284: The life changing skill of becoming your own coach.

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Courtney Townley 0:00
Welcome to the Grace and Grit Podcast made for women who want their healthiest years to be ahead of them. Not behind them. Join your host Courtney Townley right now. As she breaks down the fairy tale health story, you have been chasing all of your life, indispensable action steps and lasting change.

Courtney Townley 0:28
Hello, my friends and welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast. This is your host, Courtney Townley, I have some serious goodness for you today. If you are a regular listener, you often hear me talk about my private community called Rumble & Rise, Rumble & Rise is a membership program that is always open for registration. And many of the members have come in through this Podcast. So they listened to this Podcast for a while they totally resonated with the message. And then they decided to take their education and experience to another level. So they came into Rumble & Rise and Rumble & Rise was designed to fill a void. And I want explain what I mean by that. I am a midlife woman whose definition of health has expanded way beyond the topics of diet and exercise. Obviously, those topics are still important to me. But I also feel especially at this age and stage of my life, that I have a hunger and a need to have conversations around health that are far more expansive than just diet and exercise alone. And I was struggling to find community that defined health through the lens of expansion, rather than shrinking. Right, because in my view, health really is an exercise in expansion. It’s expanding your relationship with yourself, it’s expanding the possibility for your life. It’s expanding your capacity to feel difficult things and go after challenges. It is not an exercise in shrinking, but man has our popular media culture kind of boiled it down to that just gets smaller, weigh less, right fit into a smaller size of clothes. I’m not interested in that conversation. I was also struggling to find a community that would explore health and a really integrative way. So clearly, physical health is important. We want to have healthy blood profiles, and you know, good hormone panels, and all of the things.

Courtney Townley 2:54
However, we cannot neglect or we should not neglect. The things that disrupt our blood panels and our chemistry and our hormones are things beyond just physical, our mental health, our emotional health, our relationship, health, how we interact with our work. All of these things impact our chemistry.

Courtney Townley 3:24
I also wanted a space where I could develop myself alongside of other women in the sense that we were building practices for leading ourselves well versus just chasing outcomes. Certainly putting a focus on our future self versus our past self. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life chasing something I’ve been, I want to step into what I can be. And I also wanted to be in a community that encouraged self leadership, rather than outsourcing decision making. I spent a large chunk of my life following people trying to find people who could tell me how to make the most of my life, how to optimize my health, all the things. I spent a tremendous amount of time, energy and money in pursuit of that and ultimately came into the space of realizing that I was the person who needed to be leading me for sustainability. For authenticity. To really make the most out of my life, I needed to be the one calling the shots. So I was looking for this community that I couldn’t find. So I created it, and it is called Rumble & Rise And in the last episode of the Podcast, Episode 293, I explored the path to health reimagined. And I talked about a lot of the things I just mentioned. And today, I am so thrilled to have two Rumble & Rise members joining me to share with you their experience of how this community has helped them to live their life by design, rather than by default. It has helped them to rebuild the relationship that they have with themselves cell to soul. It has helped them to step into a leadership role, not just in the health arena, not just through their health journey, but throughout their life. So they can truly put their healthiest and happiest years ahead of them rather than behind them. So we’re gonna get right to it, because this is a awesome conversation that I am so excited to share with you. And let me just say, if this lands for you, if it lights you up, if you connect with the things that we are talking about here, come join us.

Courtney Townley 6:24
All right. So welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast, Heather and Brittany, I’m so happy to have you here. Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah, it’s so fun. And we’re actually the at the time of recording. This is a Saturday morning at 8am. So I am especially appreciative for you taking the time to sort of share your experience of Rumble & Rise with listeners. So to get started, I’d love to just begin by asking you both to introduce yourself. Just tell us your name, where you live, and maybe kind of just what your main priorities in life are right now. Brittany, let’s start with you.

Brittany 6:59
My name is Brittany Weiss. I live in Missoula, Montana. My days are spent chasing kids and working. I am an HR manager for a regional craft brewery. And just in that age and stage of life, where it’s just busy, the calendar is always packed and managing time is the name of the game. Do

Courtney Townley 7:23
you mind telling listeners how old you are? 38?

Brittany 7:27
Yeah, well, not quite. In two weeks, I’ll be 38 you’re on the verge, or soak up those last two weeks?

Courtney Townley 7:34
I love it. I asked that question specifically, because I think that a large majority of the Rumble & Rise community is really between like kind of late 30s To really late 60s, that seems to be sort of the the main group. Certainly there’s outliers, there are people younger than that there are people older than that. But that is kind of the population. And I think it’s because of a lot of a lot of the topics that we discussed. But also like you just said, Brittany, it’s kind of the age and stage of life. There’s so many responsibilities. And we’re also going into this transition. That doesn’t make us super amazing at managing stress. Right? It definitely challenges our capacity to manage stress. So thank you for sharing that. Heather, how about you?

Heather 8:18
Well, I am a 47 year old mother of three, I live in Mercer Island, Washington, and I am also a part time health coach and personal trainer. And I feel like I came into your work right at the right time. During the beginning of these renovation years, during a very stressful time in my life wouldn’t be just completed a third international move and my world was upside down. And I needed all of the stuff that you teach in order to get my head straight and have a path forward. So that’s me, I probably work about, I don’t know, 10 to 15 hours a week right now, maybe sometimes more if I’m doing some back end stuff. But I finally feel like I have it to a level where my life feels imbalanced again, what a good feeling right. Enjoy that wave. I love it.

Courtney Townley 9:12
And I think it’s important to note too, that you know, you are in the wellness industry, you are in the wellness space. And I think it’s fascinating to know that like probably 15 to 20% of our membership is right, there’s a lot of people that join Rumble & Rise who are in some shape, way shape or form in the wellness industry. There’s physicians, there are trainers, there are health coaches, there are therapists, a little bit of everything. And I think part of the reason why that is true, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this is because a lot of us came in from a very specialized field, right where we kind of talk about one dimension of health and we’re Uber passionate about it. And as we enter that doorway, we start realizing that there’s so much more or that needs to be addressed to really help whatever dimension of health we are actually teaching. So if it’s physical health, we realize that it’s not just movement, right, that makes a person healthy. It’s all these other things that are affecting somebody’s lifestyle and somebody’s total stress load.

