Do You Believe Change Is Possible? With Scott Mason

Have you ever wondered how significant life changes, like improving your health or quitting a job, affect your relationships? This week, I share my personal journey and the evolving expectations I've had for support from loved ones as I navigate personal growth. In this episode, we talk about the critical role of communication in fostering understanding and patience. Plus, I'm joined by my inspiring friend Scott, who opens up about his transformation from negativity to a mindset brimming with positivity.

Scott's story is a testament to the power of living in the present and letting go of past regrets. He shares how he once advised me to bury my head in the sand but has since had an epiphany that reshaped his life's outlook. We explore the benefits of daily practices like yoga and setting positivity alarms as tools for maintaining mental well-being. Tune in to hear about an uplifting listener story involving yoga with Adriene, and find out how small, mindful actions can dramatically enhance personal growth and well-being.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Change and Relationships
• 8:25 Epiphany and Transformation Through Positivity
• 17:23 Support, Positivity, and Personal Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Welcome back to the show. I've been pondering what I wanted to do this week's episode about and I was talking with a friend and I remembered that I had invited him onto one of my weekly Q&As in the private Facebook community for the podcast and I was thinking about how impactful it was having him on, because I truly believe that everybody has a story to share and it can be impactful for other people when we share our stories and because we all have ups and downs in our life and sometimes, when you're in a dark space, it can be helpful to hear from somebody who has been down a dark path or is in a rough space and how they have pulled themselves through it to work through and make peace with wherever they were at. And my friend, scott, was very willing to jump on and share his story and I really appreciated that and it was funny because, well, okay, here's the interesting thing. So when you decide to make a change in your life, everybody around you isn't necessarily. People react differently, right? So you've got some people that are like, yay, way to go, that's awesome. You've got other people who are like, oh, what are they doing? This makes me uncomfortable, I don't like it, and so they don't necessarily respond in a positive way. Or maybe they're just like, okay, well, I'm just going to kind of hang back and watch you, or they're going to step in and they're going to join you, or they just going to kind of hang back and watch you, or they're going to step in and they're going to join you, or they're going to completely fall away. And all of those different scenarios happen all the time.

Speaker 1: 2:29

It is not uncommon when somebody makes a decision to change something, whether it's their health or maybe how they're approaching their life, or they quit their job and move away. You know, whatever people's choices, which are their own choices but sometimes it makes people uncomfortable, and so that discomfort can sometimes be projected onto the person that is making the change. And so then the person who is deciding to make these changes sometimes they'll stop because they're like this is making everybody around me uncomfortable and they're not treating me well, or I'm getting a lot of backlash from whatever I'm doing. So then they stop. Or sometimes they continue forward and just keep doing what they're doing, because whatever they're doing is for themselves, which it's our job to take care of us. I'm not talking about hurting other people in the process. I'm talking about what are you doing to take care of you, and so everybody doesn't always respond to that the same way.

Speaker 1: 3:40

But one thing that I did want to bring up is how important it is, you know, if you are in a relationship and you're choosing to work on yourself and get to know yourself and do all the shit that you know, talk to your partner and say, hey, I'm working on some things with myself and I would really appreciate you and your patience and grace with me because I might be making some changes that you're not used to this version of me, and so sometimes just having that conversation can be helpful with whether it's your partner or people, just people in your life, and sometimes that can help because if you just start making changes and you don't necessarily give people a heads up, they're like what in the hell is going on here? I don't even know who this person is. You'll hear me reference in this episode that I'm going to share that one of the conversations that I actually had with multiple people was that people had said Shannon, you're just burying your head in the sand, and at the time I was actually I felt pretty hurt by those comments, but at the time I didn't really understand that everybody has their own path, everybody has their own journey, and I was going through what I was going through and expecting everybody to just be so on board with what I was doing. And, oh my gosh, it's so amazing and look at how happy she is and she's doing all these things to improve herself.

Speaker 1: 5:17

But sometimes I now understand that other people aren't necessarily in that space and aren't necessarily open to receiving what I am putting out there, and that's okay. And so I feel like I used to actually come at it from a little more of a judgmental space, because I was wanting people to come along with me and be with me and support me, and sometimes they supported me in a way that I didn't expect or they weren't necessarily supporting me the way I felt like I needed at the time. But again, at the time I didn't get that, but I get it now. So I have a lot more understanding and a lot less judgment when it comes to whether people accept what I'm offering and whether they don't, and either way is fine, because we are all on our own path and we are all on our own journey and however that looks for you is absolutely exactly as it's meant to be.

