​

I use the phrase that we learned in a community that you and I are learning together, at least the first time I heard it, plan tight and hang loose. I'm calling that's sort of how I want to run my life in a way. I want to plan it. I want to visualize it. I want to have this juicy vision of what it looks like. But then you kind of have to hang loose because you don't know there might be a pandemic. You might have these things that throw you off. And when that happens, you bring in the love and the acceptance all the time. But you double up on that self-compassion. And then you sit down, at least for me, and go, “Okay, look, let's come back to center.”

Let's come back to center and go back with those questions. What do I need right now? What might be happening? What might this be? That that muscle? And you're right. I'm so glad you brought this up. It's gonna be my next question.

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So then by-product, if you will, of doing that is you look back and you go, man, I've learned a lot about resilience, which is sort of the buzzword now. I don't know if you feel like it is a buzzword. I do. But it's a powerful concept. Talk to me about resilience. I want to hear your take on it.

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26:36

Betsy Crouch:  I'll tell you, three years ago, I did a TEDx Talk with a former collaborator of mine. The subject was resilience. Part of that experience was blocking off a month of work, hiring a very expensive coach and guide, an amazing coach actually. I spent a lot of money on that. A lot of preparation, a lot of hours, and then we delivered this TEDx Talk with the idea that it was gonna be part of this getting this message out about resilience. I'll say more about resilience itself in this next part because guess what happened? The audio failed on the recording. The video was also somewhat messed up. It was literally a plug was loose. After our talk and the next one, the production team realized and fixed it. And then it was working after that. So after this event, and the live audience, “Oh, it was so great!” The video was total fail. This is why it's hilarious because the whole topic is about resilience. I have an idea for another TEDx Talk.

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27:52

Cheri Honeycutt:  Jiggle the plug, I think it’s off.

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27:54

Betsy Crouch:  We all mess things up sometime. Part of that resilience message is about celebrating and acknowledging mistakes and failures and learning from those experiences. I love what you shared about your Facebook Live this morning and really validating all the parts of our experience because it is the whole. And so many people up until recently, people have been presenting this facade of themselves of “this is the good parts of me, I'm hiding all these parts that are maybe challenging or that I'm ashamed of”. We're moving into a time where people really desire to see the whole of us and share the whole story because when we do that we validate the whole person of each other.

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But the thing about resilience that I've been thinking a lot about is what a lot of people call resilience, Cheri, you know this too, is armoring up and just trying to blast through and deny all of the hard stuff in our life that's happening. And guess what, I am not on that train. I am here talking about what I really believe resilience is. I get a little fearful when people start talking about resilience that way. I think I thought of myself as resilient at that time of the beginning of these stories when I was in my little business suit and just on the inside totally shattered and falling apart. I think I would have said oh yeah, I'm resilient. Because I thought armoring, I'm gonna run through that wall to show you that I'm capable, but I'm dying inside. And I hate myself.

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The resilience that I connect with and that I really like to talk about, if we look into the research definition of resilience, is really nothing like what people are using the word to mean out there in the world. But to me, resilience is about the ability to sit with all the hard stuff and then feel it and be with it and see it and be able to move through it to the other side. Once you're on the other side, maybe you're not feeling that energized or strong, but you're moving in that direction.

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You said this a little bit ago, you can only move as fast as the slowest part of you. To go back to the Karen Drucker quote that you shared. It's like, okay, maybe we're moving slow after that. And that's exactly where we need to be.

Let's use nature as an example. I mean, okay, guess what? Time speed, it's not an illusion. It's going to take whenever it's going to take. Resilience to me is about wholeness. I don't care how fast I go. As long as the armor is there, it could take a while. That's okay because I need all of me to love you, to love people, to connect with my wife and family, to connect with anyone who I want to support and serve. That's what resilience means.

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31:12

Cheri Honeycutt:  Gosh, let's take that in. I'm hoping the listeners really take this in. This idea of wholeness, I think you're spot on that. We have been taught, we have been encouraged to compartmentalize, to break ourselves apart, to only value certain pieces of us, to only put certain parts out there, to deny others. And then I see this spine where we're just this fragmented, crackity, pixeled kind of creatures. That that's not what heals the world. That's not how we live our best life. It's from that place of wholeness.

