Episode Transcript: 

Polly Mertens: 0:28
Hey superstars, welcome back, it’s Polly here – and Sam – and we’re in the La Quinta Cove. L a Quinta, California, taping an episode for you peeps. One of our favorite places.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:38
Huh, yes, yes, and we’re talking about something that I’m wanting to share. I’ve shared it with you and I want to share it with you guys. It’s called a pivot year, pivot year, pivot period. I found this.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:49
Someone had read a quote from this wonderful book. It’s like a daily journal, like a daily inspiration, and the author is Brianna Weist, and I wanted to share with you a quote that I found. So I’ve been following this book and using it in my own life and I was like we need to talk about this. This is like a great topic, but here’s what Brianna says about the pivots. So she says, to truly pivot in life is not to move from one external path to another, but to stop navigating your course solely from the blueprint given to you over the years. It does not mean to turn in a new direction, but to go inward, to learn how to hear your own moment to moment instructions. It is to learn how to trust yourself, how to listen. It is to lead your life with a deeper degree of integrity. It is to not reconstruct your identity with pieces of what the world may deem more acceptable, but to deconstruct the notion that you must fit within a mole and mole so good and I hope you’re loving that plane going by.

Polly Mertens: 1:54
But aside from that, and here’s the thing about that, right, like you and I have been through pivots many, many, many times in our lives. We’re not, you know, shy to be pivoting. So what is a pivot? So what is a pivot? Let’s talk about that for our audience.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:10
You know one of the things I thought about when I thought about this A I’m just going to like raise my hand and say I’m going through a pivot year, right now.

Polly Mertens: 2:17
You know one of the reasons we picked this thing today. It’s pretty relevant. I would call it, you know, a pivot year for me and looking back, I would say you know you’re in a pivot period, like sometimes you don’t know you’re in it, but looking back you know you’re in it because you course correct it, like you literally change the trajectory of your life. True, right, you do something, you make a decision, you stop doing something, and it usually starts by recognizing stuff’s not going well in your life. Yeah, Pain suffering, yeah, things aren’t feeling good. And they’re not feeling good day after day after day. And that’s where I often say, like people get to that enough moment, yeah, and they’re like enough, right, and then they do something. So tell me about you know. So I’m going through my pivot year.

Polly Mertens: 3:04
Maybe I’ll share about that, but tell me about like a pivot period or a pivot year for you.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:09
Mm-hmm, that’s. The other thing about pivots is like sometimes they take years, by the way, and then sometimes they take months or weeks, and that’s okay too. For me I have had, for sure, many, many pivots. But a couple good examples from my personal experience. Sometimes a pivot can be around, like health, wellness, you know illness and stuff like that, and I’ve had patients like that and some people are familiar with my story a little bit.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:41
But at about the age 30, I developed an autoimmune disease, but it was undiagnosed, wasn’t sure it was going on, and so my health was failing me and it was really causing me daily suffering, physical suffering, literally, where I could barely function at a certain point because it just went on for so long.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:00
And I reached a point of enoughness where one day I literally was stuck home, couldn’t go to work again, you know, was barely making it through my 24-hour cycles, but at that moment I was at home by myself in the bathroom, just miserable, very sick, you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:19
But I felt that wave come over me of I’ve had enough, I cannot live my life this way and I also refuse to live my life this way, to feel this bad in this one body. Why go on Like, why bother, why continue? And I know lots of people can relate to that experience of having physical suffering in that way and having it manifest in a mirror to different paths. And then I chose from that moment on, this was not going to be my story, this was not going to be my life and I would, starting that moment forward, do it differently. And I literally changed trajectory and mindset at that moment because the pain was so great. I must immediately start doing this different. And then, of course, I changed everything about my life from that point on and became the person I am now.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:09
A major overhaul, yeah, 50 pounds less and all of these different things that happen. You know, new career path, knew everything, knew everything. It was radical, but that’s one example for me. I’ve also had them in my professional life and that seems to be pretty common nowadays, but I’m sure always since the history of civilization people have changed career paths for different reasons, but making a pivot in a professional fashion for me. I was self-employed. I had a business producing events. I absolutely loved what I was doing, my team, everything about what we were building there.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:44
But this thing called the pandemic happened and it happened to all of us, right. So for many people, including myself, you know, the world stopped from one minute to the next. I had a business and then all of a sudden I didn’t have it anymore. It wasn’t possible to do large-scale public events, so that one wasn’t as abrupt. It took me months to sort of accept the reality that that was never again going to be my life, my business, my you know, passion, projects, all the things that it was. Once I accepted that and got through a period of suffering, which was grief, anger, all the things that come with a loss like that same thing I made a decision I was going to start building a different life for myself, and now here we are, however, many years later. You know out of that cycle and that’s an exciting time to have options in your life, but you actively have to choose right.

