5 jobs and provide for
(13:10):
my kids and be vulnerable enoughto jump into yet another
relationship, which has been thebiggest blessing of my life,
which you wouldn't think becauseI was pretty sure all men were
inherently evil at that point. And open myself up to be
vulnerable again. And I would have never been able
to heal. I would have never been able to
(13:33):
open up been never able to see love, gratitude or anything if
it hadn't been for that one little drop of water that just
what happened to be on my poisoned seeds in my life of
gratitude of looking out that window and seeing that that bird
and just watching that happen. I actually have that Hummingbird
(13:56):
nest. When I moved from that house, I
took it out of the tree and I keep it because it's a reminder
to me about, well, perspective and where we're at and why we
need to care for ourselves and the importance of that and how
we can get so sucked into yuck and not see our way out because
the fog is too thick. Yeah, so true, right.
(14:19):
It's it's kind of maybe not built into all of us, built into
a lot of us to look there for all the things we don't have.
And so to look at the things we do have because we're always,
you know, surviving, you know, it's like that survival, like I
need this thing. I need that thing or comparison.
You see the things that you wantand ignore the things that you
(14:40):
already have and possess. And that's really, that's
wonderful. I love that so much because
throughout the day, throughout all the different parts of a
day, all the different thoughts that we have, man, you can lose
perspective so quickly. That's that's really, really
powerful. I want to touch on, I want to go
(15:00):
back to that in a second, but I want to touch on something you
mentioned a few minutes ago about change and you mentioned
about your, your ex-husband and you know, thinking that, you
know, you saw that one little glimmer of hope and thinking
that hanging on to that one thing and just imagining that
you were going to be able to, tochange a situation because you
(15:21):
saw something good. And I, and I think that's a
really important point, not justfor relationships, but for
anything in our life. Just because we see one little
seed of something that's a possibility, we can only really
control ourselves and we can barely control ourselves.
At least for me, I don't know about you, but I can barely
control myself, let alone somebody else.
So recognizing like, OK, that that's great that you can see
(15:47):
the good in something that mighthave a lot of bad in it, but it
doesn't mean to hang on to that one thing and to let it drag you
down. So how do you find the balance
in those things, right? Because I, I can see the good
here, but I also see the bad. How do you know when to let go?
So that's probably a lesson thatyou've learned over the years.
How do you know when to let go of something that obviously
(16:10):
isn't working anymore? Well, it's been a lot of
lessons. I've lived a lot of life
lessons. And I can tell you that when I
was in it and I was really, really in it, you know, I mean
in it so far, 4 affairs in with him, like in it, like it has
been pretty much everything you could think of that is not
(16:30):
supposed to be happening in a good marriage pretty much
happened. And it was, it was very much so
me understanding that you know, you have, if you cannot see the
actions, the words are dead. And understanding that because
(16:58):
so many people are so good with words and will say exactly what
you want to hear. And when you stand back and try
to look outside of this fog, you'll realize that words
without the action are dead. And if you're not seeing that
action piece and you're holding on to only words, that's when
(17:19):
you know, because they have to work together.
And if they are not, then you'renot in a good situation.
There's another piece of this story though, if we want to talk
about this story. So my ex-husband, he is a good
man and he always has been a good man.
Just too many demons. And I mentioned that.
(17:42):
Well, it's been, we've been divorced for longer than we were
married. And because I did not hold
resentment, because I forgave, because all these things
happened in life and I am not, Iam not somebody that holds on to
anger. I don't feel like I don't want
to hold on to things and that's why I can talk about it.
(18:04):
People are like, oh, how can youeven talk about those things?
Well, it's because I don't hold on to them because my
perspective is in a way that these are things that it was
terrible. I've been through a lot of
terrible things, but every single one of these things grew
me even though I thought that they were destroying everything
inside of me. What they were doing was
(18:26):
fertilizing a ground. They were fertilizing a ground
so that something else could grow even though everything else
was dead at the time. But that ground has to have
nutrients in it. And sometimes that nutrients is
manure. Have to say it just it's and you
sometimes you just have to go through that crap.
(18:48):
You have to go, you got to go through the crap and you got to
use the crap as fertile to grow the new thing.
That's that's really, really good.
That's. Really, and it's it's true
though, like you think back on things and today for almost an
entire year now, actually, therewas a point I thought he was
dead, like didn't contact me kids, nothing.
(19:09):
I really thought he was dead, homeless on the street,
whatever. He comes back in January of last
year and is like, I want to fix my life.
I want to give my life back to God and I realize everything
that I'm missing and I want to thank you.
He's thanked me multiple times for being an example to him and
being strong and standing my ground.
(19:33):
We're friends today. My boys are actually see him,
which they don't have really a relationship with him before and
he is giving his life to God nowand he's going to church
continually and he is striving to be the man that he wished
that he could be. He's getting help for bipolar
and like he had bipolar like allthese mental illness and he's
(19:55):
getting help. He's seeking and doing the
things that he needs to do. And it is amazing to see the
180. So there's two things here that
you have to understand, even though things are so, so
terrible in perspective and everything else, right If you
hold on to anger. And you hold on to things.
(20:17):
It wouldn't have given him the opportunity to come to me and
ask me to be a support person. My husband and him are friends.
He sits on the Pew on the other side of us at church every
Sunday. And yeah, and he bought a house
a mile away from us. And he asks, He comes over for
Sunday dinner. And he doesn't really have a big
(20:39):
family to lean on. And I do.
And he's now using me as a crutch.
And I'm grateful to be able to have such a strong support
system around me and have kept that, just not anger and not
festered in anger that he felt like he could come to me and my
(21:05):
husband and my kids. And like now most of them are
adults and things like that. But he can now talk to them, and
he can now fix his life, becauseit's never too late if you're
alive. Bethany, that's amazing.
What a, what a story of hope that is.
That's really powerful. Just like a couple of things
(21:29):
that that stand out. Like you said, forgiveness, not
holding on to that anger is so important because I'm, I'm a
divorced, remarried. And like you said, I, I don't
want to hold on to the anger, but it comes back, right?
It'll like resurface and then it'll go away.
And then it'll be like, Oh, things are good.
And then something will happen. It's like, oh, there it is.
It's still there. It didn't go anywhere.
(21:51):
But then you're like, oh, maybe it's gone now.
Oh, wait, here's another situation where it came back
again, you know, so it's like this ebb and flow of like
processing through it, but beingintentional.
And it's, it's this, this is where I'd say most of society
really struggles is letting go of the anger and like moving
(22:12):
past it. And I don't know how you, I
don't know what your perspectiveis on this, but I, I really feel
like seeing people, especially people who have hurt you
multiple times. And you know, I'm sure in your
relationship, there's things that you did wrong too.
Not saying that that sounds likehis was he was way more on the
(22:33):
one end than you on the other end.
But I know my situation. There was things on both sides.
We both did wrong. Like if I had to point to if I
had to make a list, the list would compile on both sides.
But it's like, man, it doesn't really matter.