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I'm interested in your definition, that idea, that ability to sit—not just your definition, but the definition of resilience—with that hard stuff. I will tell you, I came into the world with a little bit of a muscle for that. I've not been hard stuff averse. I'll put it that way. And it kind of made me the odd person out. But I would sit and I'd be the one that would sit and talk about the hard stuff with folks.

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Part of my work—I've been an HIV counselor and I’ve told hundreds of people that they have HIV and I sit with them and those hard things. What I realized, first of all, that that's a muscle. It's a sacred moment to be and witness someone in their pain or in their challenge and even show up in your own. And when we when we choose not to do those pieces, we're missing out on this glorious, delicious part of the human experience. Does that make sense? You're nodding your head.

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32:48

Betsy Crouch:  Oh, my God. I'm feeling it. I mean, we're missing out on connection.

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32:52

Cheri Honeycutt:  Yeah, because that's where the real connection is, right?

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32:55

Betsy Crouch:  Absolutely. Because if I can't be with my own pain or if I was in my own pain and using that as a reason to sell myself on this idea that there's something wrong with me, I'm broken, I should be ashamed of how I am or who I am, then I'm… You know, my coach used to talk about it like a grapefruit. She said, “Living like that is like holding a grapefruit behind your back, but trying to talk to someone hoping they don't see the grapefruit.”

And if you're doing that, then you're spending all your energy. Like if we're talking right now, and I'm holding a grapefruit behind me, I'm not fully present. I'm not listening. I'm also thinking, “Does Cheri see the grapefruit?” If I l sit like this, can she see the grapefruit? And I leave or we meet for coffee or whatever. And I'm like, I think she saw it. I think she saw my grapefruit. I'm not sure. And if she saw it, she wouldn't love me. She wouldn't accept me. I've been able to hold that myself. I feel blessed to be able to have these moments with other people where I can see and feel and be present with and not run from the pain or the truth or the experience, the grief, the loss. I feel that's because I've been able to do it with myself instead of invalidating myself and say there's something wrong with me. Those moments are sacred. They’re some of the most beautiful moments we could possibly have because in our darkest moments, what do we need? We need each other.

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34:29

Cheri Honeycutt:  Absolutely, absolutely. I believe that if we can't do that for ourselves, we can't do this really for others. That's sort of a universal truth for me. I can't give to others what I can't give for myself. They're at least in tandem to the extent that I can love and accept myself is how much I can give to others. That means sometimes accepting the truth even if I don't like it. You look at your bank account and go that's the number of dollars in there. You look at the scales and that's the number of pounds on there. That's the number of friends I've run off with my bad behavior. That's the number of whatever. It begins by accepting that with love. And some of those darker moments are the ones that break us open.

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I want to share a little story. I hope it doesn't run the flow of this. But I don't know if you know this, Betsy. I have a son. He has autism. He is one of the most amazing, young man. My friends and family believe that he is sort of this resilient dude. I'll tell you, and I think you've helped me understand why. He has this ability when something happens he doesn't like, he feels it. He's like, “Oh, that makes me so mad” or “That's so delicious”, or “That's unfair.” And he feels it.

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Let's just go with something that's sort of a negative feeling. “Oh, I didn't get to play football! Grrr! And he's so mad and then he feels it and then he makes a decision. Well, I don't want to feel this way anymore. And then he literally asked himself, what do I want to feel now? And then he'll go do that. What's so amazing to me is that he doesn't do what those of us, who maybe don't know about autism, which is pretend that I'm fine. I really didn't want that to begin with. It's okay. That's the way it was meant to be. And inside, you’re seething or broken-hearted or whatever and putting bullshit on it.

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He's like, no, whatever it is, he feels that, and he's loud about it. Then he's like, but I don't like feeling this way. And then he goes, well, how do I want to feel now? I mean, this is a kid who got hit by a car, totalled the car. He got hit by a car and he's laid up, and he's like really sad and really hurt. But he's like, oh, but you know what? I get to be the one that decides what we watch on television because I'm sitting up. He’s genuine.

So as I've been sort of unpacking him and his amazing lessons to me in my life, I believe he is showing me resilience and encapsulate. You feel it. You see it. You acknowledge it. And then you make a decision and you don’t drop anchor in it. And he… over and over.

