In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast

Embracing the Unknown: 3 Tips on How to Navigate New Beginnings

December 22, 2020 Bettina M Brown Season 2 Episode 55
In The Rising Podcast- A Health and Wellness Podcast
Embracing the Unknown: 3 Tips on How to Navigate New Beginnings
Show Notes Transcript

Why do we get so excited about new beginnings?  

  • New outlook
  • New possibilities
  • New Opportunities

 

Here is a great article by Dr. Barton Goldsmith, PhD in Psychology Today,

Book Recommendation: 

Starting Over: Your Life Beyond Regrets by Dave & Jon Ferguson 







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Greetings and welcome to In The Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina, and this is the platform I have chosen to talk to you about living a life that is really in alignment with your hopes, your dreams, and your goals. And leaving behind that shame blame game that we are unfortunately quite used to and sadly have gotten and grown accustomed to.

So, I like to start off by saying that I am not a psychologist, a psychiatrist counselor, but I am a healthcare practitioner who loves to figure out what makes us tick, what makes us work, and how do we interact with other people. So today is actually a very special day. This podcast will come out the day after the winter solstice of 2020.

The same night that the Star Bethlehem, or the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, happens in the Night sky, which is a huge event. It hasn't happened in over 800 years, and so many people were really excited because both of these events kind of signal. And represent a new beginning. So winter solstice is the longest night of the year and traditionally has been celebrated with people lighting candles, like having a big bonfire in the backyard or area with, with yuel, and also sweeping all the negative energy out of the house.

Some will sweep it figuratively with smudge and so far as this, big star Bethlehem or great conjunction. A lot of people were just excited to see something different. See something different in the night sky. And something that for many of us, which have, you know, faith, and it doesn't matter if it's Christian or you know, Jewish or Muslim, there, the Old Testament is still the Old Testament, and it represents a new beginning, just itself.

So what does that really mean to us? What does that really have to do with this podcast? And so I celebrate the new beginning, because this will be a new beginning of In The Rising. So I have not only my main hub that people have listened to me on, on Apple Podcast and also Spotify. Some Stitcher in there, Alexa a few times, but I'm also now on Helium Internet Radio and having that opportunity to share my thoughts and feelings and really been blessed with the amount of listeners.

So I thank you all. So it's a new direction and a new beginning to. Affect more people and spread a little more kindness and some love out there. So one quote that I really like is from Candace Bushnell, and Candace says, and I quote, you have to let go of who you were in order to become the person you will be.

So what does that really have to do with winter solstice, and what does that really have to do with Star Bethlehem? Well, this podcast is made in December and next Friday actually marks a brand new year, January 1st. So there's a lot of brand new beginnings, not only with this winter solstice, our star tonight, quote unquote, but.

Also this new beginning, which begins next year, and 2020 has been difficult for many people, whether it was the Covid, struggling family situations, never know what's going on. A lot of us have lost loved ones for various reasons, and we've had some trouble. We've just, like on a, on a global scale, had a lot more to go with.

Together, and of course then individually. So having this new beginning is almost like a, new opportunity to build a better year. And so what does that really mean on a, on an individual scale? What does that mean for you yourself personally? Well, what I had the opportunity to do was review this article by Barton Goldsmith, who has a PhD, and he talked about the importance and the psychological benefit of starting things that are are new.

Why is that important? Why do we make smart goals? Why do we make resolutions? And we're so excited about a new beginning and we sing Happy New Year. What is it about new. That is just so important for our soul. Well, I believe that three of his points that are really important, and that makes sense, Elise, to me, are as follow.

So number one, remember that your future is not governed by your past. So no matter what's happened to us in our life, we can always find a way to make ourselves better. And by making ourselves better, we increase and multiply what people around us have. I spoke with someone who told me about her experience today, and she described how she was a lifeguard when she was 14.

She says, you know, I never forgot what they told me. She said, it doesn't matter what's going out there or who you're trying to save, you have to save yourself first because if you don't do that, you can help no one. And I think that may not always be welcome. In our modern view, especially, you know, put others before you and care for others.

But I think that's also relative, like even in the, in the biblical sense, you know, love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you don't love yourself, that, that really means you can't love your neighbor. I think we forget that because we said neighbor first. That neighbor is more important. We have to love ourselves because to start there, We can do more, give more love more, provide more, spend more, anything more if we fill ourselves first.

Now, I'm not talking about thievery of course, but I am looking about developing yourself. Your state of mind, your state of being, your state of health, if you have a spiritual life, to really come into a place where you are comfortable and. Comfortable going beyond your comfort zone, really pushing your own envelope in that and knowing that whatever mistakes you made in your past, you learn from them.