I just seem to like let this stuff go and see her as you
(22:54):
know, a a good like you said, your husband, your ex father was
was a good man. He's a good man who had some
problems and now he's coming back around to work through
them. If you weren't there and you
weren't available when he showedback up and you hadn't let go of
the anger, it wouldn't let it. He wouldn't have been able to
heal, right? He would have continued to
(23:14):
spiral because you hadn't let goof that.
Is there? How do you let go of that sort
of stuff? You know, for somebody who maybe
has gone through something like that and they're still stuck in
this place of like, well, screw them.
They did this to me. They did this to me, they did
this to me. How some people really, it seems
like they can't let it go. How do you let it go?
(23:36):
I don't, I don't tally, I don't keep tallies.
Like I know that some people like, like what you said, you
know, we keep lists and we keep a running tally of the things
that happened like this and thisand this and this and this.
And I feel like I've come to a point where I, I only have so
(23:59):
much energy to give and I don't want to give energy to something
that is not going to build me and something that is not going
to build others. And it's just going to bring me
down. I don't want to give energy to
that. And when I can take a deep
breath, and I mean, I truly believe in cleansing breaths.
I mean, sometimes I will just, you feel the tension in your
(24:22):
heart. You feel all your emotions just
building up. And just like, I am not OK.
And I still have anxiety for sixmonths.
I married my husband like he thought I'd run away and I
thought I might run away too because I, it was so scary.
It's the scariest thing I ever did was jump into this marriage
that I'm in now is because I have baggage.
(24:42):
We all have baggage. And I mean, there'd be times
where I would like cry in the shower and my husband would jump
in with all of his clothes on and just be like, are you OK And
hold me? And I'd just be like, I'm not
OK. Because we come to this point
where we really have a lot of emotions and we have to decide.
(25:05):
We have to decide what emotions are going to be benefiting me
and what emotions are going to be spiraling me.
What emotions do I not want to hold into?
And when you take that cleansingbreath and you think about those
emotions and I wrap them up in my mind, I put all of them in a
little box. And I'm like, you know what?
They're these are things I don'tlove.
And I put them in a box and I imagine myself just breathing
(25:28):
them out and then holding my breath.
And then like, I need to do thatagain.
And I do that. And then like, all right, I got
this. I'm OK.
I can, I can move on and I'm OK.But we, we hold on to so many
things. So something that we haven't
even mentioned, but something that really has changed my
(25:50):
perspective over the last 3 1/2 years has been my son, my like
the son that this man and I had together.
So we had three boys together and he actually got
mitochondrial dysfunction disorder about 3 1/2 years ago.
And he is one of two people thathad this specific variant and it
affects his. Two in the world.
(26:12):
In the US, Oh wow that have it affects his electric transport
chain #3 in his legs. So he went from running cross
country and run, run, run, run, run to having a fever and not
being able to walk. And it took us 2 1/2 years to
diagnose it. Well, two.
And it took a long time and 'cause every test will come back
(26:32):
normal until you do genetic tests and they find a variant
within your DNA and all this stuff.
It's a crazy thing. And there'd be times where he
would have to sleep and he wouldsleep, then he'd wake up and
he'd have energy and could walk.And then as the day would go on,
he'd go from walking to losing his energy to using a cane, to
(26:53):
having tremors, to not being able to walk.
And we would carry him to bed. And there'd be times where I'd
have these conversations with him.
Oh, I might cry. And he has taught me more than
anything else about perspective because he would ask me, Mom, if
you only had three hours of energy a day, what would you do?
(27:16):
If you only had three hours a day, what would you do?
And I said, I don't know, I've never thought about that.
He goes, I've thought about it alot and I know what I want to do
every day I have energy. He goes, I want to make sure I'm
spending time with God and I'm spending time with my family
because those are the most important things.
And I'm like, that is true. That is true, buddy.
(27:37):
And then he got more energy and he's like, I want to make sure
I'm calling my friends. He is the biggest example of
perspective to me because he could see things.
And he even told me he goes, youknow, some people keep talking
about a glass half full and a glass half empty.
He goes, I'm just really glad tohave the glass.
(27:58):
And I'm like, yeah, me too, buddy.
And he goes, you know, sometimesI think we just aren't grateful
for the little things. I'm like, you're right, we're
not. And seeing him go through this
at a very crucial age of like, you know, teenage years, he's
now 18. And that was like the crucial
chunk of like your independence growth and not hanging out with
(28:20):
mom. And he was, he was stuck hanging
out with mom. And I learned more from him than
than anything any of the prospective things I went
through. Yeah.
Oh, that's beautiful. Wow.
Thank you for sharing that. Oh man, God bless him.
That's what a, what a great example of perspective.
(28:42):
So I want to, we have to pause real quick just to shout the
sponsor of the show. When we come back, though, I
want to go back to the Hummingbird.
I want to talk about these aha moments because I, I find aha
moments so fascinating and they're so important.
And how do we help other people find those aha moments?
Like what does that look like tohelp somebody reach that, that
(29:06):
click that, that turning point? I want to dive into that in one
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(29:28):
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(29:51):
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(30:13):
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join us. Take care.
(30:35):
Welcome back to the show, Bethany.
This is such a good conversation.
I'm loving this so much. And that Hummingbird story you
told about the aha moment, like it, it's, it's so powerful, the
self discovery that we receive through those sorts of things,
those moments that really just click for us.
It might not click for somebody else, but it makes perfect sense
for us. Is there a way to help
facilitate those aha moments forother people?
(30:58):
They're, they're struggling witha certain thing, struggling in a
certain area. You know, it could be setting
boundaries, could be conflict resolution, you know, without,
without telling them what to do.Is there a way to help them find
those moments? Yes, there is.
And actually this is when I actually started creating my
(31:23):
coaching program and I didn't even know it.
I didn't even know I was doing it.
But I'm not a life coach and a lot of people are like, oh,
you're life coach. No, I'm not.
I'm a life skills coach and there's a huge difference in
that. And I've discovered that because
during that time when I was in the darkest moment and saw that
(31:46):
Hummingbird, I discovered that Istarted needed, I needed to
start to take care of myself. And I started doing little
things for me. Like one of them was make my bed
every day. Another one was, you know, take
(32:08):
my vitamins. Another one was like drink
water. That was all.
That's all I did. But because I had decided I was
going to start to do things for me, it changed because I was
starting to re put things insideof me.
(32:28):
I stopped depleting myself so much and actually it's a weird
thing because I teach self-care and when you are starting to
feel of yourself again, you can give more of yourself.
And most of us want to keep giving and giving and giving
till we don't have anything left.
And that's what I did in every single situation that I was in.
(32:51):
I gave and gave and gave and held on to every glimmer of
hope. I gave and gave and gave hoping
something would change. I would give and give and give
until I was so exhausted that every single time I would hold
still. I would fall asleep giving and
giving and giving and never doing anything for myself.
(33:12):
And it wasn't even really big things.
I mean, we're supposed to drink water, we're supposed to make
our bed. We're supposed to do these
things. But because I made an
intentional shift of I'm doing this for me because I know I
feel better when my bed is made.I know that I'm supposed to take
my vitamins because I don't wantto get sick and I need to stay
(33:33):
healthy. You know, it's these little
things that you don't even thinkabout.
And that is where you shift. You shift when you start to feel
of yourself because guess what? Then you start to look outside
of yourself and then you start to look for other things.