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37:46

Betsy Crouch:  What a teacher he is for all of us.

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37:49

Cheri Honeycutt:  Oh my God. I have these stories. I have real stories.

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37:51

Betsy Crouch:  Oh, my goodness. Yes. And just no resistance to this is what's happening. It's like this is what's happening and this is what I'm feeling, connection with his body and in his emotions running through.

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38:02

Cheri Honeycutt:  There's no part of him that's going to hide a grapefruit. If he's got a grapefruit…

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38:06

Betsy Crouch:  He’s like, “I got a grapefruit!”

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38:08

Cheri Honeycutt:  You’re going to see that grapefruit. (Laughs) And then he moves on. He moves on. Yeah. So I know that you've got the possibility of rescheduling a resilience talk or a new talk about that. And so I'm going to keep tabs on that. And try to let the listeners know about that. Because I can feel, Betsy, you have so much to say about that.

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38:35

Betsy Crouch:  Thank you. Yeah.

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38:36

Cheri Honeycutt:  Gosh, I feel your… wisdom? That word seems inadequate. It's a great word, but I feel your wisdom, I feel your insight. And I'll tell you what else I get from you. It’s your complete passion about being in integrity. That's how I see you.

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38:56

Betsy Crouch:  Thank you. What I appreciate about you is your ability to see and your willingness to reflect back what you see. That's something that from our first conversations, I've always really appreciated what a gift that is that you give. Thank you for sharing it was me. It feels true. I feel like I'm now more than even ever, before I can't even if I wanted to, go down some path that doesn't feel like it's in alignment. I just can't. My foot won't go. In the past, I could like step into it, kind of play with it like well, maybe I could, like, do this work for this company. And it's like no, I can't do it.

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39:41

Cheri Honeycutt:  That's such a beautiful thing you said that I want folks that hear this. If you're maybe over on this other side where life has just been on the factory settings or you're just waking up to how miserable or unhappy you are, and you're listening to Betsy or you've been listening to this podcast and other folks about and they seem to have all their shit together, the reality is we're skipping over the mess ups and we're skipping over the amount of time.

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But it is something that builds over time, that integrity, that knowing. You didn't just wake up one day and have it. You taught yourself how to listen to it. It might have been there, but you started to listen and pay attention. And now it's muscle memory. You're like, oh, no, I can already feel. I don't even have to explore why I don't want to work for that company because I just trust my gut.

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40:31

Betsy Crouch:  Yeah, because I think one way of describing it is like I used to be in so much pain that it's almost like I… Let's use an example of drinking. I was in so much pain that I felt like I needed to like drink or numb this pain and even if that made me feel bad, that even felt good because it almost seemed like a relief from the other emotional pain I was feeling. But like getting to the place where I feel good in my like part of my relationship to alcohol now I will have a little bit of tequila. I love Casamigos Reposado tequila. I’ll have this much. You can't see me because were on video, but my fingers about a centimeter apart. I'll have a little bit and if I start feeling, that doesn't feel good to me. It doesn't feel good because I feel better feeling clear that I do feeling intoxicated.

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So there's this like recalibration. I like the word calibration. And that's something that I think for me, has happened in a lot of different ways over time. I do want to say something to everybody listening. It feels like they might be on these default settings because I really truly believe, based my experience and working coaching with thousands of people and also I've done hundreds of clairvoyant readings of people and healings, is that our ability to adapt to our environment, to culture, to relationship expectations, there's so many layers of programming.

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I'll use programming as just a word or even our schooling. We're so adaptable as human beings. And we've adapted to function to these and I'll use your words default settings as a way of survival that served us at a certain point in time. We sometimes approach our life, we start to see that we're operating this way, we say, oh, why did I do this? And we invalidate it. We say, why can't I be more like so and so? Or why can’t I feel motivated to do my meditation or to do the things that I know are good for me?

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And so I just want to start with validating that you've adapted this way brilliantly. This is a brilliant function of seeing a human in a world that so much of what around us is broken and diseased and not based in love. And so the reaction to that to try to survive or to shore up, kind of armor up is a brilliant adaptability strategy. What happens is that we hold on to those strategies longer than we need them. So they served us to help us survive.