Polly Mertens: 6:41
And one thing that you did in there that I just want to highlight and that’s part of the process that we want people to, I think, is we are sharing about this and we’ve dug into our own stories is you got honest with yourself, like you got honest with what?

Samantha Pruitt: 6:53
like all right, because in circumstances, the situation, this is how it is. I’m no longer going to sweep it under the rug, sugarcoat it, avoid it, deny it, try and you know, get different results from the same scenario or the same person in my life it’s like no, this is not changing. So what must I do?

Samantha Pruitt: 7:14
And I had to totally own that. It was nobody that I had the power. It was nobody else’s fault. I couldn’t blame, I couldn’t do all these things that were making excuses, basically, those were holding me stuck in those patterns of suffering. You know, if only I got a diagnosis, if only people would do this, if only my career would you know, my business would be like this or the whatever, like all the things, stories we tell ourselves. Once I washed through all of that, which I guess is denial and getting the resistance.

Samantha Pruitt: 7:45
And I was like, well, wait a minute, I need to be honest. But also and take inventory there, but also take back my power Exactly, whose life is this anyway? Whose body is this anyway, and why would I possibly ever give up that power to? Not anyone else. This is your life and you deserve to feel good and you’re not feeling good for day in, day out, day out, and you know, when you can kind of track back, it’s like, well, the decisions I was making, like you said, no one you know so-and-so didn’t or did whatever, like the environment or the government or whatever we could say whenever your period is happening right, like all these external forces. But it’s little micro decisions that we’re making along the way to do not do right, that get us to that point. Then we get real with it, we kind of face it right and then, like you said, yeah, I have something to do here, yeah, I can do this right, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 8:38
And at that point, when you become the captain of your own ship again, it’s super empowering and radical, like shit is broken. So it’s cool because you recognize that right and then you’re like smash anything else, you just let it go, you release it and then all of a sudden you’re literally this new human. If you allow yourself and you give yourself permission to you know, really own your life and your experience, then you realize, oh damn, what do I really want? Yes, what am I really after? What’s this going to look like now?

Polly Mertens 9:14
And I want to ask you you know so you now have hindsight, because the things that you’re, the stories you’re sharing, some of them were 10, 20 years ago, two years ago or whatever. So in hindsight you can go, oh, like it worked out, like I’m still alive, I’m happy, like I’m healthier, whatever. But, like, when you’re in that moment of making that decision, would you say, oh yeah, I could see the whole thing. You know, I know how this is going to turn out. Or was it like it’s this, it’s this, this empty abyss? You just make the decision something’s going to change, but did you know all the steps, like, oh, like the 15 steps of how to rebuild your health, like I’ll tell you what.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:50
I didn’t know the steps at all, but what I absolutely knew in my core was I’m worthy of this, worthy of more, worthy of better, worthy of the life that I want. And I freaking had hope, and I reignited that hope within myself because it wasn’t going to come from anything outside of me, and so those things really allowed me the strength, the power and, ultimately, the path to the wisdom to do the things right, absolutely, absolutely.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:19
So what? What advice? You know what? What would you share with somebody who you know? Somebody watching this is maybe just now hearing us talk. It’s like, okay, I know I’ve got the life that I don’t want the health, the body, the relationships, not like things are not going well, like yeah why do people even have pivots, or why do pivots even happen?