Courtney Townley 10:18
Do you have anything you want to say to that?

Heather 10:20
Yeah, well, I couldn’t agree more, I certainly came into it from that exact space of physical health first, from the movement side, and then from the nutrition side, and I basically was there physically, myself, you know, 100%, as good as I possibly could be probably a lot better than most of my age. And yet, I was just struggling with my brain and my relationships, and all the stuff that is also health that makes you feel like a whole person, and really can affect your physical health. Like, I remember feeling like I was not recovering very well, you know, if I wasn’t sleeping well, or if I was just really, really stressed out from whatever happening in my life. And so clearly, even though I was checking all the boxes, on my calendar, with physical health, you know, it certainly was affected by some of these other things. But you realize that it is so multi-dimensional to feel 100%, like, you’re, you’re comfortable, you know, and that you can stop the anxiety and just feel like I’m, I’m feeling good in my body, and in my mind, and I’m comfortable with my path forward, and all those things. So your work has really resonated with me in so many ways. And now that I’m coaching people, myself, I’m really aware of all the underlying things that may have happened, the little micro traumas in their life, you know, that led to this point to ask for help with their physical health, when in fact, they need to solve these other things in order for that trigger to actually be pulled.

Courtney Townley 11:50
Yeah. So I’m curious with the movement piece for you, because I know you’re such a movement advocate, and you’re just a passionate mover. And I’m like, in what ways? Did you notice that the other stressors are affecting your movement practice? Or did you like did you notice it was harder for you to recover? Did you notice that you just weren’t as passionate about it as you used to be? Like, what were some of the signposts that there were other things you need to address?

Heather 12:18
Well, the world that I’m exposed to, which is very similar to the one you are Courtney, people who get into this space, are rabidly passionate about it, and spending hours upon hours per day, and the community that is formed around that is one of just like diving in way too much, you know, to the point where their bodies really can’t handle that level of stress, but they almost compare themselves to each other, and their success in that movement space with the crazy skills that they can do, or all the stuff they’re putting out on social media in some cases. And I know, for me, I was feeling like, I don’t have time for that, you know, as a mother of three to be able to practice at that level. And I feel like I would try, you know, to get there as much as I could, but I was never feeling confident in myself or my practice, or I would just overdo it, you know, so I would get injured and I wasn’t recovering. Sometimes, I would feel like I had to take a nap, you know, every afternoon, because I was just so physically tired all the time. So I knew I wasn’t quite comfortable, you know, with my life in balance with movement as one piece of it. And so it really did take some work on the, you know, the the brain management side, the thought management side to feel like, I’m really comfortable with my practice where it is right now. And you know, I have less injuries as a result.

Courtney Townley 13:52
Yeah, it’s interesting, I feel kind of, I’ve always been passionate about this conversation and this work, but I feel like it really ignited when I was immersed in a movement community that was largely male young men. Like, you know, to be specific. And there weren’t a lot of women. And if there were women, they didn’t have children. They weren’t in their 40s. Right. So it was like, all of a sudden, I was really faced with like, all this awareness of wow, this is a really special and unique time of life. Right, that definitely has some unique needs that need to be met. And I needed people in the community to be having those conversations. And nobody was.

Heather 14:34
Yeah, I can’t believe I even left that out. I mean, I’m such an anomaly, you know, to this movement world. And even when I came back to America from we were in Hong Kong at the time when I got introduced to the practice, everybody who was practicing in in Seattle was 15 to 20 to 25 years younger than me Yeah. Without kids without all the responsibilities of midlife and I’m like, why am I holding myself The standard that’s ridiculous.

Courtney Townley 15:02
Absolutely. Yeah. So good. Okay, so here’s my next question for both of you. And I love this question. You know, you often hear me say like, your healthiest years can be ahead of you, if you want them to be, they don’t have to be in the rearview mirror. Because I think there’s a lot of people who listen to the Grace & Grit Podcast, who feel like their healthiest years are behind them. And that’s part of the problem, right, is that they feel like the best is over. So your healthiest years can be ahead of you. But in order to make that happen, you have to redefine what health means to you at this age and stage of life. Because I guarantee your definition of health has changed since you were 20 or 30, or before kids are all the things right, like you’ve evolved as a human and your needs to honor your health have surely evolved. So I want to know from both of you, how do you define health at this age and stage of life? And how do you define it differently than you would have 10 or 20 years ago? Brittany, let’s start with you.

Brittany 16:01
I think 20 years ago, it was all centered around body, right? It was how that body looks? Yeah, no, it was supposed to look whether or not that fit some predefined standard. Now I’m focused on longevity. And you see older people on the ski hill like Ed plus, like, I just want to be able to do that I want to have the energy and the strength to be able to do that and do it. Well. I ski with my dad who’s 64 years old, and he skis darners. Good as he did when he was 35, if not better, because now he’s got to fake me. Yeah, and really is hard to keep up with is legitimately difficult for me to ski with. And that’s what I want my kids to say about me, I want them to ride the chairlift and be like, Oh, she’s kind of hard to keep up with for an old guy. And I want to feel like I’m well fed, both from a brain perspective. And from a nutrition perspective. And I have tons of energy. You know, I really look forward to I kind of joke, I’ll sit with the old guys at the bar at snowball, and they talk about you know, now they’re retired, they’ve got all this time to ski it’s like, well, that’s what I’m looking forward to right. Having that retirement, like four or five days a week can chase the powder days, can do the same during the summer as far as like hiking, biking, going, where I want to be. And I want to be able to physically do that when the time comes. Because right now as as you heard me say in the introduction, it’s all about fitting in those little slivers of time. And so I want to be able to leverage that time, once it comes back as my kids grow up and no longer by hanging out with me.