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I adapted to tell jokes and be entertaining and get attention when I was seven, eight years old. But then, you know, once I got a little bit older, it's like, okay, maybe I need to listen more. Not just put on a show all the time. But to say, okay, thank you for my ability to adapt to these default settings. I appreciate it. And I'm curious, like, what might be ready to like maybe loosen up or to change? What might I be able to see differently? A totally different approach than saying, “Stop this! Let’s throw it all out. Delete. How do I restart? How do I refresh this thing?”

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44:00

Cheri Honeycutt:  Exactly. Or to sit in judgment of why did I spend so many years doing that? Instead, going you know what? There was some really good reasons and that saved my ass or that made total sense back then. There's that love and acceptance of what was and then asking those loving questions going forward. And really understanding that our defaults, I love what you said, are given to us for reasons that others even think are good reasons. It's not something done to us.

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Culture has created these things and they don't always serve, but they're not our fault. And so we just want to do an inventory of where we are and then come back to a word you said really early on, which is choice. You realized you had a choice. Something broke open at that retreat that you went to or that workshop that at least that was a word I remember hearing you say. You went, oh, I get to choose if I keep on this trajectory or I make the effort. And you might not even know what that meant at the moment at 23. Make the effort to shift to shift things.

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45:18

Betsy Crouch:  I wanted to add to that part to that story because it just hit me. That is I shared at the beginning of that workshop, I had this Louise Hay card, which is “Loving others is easy when I love and accept myself.” That was the beginning of the workshop. That workshop ended at 5:00 on a Sunday. This was with my colleagues at the time that I was working with 100 hours a week. I had had a girlfriend for a year and then broke up and then had another girlfriend. But anyway, two years, I had had a girlfriend or been dating women, and then totally closeted about it with people that I worked with all the time. Talk about cultivating the ability—

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46:11

Cheri Honeycutt:  Grapefruit.

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46:15

Betsy Crouch:  Yeah. I had a bag of grapefruit. Grapefruits are everywhere. I thought if people knew this, I wouldn't be promoted, I thought they wouldn't love me. They would reject me, etc, etc. And I had told myself at this workshop, I'm going to come out to everybody. After I pulled that first card, “Loving others easy when I love and accept myself,” because I was not accepting myself. I was feeling lots of shame and internalizing that. At one of the breaks on the last day, I told one of my closest co-workers who I had been in her wedding. We were really good friends. I kept this from everybody. Really, really, really, really secretive.

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And 15 minutes before the end of the workshop, Faith, who became my coach, and now friend. I kid you not, she looks at me and says, “Betsy, is there something that you want to share with us? I feel like there's something that you want to share with us.” And I could see you, you're getting the chills. I'm getting the chills. “Is there something you want to share?” And I knew in that moment, I could feel it physiologically now. My heart's racing. And I said yeah. I think all I got out was I have a girlfriend. Then I burst into tears.

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I just started crying and bless everyone's heart, they all came and hugged me. All funny people, they're all crying with me. They're saying we love you, we accept you. It was a beautiful moment. It’s a great way to come out to a lot of people at once.

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I mean, to talk about the bookends of that experience, the beginning of it was loving others is easy when you love and accept myself. And I needed to have the choice to say it. I need to take a risk because I am dying inside if I'm not allowing myself to be whole with who I am. And that cracked things open even more for myself and all those relationships in my life. I can be myself and be whole.

48:25

Cheri Honeycutt:  And so I would imagine that withholding such an enormous part of who you are is hugely difficult. I wonder also if there are some parallels even if it may not be something that is even quite that large. I mean, you know, you might be a person who has a lot of debt or any kind of grapefruit that you’re hiding. And again, not to minimize your story at all, but for the listeners to realize that this is not necessarily about coming out, but it's about being in integrity and being whole and loving the wholeness of you. Things that are not broken, but they may be things you still have been trained to hold shame around.

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49:12

Betsy Crouch:  Absolutely! This is the invitation. The invitation is and this relates to Brene Brown’s work, I think, because her work on shame and vulnerability is so important for this conversation because as we think about, I was lucky, really, that I came out to the these friends and colleagues and they were very supportive. I have had experiences that did not go well, that were very negative about people's response.