Polly Mertens: 10:40
And I believe, honestly, they’re happening all the damn time. That’s what I believe Because I mean, I’m talking to people, you’re talking to people. We’re pretty integrated in our communities and connected to humanity and we see it happening all around us. It’s freaking beautiful, isn’t it? I love it, but why does it happen?

Samantha Pruitt: 10:56
So I think it’s exactly as you said. It’s like we reach that enough moment. Okay. So we say I deserve more.

Polly Mertens: 11:05
I deserve to feel good.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:06
Right, it’s like people recognize and when we see it not happening, I think it’s people more so not recognizing like the powers in their own hand, right, they’re giving their power over to someone else, so like he’s doing this to me, or she’s doing this to me, or I can’t get around this government, or you know, they cut back this at my job, or something like that. But then when they step back and they say you know, what can I do? What can’t I do, but what can I do?

Samantha Pruitt: 11:31
Yeah, and they take their power back and then they start taking steps. They take the baby steps and I think for me, like you know, the pivot years or the pivot periods, you know, like you said, it’s sometimes multiple years or whatever. For some people that’s a lifetime, yeah, and we love you people and we love ourselves too for recognizing like we’re fallible, like we, I almost want to say too, like allowing it to go on as long as we sometimes do. Right, that’s the pain of watching loved ones I don’t know about you, but watching friends or loved ones sit in that pain and either forgetting that they have the power or just allowing it like that.

Polly Mertens: 12:12
They’re still choosing that. I would even say I think it’s part of our evolution as a human being on this one lifetime experience that we get right is that part of the experience of human is to pivot, is to experience, grow, evolve, try things, suffer 100% right?! Win, fail all the things and then pivot and then again and again. It’s part of evolving as a human being, which you know I’m kind of a big fan of and I know you are too. That’s why we hang out right. But so many people don’t give that gift to themselves. Why not? So are they? Is it fear, like what would stop someone from actually taking the leap and doing a pivot? Small, big, you know, cosmic, whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:06
I think there’s different reasons. I think some of them look like social acceptability yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Like, oh, you know my place in the world. Or like, oh, it would look bad for me as a mother or a daughter or friend or whatever Other’s expectations Other’s expectations or our, our, our impression of their expectations oh, of us too, Because sometimes you don’t even care. But I mean the people who care and matter to us, that love us, they don’t want to see us suffer, Right, but it’s sometimes we think, what we think they’re thinking of us that keeps us locked into marriages for too long, relationships for too long, jobs for too long, anything you know, a body that doesn’t feel good to us. You?

Samantha Pruitt: 13:51
know, I see this a lot. I’m not a mother and I have huge respect for women who’ve raised children, birth children, and they give so much to their children and they give up so much for themselves and there’s a period, granted, you know, but when they start using that as, let’s say, the crutch for not looking at their own needs or how can they take care of themselves, and they don’t really, like you said, like take back their power.

Polly Mertens: 14:15
Yeah, I see a lot of people that either have a grinder’s mindset, like if I just work harder, if I just push through this, a lot of guilt and shame. You know about being labeled a quitter, yeah Right. So they keep pushing harder, they double down on the suffering, they double down on it and it’s like okay, no, you know pause, take a moment. But why do people? What’s that?

Samantha Pruitt: 14:40
about. Yeah Well, I think that you were saying you know there’s this, you know I love watching motivational videos, and there’s I love them.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:47
Yes, you do you send them to me frequently? Yes, huge fan of them and they’re like you know, get it done, never give up. Push, push, push, right, yeah, and there’s, and I, you know, for myself, I think there’s. I had to use the word balance, I think it’s a little overused, but I think there’s an inner compass we all have and we forget it and where it comes from. Like we, you know, one of our favorite things is about like how your life looks right, and we’ll say that and more about that. But you know people thinking that, oh, my life doesn’t look like that person’s life, or it should look better, I should be this or whatnot. Comparison, yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:24
And not checking in with themselves like what’s right for me right now, right Like I was talking with somebody even today and she had set a goal earlier this year.