Courtney Townley 17:46
I love that you’re bringing this up because I, my parents, I would say are examples of that, too. Like they really live such an active life, they’re in their 70s, nothing slows them down. And something that they tell me all the time is it’s actually really hard for them to find friends who are equally as active, because a lot of them are suffering from injuries or illnesses, or they’re just so deconditioned that they don’t feel comfortable doing these activities. And I was actually just talking to a client the other day, who’s in her mid 70s, she still works full time. And she was saying that one of her fears about retirement is exactly that, that she is going to have all this time on our hands. But she’s not going to have her work colleagues who kind of are part of her social unit right now. And she’s afraid that a lot of the people that she associates with at this point in her life, outside of work aren’t going to be active, because they’re experiencing so much physiological breakdown. So I think it’s such a real thing. And you know, it’s interesting, isn’t it, because I know retirement is like this thing that we’re conditioned to sort of aspire to, from, I mean, really, it’s from the day we enter the workforce. And I think that if we don’t have a plan for retirement in terms of how we want to spend that time. Number one, we may not necessarily take care of ourselves in a way that afforded us the ability to do the things we want to be doing. But it can also just be, in a way very depressing for people because now they feel like they’re kind of lost. They don’t have the community they hang out with. So I love that about this space of Rumble & Rise, because I do feel like we have such a diverse age group. And we do have a lot of you know, older women in the community who are really trying to make the best of what is to come even if it if that’s retirement, they want to make the most of it. So yeah, I love that you brought that up.

Brittany 19:39
And it seems a little funny to talk about retirement when I’m you know, just just about to turn 38 years old, but in order to be physically capable when you’re 80 You’ve got to get all your ducks in a row starting now. So you have to have made those steps. You can’t just switch and decide you’re going to do that when you’re 72 Yeah, so you have to have built those good habits and And good strength and a really good, strong foundation. So it feels like it’s a good building block to get there as is now.

Courtney Townley 20:09
Well, it’s really interesting because I feel this way about the peri menopausal and menopausal years, where a lot of women enter that space, and they’re pissed at their bodies, because they’re like, how can this all changed overnight? It didn’t necessarily change overnight. There was messaging coming from our 20s and 30s. Right, and a sort of the way we abused our bodies in those years that definitely feeds into our experience of that transition. I’m not saying that even if you took perfect care of yourself, whatever that is, in your 20s and 30s, that you wouldn’t experience some discomfort in perimenopause and menopause. But I do think that there’s we’re always taking a hit for our decisions, especially if they’re right decisions that are depleting us. We just don’t necessarily feel it until we are rolling into later in life. So yes, like your, you know, late 30s 40s 50s. We’re thinking about being hopefully really robust in our later years. And what can we do now to contribute to that, but I would say, Let’s encourage even the younger generation to start that in their 20s and 30s. Because it just makes life so much more pleasurable. Heather, how about you? How would you define health at this age and stage of your life? And how does it differ from maybe 10? Or 20 years ago? Yeah, well,

Heather 21:29
If you look back, like most women, I was conditioned to equate my health with smallness. I remember even in high school, so I’m like a 17 year old cheerleader, and I kind of was a late bloomer. And so when I had first started cheerleading, as a sophomore, to the, when I was a senior, my body was physically larger, I had grown. And I remember thinking that I think I was 118 pounds, you know, at the time, like nothing, right? Like, just tiny human. And I remember even then thinking, I’ll feel healthy and great at 108, you know, that I needed to lose 10 pounds at as a senior who was active who was a young woman, and, and then I remember going through my 20s always feeling like this, I needed to be smaller, I needed to be smaller. And I did a lot of like, you know, aerobics, I don’t know, aerobics was I think back then it’s definitely obix. And that turned into I think, like body attack, and, you know, programs like that a little bit later, you know, in my 30s, as you’re losing the pregnancy weight, that kind of thing, but just exhausting, right? Like, it was always about the number on the scale or what have you. And I felt like that changed for me when I got introduced to the movement practice around 40. So I sort of got lucky in that way, because it wasn’t defined by weight. And like those women who would come into the practice, who were kind of in that mindset, they would quickly leave, you know, because they could see that it wasn’t about that.

Heather 23:00
But for me, I started to develop a lot more strength and mobility in my body, and like, this is so much better, you know, I actually am a lot more capable, physically capable than I was then when I was only cared about, you know, the number on the scale or what have you. But anyway, that’s kind of the physical part. But I think more than that, is I think when you’re young, you’re always kind of burdened with a certain anxiety about the future and sort of like collecting things in your life, whether it’s a husband or kids or the house or the car, oil, you know, all that stuff. And that’s how you define success and health and, and, you know, certainly your body and your clothing size and things like that, and that’s just exhausting. It’s also very, you know, surface level and materialistic, and that does not equate a happy life. And I think what I have found now, you know, in this midlife stage is what really matters to me is community, setting myself up for the future. So that I’m not alone, you know, and that I have the physical capabilities to do all the stuff that I want to do come to what Bethany was saying, and so I really evolved my my health practices, you know, to be way beyond physical health and its physical health important. Absolutely.

Heather 24:25
I spend time on that every day, you know, meal prepping and moving and all that stuff, but sometimes I’ll just give myself a day off, you know, if I feel like I’m really sore, you know, my body is telling me that I need to slow down today. It doesn’t mean that I need to stop but it just means I need to slow down. And you know, I feel like yeah, I don’t look today at 47 Like I looked at 37 You know, like nor should you rebuild. I got some more gray hairs. Yeah, you know, I had my first surgery because I overdid it one time. You know, my foot you know, so little injury reads have crept up and that kind of thing. So you know, things are kind of breaking down a little bit. But if I, because I did focus on a more holistic approach, I feel like if I can compared myself to like the average 47 year old mom, yeah, way ahead, way ahead, but it’s the work over No, I don’t think it’s ever over ever.

Courtney Townley 25:19
So what I hear so loud and clear as you’re talking is that you’ve really shift your perspective from kind of how your life looks to how your life feels. Hmm, yeah, right. And even when we’re just talking about like, physical health, this is such an important concept. And I think it’s one of the most healing concepts that I can encourage a woman to grasp, which is embodiment, right is how comfortable and at peace you feel in your body. But what we have a lot of us have had are kind of breaking away from both. And what we kind of grew up being conditioned to really focus on was how we think about our body, right? And I’m not saying how you think about your body doesn’t matter, of course, your beliefs about your body influence your behavior. But we spend so much time thinking about the body and shaping it from the outside, that we actually don’t go in and do the real work, which is how at peace, am I with myself when I’m by myself?

