The Book of Questions Volume 1

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:00

Good morning, Belle. Good morning, Belle.

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:04

How are you doing today? Saying how lovely and warm it is for once.

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:07

Hello. It's been autumn in the

Melissa Amos: 00:00:11

summer. Yeah. And finally,

Melissa Amos: 00:00:14

touchwood. I feel something, some warmth is arriving. Yes,

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:18

at last. It's been a while.

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:22

So I had a little idea this morning. Not an idea. It was inspired thought

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:26

that dropped in, which is all about this podcast.

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:29

And I have a little book called that my friend got me a while

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:33

ago called question and answers.

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:36

365 questions over five years.

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:39

1825 answers, a five year

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:42

journal. And I've had it for about ten years, and

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:46

I haven't used it as it's probably supposed to be used, but I like to

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:49

use it as dipping into just journaling prompts and

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:53

just when your brain needs a bit of a gear up kind of thing. And

Beth Hewitt: 00:00:56

I thought, we're about 25 episodes in. We

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:00

had those Mel and Beth interviews right at the beginning. It's been a little

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:03

while since we, like, just shared some

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:07

insights about who we are and how we think and that kind of thing.

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:11

So I wondered if you want to answer some questions. This sounds

Melissa Amos: 00:01:14

intriguing. I'm up for it. So we can do

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:18

this however you want. So each page has got a different date on it.

Melissa Amos: 00:01:22

Okay. And you can, if you want to pick a date,

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:26

and I'll pick those date. Should we see as it. It was

Melissa Amos: 00:01:29

inspired today? Okay. Say, as in the day we're recording. It,

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:33

what was the last meal that someone

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:36

cooked for you? I think it's a really good question because there's. I don't know.

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:40

But in my house, I do a lot of the cooking, so I need to

Beth Hewitt: 00:01:43

think on this one. I need to think on this one. I don't

Melissa Amos: 00:01:47

do all the cooking in the house, but I often

Melissa Amos: 00:01:51

eat separately just because my diet's

Melissa Amos: 00:01:54

different, my schedule's different. I'm just

Melissa Amos: 00:01:58

different. So the last meal that was

Melissa Amos: 00:02:02

cooked for me was,

Melissa Amos: 00:02:06

what did I have Friday? Oh, my God.

Melissa Amos: 00:02:09

Why is this a hard question? It gets the brain cells working, though. That's what

Beth Hewitt: 00:02:13

I love about this book, doesn't it? Actually, on Saturday,

Melissa Amos: 00:02:17

does it count that I went out and bought everything and then

Melissa Amos: 00:02:22

there are no rules, so my kids were in charge, and we were like, what

Melissa Amos: 00:02:26

do you want to eat? And they weren't. They were

Melissa Amos: 00:02:30

like, on a Saturday, I was like, can we have picky food? So we went

Melissa Amos: 00:02:33

out and bought pizzas and chicken and salad,

Melissa Amos: 00:02:37

cera sticks and all the bad stuff. And I never usually eat

Melissa Amos: 00:02:41

it, but I made my salad and then ate all the

Melissa Amos: 00:02:44

pizza, and I never eat it. And what's

Melissa Amos: 00:02:48

even more intriguing about this is yesterday I went

Melissa Amos: 00:02:51

to a kinesiologist, told me to not eat gluten anymore, and I got to eat

Melissa Amos: 00:02:55

gluten. And I literally gluttoned out

Melissa Amos: 00:02:59

this weekend on gluten. So it was clearly

Melissa Amos: 00:03:03

to raise my intolerance so that it would come

Melissa Amos: 00:03:07

up. So, yeah, a pizza. Mine was. So it was Father's day

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:10

just here this last weekend. And

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:15

I went to. Or we went to my father

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:18

in law's, and my mother in law made bacon

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:22

sandwiches. She was making all kinds of different sandwiches. And so I didn't even know

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:25

we were going to get fed. It was quite a nice surprise. We're quite

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:29

privileged that we've got. I've got lots of dads and granddads in my life. Father's

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:32

day is like a whole day. The man in my house doesn't actually get to

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:36

experience Father's day until 05:00 when he's. When we've been to all the other dads

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:39

and granddad's houses. So it was quite a nice surprise. I think it

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:43

was pit stop number three when we got this on a pit stop. Who it

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:47

was when I got this bacon sandwich. So that was nice.

Melissa Amos: 00:03:50

Lovely pizzas and bacon sandwiches. Life of a

Melissa Amos: 00:03:53

spiritual teacher. But I have eaten so much chocolate this weekend

Beth Hewitt: 00:03:57

because of all of the dads and granddads in our house.

Melissa Amos: 00:04:01

What about balance? Isn't it? It is. And I

Melissa Amos: 00:04:05

think that. So when I was at the kinesiology, she

Melissa Amos: 00:04:09

said to me, I draw minerals out of food really well.