And because you are feeling a little bit fuller, you can then
(33:55):
give to others. And when you give to others,
you're serving. And when you serve, that's when
you are seeing gratitude for thethings that you have.
And it's just this interesting like formula that I have
discovered. And so that's actually how I
created my coaching program. And I do the same thing I like I
(34:18):
have. I call it my 5 self-care
buckets. That's my whole coaching
program. That's all I do is 5 self-care
buckets. And it's a little bit
interesting because I've actually had now a couple people
ask me, why do you call it buckets?
Why don't you just call it the five pillars of self-care, the
five la, la, la, you know, all these things.
And I've been an educator for a long time.
(34:40):
And there is a song that drives me absolutely insane.
I don't know if you've heard of this, but it's that there's a
hole in your bucket song that you sing to children.
You know there's a hole in your bucket.
Dear Lila, that 1K, that whole song, they never fix that hole.
It is the most frustrating song.They're sticking mud in it.
(35:02):
They're sticking like straw in it.
They're sticking all this stuff.And at the end of the song,
guess what? There's still a hole in the
bucket. It is so frustrating.
I listen to that song and I'm like, oh, and so and I was like,
you need to name your course andlike, oh, I know what I'm naming
it because I want to teach people how to fix that hole so
that they can actually fill those buckets.
(35:24):
Because guess what? You're not going to, you can put
as much stuff as you want, but unless your buckets are fixed
and that hole is fixed, you're not going to be able to fix
anything else. So that's what I Yep, that's
what I do now. What fixed the hole in your
bucket? Gratitude.
(35:47):
Gratitude and looking outside ofmyself and realizing that I
needed to nurture myself in fivedifferent ways.
So that's why there's 5, 5 buckets speak, Ted.
So you had like your emotional bucket, right?
Your emotional self-care and your emotional self-care has got
to come before your spiritual self-care.
(36:08):
Because if you cannot recognize your emotions, you are not going
to be understanding what God is saying to you.
You're going to get convoluted feelings.
You're going to have your brain and your heart conflicted all
the time. You have got to understand your
emotions. So it's emotional, spiritual,
and then you have your physical,then you have your social and
then you have your intellectual.And so I learned that I needed
(36:30):
to make sure I was doing something for myself in every
single one of these areas every single day.
And I do still to this day, I now have like 22 things on the
list that is like ongoing that Ilike try to make sure I do every
single day. And I'm not kidding, I can get a
lot of stuff done. But it's not because I'm like
(36:51):
some crazy superpower person or anything.
It's because I've learned to fill up myself first so I can
give to others because I know how to manage my time.
It's because I've learned all the life skills within self-care
to be able to give. And it's through my life
experiences and actually discovering it for myself that I
(37:12):
was able to learn this. This when you see you said you
have 22 things on your list thatyou do every day or almost every
day. Yeah.
How do you treat yourself when you don't get say, say you only
get 11 of those things done? What happens to you?
I say, well, tomorrow's another day and guess what?
(37:35):
You always get a challenge here yesterday, Yesterday you get a
challenge that, and it's like that 1% better mentality.
You know, yesterday I, I only got like 14 things done.
Guess what? Today I can do better.
And you get to actually have a framework for how to be better
'cause you know, And then once you master those, add another
(37:56):
thing. And oh, I today was a really
busy day and I didn't get out that tomorrow.
Because it's all about, it's notabout perfection.
And I think that this is the part that people forget so much.
It is not about perfection because perfection is just self
sabotage in disguise. That's all it is.
We are not supposed to be perfect.
(38:17):
It's only about consistency. It's about always moving
forward, never being stagnant. Don't try to be perfect, just
try to be consistent. So true consistency.
I I always use patience plus perseverance, you know, being
patient but always persevering. Always persevering but being
(38:42):
patient. Combining those two things
together, you'll get to where you need to go.
Now the the world of comparison can make it seem like other
people are moving faster than you or whatever it might be.
How do you how do you battle comparison, especially in the
world of coaching? Well you can have another story
(39:02):
for this one. So I was a teacher and I had an
assistant come in and I was teaching a kindergarten class at
the time and I do not wear the nicest clothes to go teach
school, especially kindergartners because you come
home with boogers on you. This is the reality of life.
Boogers and paint are a normal thing.
But my assistant would come to school and she always wore like
(39:27):
high end clothing, like really, really nice clothes.
And one day she told me that I would looked really frumpy and
that I looked really homely and that I needed to up my style.
This is my assistant. And I'm like, I'm going to put
my hair in a ponytail every single day.
And yeah, I'm not going to wear make up all the time and all
(39:47):
these things, 'cause this is reality like we are.
And she was, she would never geton the ground and play with the
kids. She'd never.
And I had to step back out of itbecause I was started to compare
'cause I was like, you know what?
She is always so pretty. And I mean, her hair is always
on point. She always has like perfect
makeup. Like all the things we start
(40:08):
doing, the girl thing, the girlsare terrible at comparison
because we can just instantly look and within seconds we can
judge and be like, and that, that, that, that, that.
Oh, I wish I had that. Oh, I'm better than that.
Like we do this comparison. This is a deal.
But I learned something. I took a step back and I
actually like for a good amount of time, I started like doing my
(40:31):
hair and things like that. And guess what?
I was became afraid. I became afraid to get my shoes
dirty. I became afraid to get grass
stains on my pants. I became afraid.
And guess what? I was not going to let those
children suffer because of my ego.
(40:52):
And so I quickly went back to the way I was dressing and I
decided I didn't care if I dressed frumpy or homely or
whatever she called. I didn't even care anymore
because I had a bigger mission. And I think that that is the
perspective you have to take. You know, in the world of
coaches, you know, people are always afraid, oh, you're going
(41:14):
to take my content. You're going to take my idea.
You're going to take this, They're going to take this.
But here's the one thing that they can never take.
They can never take who you are.This is the difference.
Nobody can ever steal you. So yes, in the world of
competitive coaching and all this other stuff, it's you they
can't take away. They can copy everything you do,
(41:36):
but they cannot take away you. And that is something I learned
is that I did not want to lose who I was and lose me just
because somebody else was telling me something.
That's really good that your identity is the the only thing
that's unique to you that nobodyelse can, can replicate.
So it's something I, you know, work on with myself and I work
(41:58):
on with people that I, you know,whether it's personal or
professional, it's who are you? What, what is your identity?
Because that is the uniqueness that you bring to every
situation. That is, what somebody you know
is drawn to you for is that youridentity is the thing that's
going to keep you afloat #1 right?
(42:20):
If you lose your identity, then who are you?
Why are you even doing what you're doing?
You can, you can lose so much inthat.
But when you know your identity,you know who you are, you know
what your purpose is, nobody cansteal that.
And that's such an attractive thing because people, they claim
her for that. They're, they're dying for
identity, but they're trying to get identity from other people.
(42:44):
They're trying to steal other, maybe not steal, but replicate
other people's identity because they think getting that is going
to give them the fulfillment that they need.
Right. And like you said, God, God
gives us all unique identities. We have to go to him to find out
who we are. And when we find out who we are,
then we can be secure in ourselves.
