Reflecting on my conversation with Betsy Pepine, I really connected with her journey, especially her struggle against societal expectations. Betsy opens up about breaking free from that exhausting success checklist that so many of us feel obligated to follow. She shares those pivotal moments when two major parts of her life unexpectedly disappeared, and it's clear how these events pushed her to rethink her priorities and find joy in the most surprising places. This theme of rediscovering oneself and chasing genuine happiness feels so relatable. Many of us find ourselves in similar situations, wondering if we’re on the right path and searching for fulfillment beyond the traditional markers of success.

Takeaways:

• Reflecting on conversations helps me gain new insights and perspectives on my guests' stories.
• Challenging societal checklists can lead to discovering true joy and personal fulfillment.
• Betsy's journey illustrates the importance of finding joy and purpose outside conventional paths.
• Engaging in different therapeutic modalities can provide valuable personal growth and healing tools.

Full episode: https://www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/breaking-free-betsy-pepines-journey-from-boxes-to-boundless-joy/

I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to. I guess this is like this new possible bonus series that I'm going to be doing hopefully every week.

And my goal with these is to listen to the week's episode and then come on a couple days later and reflect on what I listen to. So basically reflect on that conversation.

And the reason that I think this might be good for me and maybe hopefully for others is it gives you a little another perspective.

I do record these episodes usually, like, about two months ahead of time, and I try to be as present as possible within the episode itself, which often means that sometimes I will listen back and I will be surprised at things that we talked about or things that I said or things that the guest said. So it is kind of fun to listen to the episode in a way that maybe others are like you. So that's what I think I'm going to do.

I'm going to come back and I'm going to reflect on the episode, and I don't know what the extra value is, but just gives you a little extra insight into my crazy brain. So before I jump into that, earlier this week, I had the opportunity to meet a former guest of the Life Shift podcast, Christie Olinger, in person.

And this is the first time that I've met someone in person that I didn't already know before the podcast. So it's really kind of cool. And what was especially cool, and I told her this is that when we met, it was like we had always known each other.

We were always kind of just like we were just picking up where we left off before, but we had never met before. So I thought it was a really interesting kind of experience in that way.

And I really think it's because I was on her podcast, the Opposite of Small Talk, and she was on the Life Shift podcast. And in both instances, we shared our personal stories and we had an actual genuine conversation about our stories.

And so it just felt like what friends might do. And so I thought it was really a very cool experience. And I hope that I get to meet others that I have talked to along this journey.

Another thing, my dad and his wife were in town, and we went to Disney Springs, and we went to Universal Studios, and it was a great time. We went on a lot of rides, which I don't normally do normally. My head gets all bumped around, and then I don't want to go on anything else.

But this Time. It was a really good experience for me.

And we went on, like, seven, eight rides, which is a feat in itself at Universal Studios on a Friday in Florida. We had very beautiful weather, so it was a really great trip. It was great to see them. And now I am back.

I have a recording for an episode that will come out in early February in about 45 minutes. So I decided to come on here after listening again to Betsy Pepin's episode this week.

And her episode is called Breaking Free, her journey from boxes to boundless joy. And the. The show notes are. I have AI help me write the show notes. So if you want to write my show notes, you're welcome to do that.

But when listening back to Betsy story, I resonated with a lot of it after I was listening back. But one thing I want to note about myself, and I hope other people didn't pick this up.

And hopefully Betsy didn't feel this during the episode, but I found myself when I was listening to things that I was saying, I found, like. I was like, not.

I don't know if nice is the right word, but I was, like, kind of pushing in certain areas to try to, like, confirm something, which that shouldn't be my role. And I was just curious as to why I sounded the way that I did. So hopefully that didn't come across that way.

Betsy, if you are listening, I hope it didn't come across to you that way, but I just sounded like I was combative of some sort and maybe something was happening that day when I was recording with her in my own personal life. And so I hope. I'm gonna say that I hope nobody heard it again, because I just said that a thousand times.

But in any case, Betsy's story was all about how she was doing, like, what I talked to a lot of people about and the things that I did growing up is, like, this society's checklist and, like, chasing success and then, like, getting to these places that we thought would be successful and then realizing, like, well, actually, I don't feel that way yet.

And so her journey was kind of finding herself where her pillars in her life, two of them, kind of, like, went away suddenly, and now she's falling over.

And she had to find a way to kind of pick herself back up and pursue life in the way that she was doing the things that brought her the most joy, getting rid of the other things, kind of living to make, you know, everyone else's life, including her own, a little bit better, and finding that joy in life again. And she kind of switched career paths. She is very successful in the real estate space now and she just put out a book called Breaking Boxes.

If you listen to the beginning of the episode, it's funny because I've said this before, I don't do like a lot of research in my intake because I want these conversations to kind of unfold in a very natural way, if possible. And I was bringing up that society's checklist and she was like, funny that you say that.

I just wrote this book called Breaking Boxes and it's all about kind of that getting yourself out of the boxes that either you put yourself in or someone else puts you in. So I found that a really nice connection.

Another thing that really stood out to me was when we had this conversation about the different modalities of therapy that she tried to kind of move through the spaces that she was in. And one was like bioenergetics.

And it was such a great visual that she gave of this day long session where everyone kind of just one on one stands in the middle of a circle and then people connect and then they like match heart or breathing rhythms, looking each other in the eyes without saying anything. And then they introduce themselves. And I found that to be like such a vulnerable sounding experience and maybe I'll look into it.

It sounds really interesting and it sounds like something that was really helpful to her among other modalities that she tried.

So overall, I think so many people will resonate with Betsy's story and how she has found her life now and trying to find that joy in every moment and not putting herself in boxes and keeping herself outside of her comfort zone. So she's always challenging herself, always trying to do new things, always working in service of others.

And I hope that no, that didn't come across to anyone else, but just being real here.

And then I hope more so that what Betsy shared in her story inspires you to either check out her book, which is Breaking Boxes, or connect with her on social media, or, you know, just challenge yourself to get outside of your comfort zone. So with that, I'm going to say goodbye for this little bonus episode.

I'm gonna go edit this, put it out on the feed, hopefully before I do the recording in just about 40 minutes from now. So thank you, thank you for listening to the Life Shift podcast.

Thank you for sharing it with friends if you have a moment, run over to Apple Podcasts, give me a rating and write a little review. I don't know what it does. It might help.

It might not help, but it makes me feel good sometimes, unless you write something mean and then that won't make me feel good. But other than that, thank you. Talk to you soon and have a wonderful day. For more information, please visit WW the Life Shift podcast dot com.