Courtney Townley 26:17
Right? Yeah, I love that. So good. Okay, so. So both of you very clear on kind of the different definitions from, you know, over the past 10 or 20 years. So knowing like Britney, knowing that you’re really aspiring to have this amazing future, right, regardless of age, regardless of stage, you have trust in your body, and you can tackle the things that you want to be doing. How has Rumble & Rise help set you up for that?

Brittany 26:45
Rumble & Rise has really taught me so much more about the mindset piece of it, I think, you know, I worked with trainers in the past I did any number of class and probably every diet you could ever pick out. And it’s that’s just all focused on the physical and that just doesn’t ever solve the problem, right? You you hit a burnout stage, yes, you lose 15 pounds less you Yes, you lose 20 pounds. But it’s not sustainable. Because like you said, you’re not at peace with that. You lose 20, but you’re pushing for 25, we can’t figure out how you get to 25. And when you focus on kind of the mindset piece of it and really forgiving yourself for being bigger than you were when you were 18 it starts to kind of click into place a little bit and you start to understand like, well, there’s a really good reason why I’m not the size I am when I was 18 I don’t spend six hours outside, I spend nine hours sitting at a computer screen. Yeah. And then fit all the rest of it into my day after chasing kids and doing laundry and making meals. And so you start to understand that you got to meet yourself where you’re at. Forgive yourself a little bit. Realize, yeah, and over and over again, that’s the one thing that I’m learning is like, those, those patterns are really hard to break. And so you’re gonna start doing all the right things. You still get that like all or nothing thinking of like, well, when I was 20, if I did all of these, all these times this would have happened? Yes, but only this has happened. So how, you know, what am I doing wrong? And it’s taking a step back and being like, No, this is great. This is really good progress.

Courtney Townley 28:37
Yeah. So I’ve shared this a lot, probably inside of Rumble & Rise, and certainly on the Podcast, but my husband being a builder, he will often have clients come to him and say, you know, like, I want to do this to my bathroom. Is it possible? And he’s like, anything is possible for price, right. And I think that is just so true of the health space and kind of the, you know, if we’re not even talking about health, but we’re talking about reshaping the body, right, which isn’t always a health conversation. You can have whatever you want, if you want to look like you did when you were 17. There’s ways to make that happen. But if you look through the lens of how you define health at this age and stage of life, does that even make sense? Does looking like you did at 17? And what that’s going to cost you to achieve that? Is it worth the trade offs that you’re going to have to make? Because this is the real right? I’m always talking about integrity. Integrity is really honoring the wholeness of who you are as a person. And like each of you as you came in today, I was asking like what are your priorities in life right now? And neither of you said, looking like I did on high school graduation day, right. So yeah, so I think we shift the lens at which like we’re looking through health at that it’s not physical, it’s what I mean guests for As a goal, but it’s what it’s allowing me to do in other spaces of my life, and how it’s allowing me to show up in those places. And also recognizing that the time I take to connect with my loved ones, the sleep that I get at night, doing work that I’m passionate about, is contributing just as much to my health as food and exercise. Right,

Heather 30:24
yeah, there’s no question.

Courtney Townley 30:25
Go ahead, Heather.

Heather 30:26
Yeah, I mean, I think that all of those things matter as much, you know, as the physical health triggers that would traditionally be defined as such, you know, we learned so much and Rumble & Rise about kind of you’ve chunked it into four areas, chemistry, strategy, emotional agility, what’s the last one not, not management, thank you. And all of those things are as important. And you really need to, I think, at this stage, dig into that stuff only. And for us, specifically, within Rumble & Rise, you know, there really hasn’t been anything else that I’ve seen out there that has provided women with really specific tools to be able to explore those aspects of our health, because it’s certainly not given to us in mainstream media, or a diet, fitness industry or anything like that.

Heather 31:20
And I remember, kind of really connecting with you first, on the physical health side, you know, because we sort of had that in common, but I remember I think it was listening to, it was just Five2Thrive. And it was the last, it was like number five, it was the thing around thought management that time I’m like, Oh, my God, she’s talking to me, directly at me and my issues. And we didn’t even talk about this, you know, at first, and I know that, you know, this is a big problem for me.

Heather 31:49
The more I dug into it, and you know, you’ve just really pollinated the site over the years was such good content, that aspect of it is probably the most valuable to to women right now. Because we just have had the least amount of tools and exposure and support and teaching

Courtney Townley 32:08
Well, and we’ve segregated it, it’s like we have taken the human experience and broke it into all these separate pieces. Like, you can go to a mental health professional, you can go to a personal trainer, you can go to, you know, like a digestive health specialists, like, I’m not saying that specialists aren’t important. Of course they are. Because we do tend to have like, suffer more in certain areas at times, and that insight is invaluable. But where do we go to address the whole human? Right, that’s, that’s my rumble. Like, as a woman mid life, I don’t want to go to 500 different spaces to have these conversations. Right?

Courtney Townley 32:47
If I need acute help in one area, of course, I’m going to seek out a specialist. But if I’m looking to uplevel my health as a whole human, and just stay on top of these considerations, and these parts of myself, Where do you go for that?

Heather 33:04
Yeah, there is nowhere, you know, I think the traditional space where people would go if they’re feeling anxiety or depression, or they’re having relationship troubles is therapist, you know, of some kind. Yeah, and the therapist is only going to address the acute issue, you know, to to your point, and it may or may not work. And it’s also that therapist is also not going to be looking at those other aspects of your life, to see how they’re affecting, you know, the the problem that you went to go see the therapist for. So it’s just what we’ve learned in Rumble. & Rise is everything matters. Yeah. And you can’t just focus on one area. You know, if you have an area of your life that is unaddressed, it will show up, you know, in the other areas that even let’s just say you’re doing a great job at whatever that is.

Courtney Townley 33:52
Absolutely. And it’s also good. Go ahead, Brittany.