Polly Mertens: 15:34
You know I do, and here we are.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:35
The year is coming to a close and everybody’s panicking Right and she and she’s like well, that was my goal then.

Polly Mertens: 15:41
Oh cool and I recognize.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:43
Yeah, you know, you know I love and I’ve taught for many, many years. You know goal setting and all this stuff and it’s brilliant. Like there. I think there is a place for goal setting and I think there is a place for going after things that we care about. And then I think there’s also a place for checking in with yourself all along the way, because how you feel about how your life day to day like this wonderful quote that I was going to use as we were talking about this you know, preparing for this was Steve Jobs talking about. He would wake up for 30 and he was like 33 years, he was in the whole Apple game and he was like, every morning I would wake up and I’d look at myself in the mirror and I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I’d look at myself in the mirror and if too many days had gone by and I didn’t feel good, ooh like, if too many days had gone by and I didn’t stay good.

Samantha Pruitt: 16:31
Yeah, he’s like then I knew I needed to do something different and he goes and it didn’t happen. So he’s, you know he stayed in the game. But yeah, there’s going to be highs and lows, and sure you’re going to get beat up and yeah, you’ve got to like get your shoes on and go for that round even when you don’t feel like it. But if you’re doing it and you’re having breakdown and it’s in your body or you know whatnot, then take a look, step back and go. Wait a minute. This is my life. I mean, like I said, I’m the captain of this ship.

Polly Mertens: 16:56
And I deserve to feel good, and in my physical body, in my mental and emotional body, in my relationships, in my finances, in my career, you deserve to feel good. Okay, so then let’s talk about something I’m very passionate about, as you know, which is people feeling worthy of the body, the life, the mind, the relationships, all the things that can happen in their lives. I frequently see, in coaching and working with humans and businesses, a underlying, you know, current, almost of unworthiness. What’s going on with that?

Samantha Pruitt: 17:32
Well, and this goes, you know I’m going to quote from my good friend, Tony Robbins, right, Because I’ve learned a lot from him. And the two biggest human fears that we all carry, like the root of all fears of all I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not pretty, I’m not, whatever it’s, I’m not enough and I won’t be loved. And it’s, it’s, it’s. You know, it goes a long way back to the amygdala in our brain and things like that, but it’s just showing that we all have that and just recognizing that that’s what makes us human. But it’s not true. It’s not true.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:08
How about our? It’s not true. It’s a, it’s a fragment of our mind, it’s something that our mind creates. But who we are is more than that, you know, and not to go too much into deep, spiritual, but like you’re the observer of that mind, Right, Like you are more than that, Like who you are, your core, when you go and you check in with yourself and your innermost self. Like your inner, innermost self, not just your superficial, like I don’t want to do this right now, it’s like no, but at your core, what’s most important to you.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:38
And we all have that Like. People are like I’m not very spiritual, I’m not very deep. It’s like, yeah, but if I asked you a few times like what do you most want? What do you, what’s really important to you, what are your values and stuff, you really tap into it, you know, when you feel it in touch with it. And so I think when people can sort of get beyond that mimeleal brain that says I’m not enough, I won’t be loved, which is just driving us, it’s just conditioning of a brain that was formed two million years ago, when we can recognize oh okay, that’s just my mind saying that, and instead we step out and say but what do I want? Like, is that? Is that true about me? Right? You know, I don’t know if you’ve read the works of Byron Katie, but one of her great works is is that true?

Samantha Pruitt: 19:23
Is it really true?

