CwL Ep98: Stories of Change with Belinda Smith

Lisa Corduff:

Hey, it’s Lisa Corduff. Welcome to the podcast where you can expect inspiring, raw, energising, and transformative conversations with people on the path of personal evolution. I’m here to really live my life. And if you are too, these conversations are just for you. I’m really glad you’re here. Enjoy. It’s always a nice day when I am staring at the face of the beautiful Belinda Smith. Hi Bel.

Belinda Smith:

Hey Lisa. You always say the sweetest things even when you’re feeling like the grades are coming out a bit too much. It’s time to do something about that.

Lisa Corduff:

Stop it. Ageing is a whole thing and we can, I don’t know, I’m just choosing to embrace.

Belinda Smith:

Yeah.

Lisa Corduff:

You are gorgeous but look at that smile. I’m really glad that you are here today because I love your story of change. I’ve loved watching you. I mean, this is not the first time I’ve had you on the podcast. Is it?

Belinda Smith:

I don’t know. A long time ago, maybe.

Lisa Corduff:

Because I met you when you were travelling around Australia. I mean, this is a thing. You’re a really interesting person who has lived a really interesting life. And I admired you from a distance for a long time. I mean, who sells up their house in Sydney, buys a bus, does it up and then travels around Australia teaching kids about what’s in their lunch boxes? I mean, it was so inspiring to watch. And we met one night on the Gold Coast. We had dinner with some mutual friends and I was invited along. I’m like, yes, I’m going to go meet this amazing woman who does this crazy thing. Who is she? And then we’ve always stayed in contact.

Lisa Corduff:

You’ve been an extraordinary friend to me. You and Israel met Nick. We had a lovely lunch together and I value you as a human and as someone who is living out her passion and lives in a state of service to that passion and to the health of kids and families everywhere with such integrity. You have a huge amount of integrity. You’re super smart. And I am just so glad to know you. And then to think that a cheeky little programme called Ready for Change actually had an impact on you that helped you accelerate into just even being more of the amazing Bel Smith. That is very, very humbling and makes my day. So I’m really excited to have you here to share that.

Belinda Smith:

Oh my gosh, what an introduction. I remember that dinner because I was thinking the same as, oh my God, I’m going to get to meet Lisa Corduff tonight. So interesting, isn’t it? The stuff that goes on? But yeah, look Ready for Change really did blow my mind.

Lisa Corduff:

Well, I mean, you’ve done a lot of amazing things, but where were you at in… Did you do it in 2019? What was going on?

Belinda Smith:

Yeah, it was the very first Ready for Change.

Lisa Corduff:

Very first Ready for Change. So where did you feel stuck? Why were you like, oh, yes, I need to do this?

Belinda Smith:

I felt like my world was crumbling. So we had travelled Australia, sold our house, travelled Australia for two and a half years. National TV, radio, newspaper, everything really felt like I was making a difference. And then my daughter was due to start high school and Israel was ready to stop travelling. So we parked our bus on a block of land that we bought and we were living in that and I was really missing the vibe from travel, seeing people all the time. I was devastated. I know it sounds stupid, but 24/7 in a 20 square metre bus with kids for two and a half years. I really loved being that close with them. And so when they were going off to school, I literally cried every single day. It was almost to the point that I would sit in the assemblies and up the back, balling my eyes out about the fact that they weren’t with me. It was really crazy.

Belinda Smith:

And then of course I was dealing with the fact that I needed to find a new way to operate my business because the bus would precede us. Wherever we went, people knew the big green bus was rolling into town. And well, when the big green bus stop rolling into town, how did people know what I did? So I was struggling with all of that. Plus I knew with everything I learnt from travelling around, that there were still people reaching for me from WY, from Queensland saying, can you come here? And I knew I couldn’t keep leaving my family behind because I was doing that for a while. And so I started to train up other people. So things started to shift there as well. So everything just felt like it had been lifted my whole life for the last two and a half years. Everything I’d built felt like it was on one of those rugs that you throw all the liquor in and you pull it up.

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah.

Belinda Smith:

I felt like it had been pulled apart and all the liquor ripped off it. So that’s pretty much. And I had been giving evidence to parliamentary committees about what I’d found around Australia. And my work had just been mentioned in parliament, but none of my recommendations had actually been taken forward. And so I was ticked off. I was literally so pissed off that bureaucrats and the food and beverage industry were getting to say how things should work for our kids. So I was filthy dirty with that. So I’d started writing a book as well. And at the time for Ready for Change, I had invested so much time into that book, but I had shelved it because I thought, oh, this is actually going to ruffle feathers and people won’t like me and I’ll never get work. And yeah, I was in a mess.