(43:05):
So I think that is such a powerful message and one that
we're continually learning and growing in throughout our life.
Bethany, this has been amazing, so good.
So many great stories here. So much powerful, powerful
wisdom. I want to encourage people to
check out what you do. thrivingbynature.com is the
website. What would you like them to do
(43:27):
when they go to the website? If you're interested, currently
on my website, I have a banner, which is really kind of fun
because I'm currently booking for a European river cruise on a
yacht and there's limited spots.And this will be the first like
kind of retreat I'm doing, but I'm doing the five self-care
course on that. And it's going to be really
(43:50):
amazing. I'm really, really excited about
it. And we're going to start in
Nuremberg, Germany, which is where World War 2 began.
And that's where humanity forgotitself.
That's where we forgot to look outside and be grateful for what
we have. And so I think that'll be
powerful in itself. But we're starting in Nuremberg,
Germany and we're going to Budapest and it's June 17th of
(44:12):
next year. And so we're booking for that
now. And then also on my website
there is I do self or life skilljournals.
I have an amazing graphic artistand I put give her the content.
She puts together the most beautiful journals and there's a
free journal to download becauseI want, I am not a gatekeeper.
(44:33):
I will give you value. I don't care and so download a
journal, have a journal, start gaining some life skills and if
you like what you see, you can book a free call with me and I
would love to talk with you and see what we could do.
Incredible. I love that that that getaway
(44:54):
sounds absolutely amazing. What a retreat.
What a treat in a retreat. That sounds so cool.
So thrivingbynature.com, the question I'd love to ask at the
end, say you never connect with anybody, including me, ever
again on here. Say whatever happens, we never
talk again. What is a lasting message that
you'd like to leave with the audience as we sign off?
(45:16):
You know, I think I just want torepeat a message that I said a
little earlier about it's not about perfection and that
perfection is self sabotage. And I think we need to remember
that if perfection is self sabotage in disguise, it is
about just progress just continuing on.
(45:38):
It's just about just consistencymoving forward, even if it's a
little bit. And that's what anyone can
progress through anything if they just move a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely. Got that.
Consistency is everything. Incredible.
Thank you for your time, Thank you for your stories.
This has been really powerful. Another true testimony of
(46:00):
breakthrough here on the unstuckmovement.
We'll see you next time.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Unstuck Movement.
I am your host, Rob Z. This platform is all about
finding breakthrough in your life through true testimonies of
breakthrough. Today, the incredible Bethany
Stone is with us on the platform.
And today we're gonna be talkingabout some incredible things,
powerful things like emotional intelligence, the growth
mindset, how to build resilienceinto your life, manage stress
(00:48):
and overcoming adversity. And Bethany, I like to jump in
right off the bat before we eventalk about who you are and what
you do, I want to get into a powerful question to frame this
episode. We're talking about perspective
today. And you know, often times in our
life, perspective can be really hard to shift.
And we've we've thought about something the same way forever.
We've seen somebody in the same light forever.
(01:09):
It can be hard to look at something from a different set
of eyes and get a new fresh perspective.
What is one of the first steps do you take when perspective
seems impossible to shift? I feel like when you're caught
in like perspective, just, I don't know, stuckness, you just
(01:30):
get stuck and you don't know whyyou can't progress.
The best thing you have to do isjust step back.
You cannot see anything when you're in the fog.
You can't. And sometimes we won't see
anything until years later and we look back and sometimes we
don't know why we're keep doing what we're doing until we look
back and see the progress that we've made.
(01:52):
Perspective is such an interesting thing because it's
all about movement. Yeah, so true perspective I
find. So I'm just going to go
personally, like I find certain things in my life that recur on
a, a daily basis of like, man, Iknow I need to look at this
(02:13):
differently, but right now it's really hard for me to look at it
differently 'cause I'm in it every single day, right?
So that movement can be difficult in the moment.
What do you do? Give me, give me a, a great
example from your own personal life of, of what that movement
looked like when you made the movement.
(02:33):
What kind of shift happened? Do you, do you have anything
that would help to illustrate that?
I. Have a couple of experiences
I've really impacted and changedmy perspective.
I have OK when I was three yearsold.
I am a little kid and I am determined and I am not the
easiest child and my mom can attest to this.
(02:53):
I am not easy but when I was 3 Ihad a Tootsie pop sucker and I
was really excited about this and I for some reason got it
taken away. So being the child that I was, I
decided that I was going to problem solve this and I decided
that I was going to go up into my room and take all the silver
(03:16):
coins that those are the ones that buy the Tootsie Pops.
I knew that I took all the silver coins and I got on my
little tricycle and I was like I'm going to fix this.
So I got on my tricycle and I rode my little tricycle on a
highway, on the side of a highway.
OK, but the town has 1000 peoplein it, but still this highway
(03:36):
went through the town and I was on the side and because I knew
enough to stay on the side because my mom would always be
like stay on the other side of the white line, you know?
So I was riding my tricycle, little red tricycle all the way
to the little gas station, went in, got my Tootsie pop, buy my
Tootsie pop with my silver coins.
And behind me this person goes, where's your mom?
(04:01):
And I was just happy because I had my red Tootsie pop and he
takes me and he puts my tricyclein the back of the truck and B
brings me home, knocks on the door.
My mom was not very happy to seeme.
She was not very happy about anyof this.
And I didn't get to keep that Tootsie pop either actually,
(04:22):
which was really sad. OK, now perspective wise, in my
3 year old mind, I thought that I had just solved the biggest
problem in the world. I had just solved this.
I had like made it happen and I couldn't even understand why my
mom was mad. Like, I fixed this.
This was an issue and I fixed it.
Now as I'm an adult and I would look back on this.
(04:46):
I cannot believe I did that. I would have responded the exact
same way my mom did and been like, what in the world are you
thinking? Do you know how dangerous that
is? Do you know?
You know, you could have been run over, taken by a stranger.
You could have like all the things, but a lot of the times
our perspective is so much basedon our ignorance as well.
(05:09):
I didn't know I was thinking that I was solving something.
I was thinking I was fixing things and I didn't have the
knowledge that I do now to really change my my perspective
and look at it and look at it and be like, wow, I really, I
really could have been hurting myself.
(05:31):
Things could have really been bad.
I didn't have that perspective, and so it's really how you look
at things. Yeah, I think about though, the
boldness of that three-year old you were, you were so bold
'cause sometimes the, the ignorance, the lack of
perspective creates that boldness of just like to go for
(05:52):
things you just like went for it'cause you went after the thing
that you wanted. And there's a lot of power there
too. So I want to, I want to talk
more about that. First, let's back up.
I just want to reintroduce everybody to the platform, the
unstuck movement. I created this platform because
I've been stuck. Bethany, I know you've been
stuck in different places in your life.
We all have. And I love to find breakthrough.
I love to find those those key ingredients, those core elements
(06:13):
that help us to find breakthrough in our lives
personally and professionally. We're sponsored by the Connected
Leaves Academy, which I know we are both a part of.