Brittany 33:56
Oh, sorry, Courtney, a lot of us have scarcity of time right now. So even if we have the desire to seek out a specialist for each one of those things, that’s just not feasible. We have jobs, and we have kids, and we have family obligations, and we have households to keep up. Yeah. And so being able to capture that in one place is really helpful. Because you can just give this focus and attention and then certainly specialize where you need to, like you said, you know, there’s always acute issues that you have to kind of drill down on, but it really puts it all together in a package that makes it possible for someone sometimes I myself in particular, about enough time to do it. Sometimes I just won’t. And so if it did come down to seeking out an expert for each one of those things and going to the gym and going to that, you know, I just throw my hands up and go this just isn’t even possible, and it makes it feel like it’s possible.

Courtney Townley 34:55
Definitely. And the thing that I I really want listeners to hear and I want both of you to speak to because I think it’s one of the unique outcomes of Rumble. & Rise, is it’s not about me telling you what to do ever. It’s about giving you full agency of your own life and giving you the tools to look under the rug of all the crap you’ve been hiding, right about, like the real issues that you maybe haven’t been addressing, and deciding where you want to start with that, like, where do you want to start cleaning up the mess, and then organizing yourself in a way to make sure that that cleaning up actually happens, and managing your brain and your emotional landscape in a way that allows you to follow through with those promises. And so ultimately, it’s, you know, Rumble & Rise, the whole purpose of it is to give women the tools to lead themselves to self coach in difficult moments, to sit down and at the end of the day, and really ask themselves, like, do you like how you showed up today? And if you don’t, it’s okay, girl, like we all have those days. It’s no big deal. But how are we going to course correct. So we don’t repeat this tomorrow? So what both like Do both of you feel that way? That that’s kind of what Rumble & Rise helps to offer is getting you those two skill sets?

Brittany 36:15
Yeah, I think that’s the best and worst part of it, right? The worst part is that if you have to take accountability for how you have shown or not shown up, you really don’t have anyone that you can put blame on. So you have to really confront yourself. But I say that very tongue in cheek, because that’s also the best part, right is that you have the opportunity to take responsibility for it. And I think you do a really great job. I’m constantly telling people like your question when you’re like, so why aren’t you going to do that? Because it’s such a great question and such a good thing to reflect on. After you get off the call, you’re like, Well, how does she know? I’m not gonna do it. But I’m not. So here’s why. And then you can develop a plan to maybe put better position yourself to actually do it. And it just I love the fact that it’s really almost eliminating all of the excuses before you even set off on the path. So that you have to just take full accountability for whether you did it or didn’t do it. And like you said, we all have bad days. And it’s being able to just say, All right, well, this wasn’t great. How do we let that not define us? And we can show up better tomorrow? How do we not spiral and make that be like, Oh, I had a cheat meal. And so now all of a sudden, I’m never going to eat well again for the next three and a half months?

Courtney Townley 37:40
Or make a lifestyle, right? Like some people can stay in that spin cycle for decades. Yeah. Hi there. Do you have anything to say on that?

Heather 37:47
Yeah, I would just say the things we learned in Rumble & Rise are really empowering. That’s the word that comes to mind. When you learn how to manage your thoughts, and you know better organize your schedule, and all the things that it takes in order to show up well, for yourself and your family. You just don’t have to outsource anything anymore. You know, you have agency and a process in order to improve whatever the thing that you’re struggling with is you could make it go away with enough work if you know if you’re willing to confront it and do the work. It’s funny, you’re going to work yourself out of a job, Courtney, because we’re all going to be grown and flown with all these tools.

Courtney Townley 38:30
But but this is the point, right? Like I always say like if there’s something that first of all, like I always call Rumble & Rise culture of practice, right. As a space of practice, we come here to practice leading ourselves. And as long as that practice feels that it needs some support, like for Heather, you and I were talking about our movement practice, I still work with movement coaches, and I still go to movement classes, because I love the infusion of inspiration. And I always learn something, and it helps me to support the way that I want to be showing up for myself. So that’s why I continue to do it. But absolutely, the objective is that for any reason, if Rumble & Rise disappeared, or something in your life happened where you just knew you couldn’t dedicate time and energy to it anymore. The whole idea is that you have the skill sets to fly on your own. And if you don’t, I have not done my job. Right?

Courtney Townley 39:27
That is not the kind of teacher that I want to be. And both of you mentioned this, and I think it’s important to highlight is a lot of times and again, women are very conditioned to do this. We have such little trust in our ability to make decisions for ourselves, especially in the health arena, that we end up hiring all these people outside of us to tell us what to eat and exactly how to move and all the things and that maybe can be helpful for a small period of time.

Courtney Townley 39:57
But ultimately what I see a lot of women doing it Is there outsourcing the decision making, which then also causes them to outsource the blame? Yeah, program didn’t work, the trainer sucks that I just can’t do that diet doesn’t work for me. And so we don’t really take ownership that well. Okay, well, you need to make a different decision. Like, that’s really the root of the problem.

Heather 40:25
Yeah, there’s no doubt. I mean, I think especially, you know, working in this space, as well, as a health coach, I see this all the time, women, especially they’ve been through so many yo yo cycles, you know, up and down, and, well, why did they go up, you know, when clearly you can go down, you had just chosen to go up for whatever reason, you know, there was some, something underlying that was really bothering you, and you weren’t addressing that issue, and you were using food, you know, as a band aid, you know, for whatever the thing was, and until that gets addressed, the cycle is going to continue, you know, and you’re going to keep hiring trainers and nutrition people to help you get that into into line. But a lot of times, they just don’t want to go there for whatever reason, or, you know, sadly, just the the media and the diet and fitness industry has conditioned us, you know, to think that we’re worthless, unless we look a certain way or, you know, age list. I hate that word, right. Aging, even anti-aging. I know. Yeah. I mean, like, why can’t we embrace who we are today? I guess that’s another thing that I’ve really learned from Rumble & Rise, and, you know, maybe sort of the wisdom of being in my late 40s now, but I’m just really comfortable and grateful for the day that I’m in, you know, why are we looking ahead are always looking behind. After I sent my husband and two of my three kids off this morning, before we got together, it was really quiet. And I was listening to the birds outside. And I’m like, that’s such a wonderful feeling to be in this moment and to hear that sound. Whereas before, while I was, you know, scrambling around with them, I was just oblivious, you know, to that fact that that was even happening. And that’s a gift, you know, to be comfortable in the moment and to be grateful for just those little things.