Melissa Amos: 00:04:13

I do eat pretty well. Like, I try and eat fresh and green as much

Melissa Amos: 00:04:16

as possible. And she said something interesting. She said it's

Melissa Amos: 00:04:20

probably because I'm so conscious about what I put on my

Melissa Amos: 00:04:24

skin. Like, I don't put any perfumes and

Melissa Amos: 00:04:27

symptoms. Yeah, me neither. Interesting. And in the house, don't

Melissa Amos: 00:04:31

have things. And she implied that was

Melissa Amos: 00:04:35

I'm no doctor, but she implied that was a

Melissa Amos: 00:04:38

contributing factor to how well I can draw food out because I

Melissa Amos: 00:04:42

didn't need the supplements. Isn't that

Beth Hewitt: 00:04:45

fascinating? I love that. I never thought about that, but I love how it's a

Beth Hewitt: 00:04:49

twist on. I think, oh, this is a bad thing that this is happening to

Beth Hewitt: 00:04:51

me. But actually she's saying actually, because you do this, you're actually

Beth Hewitt: 00:04:55

really good at drawing out. Yeah. So there we go.

Beth Hewitt: 00:04:59

Okay. Question. Would you like another

Beth Hewitt: 00:05:03

date? What date would you like to go for? Pick a day. Let's go.

Melissa Amos: 00:05:07

August 12. Be weird if that's when this

Melissa Amos: 00:05:10

episode comes out. Wouldn't it. Wouldn't it just. Or if

Melissa Amos: 00:05:14

there's a listener. If there's a listener listening, and it's August

Melissa Amos: 00:05:17

12, you've just had an awesome synchronicity. It's you I'm

Melissa Amos: 00:05:21

talking to today, so let us know if it's all you are in

Melissa Amos: 00:05:25

blur. Yeah. Okay. This is a good one. I don't know

Beth Hewitt: 00:05:28

how to this. 1. August 12. What is

Beth Hewitt: 00:05:32

your resolution for tomorrow?

Melissa Amos: 00:05:36

For August 13? My

Melissa Amos: 00:05:40

resolution for tomorrow. So I

Melissa Amos: 00:05:43

literally. Speaking of the gluten thing. So it's literally been 12

Melissa Amos: 00:05:47

hours since she said to me, well,

Melissa Amos: 00:05:50

16 hours. So I'm currently

Melissa Amos: 00:05:54

contemplating whether I go full on keto, just cut out

Melissa Amos: 00:05:57

gluten. I'm contemplating all of this, and so my

Melissa Amos: 00:06:01

resolution is.

Melissa Amos: 00:06:05

And I'm going out for dinner today. Celebration. So this

Melissa Amos: 00:06:09

is. So my resolution for tomorrow is

Melissa Amos: 00:06:12

mindful eating. I think just the

Melissa Amos: 00:06:16

mindfulness, because what's interesting about kinesiology is you're using

Melissa Amos: 00:06:20

your body, right? And your body is. Without even knowing what

Melissa Amos: 00:06:24

you're testing, your body is responding

Melissa Amos: 00:06:27

strong or weak. And it's amazing. Like, I was

Melissa Amos: 00:06:31

watching her work, and I'm like, this is so fascinating

Melissa Amos: 00:06:35

that we know. Like, she put some tinctures on my

Melissa Amos: 00:06:38

shoulder, and I didn't know what she was putting on there. And tested. She was

Melissa Amos: 00:06:41

like, yes, for this one. No, you don't need this one. And my

Melissa Amos: 00:06:45

body was going, yes, feel how strong

Melissa Amos: 00:06:49

my arm was when I had

Melissa Amos: 00:06:52

this particular mushroom chew on my arm, which,

Melissa Amos: 00:06:56

interestingly, the woman who makes the tinctures was like, this is what you need.

Melissa Amos: 00:06:59

And I was like, why do I need that? And that was the one I

Melissa Amos: 00:07:02

tested the strongest with. So I'm messaging. You're amazing. Anyway,

Melissa Amos: 00:07:06

so by being mindful with what we eat, I

Melissa Amos: 00:07:09

think it's tuning back into that wisdom of, I

Melissa Amos: 00:07:13

know whether it's okay today to have pizza and bacon

Melissa Amos: 00:07:16

sandwiches, or if today is a

Melissa Amos: 00:07:19

salad and fish day or whatever.

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:24

I love that. I love these questions. They're making us think outside of

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:27

the box. Where are you answering that? Yeah. What is my resolution

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:31

for tomorrow? So I am going to be really

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:35

productive all week, actually. But tomorrow I'm going to be. My resolution is

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:38

to be productive, but also moderately productive. So what I

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:42

mean by that is, I know what I need to do tomorrow, and I'm going

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:46

to be, like, a bit of a conveyor belt of just creating loads of stuff

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:49

tomorrow. But I also want to balance that with

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:53

time for me, time for family, bit of self

Beth Hewitt: 00:07:57

care, a lot of mindfulness, and just be really present through that

Beth Hewitt: 00:08:00

process. So that's my resolution. Tomorrow.