Lisa Corduff:

Just popping in with a quick little reminder that our 30 Days to 30 Ways to make life easier is about to kick off. It’s almost time for our pre-order sale to disappear. So if you are interested in the most delightful helpful spacious audios to be entering your earbuds over the next 30 days, that will help you just strip back and make life easier day to day, then go ahead, secure the discount straight away via the URL in the show notes. Okay. Let’s get back to the conversation.

Lisa Corduff:

You were in a bit of a mess. So you came on in and you started to work through the programme. Tell me what some of the big light bulb moments were. I mean, just before we were talking about one of your core values being freedom, were you aware of your values? I mean, you seem to be someone who does live her values.

Belinda Smith:

I don’t think I had labels. I think integrity is one of my top three. I was a bit of [inaudible 00:08:31] at school. So I’ve always had that value, but I never knew that it was a value. But yeah, I had no idea. And freedom is a big one that’s been challenged quite a lot through COVID because our business was all schools and when schools closed up, there were no schools, so no business.

Belinda Smith:

So I’ve had to question, do I really want to keep doing what I’m doing? Do I need to find another way or do I just say, you know what, I’m turning my back on children’s health, someone else can try to be a stand and all of that? So yes, the values were highly powerful, because it made me start to ask. When things were uncertain, it was like a real check-in. If I did this, like if I stopped standing for children’s health and went and got a job down at the local resort cleaning toilets, would I be integrity for what I want to stand for my kids? It wouldn’t give me the freedom. And so that was my barometer.

Lisa Corduff:

So good.

Belinda Smith:

Actually, no. I can’t do that. I’m sorry.

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah. And isn’t it like, because so many times we find it hard to make decisions, those big decisions, and I love my values as little signposts. Like, “Hey, this way.” That’s going to feel off or this is the reason why it’s feeling off is because, even although it might make sense on paper, it’s actually not who you are or what you want. So I mean, a lot of the times, and you’ve seen it now, I mean, you’ve done Ready for Change, Live the Change, and you’ve been in this work for a while. And I think what happens is that when people come in or I think just the way that we’re brought up, what society tells us is that a lot of the reasons why we can’t get what we want or live a way that feels good to us is due to circumstances that are outside us. And what Ready for Change does is put a spotlight on, like that stuff still exists.

Lisa Corduff:

And I think COVID has been amazing at that, at showing us like, “Yeah, sometimes your external circumstances are immovable and they’re actually going to really impact how you feel.” For sure. Undeniable. However, what role are we playing in this? How might without even consciously being aware of it most of the time are we limiting ourselves? So I would love to know from you, what were some of the stories, the beliefs that came up for you that you realised, oh, that’s why I might have shelved the book, oh, that’s why I found myself here. Can you remember some of those early stories?

Belinda Smith:

Well, the first one was imposter syndrome. Like who am I to be writing this book? Because I don’t have letters after my name. Right, that is a really big one. And even to this day I still sometimes catch myself in that because I’m always up. For every couple of years, there’s got to be the next big thing that I do. First, the book, now it’s like a TED Talk and I’m finding myself again, like who am I to think that I can do a TED Talk? So I’m constantly, this work is so powerful because I would hate to think if I hadn’t ever done this, how much I would’ve limited myself fascinating.

Belinda Smith:

So yeah, imposter syndrome was a big one. The fear of not being liked for saying things that offend people. And now it’s like hee. Israel used to say to me on the bus, “Bel, what would Jamie Oliver do?” And while I was in the bus, I felt like I had balls of steel. I could just say what I want, I’ve got the platform. But when we didn’t have that as the icon. I started to play small again. So RFC really made me realise that like, you know what, it’s got nothing to do with the bus, everything was in your heart. That whole fear element was huge.

Belinda Smith:

The money comes up and just thinking about, can this work in a different form? And yeah, I just think… And like I said, the values were so important for that and your little formula around becoming unstuck. Just really asking myself, okay, let’s be real, is this going to happen 100% of the time? Well, if not, it’s total BS, and just everything, pretty much everything that stops you when you ask yourself that question, it is the yes.