Speaker 1: 6:23

So things happen in divine timing, though, I can tell you, because relationships and things like that are something that came up for me today that I wanted to talk about on the podcast, and this is going to be the beginning, I think, of a little thing about relationships, but today, in this episode, I do have to say that we were having some internet issues, so there are a couple of spots that kind of drop out, but I feel like you still get the gist of the conversation. But I'm so incredibly proud of Scott. He is a very good friend of mine and we've been friends for years and have seen each other in some pretty rough spaces, and he has even after. So we recorded this actually back in February and he's had some other shit happening in his life and things coming at him and I'm just I can't even tell you how proud I am of how he's handled them and I just love being a witness to how he's really taken back control of his life. So thank you for coming onto the show, scott, and for being such a great friend, and I really hope that your story will impact at least one person, because I know it definitely has impacted me. So thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoy my conversation with Scott.

Speaker 1: 7:49

Oh, one other thing. So this was from a live Q&A and so there'sa couple of spots that I cut out um having to do with various other things going on in the show, but I do believe we got really the core message of our conversation. So leave me some feedback. Remember you can text me in the show description. Just click that link and send me some feedback. Let me know how you're doing and if there's anything I can do to support you. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and enjoy today's episode. Much love there we are. Everybody's going to be like what's going on. Shannon has a friend with her today. Oh, my goodness, there's my 10 AM alarm Today. It is what, if fear is an illusion? Let's ponder that one for a moment.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Let's take a look at that one first.

Speaker 1: 8:43

Yeah, hold on.

Speaker 2: 8:45

I got to put myself on.

Speaker 1: 8:46

I got to put myself on. Do not disturb If anybody's going to join us today. I'm going to mute you for a minute, scott. Ok, because I got got some things to say. Here I'm enjoying some Market Spice tea I need to get close to my microphone Market Spice tea with my Donald Duck mug. Donald Duck was one of my favorites growing up and now I have this super fun mug. So let me know, let us know if you're here and say hey in the chat and how is your week Got my list of a few things I want to chat about and, as you can see, my friend Scott is joining us today because he's a trooper. Let's see. Hopefully you have been listening in to the. Hopefully you've been listening in to the um. Hopefully you've been listening in to the uh mini series going on this week. I have had a lot of fun doing it and it's the series on where do I where do I begin?

Speaker 1: 9:49

So there've been a lot of little tips and nuggets in there and, uh, hopefully you've been enjoying it. So I decided to extend it and go into this week a little bit I'm not sure how many days, okay. So, okay, here we go. All right, scott, thank you for joining us today. So Scott and I have been friends for a really long time.

Speaker 2: 10:14

We've known each other for oh, here I'm going to.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Did you unmute?

Speaker 2: 10:18

I did. You're so awesome. Ok, if you want to meet me again, I'm good with.

Speaker 1: 10:24

OK, so Scott and I have known each other for several years several years, it's actually OK, here's some dirt. Ok, so Scott is best friends with one of my ex-husbands friends with one of my ex-husbands, so there's a little fun nugget for you. And several years ago Scott had some stuff going on in his life and we hadn't really talked for years because, well, I had divorced his best friend and I reached out and said, hey, I hope you're okay, and spewed some of my positivity. We've totally reconnected and hang out often and go for walks sometimes and it's been a lot of fun. And we had dinner this week. And so yesterday it was yesterday morning, right, scott.

Speaker 1: 11:15

But I was like, hey, I had a brilliant idea. Why don't you come on to the show this morning or onto the Q&A this morning? You're like, of course, because you're one of those amazing people that I'm just like, will you do this? And you're like, yes, so we were at dinner and we were chatting and on the miniseries this week I had talked about there being a time where I was talking with a friend and they had said, shannon, just bury your head in the sand. And I was actually referring to somebody else, but this came up the other day and I remembered that you had said that to me too, and I remembered that you had said that to me too. But also, while we were having dinner, an alarm went off and I was like what's that alarm going off on your phone, right? So, anyway, I just wanted to ask you to share a little bit about whatever you feel comfortable sharing with everybody.