Beth Hewitt: 00:08:03

Specifically tomorrow. Love that.

Melissa Amos: 00:08:06

And we both like, it's the mindful thing.

Melissa Amos: 00:08:10

And what's even more interesting for me, as I was doing a session for somebody

Melissa Amos: 00:08:14

last night, helping her with her business,

Melissa Amos: 00:08:17

and that's exactly what was coming up. It was

Melissa Amos: 00:08:21

like, she's, what do I need to be doing? Where should I be focusing?

Melissa Amos: 00:08:25

And everything was like, you need to just stop for two weeks.

Melissa Amos: 00:08:28

You just stop. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but

Melissa Amos: 00:08:32

you stop. And your work is to sit on the mat and to just

Melissa Amos: 00:08:35

meditate. And she knew this. Like, she knew this before she even came on the

Melissa Amos: 00:08:39

call, but I swear she needed to hear it

Melissa Amos: 00:08:42

separately and everything. And I was pulling

Melissa Amos: 00:08:46

cards, and they were all, like, literally affirming what we were

Melissa Amos: 00:08:50

saying, stop and just sit. And

Melissa Amos: 00:08:54

that is when the inspiration comes through. And this is what we

Melissa Amos: 00:08:58

mean by the energetics behind what it is that we're doing.

Melissa Amos: 00:09:02

It's not, I have to do the right thing because then

Melissa Amos: 00:09:05

the energy that you're coming into, it could be different. Like, I need to just

Melissa Amos: 00:09:09

get this done. I've got all of this work to do. Huffy puffy, or I

Melissa Amos: 00:09:12

have to eat this diet. Is that. Why does it need to be diet? Why

Melissa Amos: 00:09:15

are we looking at food at work or whatever, as

Melissa Amos: 00:09:18

something that fuels us and that enhances us and that is part

Melissa Amos: 00:09:22

of what we're doing, rather than something that we need to

Melissa Amos: 00:09:26

restrict or get through? And I think that comes with

Melissa Amos: 00:09:30

that stopping and that what do I need right

Melissa Amos: 00:09:34

now? What's useful right now? What's most important right

Melissa Amos: 00:09:37

now? And we have this infinite wisdom

Melissa Amos: 00:09:41

that should we care to tune in and listen, it's

Melissa Amos: 00:09:44

there. I love it when we do, when we find the time and space to

Beth Hewitt: 00:09:48

do that, just sitting on the mat experience, because we can often

Beth Hewitt: 00:09:52

feel like it's almost like we're on a rubber band kind of thing. We can

Beth Hewitt: 00:09:55

feel the tension immediately. Like, to begin with, might be like, okay, but I don't

Beth Hewitt: 00:09:57

want to sit on the mat. I want to be, like, over there. But

Beth Hewitt: 00:10:01

when we're in that kind of mentality, we're missing all of these wonderful nuggets

Beth Hewitt: 00:10:05

of experiences and conversations and

Beth Hewitt: 00:10:08

synchronicities because we're

Beth Hewitt: 00:10:12

like, we're doing. We're taking everybody out, and it's

Melissa Amos: 00:10:15

fine. As another example. So this morning I went for a walk,

Melissa Amos: 00:10:19

and I was out for about an hour. And what I will

Melissa Amos: 00:10:23

often do is put my headphones in and listen to a

Melissa Amos: 00:10:27

training or a podcast or something that's like

Melissa Amos: 00:10:30

enhancing my mind, my knowledge, whatever.

Melissa Amos: 00:10:34

And then this morning, I had my phone with

Melissa Amos: 00:10:37

me, and then I was like, no, I need to just

Melissa Amos: 00:10:41

stop today. Nothing in the brain for a moment and just

Melissa Amos: 00:10:45

stop. And then I happened to. I had some interesting

Melissa Amos: 00:10:49

internal conversations, and then I happened to meet

Melissa Amos: 00:10:52

somebody that I hadn't seen for ages, and she was there with their dog, like,

Melissa Amos: 00:10:55

with a chat. And had I had my headphones in, it would have been, like,

Melissa Amos: 00:10:58

super awkward, wouldn't it? Or I might not have seen her, or. Because I've

Melissa Amos: 00:11:02

been in my head and gone another way where I was literally like, should I

Melissa Amos: 00:11:05

go this way or this way? And I was just tuning in. Which

Melissa Amos: 00:11:09

way do I. Yeah.

Melissa Amos: 00:11:13

Yeah. Okay, are we ready for question number three? Yeah, you picked

Melissa Amos: 00:11:16

this time. Okay, I'm gonna say the

Beth Hewitt: 00:11:19

13 September.

Melissa Amos: 00:11:22

Oh. Oh.