Lisa Corduff:

This is true 100% of the time, is there ever a time where this might not be true? And if that’s the case, then you’ve just latched on to something, told yourself it enough that you believe it as a truth, but really it’s just a story. And then you have to choose new stories. I love that you bring up imposter syndrome because it is so common and the fear of not being liked. You have a big platform, you have something to say, you do stand for something. I love how you keep on saying that you stand for children’s health. But it plays out in women’s lives, in all sorts of ways. Like we stay small or silent sometimes in our most intimate relationships because we don’t want to ruffle feathers. Like you said, ruffle feathers.

Lisa Corduff:

We say yes to things like volunteering at school when we’re actually already completely overwhelmed in our lives because we just want people to like us and we want to be likable and we want to… I see it happening all the time. And so I just wanted to reflect that if people are like, oh, well that’s not me because I mean, I don’t have a mission like Bel does or something like that. It’s actually a bit more insidious than that. And you think about all the people who sit and they are in corporate roles or whatever, in roles where they’ve got a boss, or they’re competing with other people for a role. And they let that, oh, well, I won’t even put my hand up because I don’t have as much experience as that. Or I’ve only been here for two years and other people have been here for 10, really, it’s not my turn. Who would I be to get that role? Everyone will hate me if I do.

Lisa Corduff:

And we just sit back. We just sit back and we don’t go for it and claim what might be exactly the right next thing for us. It actually drives me wild because I think about the world right now and how we actually need women activated beyond these fears. It’s always going to feel scary. It’s always going to feel scary to do something like that. We’re always going to be worried if someone doesn’t like us or if things that we say might upset someone else, but we have to say them sometimes too. And we have to go for it. We have to be a bit bolder. And the only thing, the biggest thing that gets in our way isn’t actually the stuff out there. It’s how we’re talking to ourselves.

Belinda Smith:

Oh, 100%, the mind chatter. Catching the mind chatter is just, I think one of the biggest things for me was, I think it’s the very first module we do with floor chambers and the meditation. I think it was about four times, I listened to that to give myself the freedom to actually really dream and stop squashing it. It was really, really fascinating to end to, why did I do that? And I think I even spoke in one of our Q&As where whenever I went to a toilet cubicle, I would go to the second one because I couldn’t go to the first one because I wasn’t worthy of going to the first bloody cubicle in the toilet. Just monitoring your behaviour, the stupidest little things.

Belinda Smith:

So whilst, RFC gave me massive freedom, it gave me the courage to go out and publish my book. Like, just get off the fence, you’ve been writing it for 18 months. Just get off the fence. It actually massively shifted my home life as well. My relationship with my husband totally changed because we’ve always had a very close relationship, particularly like I said, living in a small space for two and a half years and working in business together, we’d worked in business together for 17 years.

Belinda Smith:

But discovering that, in a way, I had submissive behaviours and like, okay, dad has previously had depression and suffered so that we’ve got to walk on eggshells, waking up every day, thinking about, what do I need to do today to keep him happy? And if I hadn’t had done the RFC work that led me into LTC, I would never have gotten to the point of recognising that as an unhealthy behaviour for myself, let alone for him. Because of course, we did discover that and come clean with him, he then was like, well, thank God, because this is how I feel every day. So this work is so powerful and you’ve got to be prepared to get uncomfortable, really uncomfortable.

Lisa Corduff:

What were the ripple effects you guys acknowledging that there was this pattern of behaviour that maybe wasn’t super healthy? What happened? Because I think actually a lot of people are scared. People are always like, does this mean I’m going to end up leaving my husband? Or things aren’t okay, I don’t know if I’m ready for change. And it’s like, I actually think, what I’ve seen from the women who’ve joined is that they can have really big light bulb moments about things that they’ve been themselves for a very long time, ways of being that they have normalised for themselves, that when they put a spotlight on it, they’re like, oh, maybe it’s not true that I need him to be this and this and this and this so that I can be this and this and this.

Lisa Corduff:

Well, if that’s not the case, who am I bringing to this relationship? Where’s my level of responsibility for what’s going on here? And one person in the relationship having that moment can actually be the most powerful thing to bring things that you’ve been missing and a dynamic that actually ends up being more mature, more nuanced, more loving than you could imagine. That’s what I see from a lot of women, is that their relationships that they thought might have been on the edge get better. But how does that actually work for you because I’m interested in this because sometimes I think the other thing that I hear is that women are like, well, I’m changing and he’s not, what if I change and he doesn’t? Or doesn’t receive things well.