Polly Mertens: 19:25
Well, and people identify, as you know, the partner, the parent, the boss, the whatever career path they’ve taken, whatever leadership or role in their community they’ve, you know, taken on. That’s become so much of their identity that if they were to cast those things off because they’re not working, doesn’t feel good anymore, they would feel a whole. Well then, who am I? And what you’re saying is that’s not at all who you are. Those are labels in society and we’ve put them on ourselves and they’ve been put on us, but we’re so much more than that. Sure, we can be those things. They can be part of our life trajectory and experience on this planet. Awesome, I love doing and being all those things, but at my deepest self, who am I? Right, I deserve to be the person living the life that I want to be living, and it really has nothing to do with those roles, nothing personal.

Samantha Pruitt: 20:25
All you people out there, the expectations, like we were talking earlier like you know, just noticing that you’re going too many days in a row of not feeling good. Like you, like too many days of sickness, too many days of suffering, yeah, or in a relationship that’s not going anywhere, or just passionate. It’s like is this all there is? Is this all my life is? And I think that’s a cry from your soul, like your spirit, like hey, you know, and those are just tapes and stories.

Polly Mertens: 20:56
It’s a story that’s been taped, that’s playing over and over and over and over, and you can actually go like this oh, I’m gonna turn that tape off.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:08
Yeah, and I think that’s when people have to take their power back. Yeah, yeah, you know, and you know how do you teach people how to take their power back, right, like, like I said, everyone’s enough moment is different.

Polly Mertens: 21:23
Right, yeah, for sure.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:25
And you know I dealt a lot when I was working with people with addiction and serious addiction. You know myself, 20 year addict I was like why would you keep doing that? Yeah, like, why keep doing it? Like I asked myself what the hell?

Samantha Pruitt: 21:37
And you know, you get into these groups, you get into these patterns and we get more associated with the pattern and sort of that click world that goes on in the brain. That just triggers us over and over again like a hamster on a wheel. Go back to that, go back to that, yeah, and we don’t step outside of ourselves, right, we don’t step inside of ourselves. You know, at a deeper level and really honor who we are. And I don’t know about you, but as I have grown older and I see the finish line is getting closer than the start line was, you know, and I say true about, like man, I mean, you know, going through menopause and fifties and it’s just this amazing time. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, though Like it’s awesome and it brings that like people a little bit closer at the end, like that finish line is getting a little bit closer and I’m like you know, when do we start to go? Okay, what am I doing here.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:37
Hold up Mm-hmm what am I doing here and why live this day? Why have this day? Why does this matter? Why do I matter right, and I think people are asleep enough in their life when they’re just allowing that they’re not getting to their own enough moment fast enough.

Polly Mertens: 22:57
You know what I experienced when you were speaking. It brought up memory, and one of the reasons I was stuck in one of my processes before I put it for quite a long time was I couldn’t let go of that dream. So I had built and created. We are all building and creating Like we’re charging down the path, we’re doing epic shit and when it’s really good, it’s fricking good right, Until it’s not good any longer. But you get so married to the dream, and so I wanna speak just for a minute, both of us, about how, when you’re letting go of something that’s not working because it’s turned into circumstances that no longer feel, good and whatever they serve you anymore.

Polly Mertens: 23:42
It’s not a tragedy to let go of the dream. The dream is you fulfilling why you’re here and what you’re meant to be doing? And if you continue doing that rubbish with that person in that body you know what I’m saying how in the hell are you ever actually going to fulfill your real dream, right? Not the one you made up when you chose that career path or got into that relationship or you know? Fill in the blanks, yeah, what’s the real one that we all deserve?

Samantha Pruitt: 24:12
Yeah, and I think there’s big ones and little ones, like you talked about a big one in your life, right, and it’s like however long you were pursuing that 10 years, 20 years building that career, building that life, that relationships, whatever it looked like. And I’m talking about even just this one story. I told the vote gal, who I know, who earlier this year had a goal and she pivoted mid year on a goal and some people would say, oh, give it up to me.