Beth Hewitt: 00:11:27

What are you chasing at this moment?

Melissa Amos: 00:11:31

Rainbows. I'm chasing rainbows. What

Melissa Amos: 00:11:35

am I chasing? Oh, that's such a good question. But isn't it? Oh, it's

Melissa Amos: 00:11:39

so loaded, isn't it? What am I chasing?

Melissa Amos: 00:11:43

What am I chasing? I don't

Melissa Amos: 00:11:46

know. I don't think I'm chasing anything. Am I chasing something?

Melissa Amos: 00:11:50

I'm chasing? I want my shoulder to get better. I think

Melissa Amos: 00:11:53

I've spent a lot of my life

Melissa Amos: 00:11:57

chasing, and it took a lot of time to unwind

Melissa Amos: 00:12:02

that. And I'm super resistant to

Melissa Amos: 00:12:05

actually making goals surprising, but I

Melissa Amos: 00:12:09

am very resistant to doing things like that. However,

Melissa Amos: 00:12:13

there's been some stuff coming up for me recently

Melissa Amos: 00:12:16

about the impact of my

Melissa Amos: 00:12:20

words and speaking

Melissa Amos: 00:12:24

on stages or in

Melissa Amos: 00:12:27

podcasts or beat that. There's something there. And I

Melissa Amos: 00:12:30

feel this. I don't know. Am I chasing it? For me, when

Melissa Amos: 00:12:34

you say chasing it, I don't know. Like I'm just out of

Melissa Amos: 00:12:38

reach. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's here,

Melissa Amos: 00:12:42

but it doesn't feel like it feels more like I'm moving

Melissa Amos: 00:12:45

towards it than chasing it. But I would say

Melissa Amos: 00:12:49

that is what I keep seeing

Melissa Amos: 00:12:52

ahead of me. So, similar

Beth Hewitt: 00:12:56

answer for me, really. But I've been catching

Beth Hewitt: 00:12:59

myself recently because it took

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:03

me a while to get to this position where I could merge my corporate knowledge

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:07

with my spiritual knowledge and be who I wanted to be in the world. I

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:10

forget sometimes that I am there because it's the old belief

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:14

patterns that have been going on. And sometimes I think when you hit a different

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:18

income level or you're at a different stage on your career,

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:22

whatever that is, we can sometimes default back to,

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:26

it has to be hard, or I'm never going to get there, or kind of

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:28

thing, because that was the pattern. And those were the beliefs that I

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:32

held for a long time. And like my mom would say, why are you going

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:36

around the houses to get to where you want to go? Because I would go

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:39

from job to job to get to where I am right now. Forgetting sometimes that

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:43

I'm here now, I don't need to use that pattern anymore. So

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:47

sometimes I'm catching myself thinking that I'm chasing

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:50

something, but that I've actually achieved that, if that makes sense. And I think

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:54

it's every single time I'm, like, leveling up or

Beth Hewitt: 00:13:57

stretching myself a little bit. It's like my default button sometimes goes back

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:01

to, this is going to be hard. It's going to take ages to get to

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:04

where you want to go. And then I go, hang on a minute. Look at

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:06

what I've built, look at what I've created. Look at where I am compared to

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:10

where I was. So it's kind of a cheaty

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:13

response, I suppose, to what about, what are you chasing at this moment?

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:17

But I think it's almost, what is my subconscious thinking that it's chasing

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:22

when actually I'm not really chasing the thing that I

Beth Hewitt: 00:14:25

was chasing for a long time. I totally get that.