Speaker 2: 12:11

I'm having a little bit of buffering on my end, so I apologize if we have a couple of streaming issues here. Yeah, shannon and I have been friends for a lot of years and we've definitely developed a relationship outside of the one that I've got, obviously, with my best friend, slash ex-husband, um, and I've been privy to being a part of shannon's journey. I'd like to think, uh, the majority of time as she's been undergoing this transformation, and when she started her journey, I was still all caught up in my emotions and all caught up in my stuff and it was all bleak and it was like whenever I walked into a room, there was kind of like this thundercloud over my head. And here comes Debbie Downer. So, yeah, I wasn't ready to accept a lot of the messages that Shannon was speaking about.

Speaker 2: 13:10

And then there just came a time, actually in the last few months, in which, in all honesty, I just kind of had an epiphany, and it was really multifaceted because it was why am I sitting here beating myself up over things in the past? Why am I worried about things that I can't control in the future? Why am I worried about things that I can't control in the future and why am I always worried about other people's reactions and their thought processes. So in doing so, in part of that epiphany was I decided to take control back. I wanted my life, I wanted to be happy, so I forgave myself for my past issues. I gave myself a break on that and I realized that the future is going to come, regardless of how much I worry about it or how little I worry about it. So it's important that we live right here, right now and we enjoy the moment. I meant what I said to Shannon at the time about sticking your head in the sand, because that was my perception.

Speaker 2: 14:28

But one of the big lessons that I've taken away is when you begin to radiate positivity and you begin to think in a positive way, you're not sticking your head in the sand. Your problems still exist. Relationship problems are still out there. Financial problems are still out there. You just you put them in a different perspective where they don't become overwhelming, and you put them in their appropriate position, in whatever it is in your life, and you just decide to move forward and accept situations as they come. Once again, you're not blowing them off or anything to that effect. You're just. This is life, and life is filled with. It's nothing but a group of experiences put together and the positive experiences, of course we we hold on to and we learn, and hopefully we we learn from the negative experiences, and that's just kind of what I've taken away. It's being here now enjoying what I've got and appreciating the moment.

Speaker 1: 15:38

I love this so much and you know we talk and have walked and, walked and walked and lots of talks and this is the culmination when you reached out to me a couple months.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yeah, sorry, this is. This is the culmination of a lot of work and once again, watching your transformation is just, you're motivating every single day.

Speaker 2: 16:03

I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've reached out to you and I've like, hey, check me on this, the lessons and the discussions and everything that we've had. I'm very proud to say that I, we seem to kind of be in flow when I do that, which I kind of give myself a little little pat on the back. It's like, oh, who grew up mature? Who grew up and matured a little bit.

Speaker 1: 16:26

You absolutely did and I love it and I get like it. Just, I can't even tell you I mean to just personally witness your growth and the journey that you've been on and you know you've shared a lot of really personal been working through over the years and just when you reached out I think it was a couple of months ago, I mean, obviously we talked, but you know you, you reached out specifically and you were like I got it, like what do I do? What do I do? I got to do something.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Yeah, and you're doing yoga. Yes, I know Weird. Uh, that was actually part of the epiphany, it's uh, I was kind of sitting there on my couch and I was like, okay, Scott, so you're going to sit here and you're going to think positive and you're not going to live in the past and you're not going to dwell on the future. Okay, what else are you going to do? You know, I'm a type two diabetic, so it's something that I have to kind of keep my eyes on. And you know, honestly, I enjoy going to the gym, but I live in a multi-tiered apartment complex and I really don't feel like going to Planet Fitness and I'm like, what can I do? That's cheap and easy. And I'm like YouTube. And then I remember that a friend of mine introduced me to yoga introductions on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 17:45

A friend shall remain nameless, um and yoga with Adrienne is amazing, yoga with Adrienne guys, and it's great because I mean she has everything from if I'm really tight on time, I'll jump on the floor and pull out the mat and do 10 quick minutes, or I got a few extra, I'll do 15. And you know we're getting up to 20. I've been doing it now for about three weeks and it's kind of already gotten. It's a habit now. Now I feel a little funky if I don't do it, but and I mean I'm not gonna lie I kind of dig the physical transformation. But it's, it's the emotional part of it that really is just amazing to me, because I'm reacting, you know, like when you run into a situation at work and normally you'd kind of tighten up and you'd get a little tense about it. It's, there's something about yoga that just gives you a calm, soothing feeling in which you're able to react to life's hurdles a little calmer and a little easier. So yes, props to yoga with Adrian.

