Hello and welcome to In The Rising Podcast. My name is Bettina Brown and I am the host of this show. I have chosen this platform to talk to you about living a life that's really in alignment with your hopes, your dreams, your goals, your aspirations, and leaving behind that shame blame game, which has really done no one any good.
Ever. So I like to start off every show by saying that I am not a licensed counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, or anything of that nature, but I am a healthcare professional who loves to figure out what makes us tick and what makes us energized to move forward in life. So I've mentioned a few times that I am a physical therapist, and part of that training is that we really have to figure out what the source of someone's pain is.
So if they come in with shoulder pain, I don't just look at where they're pointing at, I look at. Trying to figure out where the source is. Is it coming from their neck? Is it coming from, uh, rib alignment that is, is incorrect? Is it coming from posture? Is it coming from repetitive motion? It's a little bit of investigative work, and that's what I love about it.
I love trying to figure out the puzzle, so, I happen to have, and a wonderful experience of just working with women, going through breast cancer and either going through it or having gone through it. And really in those moments where they sat and talked, I didn't think so much about what. The source of pain was physically like it was.
We knew, we knew what happened. We knew there was radiation, we knew there was surgery, we knew there was reconstruction. It was pretty plain and simple, but I really became so much more aware of the different ways people recovered. Now the majority of breast cancer patients are, are women and can affect men, but.
I would notice some people in the way they, they talked in their posture that this, they were not gonna take just a couple visits, like they were going to take some time and this was something that they were gonna absolutely have to come to terms with like year after year. Because I saw some year after year, and then I met some women that.
Despite pain, despite everything they've been through, just held themselves in a different regard and a different posture and seemed to have more of an acceptance, but also just a better, a better view of what life still has to offer them and a better view of the. The goals they still have to achieve in their mind, this was a bump in their road, but it was not a complete change.
It was not going to eradicate them out. So I started to really think like, what is it about that situation? And so I enrolled in life coaching and almost have that done just because I wanted to ask the right questions. I didn't wanna just listen. And there's a huge benefit in just listening and acknowledging someone.
But I wanted to know more about that. I wanted to know more about the transition. The transition of when some major life event happens in your life. What is it that causes some people to really, you know, they have their lows, but they're able to rise and thrive, and then other people are really just struggling.
And so that's why I did name this podcast in The Rising, because some are going to rise, and my goal is to help anyone rise out of whatever depth they're in in that moment. And I've certainly shared my, my bits of not being risen at all. So I wanted to share this chapter with you. It's gonna be a little noisy here while I pick it up.
It is called Notes to a Working Woman, finding Passion, balance and Fulfillment In Your Life. And it's by Lucy Swindle. But I particularly like this one chapter and she talks about how much we want rules and format, and how much we want security. Uncertainty, but sometimes our greatest security comes through risk, and sometimes our greatest safety comes through uncertainty.
And so she talks about this transition. Which can be anything. Now her example happened to be women who were trying to really, I guess, trying to do it right by everyone. So working women who wanted to make sure that, you know, stay-at-home moms never look at them as though they're not doing a good job, that whatever they're doing outside the house is valuable, and yet they are still able to come home and provide emotional and psychological support.
And that working women should not look at women that stayed home. Like there's nothing you do. You have so much time per week to really, you know, make all these wonderful projects, but how are you really being an example? But I really wanted to expand on that because I feel like there's so much more to that.
In my experience working with women who'd gone through breast cancer treatment or going through it, that's why I seen them. We're on both sides of the table and I realize that it's not just working women, but often just working parents. And it's a real struggle. And now during this episode we're, you know, we're still in the middle of Covid where I think we're a hope we're on the other side of the mountain of it.
But there's a lot of tension. There's a lot of struggles with people not being able to take their kids to afterschool practice and regular at the same time. That practice session might be the only break you get from anyone and. You know, there's, there's so much going on. There's so much transition right now.
There's so much wondering whether or not we're gonna have a job wondering another or not. We're going to be able to obtain our goals and hopes and dreams and should we even dare think about what's possible when we have to look at what is right in front of us. Like how dare we even still have the optimism or want to have optimism.