Polly Mertens: 24:37
You know this is-.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:37
Yeah, like you quit her.

Polly Mertens: 24:39
Right, how fricking brilliant is she that she didn’t waste another day, or another six months till the end of the year in that pain, cave, suffering a mentally, emotionally, whatever’s going on there, waste that precious time, yeah wasted and what I really want to.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:58
also, I think both of us would acknowledge the benefit of setting a goal, setting a passion project, like you’ve got a race that you’re doing, dude, we do audacious things every day of the week. We’re all about it.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:09
We’re not saying just like you know, go for your goal a little bit and then like give up on it. Oh no, half-assing, no, no, no, there’s no half-assing, but there’s always like that, like the author of this, this wonderful book, the Pivot Year, as she said that I quoted her. It’s like you check in with yourself, like your compass is yours, it’s inside of you, it’s not outside in the world. It’s not like what people are doing on Instagram or your neighbor’s house looks like, or the bling-bling that they’re trying to sell you on Amazon or whatever. Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:39
It’s like what feels good to you, what’s your innermost desire right now and some things in your life. You know her life six, nine months ago looked different. Yeah, you know, she even said she goes. I set that goal when I had three employees and this is all, that’s it. She’s like I don’t have that right now. I don’t feel that way in my body right now. I’ve been run down. I’ve been not taking care of myself, hello.

Polly Mertens: 26:05
And I even know for me, there’s been instances where I was so exhausted I couldn’t even have that conversation with myself. However, I have people in my life this is a relationship we have with each other where there are people who also know you, care deeply, have witnessed, understand like, can relate, whatever that looks like. Everybody has that one person, if not many people like that, I hope, in their circle, in their team, and we’re also coaches, right? So those people exist in the world where you can say I don’t know what’s out of alignment here, but I’m fricking miserable and I need help taking inventory. So let’s talk about that piece. How does somebody actually pivot? What’s the process that you would take them through? And I’ll share anything that’s worked for me with people.

Samantha Pruitt: 26:53
Well, you and I first, I think, before anybody would ever like I mean, you know, we’ve coached people in life and stuff and we still, you know, help people. It’s like by the time they come to us, they’ve already realized that usually. Well, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 27:05
Now, because sometimes we have to go knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:09
Yeah, we might be knocking on other things in their life that they’re not coming to us for they might come to us for something that we’re like.

Polly Mertens: 27:14
Well, that’s not really the thing. But yeah, we can talk about that too, because we love humans, it’s great.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:20
So I think for people, whether they hire a coach, work with a coach, you know do some or just a good friend. Yeah, but it’s like we talked about it’s getting honest, getting real with yourself. Yeah, like that inner knowing, like this is not serving me. Yeah, this is not my path.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:39
This is not my trajectory. I don’t. I deserve to feel better, like being honest with themselves, that you know. Like you said, how do you get them to deserve. I think the human spirit can only take so much suffering. Yes, so, and especially knowing you’re doing it to yourself.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:54
Like you, you know, like mine was 20 years and I sought help and I tried to do some things, but it wasn’t bad enough you might say and that’s where it’s sad for some people that kind of get stuck in that, that routine or that addiction, if you will, or you know something that’s not serving them, but actually it’s serving them in some ways, right, like some addictions have a way of serving some needs but ultimately killing the spirit. You know, and I used to say so, my addiction was eating disorder, bulimia, and I would say, you know, I would put food in but it was filling a hole in my soul Because I wasn’t tuned in to what did I need and what mattered to me, and so it was just this food in, food out right, and people do that with relationships, with jobs, with money, with bottom.

Polly Mertens: 28:37
The list goes on forever. Yeah, I want to kind of walk people through how to make a pivot and I also want to point out one other thing that just radiated when you were sharing your story there that for some people the suffering is too much, and we know those people. We’ve lost those people and there’s a place where the hopelessness really lives yeah.