Belinda Smith:

Well, yes, I think that is a risk, but then it comes down in a way to who you are being when you are in that space of talking. So what I actually really discovered myself, it was quite ugly, is that I was living from a place of control and fear. Everything was around making sure that this didn’t happen, so that didn’t happen. Just constant. No wonder I was bloody or always tired. No wonder I was always stressed because you’re just trying to control so much. Well, the really ugly part was in doing that and thinking that I was doing it from a place of love was actually making him feel small.

Belinda Smith:

And when I come clean and he was then able, it was like giving him wings. All of a sudden he didn’t need to be like up in that cocoon anymore. He was able to be himself and it really was a catalyst for a massive shift because it gave him permission to actually say, look, I love and I’m passionate about what you do, but it’s not my passion. I don’t really want to be in the business anymore. So yeah, huge, really huge. And in fact, I’ve learnt so much about myself in that process. That that’s what I take into my work now with people is, like nutrition starts way before eating. It’s all stuff that’s going on. The stories we’ve got in our backpack around food at the dinner table when we were there, all of that.

Belinda Smith:

And it took me seeing that in my own household to actually really identify it. And so now I always talk it about, are you coming from a place of control or fear or is it loving support? Are we positively expecting that things that your child, who’s a picky eater? At some point in time when they’re ready, they will get it. Or are we like so fearful that they’re not going to get the nutrition, that we keep badgering them and then they build up anxiety and we don’t even realise it’s going on. This work is so powerful because it gets you to actually recognise in yourself behaviours you didn’t even know existed.

Lisa Corduff:

Yes. Oh, so much. And it’s so interesting. I think food is so fascinating when it comes to stories. And I mean, you know that I started out with just teaching people simple whole foods and I’ve ended up teaching about more mindset related stuff because I realised that anyone can follow an eating plan if they’re a person who likes following eating plans. Now the majority of people don’t want to follow someone else’s plan or they don’t identify as being someone who is needing to be told what to do. And who is it that thinks that there is a one size fits all solution to every single family or human on the planet? There just isn’t. The whole concept of just do this and you’ll be healthy is so backwards. And yet we can even get that, but we still hold ourselves up to this crazy standard.

Lisa Corduff:

It’s a total mind fact. And I think when you witness it playing out in people like you would in your work, it does make you realise your own stuff, but it makes you realise just undeniably that the game is mental a lot. But not to say that once again, I do think financial constraints, time constraints, health constraints, are real for people. I know for me, especially in that year following Nick’s passing, even just becoming a solo parent, I was not cooking and eating in the same way that I always had or that I had been since my kids, there’s been a lot introduced to my kids over the last two years of lockdowns and how do I make life feel exciting? And oh my God, I’ve got no energy. I’m so over food and cooking, oh my God, Uber eats time. And I just don’t make it mean anything because I know the foundations and I know that life has ups and downs and it’s all going to be okay. It’s the way I think about it that’s going to give me more angst than anything else.

Belinda Smith:

Uh-huh, 100% because you’ve got to think of it like a notion, people have fallen off the wagon, have fallen into bad habits. Well, no, is that actually really true? Because you’ve been here before and you’ve got out, right?

Lisa Corduff:

Right. You’ve already got proof.

Belinda Smith:

Yes. And that’s the simplicity of RFC. Why do I keep saying RFS? Anyway, that simple question you ask yourself is, is it 100% true 100% of the time? It’s so cold because you will always find that actually, no, you know what, my daughter doesn’t eat cucumber now, but she used to, so maybe one day she will in the future. It is all BS. So we just need to give ourselves that permission and really, really question. I think, be curious, always be asking yourself the questions like, is it true? What am I making it mean? Like, what am I making it means huge? It’s the same as when you’re having conversations with your kids at that age. My daughter’s at that age now 15, and it’s a whole new different dynamic. She’s just bought us off a car.

Lisa Corduff:

What?

Belinda Smith:

I know.

Lisa Corduff:

She’s not that old. No, this is not happening.

Belinda Smith:

And I’m like in my head, I instantly went into that whole mother thing behind the welfare, blah, blah, blah. And you just really have to catch yourself. And I don’t think I would’ve got that awareness had I have not done this work. And so, I mean, you pay for it once, but it is a lifetime. There is always another layer of the onion to pull back because every area of your life changes daily. You don’t wake up today, the same as yesterday. Your family don’t wake up. You don’t know what goes on at school. So it’s just always different.