The CLA has over 500 heart centered entrepreneurs from all
over the world helping each other, serve each other and
grow. And also by the Pro Podcaster
Academy. If you're somebody who wants to
launch a podcast, wants to make it a reality, but you're not
(06:37):
sure about all the nuts and bolts to how to make it a
reality, how to make that actually happen.
I love to walk people through that process, to have a platform
that creates incredible impact in peoples lives, that makes you
the go to authority in your space, and also creates
incredible personal and professional relationships for
yourself. If you have a podcast, how do
you streamline it, make it easier to execute, and also
(06:57):
monetize it where you can make money off of it?
I'd love to help you with that. At robzwentz.com.
You can sign up for the wait list for the Pro Podcaster
Academy today with us, Bethany Stone, a mastermindset and life
skills coach who helps people turn overwhelm into empowerment.
With over 22 years of experience, she equips clients
(07:18):
to build resilience, shift perspective, and thrive in both
personal and professional life. So this Tootsie pops Tootsie pop
story, obviously a formative memory that defined your problem
solving. You know, as I was doing some
research about you for this episode, I found, you know, a
(07:40):
story where you had started to lose yourself in in in marriage
and you started to lose maybe kind of your identity.
And I'm curious, you know, what was like the internal
conversation like when you had to rediscover and reclaim that
core part of your identity, thatthat part that Tootsie pop girl
who went out and did that, right?
How did you reconcile all that later on in life?
(08:03):
Well, it's interesting because when you're, excuse me, when
you're having emotional trauma, weather or physical trauma you
have, I feel like this is how I look at it ANYWAYS.
I feel like within you, you havethese amazing seeds of like
potential and just growth. And when something or situation
(08:27):
happens and really it's your, you know, your potential, the
way you look at things, your perspective, all of these
things, depending on what happens in your environment,
those things can get damaged andthey can get poisoned and they
can get destroyed. And when that happens, you have
(08:48):
to start at square 1 and grow again.
And growing is uncomfortable andgrowing takes a lot of effort.
So I was married for my first marriage, 10 years, and it was
he, he is, he is a good man, buthe has mental illness.
(09:10):
And at the time he had a lot of addictions and a lot of demons
that he could not handle himself.
And when he drank, he was abusive.
That was the way it was. And I ended up getting battered
wife syndrome from staying for 10 years and looking for the
little glimmers of hope. Because when you're in a
situation like that, you try to keep a positive perspective
(09:33):
because you can see this one good thing out of all the yuck.
Oh, there's the one good thing and the yuck.
And really what that does is damages you in a whole other
like level because you're tryingto create something that really
isn't there. And I left that marriage having
(09:55):
battered wife syndrome and really not OK.
And I quickly rebounded into even a more abusive marriage
where this one was very much so emotionally abusive and very
much so finished just stomping out the my love for life, my
(10:17):
love for everything. So I really did have to start at
just square 1. I mean, I didn't even want to be
around anymore. You just come to the point where
you're like, why am I here? And you're stuck in such a
vicious cycle of negative thought that you are so stuck
that you can't even see any morelight.
All the glimmers of hope are gone.
(10:38):
And when I was there, that's when I actually discovered,
well, really the key to everything and everything that I
am today. And I was actually able to
rediscover that lollipop loving girl, you know, I was really
able to rediscover myself. And it was when my darkest
(10:59):
moment when I was laying in bed and I'm thinking about pills I
could take to make everything goaway and all the stuff you know.
And, and I'm an educator. I'm a teacher and knowing a lot
about birds and zoology because I'm a Montessori educator and we
teach very, very in detail thesethings.
(11:21):
And looking outside my window, Isaw a Hummingbird couple and
they were making a nest and right outside my window when I
was feeling all these things andI watched them and I had one
thought come to my mind, Wow, what a cool experience that I
can sit here and watch this. This is a really rare thing.
(11:42):
I know that hummingbirds make their nests out of the softest
materials they can find in nature.
I know that it is really rare because they camouflage their
nests better than any other birdthat in this area.
And I'm like, what a cool thing.I am so glad I'm able to see
this. Whoa.
One thought of gratitude shiftedmy thought process and it
(12:08):
started growing that little tinyseed and it just watered it a
tiny bit. But all of a sudden I was so
grateful and I there is no way Iwanted to take pills because
guess what? There is a Hummingbird making a
nest outside my window. And I know what a gift that is
from God. I'm like holy cow.
And he knew I needed to see it right then.
(12:29):
And it just sparked that shift and all of a sudden I was able
to look outside of myself and see gratitude.
And as soon I was able to see gratitude, I was like, wow, I
can't believe I'm so socked intothis vicious cycle of yuck.
And now that I have that one thought of gratitude, it kind
(12:50):
of, if you start nurturing that,it kind of grows.
And I was then I started to learn, wow, I really need to
start taking care of myself. Wow, I really need to.
And I was able to rediscover myself.
I was able to stand up for myself.
I was able to, you know, restartmy life.
I was able to be the single mom and work 5 jobs and provide for
(13:10):
my kids and be vulnerable enoughto jump into yet another
relationship, which has been thebiggest blessing of my life,
which you wouldn't think becauseI was pretty sure all men were
inherently evil at that point. And open myself up to be
vulnerable again. And I would have never been able
to heal. I would have never been able to
(13:33):
open up been never able to see love, gratitude or anything if
it hadn't been for that one little drop of water that just
what happened to be on my poisoned seeds in my life of
gratitude of looking out that window and seeing that that bird
and just watching that happen. I actually have that Hummingbird
(13:56):
nest. When I moved from that house, I
took it out of the tree and I keep it because it's a reminder
to me about, well, perspective and where we're at and why we
need to care for ourselves and the importance of that and how
we can get so sucked into yuck and not see our way out because
the fog is too thick. Yeah, so true, right.
(14:19):
It's it's kind of maybe not built into all of us, built into
a lot of us to look there for all the things we don't have.
And so to look at the things we do have because we're always,
you know, surviving, you know, it's like that survival, like I
need this thing. I need that thing or comparison.
You see the things that you wantand ignore the things that you
(14:40):
already have and possess. And that's really, that's
wonderful. I love that so much because
throughout the day, throughout all the different parts of a
day, all the different thoughts that we have, man, you can lose
perspective so quickly. That's that's really, really
powerful. I want to touch on, I want to go
(15:00):
back to that in a second, but I want to touch on something you
mentioned a few minutes ago about change and you mentioned
about your, your ex-husband and you know, thinking that, you
know, you saw that one little glimmer of hope and thinking
that hanging on to that one thing and just imagining that
you were going to be able to, tochange a situation because you
(15:21):
saw something good. And I, and I think that's a
really important point, not justfor relationships, but for
anything in our life. Just because we see one little
seed of something that's a possibility, we can only really
control ourselves and we can barely control ourselves.
At least for me, I don't know about you, but I can barely
control myself, let alone somebody else.
So recognizing like, OK, that that's great that you can see
(15:47):
the good in something that mighthave a lot of bad in it, but it
doesn't mean to hang on to that one thing and to let it drag you
down. So how do you find the balance
in those things, right? Because I, I can see the good
here, but I also see the bad. How do you know when to let go?
So that's probably a lesson thatyou've learned over the years.