Melissa Amos: 00:14:30

It's like this irony, right, that what

Melissa Amos: 00:14:33

I was chasing was ease and flow. Yeah. What I was

Melissa Amos: 00:14:37

chasing all the time thing. And then the resistance comes up and all

Melissa Amos: 00:14:41

of that stuff, but it's like, how can you

Melissa Amos: 00:14:45

chase ease and flow? You need to be in ease and flow. And then, yeah,

Melissa Amos: 00:14:49

it's mad. I also learned something about myself this

Melissa Amos: 00:14:53

week, something in my human design. Someone

Melissa Amos: 00:14:56

I was talking to, a friend, and she was telling me, I can't remember

Melissa Amos: 00:15:00

one of my destiny, whatever. And it was like,

Melissa Amos: 00:15:04

ease and flow. You need to be in ease

Melissa Amos: 00:15:08

and flow. And if it's hard, it's not for you. And I'm

Melissa Amos: 00:15:11

like, oh, my God. My whole life I've been saying that

Melissa Amos: 00:15:15

it shouldn't be hard. Like, I literally used to say, it shouldn't

Melissa Amos: 00:15:19

be this hard. Like, why is it this hard? My family

Melissa Amos: 00:15:23

would almost make fun of me for being, like, always just trying to

Melissa Amos: 00:15:26

find the easy route and flow into things. And then when it

Melissa Amos: 00:15:30

came up, I was like, yes, this is entirely

Melissa Amos: 00:15:34

me. And then yesterday in my kinesiology

Melissa Amos: 00:15:37

session, we had to pick colors. And

Melissa Amos: 00:15:41

I don't know why she was like, pick colors. So I picked colors. And the

Melissa Amos: 00:15:45

first two colors I picked, the combination was desire for

Melissa Amos: 00:15:48

independence in life, to feel free. And I'm like,

Melissa Amos: 00:15:52

oh, my God, that is exactly me. That is. If

Melissa Amos: 00:15:56

you could sum what I'm chasing in a

Melissa Amos: 00:15:59

sentence. It's like the desire for

Melissa Amos: 00:16:02

independence to be free. But you can't chase that.

Melissa Amos: 00:16:06

It's got. You've got to be it. So maybe I

Melissa Amos: 00:16:10

am chasing it, but. I'm getting the images of pooh bear when he throws

Beth Hewitt: 00:16:14

the sticks over the side and he just watches them flow down. That's what we

Beth Hewitt: 00:16:17

need to be. We need to just be a stick flying down the

Beth Hewitt: 00:16:20

river. We play poo sticks.

Melissa Amos: 00:16:24

A very good poo stick bridge in the local park.

Beth Hewitt: 00:16:28

Nice. The kids think it's hilarious. It's called poo sticks. There

Melissa Amos: 00:16:32

we go. Okay. Should we do another

Beth Hewitt: 00:16:35

one? One more. One more. What date

Beth Hewitt: 00:16:39

would you like to go for?

Melissa Amos: 00:16:42

6 May. I knew you were going to say that. Did

Melissa Amos: 00:16:46

you? Yes. Who is your best friend? Oh,

Melissa Amos: 00:16:50

you are? Best

Melissa Amos: 00:16:55

best friends. Oh, that feels really

Melissa Amos: 00:16:58

exclusive, doesn't it? I know. I don't like this question either.

Melissa Amos: 00:17:02

Best friends, it depends. The best

Melissa Amos: 00:17:06

friend is the one that actually calls me out on my

Melissa Amos: 00:17:09

stuff. And actually, for a long time I didn't have a best

Melissa Amos: 00:17:13

friend. Yeah, I didn't really have a really very close

Melissa Amos: 00:17:16

friend, obviously, like my husband and my

Melissa Amos: 00:17:20

family. But I've done a lot of healing around the sister wound

Melissa Amos: 00:17:24

over the last six or seven years. Really. And now

Melissa Amos: 00:17:27

I would say that I have a few

Melissa Amos: 00:17:31

best friends, but the person that's coming to

Melissa Amos: 00:17:35

mind is my friend

Melissa Amos: 00:17:39

Jessica, who I've actually only met in real life once.

Melissa Amos: 00:17:43

She lives in the States. Yeah. But we do a lot of work together.

Melissa Amos: 00:17:47

We're on similar trees with our business

Melissa Amos: 00:17:50

and with. And we've got quite different life philosophies in a lot of ways.

Melissa Amos: 00:17:54

But what I love about her is we keep each other accountable.

Melissa Amos: 00:17:58

We can talk about everything. We can be honest with our

Melissa Amos: 00:18:01

struggles on things. We can laugh when

Melissa Amos: 00:18:05

we're doing our work. We are working together at the moment.

Melissa Amos: 00:18:09

So if I have to pick,

Melissa Amos: 00:18:13

I would say that. But also now I have

Melissa Amos: 00:18:17

some really good sisterhood

Melissa Amos: 00:18:21

circles. Yeah. Which feels nicer for me.

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:25

Yeah. I would say again something very similar. So I

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:29

never really had a best friends growing up.

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:33

I had lots of friends in lots of different circles,

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:36

but there wasn't somebody I would say she is my best. I don't know

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:40

what was going on at the time to maybe come to that conclusion.

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:44

But I do know, like, my daughter has similar viewpoints as

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:48

well. My daughter has lots of different music groups or actor type

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:52

groups or university groups. And I was always the same. I think it's maybe that

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:55

transient nature that I love and having so many

Beth Hewitt: 00:18:59

jobs like you make friends all over the place. So

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:03

I think I would like to think that I am my own

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:07

best friend. That might sound a bit sad. Hopefully when I go into spaces and

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:10

if I'm being the nice best me that I

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:14

aspire to be, that I may have been leaving a little bit of an imprint

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:17

in all of those different friendship circles. And I know that I could

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:21

pick up the phone and reach out to lots of people whenever I needed to

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:24

do that. I've got friends from school that I'm still in contact with, that we

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:28

still meet up. My mum is

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:32

a really good friend. I don't know, I think it's just a partner. We're really

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:36

good friends. So I think, yeah, just that I like being

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:40

a best friend to lots of the best friend that I can be in

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:43

lots of different circumstances. And even when I'm

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:47

managing teams, I want to be the best supportive kind of manager. And there was

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:51

one time when I was managing large business support programs and the program disbanded