Speaker 1: 18:59

I'm glad you've been enjoying that. So I'm just so fricking proud of you and I mean, even so, it was your birthday two weeks ago today, happy birthday and you sent me a picture. You were out to dinner with a friend and you sent me a picture and the smile on your face was just like oh my gosh, it's amazing and it feels so good to see you taking control of your life and doing all of these things that I know that you're feeling better and I can see it and it just it's radiating from you and I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

Speaker 2: 19:39

Thank you, and I'm proud of you too. I mean always. I mean everything you're doing today and everything that you're sharing with everybody is the world needs more people like you, and we need more people out there doing the service you're providing. So you keep doing your thing because you know. If you ever needed a testimonial, I'm here, because a lot of this is through your teachings.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Thank you. So let's talk about that for a second. Let's talk about the alarms, because it was really funny how you reacted when I called you out on the alarm, because I swear to God, I share this all the time and I know that people are like whatever, and maybe that's my own perception, maybe that's not really true, but you know, like if you go from where you know, when I first told you that I was doing it, oh, there you are, okay, no, it's really funny.

Speaker 2: 20:31

We should kind of set the scene here. So you and I are sitting in a busy restaurant at 6 pm a couple nights ago and my phone just vibrates. Nothing special, and you made, you immediately made that phone call could have been anything, but no, I do. I have these positivity alarms set on my phone that go off, and I mean they just kind of. And you made the connection in which my phone's vibrating, it's six o'clock and you're like, is that an alarm on your phone? And I could just see this overwhelming emotion, like somebody listened to me and it was, it was the absolute best.

Speaker 2: 21:17

And then, of course, you know I complete no, no, no, that's a bill collector. You know, no, the positivity alarms, I mean it's, it's something that's really simple. But I tell you I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting at my desk or something like that, and just that, stay strong or stay in the moment, or you know, you know being a depressive, reminding myself to not let the dark thoughts in, to stay the positive path. Just glancing at that for a second. I mean, every day at three o'clock it says you got this, and every day at three o'clock I go yeah, I do.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Oh, I love that. And what I also love is that you've taken it like I obviously do the positive what if? Questions or things like that but you've, you know you picked what works for you and what feels good for you and you know reminding yourself yeah, I've got this every single fricking day, every day, no matter what's going on, even at 3 PM when that pops up, you've got that reminder to like pull you back and I love the fact that you said that makes you happy, because that is such a big part of it.

Speaker 2: 22:24

You mentioned that picture from my birthday. That picture is now the wallpaper on my phone Because every time I look at that picture, I'm taken back to that moment and I look at that smile and I'm like that's genuine, that's not forced, that's not putting anything forward. This is me being me in this moment. Force, that's not putting anything forward. This is me being me in this moment. So I look at that picture all the time and I'm like, okay, this is you. No fronts, no protection, just allowing yourself to feel what you feel. Right then. And there.

Speaker 1: 23:00

Yeah, so happy. Scott. I wanted to pop over here into the chat because there are a couple of comments and one of them is thank you for sharing that. I needed to hear that this morning and that was you sharing your story and kind of where you started, and so thank you for doing that and love that Very powerful. So we all have the opportunity and I knew that you coming on and sharing would be a beautiful addition to today's Q&A. So thank you and I truly, truly appreciate you. You reach out to me on a pretty regular basis, like you good, even if we haven't talked for a little bit and that means the world to me too, because I've got all kinds of crazy going on all the time.

Speaker 1: 23:48

And you're like just check me too, Cause you know I've got all kinds of crazy going on all the time and you're like, just check, ben, I just I love.

Speaker 2: 23:53

I love the fact that you're there and I love the fact that we do this and I am so proud of you with everything that you're doing and mutual admiration society here because, yeah, seriously, you're doing great and I'm so proud and I'm so happy for you. So it was my pleasure to do this. Thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Yeah, absolutely, thank you, thank you. Thank you, You're welcome. You have anything else you want to say, scott?

Speaker 2: 24:21

The only thing I would leave with is when you're ready to make these changes and your heart's open and your mind's open. It doesn't have to be dark, it doesn't have to be bleak. I know that life can really do a number on all of us a lot of the times, but you can rise above, you can lift yourself up and you can be the best person that you want to be. And when you get there and you get on that journey, it's it's, it's so affirming. So stay strong, keep the course, you'll be okay, and you've always got people like Shannon and I to help in any way we can.

Speaker 1: 25:05

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, and I think we will leave it there for today, so I hope everybody has an amazing week and we'll be back next week, though that is it All right. I hope you guys all have a beautiful, beautiful week. Much love.