How do you know when to let go of something that obviously
(16:10):
isn't working anymore? Well, it's been a lot of
lessons. I've lived a lot of life
lessons. And I can tell you that when I
was in it and I was really, really in it, you know, I mean
in it so far, 4 affairs in with him, like in it, like it has
been pretty much everything you could think of that is not
(16:30):
supposed to be happening in a good marriage pretty much
happened. And it was, it was very much so
me understanding that you know, you have, if you cannot see the
actions, the words are dead. And understanding that because
(16:58):
so many people are so good with words and will say exactly what
you want to hear. And when you stand back and try
to look outside of this fog, you'll realize that words
without the action are dead. And if you're not seeing that
action piece and you're holding on to only words, that's when
(17:19):
you know, because they have to work together.
And if they are not, then you'renot in a good situation.
There's another piece of this story though, if we want to talk
about this story. So my ex-husband, he is a good
man and he always has been a good man.
Just too many demons. And I mentioned that.
(17:42):
Well, it's been, we've been divorced for longer than we were
married. And because I did not hold
resentment, because I forgave, because all these things
happened in life and I am not, Iam not somebody that holds on to
anger. I don't feel like I don't want
to hold on to things and that's why I can talk about it.
(18:04):
People are like, oh, how can youeven talk about those things?
Well, it's because I don't hold on to them because my
perspective is in a way that these are things that it was
terrible. I've been through a lot of
terrible things, but every single one of these things grew
me even though I thought that they were destroying everything
inside of me. What they were doing was
(18:26):
fertilizing a ground. They were fertilizing a ground
so that something else could grow even though everything else
was dead at the time. But that ground has to have
nutrients in it. And sometimes that nutrients is
manure. Have to say it just it's and you
sometimes you just have to go through that crap.
(18:48):
You have to go, you got to go through the crap and you got to
use the crap as fertile to grow the new thing.
That's that's really, really good.
That's. Really, and it's it's true
though, like you think back on things and today for almost an
entire year now, actually, therewas a point I thought he was
dead, like didn't contact me kids, nothing.
(19:09):
I really thought he was dead, homeless on the street,
whatever. He comes back in January of last
year and is like, I want to fix my life.
I want to give my life back to God and I realize everything
that I'm missing and I want to thank you.
He's thanked me multiple times for being an example to him and
being strong and standing my ground.
(19:33):
We're friends today. My boys are actually see him,
which they don't have really a relationship with him before and
he is giving his life to God nowand he's going to church
continually and he is striving to be the man that he wished
that he could be. He's getting help for bipolar
and like he had bipolar like allthese mental illness and he's
(19:55):
getting help. He's seeking and doing the
things that he needs to do. And it is amazing to see the
180. So there's two things here that
you have to understand, even though things are so, so
terrible in perspective and everything else, right If you
hold on to anger. And you hold on to things.
(20:17):
It wouldn't have given him the opportunity to come to me and
ask me to be a support person. My husband and him are friends.
He sits on the Pew on the other side of us at church every
Sunday. And yeah, and he bought a house
a mile away from us. And he asks, He comes over for
Sunday dinner. And he doesn't really have a big
(20:39):
family to lean on. And I do.
And he's now using me as a crutch.
And I'm grateful to be able to have such a strong support
system around me and have kept that, just not anger and not
festered in anger that he felt like he could come to me and my
(21:05):
husband and my kids. And like now most of them are
adults and things like that. But he can now talk to them, and
he can now fix his life, becauseit's never too late if you're
alive. Bethany, that's amazing.
What a, what a story of hope that is.
That's really powerful. Just like a couple of things
(21:29):
that that stand out. Like you said, forgiveness, not
holding on to that anger is so important because I'm, I'm a
divorced, remarried. And like you said, I, I don't
want to hold on to the anger, but it comes back, right?
It'll like resurface and then it'll go away.
And then it'll be like, Oh, things are good.
And then something will happen. It's like, oh, there it is.
It's still there. It didn't go anywhere.
(21:51):
But then you're like, oh, maybe it's gone now.
Oh, wait, here's another situation where it came back
again, you know, so it's like this ebb and flow of like
processing through it, but beingintentional.
And it's, it's this, this is where I'd say most of society
really struggles is letting go of the anger and like moving
(22:12):
past it. And I don't know how you, I
don't know what your perspectiveis on this, but I, I really feel
like seeing people, especially people who have hurt you
multiple times. And you know, I'm sure in your
relationship, there's things that you did wrong too.
Not saying that that sounds likehis was he was way more on the
(22:33):
one end than you on the other end.
But I know my situation. There was things on both sides.
We both did wrong. Like if I had to point to if I
had to make a list, the list would compile on both sides.
But it's like, man, it doesn't really matter.
I just seem to like let this stuff go and see her as you
(22:54):
know, a a good like you said, your husband, your ex father was
was a good man. He's a good man who had some
problems and now he's coming back around to work through
them. If you weren't there and you
weren't available when he showedback up and you hadn't let go of
the anger, it wouldn't let it. He wouldn't have been able to
heal, right? He would have continued to
(23:14):
spiral because you hadn't let goof that.
Is there? How do you let go of that sort
of stuff? You know, for somebody who maybe
has gone through something like that and they're still stuck in
this place of like, well, screw them.
They did this to me. They did this to me, they did
this to me. How some people really, it seems
like they can't let it go. How do you let it go?
(23:36):
I don't, I don't tally, I don't keep tallies.
Like I know that some people like, like what you said, you
know, we keep lists and we keep a running tally of the things
that happened like this and thisand this and this and this.
And I feel like I've come to a point where I, I only have so
(23:59):
much energy to give and I don't want to give energy to something
that is not going to build me and something that is not going
to build others. And it's just going to bring me
down. I don't want to give energy to
that. And when I can take a deep
breath, and I mean, I truly believe in cleansing breaths.
I mean, sometimes I will just, you feel the tension in your
(24:22):
heart. You feel all your emotions just
building up. And just like, I am not OK.
And I still have anxiety for sixmonths.
I married my husband like he thought I'd run away and I
thought I might run away too because I, it was so scary.
It's the scariest thing I ever did was jump into this marriage
that I'm in now is because I have baggage.
(24:42):
We all have baggage. And I mean, there'd be times
where I would like cry in the shower and my husband would jump
in with all of his clothes on and just be like, are you OK And
hold me? And I'd just be like, I'm not
OK. Because we come to this point
where we really have a lot of emotions and we have to decide.
(25:05):
We have to decide what emotions are going to be benefiting me
and what emotions are going to be spiraling me.
What emotions do I not want to hold into?
And when you take that cleansingbreath and you think about those
emotions and I wrap them up in my mind, I put all of them in a
little box. And I'm like, you know what?
They're these are things I don'tlove.
And I put them in a box and I imagine myself just breathing
(25:28):
them out and then holding my breath.
And then like, I need to do thatagain.
And I do that. And then like, all right, I got
this. I'm OK.
I can, I can move on and I'm OK.But we, we hold on to so many
things. So something that we haven't
even mentioned, but something that really has changed my
(25:50):
perspective over the last 3 1/2 years has been my son, my like
the son that this man and I had together.
So we had three boys together and he actually got
mitochondrial dysfunction disorder about 3 1/2 years ago.