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:54

and then people were starting to be made redundant. I think

Beth Hewitt: 00:19:58

because I built up really good connections. It wasn't like

Beth Hewitt: 00:20:02

management is doing this and then this is happening and all that was left

Beth Hewitt: 00:20:06

was me and my project assistant. And when it was just the two of us

Beth Hewitt: 00:20:09

left together, we bonded even more. So I think it's just

Beth Hewitt: 00:20:13

been the best version of me so that I can be the best friend for

Beth Hewitt: 00:20:17

other people in whatever circumstances I find myself in, is how I'm going to

Beth Hewitt: 00:20:21

answer that question. That's the best answer, I

Melissa Amos: 00:20:24

think, and it raises such a good point.

Melissa Amos: 00:20:28

And I know. Okay, so I had a mentor who,

Melissa Amos: 00:20:32

we're not going to go into it all now, but I had a mentor who

Melissa Amos: 00:20:35

basically warned me off against having friends. And it was all this whole thing.

Melissa Amos: 00:20:38

Yeah, we'll maybe talk about it another. It's a whole

Melissa Amos: 00:20:42

system. The book has opened up. Oh,

Melissa Amos: 00:20:47

and again, it was unpicking the woundings that

Melissa Amos: 00:20:51

happened from there. But I understand the point because

Melissa Amos: 00:20:54

sometimes when we look at friendship and best friends and we go back to our

Melissa Amos: 00:20:58

school days and it was the first thing I said, wasn't it? It feels quite

Melissa Amos: 00:21:01

exclusive. I have one that means I can't have another.

Melissa Amos: 00:21:05

And the more work that I've done on myself, it has come

Melissa Amos: 00:21:09

into this. How do I be the friend that I want to

Melissa Amos: 00:21:12

be? And this whole internal talk like, you're with

Melissa Amos: 00:21:16

yourself the most. The most. I don't be the best friend

Melissa Amos: 00:21:20

that I want to be because I'm a people pleaser and it's in spite of

Melissa Amos: 00:21:23

me. I do this for me, like I have my

Melissa Amos: 00:21:27

friendships for me. What do they say about you're the sum

Melissa Amos: 00:21:30

of the eight people that you hang out with the most, and if you

Melissa Amos: 00:21:34

hang out with a lot of people, I think that gives you a lot of

Melissa Amos: 00:21:37

qualities for me, I think that can be really healthy to have

Melissa Amos: 00:21:41

that people who are very different and have different philosophies

Melissa Amos: 00:21:45

to you because it gives you more of a rounded view of the world.

Melissa Amos: 00:21:50

So I think you do. We start a

Melissa Amos: 00:21:53

friendship, we've got to put ourselves in the middle

Melissa Amos: 00:21:56

front of that. Who am I in this

Melissa Amos: 00:22:00

friendship? What do I give? And then it's for the other

Melissa Amos: 00:22:04

person, it's okay, who am I to them?

Melissa Amos: 00:22:07

Who are they to me? Like, how can I help them, assist them,

Melissa Amos: 00:22:11

make their lives better? How can me being in their presence be a

Melissa Amos: 00:22:15

positive influence on them? And then it creates this

Melissa Amos: 00:22:18

2nd, 3rd

Melissa Amos: 00:22:22

Persona, if you like, which is the us energy, which is the

Melissa Amos: 00:22:25

friendship. There's me in this friendship, there's you in this friendship, and then

Melissa Amos: 00:22:29

there's this Us and this dynamic between us and it's, we got

Melissa Amos: 00:22:33

to do it for all of that. I can't just do it for me because

Melissa Amos: 00:22:36

then I'll be like selfish and maybe

Melissa Amos: 00:22:40

draining and it's all about me and la la, I can't just do it for

Melissa Amos: 00:22:43

you because otherwise then I'll be resentful and

Melissa Amos: 00:22:48

whatever, maybe. And

Melissa Amos: 00:22:51

this us energy is

Melissa Amos: 00:22:55

like the, that's super important because if the us energy

Melissa Amos: 00:22:58

breaks down, then I go and be me, you go and be you, and then

Melissa Amos: 00:23:01

we drift. And so it's a really interesting way of looking

Melissa Amos: 00:23:05

at the energetics of friendship, I think.

Beth Hewitt: 00:23:09

Yeah. And then making it so it's not about you

Melissa Amos: 00:23:12

completing me. You're my best friend. And I think this is where

Melissa Amos: 00:23:16

my old mentor was getting at was that

Melissa Amos: 00:23:20

when you start to call somebody your friend or your best friend, then there's

Melissa Amos: 00:23:24

these expectations that start to

Melissa Amos: 00:23:28

arrive on them. They can be

Melissa Amos: 00:23:31

unhealthy. Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with.