Courtney Townley 42:19
Absolutely. And if we’re hustling for our worth all the time, or we’re trying to prove our worth, a lot of people pleasing, of course, becomes a part of that. And so we’re hustling all the time to make everyone around us happy, and to take on all the things even though in our heart we don’t really want to be and then who’s got time to listen to the birds. Right? Like you build a habit of never pausing. And I think that that’s very intentional on the part of a lot of people. Because when we pause, we start to see the truth, right? The truth is revealed in the quiet, and in the silence and kind of this still moments, which I think is largely why a lot of people keep their life so busy. So we don’t have to look at that stuff. Yes. So true. It is so true. Would you say both of you is your biggest win, like in terms of like just being in the space, and being a part of Rumble & Rise? And over the course of your experience? What would you say your biggest win is so far, Brittany,

Brittany 43:18
I think my biggest win is that I am more comfortable in the body that I’m in I’m traditionally a larger size human being than maybe the the world would tell you I’m supposed to be. And at the same time, I’m being able to understand that I’m healthy, and I’m active. And I can do lots of things. And I can run lots of miles and my numbers are good. And then the that health definition isn’t necessarily tied to my clothing size. It’s how I feel in this body and how this body feels, you know, certainly, you have to realign sometimes, and it’s like, Oh, I haven’t been treating it very well. And like things are achy and sore and it’s hurting a little bit. And it’s because I haven’t been moving as much as I need to it’s because I ate like garbage. And so being able to see that it’s the inputs and it’s not necessarily the output and getting a little bit more comfortable without but and as long as I like who I am in the mirror. It doesn’t really matter what other people think about what size I’m supposed to be.

Courtney Townley 44:24
Yeah, I love that. I mean, that’s it. That’s a huge that’s a huge one is being comfortable in your own skin. Right and, and I think that a lot you can choose to make health still be the definition of it’s just the size of my body. It’s just how I look. But that’s a choice. Right?

Courtney Townley 44:40
Because and beliefs sometimes, if you haven’t been exposed to the work that we teach inside of Rumble & Rise. Sometimes people really believe that they’re every their thoughts are always true, right and that what they believe is absolute truth. But the real truth is that our beliefs are just recycled, recycled thought. It’s just a thought we chose to believe at some point, probably because we heard it so much, that we chose it to believe that it was truth.

Courtney Townley 45:11
I think a big piece of what we do inside of Rumble & Rise is we start to question our beliefs. Why do I believe that I have to exercise seven days a week? Why do I believe that I shouldn’t eat a certain food? Why do I believe that the clothing my clothing size defines my worth. And it’s the questioning and you all know, I mean, if anything inside of Rumble & Rise, we ask a lot of questions. And it’s because it’s that that critical thinking that allows us to get to know ourselves.

Courtney Townley 45:42
And of course, when we know ourselves, we can lead ourselves really powerfully. Do you want to say anything to that? Heather? What’s your biggest one?

Heather 45:49
Um, okay, so my biggest one, for sure, I think has been launching my business. And I hired you, Courtney, to help me with that process from the very, very beginning stage. I mean, it was terrifying to try and do something like that. And I just needed your guidance, you know, on the nuts and bolts of how to do that. But also I was big time dealing with impostor syndrome, how could I ever be valuable, you know, to other people, you know, as a new health coach.

Heather 46:17
And I would say, just the thought management process that we put ourselves through, you know, within Rumble & Rise was really, really helpful, even in this specific aspect of my life. And also framing what I do on a day to day basis, into one, where is this business serving me and my goals? Or am I serving the business? You know, there’s two very different things there, you know, why am I doing this, and that helps me guide, the kind of time and the sort of projects that I’m going to put into it. You know, this, for me is a passion project. You know, I love sharing my knowledge, I love helping women. And then a few men, I have a few men in my practice as well. And making sure that how I’m spending my time is in service of the kind of human that I want to show up to be. So yeah, I’d say it’s really helped me in that aspect. And you personally have helped me with just nuts and bolts, and just had no clue. So you’ve been really, really supportive in that way.

Courtney Townley 47:21
Well, and both of you speak again, to integrity, right, like being comfortable with who you are, and what how you’re showing up in the world. Is integrity, like, do you like the answers to those questions? And if you do, that’s awesome. Because there’s not like this inner turmoil. You know, we all know what it’s like to be in that integrity, pain, where I want to be living my life a certain way. But my actions are not reflecting that, and it just feels terrible. And yes, pain in your joints, or excess weight can feel terrible, but integrity, pain, it’s like chips away at your health. It’s like a slow, miserable death. So I do think it helps us to realign ourselves the work that we do inside the space. So you’re both very used to me asking the question, because I asked this question at the start of every coaching call. What is your what is your rise? Which is your win, which you both just shared? And then of course, I always ask, Where’s your current rumble? Right? Because that’s the real work that we’re still in, we’re always going to have rumbles, rumbles, never go away. That’s life, right life is 5050 50% of its probably wins and 50% of it is a lot of rumbling. And how well we Rumble really determines if we’re actually going to get through it right, and how we’re gonna come out on the other side with a lot of damage or, you know, just the least amount of damage, which I hope it’s the latter. So where are you both rumbling? What’s your current rumble? Brittany?

Brittany 48:47
I’ve got a long term rumble and a short term rumble, okay, long term Rumble is that I have a fierce commitment to all or all or nothing thinking. And I know that that’s my battle to fight. And that’s my thing to deconstruct.

Brittany 49:00
But I’m the kind of person who was going to take off on a run streak and then do it for 500 and some days, and if I can’t get my 10,000 steps, why even bother in one? Yep. I mean, Courtney, and I had that conversation on a coaching call where it was like, Well, I can’t get my 10,000 steps today. And she’s like, What about six? Like, six doesn’t do anything. She’s like, well, it’s better than zero. Yeah. Come on, man. And I think I’m like, I’m really fiercely committed to all or nothing thinking it’s just, I’m all in or I’m all out and I’m getting better. But it’s still my area of realignment all the time is like being softer and easier on yourself not being so all in being like, consistently in is so much more important than being all in Yeah.