However, when we choose to be vulnerable, we ask ourselves, who might I be able to share this with? Who might be able to hold this with me, to and to be willing to take a risk with someone who is a friend? Maybe it's somebody who's a teacher, maybe it's somebody you work with. But like you said, it could be having debt, it could be having challenges with fertility, it could be health related, it could be something I did in my past that I'm having trouble forgiving myself or reconciling. There's lots of things that we carry shame. And as Brene Brown says it survives when we don't talk about it, and don't share it and grows. That journey is an important one for us to hold and acknowledge our own shame and to find ways that we can talk about it.

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50:41

Cheri Honeycutt:  And I think that's why she has her work on vulnerability, really reframing that as not a sign of weakness, but in fact, it is a superpower. It’s, I think, probably at the root of what you and I've been talking about a little bit right here that we understand when we have those vulnerable moments, we are witnessing and being a part of someone's strength. We are in that delicious juiciness of that it may feel untethered, but in fact, it is really an expression of your superpower. It's where the real growth lies. I just see this real fertile, mossy, yummy, tear-filled. Some of my snottiest, tear-filled moments are the moments that I've changed the most. They often came about by something that I was holding in, that I felt bad about.

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51:39

Betsy Crouch:  Thank goodness for our pets and our animals, you know, long before I could share with human beings, some of my story, I talked to my dogs. I would. I would talk to my dogs. I was a teenager, I would share.

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51:54

Cheri Honeycutt:  They knew all about you.

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51:56

Betsy Crouch:  Oh my goodness! In everything! But, I think, for us to talk about not only the person who's sharing, but also the person who's receiving and how important it is for us to do our own work so that we can hold, and we can just shoo—I mean, that's something that I just love because I am someone who I don't feel judgment towards people. It's very rare. So people will come to me and say have you never told this to anyone or I wanted to share this with you. And it's such an honor to be able to say thank you for sharing this with me. You are lovable and amazing. And this is a part of your experience. It doesn't define you and allowing that to be part of just the experience that you've had doesn't take anything away from your value, your worthiness, your amazingness. So yeah, so for us to really practice being the listener too and to hold that is so, like you said, sacred.

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53:08

Cheri Honeycutt:  It is sacred. It is sacred. You are amazing at that. You're a gift. You model that for others. Again, we don't necessarily come into the life being able to sit in somebody's discomfort. We we've learned some of our judgments, but we can develop that, right? Thank you for modeling that. Thank you.

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I have a couple of questions here that I kind of ask everybody at the end. Okay, you just mentioned a minute ago, when I'm not flossing my teeth every day, I noticed that I'm off track a little. What do you do? How do you get back on track? And then whatever on track means to you? What do you do?

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53:56

Betsy Crouch:  Well, sometimes, I feel like I can say, oh, let me just take a quick inventory of the things that I do that helped me feel centered, whole. And I ask myself, am I meditating? Am I doing yoga? When's the last time I wrote in my journal? Those are some of the main things that I will check in with myself on. And recently, maybe it was a few weeks ago, I realized that I hit a point in my self-care kind of regimen or resilience that where I dipped below a layer that I hadn't dipped below in a long time. That was a layer that was I wasn't meditating, I wasn't doing yoga, I wasn’t writing in my journal, and I wasn't feeling like it.

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It wasn't like I could say, “Oh, I'm noticing I didn't do these things that are helpful for me. I will do that.” I want to acknowledge that we hit those points too. So what I have I've done and what I did recently was just say, “Oh, you know, I must be really hurting.” Just the simple, saying, “Oh, I must be really hurting.” I must be really struggling to feel like I know these things are helpful for me and I don't feel like I can do them do them.

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So what I did was I'm researching to find a specific type of therapist that I feel I need. I want to work with a therapist that does internal family systems therapy, but also works with patients with trauma and see CPTSD. So that's a very specific thing. But for me to say, “I need help.” I need to type out that I haven't gotten before, but now I'm ready for. So those are a couple things that I've done recently.

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55:43

Cheri Honeycutt:  Beautiful. You have some acknowledgement about when you're on shooting on all cylinders, these are the kinds of things I'm doing, then there's the noticing if you're not doing it, and then I love that you even differentiated and you went back to a question. You went back to that loving, compassionate question. I love that.

Betsy, if you put your motto on a bumper sticker that you'd want to advertise, your motto for folks, what would it be?