Polly Mertens: 29:07
Yeah, so we’re not saying that everything is easy, but we are saying that we’re freaking in it and we want everybody who hears this has the opportunity to reach out to us. We’re available, reach out to somebody to see that there is always hope, right? So it starts with the process of what you’re saying getting honest, getting real, listening to yourself. But, for God’s sake, don’t get lost in that where it’s so dark that you just keep going, because there’s always another way out. So let’s just talk about the steps, of what that might look like for people who are. They’re in it, right? So they know they’re miserable, they know they’re suffering. Now what? Well? I want to just touch upon before we.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:03
I totally agree and I so feel. So what you were just sharing about is you and I had a friend years closer than mine, but we had gone on a backpacking trip with this beautiful soul and we could tell that there was addictive behaviors and she was openly honest about it, but we didn’t know the extent to how it was eating her up inside truly. You know, like you and I were kind of witness to some behaviors and we’re like what’s going on there, but it wasn’t so glaring. It’s not like she’s living on the streets or stealing or something like that.

Polly Mertens: 30:39
And drug from girls in arms.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:42
Right, yeah, yeah. And that’s so much suffering going on with that going on. And I just want to say when I used to host people in eating disorders, I had this one gal from Australia reach out to me one time. She was this young gal, I want to say like 16, 17 years old, and she reached out to me on my blog and she said my therapist tells me that there’s no hope for me, that people with eating disorders, never recover.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:10
And today that burns me so bad I made a video instantly. I was like, oh hell, no. I was like, let’s be clear.

Polly Mertens: 31:19
Wow so.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:20
I want to say. So, two things I want to say, just about story. So my story was 20 years and it turned around, and I turned it around like that. So, yes, if eating disorders or anything like that is in your realm of your life the people listening to this you can turn around. I even, like, within a year of that or two years of that email, I had a woman approach me who had been, who had been a bulimic for 40 years. Wow, yeah, and turned her life around. Yeah, and I was even surprised. I was like, wow, you know, like it. So Just know that it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been suffer I mean, like we are not wanting anyone to suffer and it doesn’t matter what the choice of suffering is abusive relationship.

Polly Mertens: 32:04
Again, there’s so many other things that can cause the suffering. Yeah, you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:10
I think you and I are here to just be a wake-up call. Hundred percent, that percent, if nothing. You know, like you know, one of the things we most wanted people to get from this is Life was meant to feel good and if it doesn’t, you have the power to change.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:25
If you get nothing else from this segment, say it again, thank you, preach it. If you get nothing else from the segment, life is meant to feel good, and if it doesn’t, you have the power to change. Yeah, and I think you know, if we can just echo that through the stories that you’ve heard here today. You know what is the process, sure, but if you do nothing else but to remember, like a little mantra in your mind, you know I’m going on my life like that, steve Jobs quote I wake up each morning. Life isn’t feeling good. I’m, you know my body’s not feeling good, right, it’s. Knowing it can change. I can change it, I will change it, mm-hmm, right.

Samantha Pruitt: 33:04
And then, taking one step, one small step, you know everybody’s life is gonna look different. Yeah, we’re not here to say like, oh, you’ve got an addiction. This is step one. Step two, step three. The first step is getting honest with yourself, like, oh, this isn’t feeling good for too many days, not. And you know there’s something I really wanted to say too, because we can say, oh, and then you reach out for help, or you take a class, or you, you know, throw away your job.

Polly Mertens: 33:27
Wake up with your partner.

Samantha Pruitt: 33:28
There’s all sorts of things to do. That sounds fun, and what I what I was, you know asking you about and you Recognize it for yourself, and I’ve seen it too is you don’t know what’s all gonna happen. You have no idea. That’s the beauty of it, yeah, so.

Samantha Pruitt: 33:44
I don’t even want to know so when I’ve sat in those dark ass moments of like, oh my god, I have this, what’s gonna happen next? But any step you start taking in that new direction Gets you out of the pain and the suffering that you’ve been in. Yeah, anything literally can start to help. Just making the decision, that relief. You know not to go much and start small.