Brittany 49:52
And then my short term Rumble is that I was a big runner, I ran a ton, my knee and running don’t get along. right now and so there was kind of a period of mourning, and really a period of backsliding, because I couldn’t do that thing. And so being able to pick the pieces back up, find something else that’s equally as fun to me, challenging, exciting, will kind of get me going, is sort of my short term rumble, and I’m making good strides and progress with it. But I think that’s just a good testament that there’s always going to be those rumbles right, you can be on the best trajectory in something like that, it’s going to throw you off course. And then you have to be the one to decide, yep, I’m gonna hop back on I’m going to go through all this thought management stuff, I’m going to figure out, like, I’m sad, it’s really I’m sad that I can’t run. I was sad, I couldn’t do a run this year. And it felt like nothing else really replaced that effectively. And, and then it was kind of having a difficult conversation with myself with a supportive a coaching call, and Courtney, that’s like, Okay, be sad. And then move forward.

Courtney Townley 51:03
Yeah, like, Don’t marinate in it. Yeah, you know, you it’s important to mourn it, like, of course, you’re sad, there’s nothing wrong with that. And, you know, you’re probably not going to lean into experimenting with new things and new opportunities, if you allow yourself to just sit in the sadness. So it’s like, it’s it is possible to to mourn something, and be looking for new opportunity. Yeah. And that’s really the space you’re in. And isn’t it funny with transitions, like, I know, both of you are moms.

Courtney Townley 51:35
But you know, whether it’s like, when you first graduated from high school, or you got your first job, or you had your children, it feels so awkward at first, like, you just do not feel like you have footing, it feels like you’re all over the place. But then with more practice, you really start to feel grounded and confident, and you find your stride again. And we like we want transitions to be like 24 hours, I had a baby. And I want to know how to mother now tomorrow. And it’s just not how it works. So it’s and I say this just in reference to what you’re talking about with the running. Right that right now you’re in that kind of messy space of trying some things on and staying open minded and trying to get a feel for what might be that thing for you. And I have no doubt it will come. And we just don’t know the timing of it. Yeah, it’s just you continuing to show up.

Brittany 52:30
And it’s so closely connected to that all or nothing thinking because I think it’s rooted in you want to be good at it, right? I’m good at skiing, I’m good at running those things. I can just show up and be my best self. I mean, not always we know how running works. Some days, you have bad days, but you know how to do it, you know how to push through those miles. And when you’re finding something new, you have to be a beginner again, you have to, for lack of a better word suck again. And that’s really uncomfortable.

Courtney Townley 52:57
But maybe the new thought is I am I’m learning how to be good at being a beginner. Absolutely. Right. Like you want to be good at something, learn how to be good at being a beginner. Yeah.

Brittany 53:07
Well, and I think it’s flipping the switch to know that like, what a wonderful opportunity to get good at something else too. And to go through that space of learning. But that’s I mean, there’s a lot of self coaching that goes into thinking, thinking that way, instead of just being like, Oh, this is hard. It’s been like, how great is it that this gets to be hard.

Courtney Townley 53:27
And I want to offer you just based on kind of your definition of health at this age and stage of life, which is like your future in terms of you the aging process and how how well that goes. We know that the human brain actually, like rewires and refires, and becomes more robust when we’re learning new skills. And I have been so guilty of staying in my comfort zone with a lot of things in my life, because it’s comfortable, and I’m good at it. And I don’t have to work super hard at it. But the downside of that is I’m also not growing my brain. It’s just like, it’s just part of who I am at this point. So I think there’s an invitation in that based on your current definition of health, that could really kind of help inspire you to be the beginner to master like, what does it mean to be an awesome beginner?

Brittany 54:19
That’s a wonderful point. Thank you. Yeah.

Courtney Townley 54:22
How about you? Where’s the rumble?

Heather 54:24
And we’ve got a couple. Okay. But before I even share, I just loved that conversation around rumbles often emerged from wanting to be good at something, but you’re just not good yet. And that is such the truth. We are so comfortable in our comfort zones. We know we’re winning, that feels good. Maybe we’re recognized by our peers and our family for being good at it, but there is no growth, you know, in that space.

Heather 54:50
And for me, my first rumble is I’m still new right at my business. And there’s a couple of projects that I’m working on that I am so new and so on. comfortable in right now, one of which is a new class, you know that I’ve been launching, and I’m still tweaking it. And I’m not totally happy, you know, with the first phase and how it went. So, you know, we got to do that, improve it make keep people coming back, I’ve got to grow it, you know. And so that means marketing, which I don’t love, but it has to happen. And so I’m having to lean in lean into some technical things, you know, around the marketing that I am just totally uncomfortable with right now. And the only way to get past it is to do. And I just have to lean into the do and to the action, and to the practice of doing that in order to get to this place where I do want to go eventually with it. So that’s number one.

Heather 55:40
And then the second one is my oldest child, my daughter is 17 years old, she is a high school junior, and we’ve been on a whole bunch of college tours lately. It’s like the whole junior year, right? It’s about college prep, and getting her launched and been all over the country, you know, looking at schools, and it’s sort of like, there’s this intensive project, to get her out the door. And that terrifies me that she’s leaving, you know, at the same time, and our life is going to be so different, you know, at home without her here. And so I am really struggling emotionally with her leaving. And even though it’s such an intense time right now, and we’re spending so much time together, and there’s so much parenting happening, you know, as it relates to getting her into the school, you know, whatever school she’s gonna end up in. Yeah, I’m really afraid of what life is gonna look like, fall of 2023 when she’s out the door.

Courtney Townley 56:37
That uncertainty, which I think we all wrestle with a lot is like, I don’t know what’s on the other side of this. And yet, we never know. Like, with anything in life, you don’t know, walking out the door this morning, what’s gonna happen, really, like you think you can predict a lot of it, and you can, but there’s a lot we can’t predict. So I want to ask you, because you said something really powerful. I’m really struggling right now with just the emotions. And I just want to like, pick away a little bit into that. Is it that you’re struggling with the emotions, or you’re having emotions? About?