Beth Hewitt: 00:23:35

Her, but I understand that. I understand the logic

Beth Hewitt: 00:23:39

of that, but, yeah, I don't necessarily agree

Beth Hewitt: 00:23:42

with that. But yeah, maybe we'll talk about another. And any

Melissa Amos: 00:23:46

mentors out there, I wouldn't recommend this, but it's an interesting,

Melissa Amos: 00:23:50

it's an interesting line of questioning and it certainly

Melissa Amos: 00:23:54

raised some thoughts for me and led me down an

Melissa Amos: 00:23:57

inquiry of what actually is a friend and what am I expecting from a friend.

Melissa Amos: 00:24:01

And then how that then actually transpired. The silver

Melissa Amos: 00:24:04

lining behind all this was that I. Okay, I

Melissa Amos: 00:24:08

did, at that point, withdraw myself from friendship groups,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:12

but then I started to do that, work on myself and be like, who am

Melissa Amos: 00:24:16

I? What am I expecting? What am I becoming? And then

Melissa Amos: 00:24:19

I went out. It was a while later, it was maybe even a year later,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:23

but I went out to a gathering, and I was so nervous,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:27

and there was always people there that was so big,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:30

personalities. That's where I met you, actually. What,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:33

like, met you in real life? Oh, in London,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:37

yeah. And I was like, oh, my God, there's gonna be all these people

Melissa Amos: 00:24:41

there. And I was really nervous, and I was like, oh,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:45

my God. And then I remember landing in there, and

Melissa Amos: 00:24:48

I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna come and be me. And they'll either

Melissa Amos: 00:24:51

love me or they won't. Exactly. Yeah,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:55

I went there, and it was like I landed in something, and I was like,

Melissa Amos: 00:24:59

what I belong? And I felt that and not

Melissa Amos: 00:25:03

that. And it wasn't because of anyone else. It wasn't

Melissa Amos: 00:25:06

anybody else acting any differently to me. It

Melissa Amos: 00:25:10

was my view of the world, my expectation

Melissa Amos: 00:25:14

of what I'm going to do. Is somebody going to come and save

Melissa Amos: 00:25:17

me? And I was thinking, everybody there thinks that I'm super

Melissa Amos: 00:25:21

confident and that I'm the one that, like, yeah, everybody.

Melissa Amos: 00:25:25

And I thought, and I think they're probably feeling the same as me, so how

Melissa Amos: 00:25:28

can I be that person to them that helps them belong?

Beth Hewitt: 00:25:32

Yeah. And that night

Melissa Amos: 00:25:35

had flipped so much for me about

Melissa Amos: 00:25:39

how comfortable I am in rooms, who I am as a

Melissa Amos: 00:25:42

friend, as a colleague, as a community.

Melissa Amos: 00:25:47

It had nothing to do with anyone else. I love that story.

Beth Hewitt: 00:25:51

Thank you for sharing that. I had a similar conversation with my daughter, who was

Beth Hewitt: 00:25:55

struggling to find friends at university not that long

Beth Hewitt: 00:25:58

ago, and not that she was struggling to find them. I think she had this

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:01

grand idea that you had to have university, you had to have millions of friends,

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:05

and that you're always, like, on the go kind of thing. And she was thinking,

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:07

this is not the experience that I thought it was going to be. And I

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:11

said, think about what are the things that you. I already know what things are,

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:14

but let's think about the things that you love to do. And let's go find

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:16

the groups. Let's go where your people are. Don't try and put yourself in a

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:19

position where those are not your people, because that's what. That's university land. We end

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:22

up in a house with six people that are completely different to us. And so

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:26

we found this gaming society. And she was like,

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:29

yeah, but I don't think I'm ready. I think I need to build my confidence

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:32

up before I go to the gaming society. I need to be ready for that.

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:36

No, you need to go to the gaming society to build your

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:39

confidence. And we were talking about, think less about

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:44

your anxiety and nervousness around feeling confident going into that space. And think about

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:48

what kind of friend would you like to be for somebody who is also

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:52

turning up for the very first time and be that friend for

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:56

them. And so she went and she met

Beth Hewitt: 00:26:59

this guy and they got on so well. They went to McDonald's afterwards and he

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:03

actually left. He left his bag in McDonald's. They got all the way back to

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:06

the flat and he was like, oh, my God, I've forgotten my bag. It's a

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:08

McDonald's. And she was like, it's okay, we can go. It was like 1112 o'clock

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:12

at night. It's okay, we can go. We'll go back. And really, I've only just

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:15

met you. Just. No, let's go. You would have done the same for me.

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:19

Let's go back and collect, get you back. And it was there underneath the table

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:21

and then walk back again. And that created a friendship that had real

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:25

bonds from the beginning. Because she'd gone into that environment with that

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:29

energy of, how can I be the friend that I want to be?