And he is one of two people thathad this specific variant and it
affects his. Two in the world.
(26:12):
In the US, Oh wow that have it affects his electric transport
chain #3 in his legs. So he went from running cross
country and run, run, run, run, run to having a fever and not
being able to walk. And it took us 2 1/2 years to
diagnose it. Well, two.
And it took a long time and 'cause every test will come back
(26:32):
normal until you do genetic tests and they find a variant
within your DNA and all this stuff.
It's a crazy thing. And there'd be times where he
would have to sleep and he wouldsleep, then he'd wake up and
he'd have energy and could walk.And then as the day would go on,
he'd go from walking to losing his energy to using a cane, to
(26:53):
having tremors, to not being able to walk.
And we would carry him to bed. And there'd be times where I'd
have these conversations with him.
Oh, I might cry. And he has taught me more than
anything else about perspective because he would ask me, Mom, if
you only had three hours of energy a day, what would you do?
(27:16):
If you only had three hours a day, what would you do?
And I said, I don't know, I've never thought about that.
He goes, I've thought about it alot and I know what I want to do
every day I have energy. He goes, I want to make sure I'm
spending time with God and I'm spending time with my family
because those are the most important things.
And I'm like, that is true. That is true, buddy.
(27:37):
And then he got more energy and he's like, I want to make sure
I'm calling my friends. He is the biggest example of
perspective to me because he could see things.
And he even told me he goes, youknow, some people keep talking
about a glass half full and a glass half empty.
He goes, I'm just really glad tohave the glass.
(27:58):
And I'm like, yeah, me too, buddy.
And he goes, you know, sometimesI think we just aren't grateful
for the little things. I'm like, you're right, we're
not. And seeing him go through this
at a very crucial age of like, you know, teenage years, he's
now 18. And that was like the crucial
chunk of like your independence growth and not hanging out with
(28:20):
mom. And he was, he was stuck hanging
out with mom. And I learned more from him than
than anything any of the prospective things I went
through. Yeah.
Oh, that's beautiful. Wow.
Thank you for sharing that. Oh man, God bless him.
That's what a, what a great example of perspective.
(28:42):
So I want to, we have to pause real quick just to shout the
sponsor of the show. When we come back, though, I
want to go back to the Hummingbird.
I want to talk about these aha moments because I, I find aha
moments so fascinating and they're so important.
And how do we help other people find those aha moments?
Like what does that look like tohelp somebody reach that, that
(29:06):
click that, that turning point? I want to dive into that in one
minute when we come back. Are you struggling to make
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Do you want to have an efficientand effective way to create
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(29:28):
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(30:13):
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join us. Take care.
(30:35):
Welcome back to the show, Bethany.
This is such a good conversation.
I'm loving this so much. And that Hummingbird story you
told about the aha moment, like it, it's, it's so powerful, the
self discovery that we receive through those sorts of things,
those moments that really just click for us.
It might not click for somebody else, but it makes perfect sense
for us. Is there a way to help
facilitate those aha moments forother people?
(30:58):
They're, they're struggling witha certain thing, struggling in a
certain area. You know, it could be setting
boundaries, could be conflict resolution, you know, without,
without telling them what to do.Is there a way to help them find
those moments? Yes, there is.
And actually this is when I actually started creating my
(31:23):
coaching program and I didn't even know it.
I didn't even know I was doing it.
But I'm not a life coach and a lot of people are like, oh,
you're life coach. No, I'm not.
I'm a life skills coach and there's a huge difference in
that. And I've discovered that because
during that time when I was in the darkest moment and saw that
(31:46):
Hummingbird, I discovered that Istarted needed, I needed to
start to take care of myself. And I started doing little
things for me. Like one of them was make my bed
every day. Another one was, you know, take
(32:08):
my vitamins. Another one was like drink
water. That was all.
That's all I did. But because I had decided I was
going to start to do things for me, it changed because I was
starting to re put things insideof me.
(32:28):
I stopped depleting myself so much and actually it's a weird
thing because I teach self-care and when you are starting to
feel of yourself again, you can give more of yourself.
And most of us want to keep giving and giving and giving
till we don't have anything left.
And that's what I did in every single situation that I was in.
(32:51):
I gave and gave and gave and held on to every glimmer of
hope. I gave and gave and gave hoping
something would change. I would give and give and give
until I was so exhausted that every single time I would hold
still. I would fall asleep giving and
giving and giving and never doing anything for myself.
(33:12):
And it wasn't even really big things.
I mean, we're supposed to drink water, we're supposed to make
our bed. We're supposed to do these
things. But because I made an
intentional shift of I'm doing this for me because I know I
feel better when my bed is made.I know that I'm supposed to take
my vitamins because I don't wantto get sick and I need to stay
(33:33):
healthy. You know, it's these little
things that you don't even thinkabout.
And that is where you shift. You shift when you start to feel
of yourself because guess what? Then you start to look outside
of yourself and then you start to look for other things.
And because you are feeling a little bit fuller, you can then
(33:55):
give to others. And when you give to others,
you're serving. And when you serve, that's when
you are seeing gratitude for thethings that you have.
And it's just this interesting like formula that I have
discovered. And so that's actually how I
created my coaching program. And I do the same thing I like I
(34:18):
have. I call it my 5 self-care
buckets. That's my whole coaching
program. That's all I do is 5 self-care
buckets. And it's a little bit
interesting because I've actually had now a couple people
ask me, why do you call it buckets?
Why don't you just call it the five pillars of self-care, the
five la, la, la, you know, all these things.
And I've been an educator for a long time.
(34:40):
And there is a song that drives me absolutely insane.
I don't know if you've heard of this, but it's that there's a
hole in your bucket song that you sing to children.
You know there's a hole in your bucket.
Dear Lila, that 1K, that whole song, they never fix that hole.
It is the most frustrating song.They're sticking mud in it.
(35:02):
They're sticking like straw in it.
They're sticking all this stuff.And at the end of the song,
guess what? There's still a hole in the
bucket. It is so frustrating.
I listen to that song and I'm like, oh, and so and I was like,
you need to name your course andlike, oh, I know what I'm naming
it because I want to teach people how to fix that hole so
that they can actually fill those buckets.
(35:24):
Because guess what? You're not going to, you can put
as much stuff as you want, but unless your buckets are fixed
and that hole is fixed, you're not going to be able to fix
anything else. So that's what I Yep, that's
what I do now. What fixed the hole in your
bucket? Gratitude.
(35:47):
Gratitude and looking outside ofmyself and realizing that I
needed to nurture myself in fivedifferent ways.
So that's why there's 5, 5 buckets speak, Ted.
So you had like your emotional bucket, right?
Your emotional self-care and your emotional self-care has got
to come before your spiritual self-care.
(36:08):
Because if you cannot recognize your emotions, you are not going
to be understanding what God is saying to you.
You're going to get convoluted feelings.
You're going to have your brain and your heart conflicted all
the time. You have got to understand your
emotions. So it's emotional, spiritual,
and then you have your physical,then you have your social and
then you have your intellectual.And so I learned that I needed
(36:30):
to make sure I was doing something for myself in every
single one of these areas every single day.