Heather 57:08
Yeah, good point. Yeah, no, I’m not struggling with the emotions. I would say I’m having the emotions. I think, in a previous time, I would be struggling with the emotions, because I would feel like well, I should be feeling great about this. What a great job she did. She’s college ready, and it’s going to go, but they’re the sadness is telling me something about myself and my relationship with her. And then maybe just how that mattered. Yeah. Why is that bad? That’s beautiful.

Courtney Townley 57:40
Yeah, I love it. And you both know, like, this is such a big part of Rumble. & Rise, right, learning how to feel all the emotion of the human experience. So we’re not doing things to resist emotion, or numb emotion, which is what a lot of people are using, you know, the food and the alcohol and, you know, working and shopping and all the things for. So it’s really again, inviting emotion in and just willing to, like, I always say, bring it to the table, let it have a seat, and just get to know it. Why are you here? Oh, because I spent 18 years raising this beautiful human, who I have been with every single day and have an incredible relationship with of course, I’m going to be sad about the prospect of not seeing her every day. That is such a tribute to that relationship to feel that sadness. What a horrible thing to deny yourself that.

Heather 58:31
Yes, that’s a great way to reframe it. And, you know, Rumble & Rise, we’re always talking about how those emotions are just, it’s just information. You know, it’s telling you something about what’s going on in your life. And it’s not to be avoided. It’s just what’s it telling me? And how can I move forward with it?

Courtney Townley 58:50
What’s the message here? Yeah. So beautiful. All right. I know we said we do 45 minutes. We’re almost at an hour but let’s, in closing. Thank you such a good conversation.

Courtney Townley 59:00
Is there anything you want a listener to know or any closing words before we go? I appreciate you both so much. You’re both amazing humans. I feel so honored to kind of travel alongside of you. And thank you for making time on a Saturday morning no less.

Brittany 59:15
I think if a listeners on the fence they should do it. I listened to your Podcast and lurked on the community and kinda was well maybe for years probably a year and a half Yeah. And then finally actually only took the jump because I you had given a given a giveaway and I won some free months. Yes. Then have stayed after that. And if I had it to do over, I would have jumped in like the three times before that when I thought about doing Yeah. It’s a tremendous amount of information that’s really helpful. The coaching calls are so validating because you realize that the things that you’re thinking about and struggling so many other people who are so incredibly different from you different ages, different geography, different socio economic status. And we all kind of have really similar sets of rumbles and problems. And it’s sometimes you don’t even know that you have that problem until you’re here, someone else get coached through it. And you’re like, I’m doing that too. Yes. And so it’s just tremendously helpful. And there’s so much to think about and work through. And you don’t even know until you sort of get in and start doing it.

Courtney Townley 1:00:33
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Love that. How about you Heather?

Heather 1:00:37
Yeah, I mean, I would say that I can’t think of a better value of for the amount of tools and coaching that you get, and I like how you can get to it on your own time. So the way that your website is set up, you know, you can listen to a masterclass or watch a workshop whenever it’s convenient for you. And even if you can’t join the coaching calls live, they’re so valuable to listen to on the private Podcast to Bethany’s point, you know, there’s probably something shared in that call that’s going to be relevant to your life. And I have just found it so valuable in so many ways. And I think it’s just so cheap, you know, compared, you should be charging more, but I won’t tell you,

Courtney Townley 1:01:19
Well, we potentially maybe down the road, we will be.

Heather 1:01:24
Yeah, I mean, it’s a no brainer, you know, like, I send it for a year, and of course, I renewed you know, for another year, because the work is never over. And we all have these underlying rumbles, or demons, you know, or whatever you want to call them, even if they’re not visible, you know, to the outside world. But aren’t you gonna feel better once you address those things?

Courtney Townley 1:01:44
Yeah, and I think both what both of you have mentioned, and I feel so strongly about this, too, is it’s normalizing the rumble. Life is full of rumbles, it just is and if we can navigate that in a way that makes us feel at peace with how we showed up in that, that that’s really the name of the game, right? And I see a lot of women making the rumble. So unnecessarily hard, right, like we are the Rumble is hard enough. But then we dump all this extra stress, because of the way we’re thinking about the rumble. And because the way we’re not processing emotions around the rumble. So it’s really normalizing the rumble, which I think is I mean, that’s why I started the space because I needed it to right I’m with you, when I do grow group coaching calls, I can identify with almost every issue that’s coming to the table. And so it is it’s just that that community piece, and having very open and honest conversations that life is tough. And I’m here for it.

Brittany 1:02:44
And I think normalizing the Rumble is so important in the time that we live in where like, everything is Instagram worthy and fitness influencer, and even the girl you went to high school with is only ever putting their best foot forward on the internet. And so you’re, you know, it’s hard not to look at that and be like, What am I doing wrong? And then you realize that that’s a facade, and that everyone’s got stuff back behind there. And it’s okay to be authentic and vulnerable and share that. And that’s far more endearing than the rest of it.

Courtney Townley 1:03:20
Yeah, absolutely. So appreciate both of you, this was a great conversation. And I know that listeners will get a lot of value out of it. I hope you have a beautiful Saturday. And I just so appreciate you being here. Thank you.

Courtney Townley 1:03:37
Thank you so much for listening today. And if this landed for you, and you too, are someone who is looking for a space to approach health from a more holistic perspective, and really put you in the driver’s seat of your experience, I would encourage you to check out all the details of this program by going to graceandgrit.com/readytorumble. There are really four camps of work that we lean into inside this space. We talk about chemistry, a lot metabolism, blood sugar, the importance of strength training, all of these things. But we also talk about smart strategy, which is a strategy that keeps you in a space of welcome, not overwhelm. We also talk about thought management and emotional agility. Because without those last two pieces, managing your thoughts and managing your emotions, it’s really difficult to create sustainable behavior change. In fact, I would argue that it’s impossible. So if this sounds like it might be something that would be a good fit for you once again, grace and grit.com forward slash ready to rumble and I hope I’ll see you on the inside. Take care

Courtney Townley 1:05:01
Thank you for listening to the Grace and Grit Podcast. It is time to mend the fabric of the female health story. And it starts with you taking radical responsibility for your own self care. You are worth the effort and with a little grace and grit anything is possible.