Even if you do it a second time, you may have made a second mistake, but you made it at a higher altitude, so you still gain something out of that. I think we should never forget and we cannot hold onto that past so much that we don't love our present, because our present is, you know, tomorrow's past.

Make that best, have a great view, and understand that the ups and the downs are gonna provide you that wisdom. And wisdom does not come from making the right decisions all of your life, and it doesn't come from watching someone else make all the wrong ones either. The second thing that Dr. Goldsmith talked about was moving through life is like climbing stairs.

You have to level up, but then you level out for a while. It's not an a continuous upward shot, and I feel that this was a good reminder for me and I believe it will be a good reminder for some other people that, you know, it's not always about moving up and up and up and up. Many times as we are moving through something or we feel stagnant, uh, for example, if we feel stagnant with a job, it may have nothing to do with that job, but we are just learning to be at that kind of pace and handle the things that we are handling to the point that it's second nature, that it doesn't take any brain power or any willpower to go through that.

Similar to driving a car, you know, when we first start driving, how we pay attention to everything. You know how you can feel the seatbelt on you. You can feel how much pressure and resistance the brake is giving you, and you're very aware of how smooth the steering wheel is and how much emotion is, is really involved from you, and how much that's gonna translate to the tires.

You're very hypervigilant about looking in all the directions or you're hypervigilant just looking forward, and you don't look in any directions at all. But once you've driven for a long time, you can drive clear across town or heaven's clear across state, and then you realize you have no idea how you got there because that was such a part of your body that you could safely drive from point A to point B.

And not have to be hyper-vigilant on anything. You could actually focus on other things. The same goes with relationships. What about if you're in a place where you're able to step up, you're able to move into another phase of that relationship, but it doesn't mean you have to continue, continue, continue.

What about if you stay right there? You, you test those waters, you test your trust of that other person. You test your trust of yourself. You're not gonna run away, you're not going to look to sabotage it. You're not gonna figure out what's wrong when there is nothing wrong. You're gonna settle in and feel comfortable at that new place.

I think the leveling is something that may go underappreciated up is nice, but when we're building those new foundations and going up in life, we don't wanna fall all the way down the stairs. We wanna fall down to the next level. And it's really a great feeling knowing that next level is many, many, many, many flights above where you started.

And so number three that Dr. Goldsmith talked about is starting over, is more about giving yourself a chance to be really happy, giving yourself a chance at true happiness, that you'll learn to feel that way. You'll get so good at learning things. That you're gonna enjoy the process, not just the getting there.

In this one, I always think about a good friend of mine who to me is the epitome of almost all three of these, but especially the last one. She left her home country to truly, you know, she really, really came to this country with two suitcases and a stuffed animal, and really left behind her family.

Started here was in a place that most people deliberately choose not to live. You know, like people here in the US choose not to live in this place, but she lived there for several years and spent a lot of that free time because there was not much to do there. Really developing herself, developing her skillset, developing her confidence, developing her self-esteem, and her self-worth to really.

Get to know herself and not tolerate any behavior that's not in alignment with that. And so in that moment, she moved up and she moved up, and now she's actually in a place where she owns two homes and she's moving to her favorite place on earth and really, truly happy. And positive. She's like, you know what?

It's gonna work out. Her hobby is now flipping homes and doing real estate. And, you know, and, and what I, what I say from her finding happiness is that an outsider, which I am gets to watch, that doesn't mean I'm oblivious to her pain. But her struggles are just as beautiful as the end result because there was a purpose in the pain, because a lot of us are gonna have pain.

I heard this from a pastor. You're gonna have short-term pain or long-term pain. You only get to choose between those two. Like, you know, no. Pain is how we tend to run from things. Or run two things, especially drugs and alcohol and any of those things, but it's still there. It just makes that pain grow even bigger.

So having that chance to really develop yourself is what a new beginning is all about. Remembering that your past is not gonna govern your future life is very similar to climbing stairs. And starting over is about giving yourself a chance at real happiness. So if you take a moment and you are getting used to your newfound fitness routine, or your newfound spiritual routine, or whatever you're doing, every single time you do it, you give yourself a chance and we give ourselves, you know, maybe not as many chances as we quite deserve.

Go ahead and do that because you'll be surprised when you really get in touch with just the idea of a new beginning. Not washing away the wisdom you have today, but really getting to a place where you're comfortable. With being uncomfortable enough to grow. So thank you again for listening today. I am so grateful and I wish you all a wonderful week and until next Tuesday, let's keep building one another up!.