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56:19

Betsy Crouch:  I'm an improviser. I’ll just put “Sizzle.” I'll give the quick background which is one of my nicknames that I was given 16 years ago by a friend of mine. But what I have, it's also my business, Sizzle Consulting LLC. When I feel sizzle is that's very specific part of you that when you come into alignment, comes alive and is able to enjoy and be playful and express yourself creatively and serve your purpose. I think it would need more than one word to give some of the background, but that's the word that you come.

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56:57

Cheri Honeycutt:  You could put a saying.

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56:59

Betsy Crouch:  Sizzle on a Pride or something like that. It could be something like a slogan on a bumper sticker.”You're lovable.” You're lovable. Every single person is worthy of love.

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57:17

Cheri Honeycutt:  You’re lovable. I love that. I love that. Who are the people you go to when you need a loving, metaphorical kick in the ass?

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57:31

Betsy Crouch:  Abraham Hicks. That’s one of them. Brene Brown. Byron Katie.

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57:42

Cheri Honeycutt:  Yeah, The Work.

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57:44

Betsy Crouch:  Those are (inaudible).

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57:51

Cheri Honeycutt:  Our bookshelves are very similar. But you know, you can't see the picture. But my books, I feel like that I have this wall of wisdom. I don't even have to read the books. I don't know about you, but just the titles.

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58:05

Betsy Crouch:  Oh, with bookshelves like that, you just have to walk up to it and walk along it. I really do think that a great bookshelf like that that you've curated gives a little hug to you when you're just right by there. I have a friend who has an incredibly curated library in her house. It's basically a two-car garage that she's converted to a library. I just walk in there and just stand by the books and I feel better.

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58:27

Cheri Honeycutt:  You just feel it, don’t you? I love it. I do. I do. Okay, my last question is if given a choice, is it dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

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58:38

Betsy Crouch:  Oh my gosh! Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?! I can't believe it. I can’t

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58:51

Cheri Honeycutt:  What’s your answer?

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58:52

Betsy Crouch:  I can't. My whole is milk chocolate up until the last maybe 10 years of a dark chocolate. But I guess okay if I have to pick now, I’d say dark chocolate, but now my palms are sweaty. I'm like, I think it's both. You really picked my needle on that one, Cheri.

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59:07

Cheri Honeycutt:  You know what? You do not have to choose. I will never make you choose. You can have both, but dark is the right answer. I'm just saying. You guys, my heart is full. I feel like I've been so blessed, Betsy, from the sharing. I have learned more about your story. You've gone deeper. I have been touched. My notes just for me right here are amazing. I'm trusting that those who are listening to this have been touched.

If you've been pinged in any way by what you've heard from Betsy or our conversation today, please don't ignore that. Pay attention to that. Write it down. Carve out some time to just explore the ping. Okay? Just trust that and know that there was some divine timing involved that you might be listening to Betsy story on for a reason.

Then I want you to take a look in the show notes. I'm going to give you all the ways to reach out to Betsy to follow her, to connect with her on LinkedIn and on the web and all those things. It's a small world. We really can connect. You can pick up the phone and in a matter of days be having a conversation with Betsy or me or whatever. That's the way the world is. And so, I'm gonna encourage you to do that if it's hit you that way. Betsy, thank you.

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1:00:21

Betsy Crouch:  Oh my goodness, Cheri. Thank you for your leadership and your wisdom and for all the ways that you've listened to your heart and followed your path because these are doors. All the doors that you've opened, it just brings people together. And so with our conversations, I always learned something. I always leave inspired.

And I also really appreciate the laughter. I would be remiss if I didn't say to everyone, follow the sparks of joy. Those are clues in your life. You don't have to figure out the next 100 steps. But every time there's a little bit of playfulness or a little bit of joy or a little bit of laughter, that's a wink to say that's the next step because that is your birthright. Your birthright is to be part of the whole and to be someone that's playful and joyful. Sometimes, we get so far from that, we don't think that's us, I'm here to remind you. It is part of who you are. And remembering that I think is one of the portals to our freedom.

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1:01:26

Cheri Honeycutt:  Gosh, I love that you ended with that. Thank you. The universe is flirting with us. And let's flirt. Let's go do it. Thank you, Betsy. Thank you so much.