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:33

For me, if I was feeling this way, which I am feeling this way, how

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:36

can I be that for somebody else? So I think sometimes if we flip the

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:39

switch of this is how I'm feeling. These are my genuine feelings. I'm

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:43

nervous about this, but how can I be the person to support me

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:47

internally? And how can that then be reciprocated? Because we attract

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:51

like. Attracts like, right? So if we're feeling that way, then we're going to maybe

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:54

bump into people you can see in a room when you go to networking events.

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:56

The people up against the wall were like, oh, my God. And the people who

Beth Hewitt: 00:27:59

were like, in the centre going, life and soul of the party. And if your

Beth Hewitt: 00:28:02

people are at the side of the wall, like, just sipping their coffees and

Beth Hewitt: 00:28:06

people watching, then go talk to them. Those are your people. It's

Melissa Amos: 00:28:10

such an important skill. And not everyone

Melissa Amos: 00:28:13

has it. And actually, me sharing that story, I've

Melissa Amos: 00:28:17

shared it with some other people who were there. And it came about

Melissa Amos: 00:28:21

me sharing it because somebody said to me once,

Melissa Amos: 00:28:24

who was in that circle? They were like, when I thought you were

Melissa Amos: 00:28:28

really intimidating, and I'm like, who, me? Like, before they met

Melissa Amos: 00:28:32

me. And I'm like, or not. I was. That they were intimidated by me.

Melissa Amos: 00:28:36

If you knew what was going on in my brain, you wouldn't be.

Melissa Amos: 00:28:40

And I was like, okay, so this is interesting. Like when. So when I'm

Melissa Amos: 00:28:43

looking at somebody else and think they're all this and they're all that, it's

Melissa Amos: 00:28:47

probably not true.

Melissa Amos: 00:28:50

And I don't know. I think the most important thing is

Melissa Amos: 00:28:54

to be yourself. And I think it's okay to admit that you're feeling

Melissa Amos: 00:28:58

confident. Not confident or unsure or a

Melissa Amos: 00:29:02

little bit out of it. And it's sometimes when you even open up to that,

Melissa Amos: 00:29:06

not with. Through blame, not. You made me feel this way because

Melissa Amos: 00:29:09

nobody. You know what? When I stepped into that room, I was really

Melissa Amos: 00:29:13

nervous. And then

Melissa Amos: 00:29:16

there's a. I don't know. I think that can form a bond as well,

Melissa Amos: 00:29:20

rather than trying to fake your way through it.

Melissa Amos: 00:29:24

I don't know. For me, it took healing. For me,

Melissa Amos: 00:29:28

it took inquiry. For me, it took understanding, awareness.

Melissa Amos: 00:29:32

Yeah. And a bit of bravery and a bit. And this

Melissa Amos: 00:29:36

decision, this intention. I'm going to go in there

Melissa Amos: 00:29:39

and I'm going to bring my own sense of, I'm

Melissa Amos: 00:29:43

meant to be here. I'm part of this room. I'm going to bring that sense

Melissa Amos: 00:29:47

with me and the sense that I'm part of this room and

Melissa Amos: 00:29:50

we are all part of this room. And it just flipped

Melissa Amos: 00:29:54

so much. Now I go to some networking events and I'm

Melissa Amos: 00:29:58

so aware of that, that there's some new people and that

Melissa Amos: 00:30:02

maybe some people are intimidated. Apparently I give off their

Melissa Amos: 00:30:06

vibe. So it's an interesting

Melissa Amos: 00:30:09

dynamic. And, you know, the trauma that I faced working

Melissa Amos: 00:30:12

with that mentor when she was like, you're not allowed to have any friends, actually

Melissa Amos: 00:30:16

led to something. We shouldn't say that, exactly. And give her

Melissa Amos: 00:30:20

credit. It led to something

Melissa Amos: 00:30:23

that helped me but actually become a better friend

Melissa Amos: 00:30:27

and have more eventually more friendships. I

Beth Hewitt: 00:30:31

have enjoyed the book of questions. Maybe we shall bring it out in

Beth Hewitt: 00:30:35

25 episodes time. How did you find the book? Of course I love

Melissa Amos: 00:30:39

the book. You should bring the book more often. I want to know from the

Melissa Amos: 00:30:42

listeners, do you like the book? I know I've got a good one. If maybe

Melissa Amos: 00:30:45

the listeners could give us some dates. Yeah. And

Melissa Amos: 00:30:49

then we can do this every now and then because I love that.

Melissa Amos: 00:30:53

Questions that. Who'd have thought would be speaking about pizzas,

Melissa Amos: 00:30:57

friendships, confidence and mental

Melissa Amos: 00:31:01

traumas. Thank you, buck. Until the next time.

Melissa Amos: 00:31:05

We'll see you soon.