And I do still to this day, I now have like 22 things on the
list that is like ongoing that Ilike try to make sure I do every
single day. And I'm not kidding, I can get a
lot of stuff done. But it's not because I'm like
(36:51):
some crazy superpower person or anything.
It's because I've learned to fill up myself first so I can
give to others because I know how to manage my time.
It's because I've learned all the life skills within self-care
to be able to give. And it's through my life
experiences and actually discovering it for myself that I
(37:12):
was able to learn this. This when you see you said you
have 22 things on your list thatyou do every day or almost every
day. Yeah.
How do you treat yourself when you don't get say, say you only
get 11 of those things done? What happens to you?
I say, well, tomorrow's another day and guess what?
(37:35):
You always get a challenge here yesterday, Yesterday you get a
challenge that, and it's like that 1% better mentality.
You know, yesterday I, I only got like 14 things done.
Guess what? Today I can do better.
And you get to actually have a framework for how to be better
'cause you know, And then once you master those, add another
(37:56):
thing. And oh, I today was a really
busy day and I didn't get out that tomorrow.
Because it's all about, it's notabout perfection.
And I think that this is the part that people forget so much.
It is not about perfection because perfection is just self
sabotage in disguise. That's all it is.
We are not supposed to be perfect.
(38:17):
It's only about consistency. It's about always moving
forward, never being stagnant. Don't try to be perfect, just
try to be consistent. So true consistency.
I I always use patience plus perseverance, you know, being
patient but always persevering. Always persevering but being
(38:42):
patient. Combining those two things
together, you'll get to where you need to go.
Now the the world of comparison can make it seem like other
people are moving faster than you or whatever it might be.
How do you how do you battle comparison, especially in the
world of coaching? Well you can have another story
(39:02):
for this one. So I was a teacher and I had an
assistant come in and I was teaching a kindergarten class at
the time and I do not wear the nicest clothes to go teach
school, especially kindergartners because you come
home with boogers on you. This is the reality of life.
Boogers and paint are a normal thing.
But my assistant would come to school and she always wore like
(39:27):
high end clothing, like really, really nice clothes.
And one day she told me that I would looked really frumpy and
that I looked really homely and that I needed to up my style.
This is my assistant. And I'm like, I'm going to put
my hair in a ponytail every single day.
And yeah, I'm not going to wear make up all the time and all
(39:47):
these things, 'cause this is reality like we are.
And she was, she would never geton the ground and play with the
kids. She'd never.
And I had to step back out of itbecause I was started to compare
'cause I was like, you know what?
She is always so pretty. And I mean, her hair is always
on point. She always has like perfect
makeup. Like all the things we start
(40:08):
doing, the girl thing, the girlsare terrible at comparison
because we can just instantly look and within seconds we can
judge and be like, and that, that, that, that, that.
Oh, I wish I had that. Oh, I'm better than that.
Like we do this comparison. This is a deal.
But I learned something. I took a step back and I
actually like for a good amount of time, I started like doing my
(40:31):
hair and things like that. And guess what?
I was became afraid. I became afraid to get my shoes
dirty. I became afraid to get grass
stains on my pants. I became afraid.
And guess what? I was not going to let those
children suffer because of my ego.
(40:52):
And so I quickly went back to the way I was dressing and I
decided I didn't care if I dressed frumpy or homely or
whatever she called. I didn't even care anymore
because I had a bigger mission. And I think that that is the
perspective you have to take. You know, in the world of
coaches, you know, people are always afraid, oh, you're going
(41:14):
to take my content. You're going to take my idea.
You're going to take this, They're going to take this.
But here's the one thing that they can never take.
They can never take who you are.This is the difference.
Nobody can ever steal you. So yes, in the world of
competitive coaching and all this other stuff, it's you they
can't take away. They can copy everything you do,
(41:36):
but they cannot take away you. And that is something I learned
is that I did not want to lose who I was and lose me just
because somebody else was telling me something.
That's really good that your identity is the the only thing
that's unique to you that nobodyelse can, can replicate.
So it's something I, you know, work on with myself and I work
(41:58):
on with people that I, you know,whether it's personal or
professional, it's who are you? What, what is your identity?
Because that is the uniqueness that you bring to every
situation. That is, what somebody you know
is drawn to you for is that youridentity is the thing that's
going to keep you afloat #1 right?
(42:20):
If you lose your identity, then who are you?
Why are you even doing what you're doing?
You can, you can lose so much inthat.
But when you know your identity,you know who you are, you know
what your purpose is, nobody cansteal that.
And that's such an attractive thing because people, they claim
her for that. They're, they're dying for
identity, but they're trying to get identity from other people.
(42:44):
They're trying to steal other, maybe not steal, but replicate
other people's identity because they think getting that is going
to give them the fulfillment that they need.
Right. And like you said, God, God
gives us all unique identities. We have to go to him to find out
who we are. And when we find out who we are,
then we can be secure in ourselves.
(43:05):
So I think that is such a powerful message and one that
we're continually learning and growing in throughout our life.
Bethany, this has been amazing, so good.
So many great stories here. So much powerful, powerful
wisdom. I want to encourage people to
check out what you do. thrivingbynature.com is the
website. What would you like them to do
(43:27):
when they go to the website? If you're interested, currently
on my website, I have a banner, which is really kind of fun
because I'm currently booking for a European river cruise on a
yacht and there's limited spots.And this will be the first like
kind of retreat I'm doing, but I'm doing the five self-care
course on that. And it's going to be really
(43:50):
amazing. I'm really, really excited about
it. And we're going to start in
Nuremberg, Germany, which is where World War 2 began.
And that's where humanity forgotitself.
That's where we forgot to look outside and be grateful for what
we have. And so I think that'll be
powerful in itself. But we're starting in Nuremberg,
Germany and we're going to Budapest and it's June 17th of
(44:12):
next year. And so we're booking for that
now. And then also on my website
there is I do self or life skilljournals.
I have an amazing graphic artistand I put give her the content.
She puts together the most beautiful journals and there's a
free journal to download becauseI want, I am not a gatekeeper.
(44:33):
I will give you value. I don't care and so download a
journal, have a journal, start gaining some life skills and if
you like what you see, you can book a free call with me and I
would love to talk with you and see what we could do.
Incredible. I love that that that getaway
(44:54):
sounds absolutely amazing. What a retreat.
What a treat in a retreat. That sounds so cool.
So thrivingbynature.com, the question I'd love to ask at the
end, say you never connect with anybody, including me, ever
again on here. Say whatever happens, we never
talk again. What is a lasting message that
you'd like to leave with the audience as we sign off?
(45:16):
You know, I think I just want torepeat a message that I said a
little earlier about it's not about perfection and that
perfection is self sabotage. And I think we need to remember
that if perfection is self sabotage in disguise, it is
about just progress just continuing on.
(45:38):
It's just about just consistencymoving forward, even if it's a
little bit. And that's what anyone can
progress through anything if they just move a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely. Got that.
Consistency is everything. Incredible.
Thank you for your time, Thank you for your stories.
This has been really powerful. Another true testimony of
(46:00):
breakthrough here on the unstuckmovement.
We'll see you next time.
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