Polly Mertens: 34:08
You don’t have to absolutely shatter the building or burn the place down. Even though I’m a super fan of all those things, you don’t have to go that route. You can be super subtle about it, start with the small thing, but that one step leads to another and leads to another and eventually, as we know, like the shift is, oh my gosh, once you build momentum.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:30
Yeah, well, when I was coaching my clients in so I did a lot with habits and addictions and you can imagine like the trajectory of their ship I used to tell them you know, your life is like a cruise ship, right? So it’s cruising through this big ocean called your life. It doesn’t turn on a dime Mm-hmm, like you don’t want it to. Like the people in that ship would not feel good. If I’ll earn, we take it hard, right. Yeah it’s like seasick, yeah. So pivot, I think, is a great word.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:54
I love this idea and it’s very. It’s gaining popularity and momentum because it is a pivot. It’s not a right turn, it’s not. I mean sure, like you said, you could burn the house down or burn the building down and like see, yeah, I’m just speaking for myself, all those things. There are times when major intervention is the best medicine for what you need a new guy. And it could be small, like I’m gonna eat one, you know, one more meal a day because I’ve been starving myself, yes, something. Or I’m going to make one more phone call and touch somebody’s life because, you know, I’m not, I’m not in communication enough and I feel lonely, right, yes? Or I’m gonna find things to be grateful for in my every day. I’m going to look at the flowers in my garden or in my neighbor’s garden or just outside, or breathe the fresh air that I’m so grateful that it’s here for me every day, every day.

Polly Mertens: 35:41
Yeah, if you’re rebuilding your health, like I’ve done, or your career, or your relationships, all the things that we’ve done many, many times it’s small, gradual but consistent Steps right, you know, and what one of the things I used to share with my clients is okay, and then this applies a lot to addiction.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:59
But this applies it to adhere is change is Uncomfortable in the beginning, like you’re gonna do something uncomfortable, you’re gonna talk to somebody, you’re gonna say something, you’re gonna stop doing something, you’re gonna start doing something. Something’s gonna be a bit uncomfortable. There’s gonna be resistance in the beginning. Yeah, and guess what next step is messy, like it doesn’t go from uncomfortable to, you know, freestyle skating or something. It’s actually kind of messy in the middle, mm-hmm, and in the end it’s awesome. You get that. You get that new life, you get that new trajectory and you know you can look at the trajectory of that cruise ship and it’s going in the direction that you want it going in. Yeah, and you’re the captain of that. Yeah, like that’s that’s your, that’s your doing and in nothing else you know there’s. We just want to plug this book again. I think it’s been marvelous, I’m enjoying lots of quotes from it and I think you know one of things she says and we would echo is it’s your compass, it’s your ship, it’s your life. Right, if it’s not feeling good, change it.

Polly Mertens: 37:02
All right. Well, I think that’s a wrap, darling, if the Sun is setting here in the le Quinta co final thoughts for our audience.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:09
I would just say Checking in with yourself. You know, when we get those busy lives, we get distracted from how we feel and what matters most. Or, as Steve Jobs would say, every morning I went and I checked in with myself. So are you checking in with yourself? So, checking in with yourself, see how you feel. Too many days in a row of not feeling good, not feeling well, frustrated, whatever. It’s time, it’s time for a pivot. It’s time for a pivot.

Polly Mertens: 37:36
Yeah, and I would just add that we are here and available. People can reach us. We’re reachable, we like people and we really like messy lives, because we’re living big, audacious, messy lives ourselves, for sure, and and yeah, it’s never perfect, right.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:53
I mean, like we have our stories because we’ve lived through a lot of a lot of yuck and and whatnot. So you know two things we would say is to remember how your life feels is more important than how it looks and Every day is a new opportunity to find your awesome.

Polly Mertens: 38:10
Yes, let’s find awesome together.

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