So I really believe this transition, like notes to a working woman, but I think this can be notes to a person, notes to a person that transition. Maybe one of the best things that ever happens to you that sometimes that safety that we are really looking for, it's not in the place we are at. That safety comes through risk.
It comes through the risk of changing jobs. It comes through the risk of moving to a new location. It comes through the risk of moving into a relationship, and sometimes that risk is moving out of a relationship. We don't know exactly what that risk is, but sometimes our greatest safety comes on the other side of that mountain called risk.
And that can be so frightening, and that can be one of the greatest things that we have ever done. And so we're out of our comfort zone, but in that comfort zone, that's where we actually get to grow. And I thought about. You know, my own, my own experience. And then also from the children. I've known that a lot of people will talk about how tall they wanna be, and I did not quite make my height, like I'm literally a quarter inch short of what I wanted to be.
But I'll hear kids, you know, talk about, I wanna be, you know, six feet tall, or six, six, or I wanna be like this basketball player, seven feet tall, but. The reality is we don't get to be that kind of height without something called growing pains. Now sometimes that's really the physical stuff, like it literally hurts to be stretched like that.
It hurts to be stretched, to grow, but we can take that analogy in all ways that for that growth to happen, for your goals to happen, sometimes you have to walk through some valley. Sometimes you have to walk through some sludge. To figure out what needs to go and what needs to stay. Walking through those ashes to figure out the real foundation of you.
You may take that burning, but you'll find it. And so the same thing with growing pains is sometimes it's not all internal and everything on this podcast about internal. Sometimes it's our external environment that hasn't grown with us. My biggest frustration was buying my son a wonderful set of school clothes and being very proud of it.
Just to have him walk over to me, you know, with High Waters three months later. I'm like, but they, they just fit. And sure enough, it was not going to fit, but that's just it. That environment from three months ago, those surroundings from three months ago, that belief system from three months ago may not fit right now, and it's going to halt your growth.
So not every transition is going to be fun, but sometimes it's needed. And Lucy Swindle does talk about how there's a lot of research that shows some major life events. You know, divorce, separation relationships, breaking up death, birth of children, you know, all those events that we get to change our health insurance for those kind of events can often lead to actual sickness.
They will literally make us sick. And perhaps you have been through that. Maybe you're there right now where they're just going through things and you're losing weight, you're gaining weight, you're aging in front of the mirror because of events being so big, but having a different perspective that this may just be a transition time, that sometimes we're on a path and we get this huge orange and black arrow that says, this is our detour, but what if that detours where we were supposed to be the whole time?
That transition may be one of the best things that ever happens to you, but it doesn't mean that you have to enjoy every moment. So knowing that with that security that your goal is you have to go through some risk and sometimes it's not an ongoing thing, and sometimes it is. But there is that saying the greater the risk, the greater the reward.
And not every saying is just for the convenience of someone who's telling a story or telling a podcast, but sometimes these events really come, or these, you know, little blurbs because it, it just seems to be that way. So if you find yourself in a moment where you're struggling, just pause. And realize that your goal, that you will still dare to have maybe on the other side of this transition, that through this courage that you're finding, you're going to gain what you need to be on the other side.
That sometimes that risk is absolutely the price. That we have to pay. You know, I love to talk about aspirations and goals, and I love to talk about, you know, let's make him realistic, you know, all those smart goals. And I, I love to talk about, and I probably annoy a lot of people with that, but I love to talk about my future.
I'm grateful for my present. And it's when I stop to be grateful for my present that I realized this is the future I had hoped for for a long time. That a lot of the things that I have, a lot of the things that I'm able to represent, the, the attitude I have, the appreciation I have, the confidence I finally am able to exude in my forties is something I was like craving for in my twenties.
That my current present was my future. And so if I'm grateful for this, why would I stop now? There's so much more available and it isn't that we just dare to think there is greater, that we can hope for more, that we deserve to put ourselves in a position to really transition into something we call our best version.
But you know who defines that? You do. So take those moments to realize that you are where you're supposed to be. And you will grow from that. And if you aren't where you're supposed to be, you're gonna let very few people ever put you on any detour that you're not willing to go on. So thank you again.
Thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate all of your time cuz you know what time is something we don't give back. And so I will chat with you guys next Tuesday and until then, let's keep building one another up!.