Lisa Corduff:

There will always be things that trigger you and surprise you that they’re triggering you. That question of what am I making it mean, and being a meaning-making machine, I think also really comes into play in our relationships too. It’s like what you made Israel’s mental health issues mean, it’s my job to fix it and do all of this and this and this and this. And it’s like, well, no, hang on a minute. Let’s just put a question mark over that. Is that what it means? And I’ve found it a super question to be asking myself all the time, especially being in a relationship beyond my marriage, where you’re getting to know a whole new human who has 50 years of living and loving their own stuff.

Lisa Corduff:

He’s got stuff and I’ve got stuff, and to just be able to neutralise sometimes and go, hang on, I’m making an interpretation here. I actually don’t have the information that I need in order to be able to fully understand this. So I’m just not going to go down the rabbit hole. I’m just not going to go there for myself and start making interpretation after interpretation when, to be honest, it would just be making meaning of something I actually don’t fully understand. So I’ll just wait till we have a conversation about it and then I’ll decide. And I think it’s the same with our kids too. They’re this, they’re that, that means I am this, or I am that. It’s just this entanglement, isn’t it?

Belinda Smith:

And that, what are you making it mean, is so powerful because I mean, Israel discovered this about himself and I shared it with our members, because it’s a real food thing. He used to get so upset with the kids at the table with eating with their fingers. The cutlery is there and they’ll have their fork, but instead of using the knife to push it on they’d use their fingers. And so he would get so ticked off. And then when he actually stopped, because of course the beautiful thing is when you do something like RFC your partner then goes, oh, I want a bit of that kind of action. So they go and find their own stuff. So he started to ask himself those questions. And when he actually really got to, what am I making it mean, he realised that what upset him the most about them using their fingers was actually because if they went to a friend’s house and they used their fingers at their house, they’re going to actually think I’m a bad parent.

Lisa Corduff:

Wow.

Belinda Smith:

So it wasn’t actually about the kids. It was actually about him. Our job for our kids is to realise that they’re going to be meaning-making machines themselves. But everything that we learn and develop that we can try to instil in them as well. So I don’t know. It’s just like trying to do the best you can not to fuck them up as much that, we were like really. And we say that to our kids all the time, we’re just making it. I mean, did our parents have to deal with mobile phones, TikTok, freaking YouTube, Minecraft, pandemic, climate, Ukraine? No. So we are just making it up every day. And I just think when you become aware of the role that you play… I mean, awareness comes up obviously in RFC about really becoming aware. When you are awake to your role in stuff, you see the impact you have, like my 15 year old now I really have to practise when she gets home from school and she strips off and she’s like into a pyjama straight away which is a daily thing. That’s cool.

Belinda Smith:

And she just goes on and I’m thinking, oh my, really? I’ve actually had to learn rather than going to the problem solving which is me just trying to fix, which is another thing I discovered about myself, I’m a fixer, is I have to actually just say, do you need to vent or do you want advice? And, oh my gosh, that is a hard thing as a mom to learn that the best job that we can do is to let them learn themselves, not fix it for them all the time.

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah. Because that’s where power lies. We don’t want to raise kids who are just like mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, every second day when they’ve moved out of home. It’s like, what’s their own internal. And of course we can provide that in that barometer of, does this feel good? Does that feel good? And ask them leading questions. But ultimately it’s helping them learn how to help themselves really. Me and my story of co-dependence and absolutely thinking that I needed a solution for everyone. Nick used to say to me, stop, solutionizing, don’t need a solution, stop solutionizing. And I’d be like, yeah, but it’s so obvious to me that this, and why don’t you just try this or here, have you listened to this podcast, this really will solve your problems. Here’s a cheeky little book that I’m just going to put under your pillow and it’s actually arrogant.

Lisa Corduff:

It’s actually not cool to think that you in your humanness and all of your flaws and all the shit you’ve got to work through, actually know what’s right for another person. We don’t. And we act as though we do and we get into control and we make it mean like, this is what love is and if I’m not doing this and if I’m not coming up with solutions and if I’m not finding a way, then I’m a bad person. And as you said, it devalues that other person and their own journey through things. And I mean, yeah, for sure, I am finding that absolutely fascinating to catch myself in and to work through in a new relationship, because I’m like, well, that’s a grown human over there. And we both felt really funky since having COVID, it’s just really flat, really.

Lisa Corduff:

And I’ve been doing stuff for myself and I’ve been conscious not to dance around or try to make things better aside from just being supportive and being there. But it’s like, you know yourself, you know what you need to do. And off he goes he is doing the things that he knows he needs to do to try to feel better and vice versa. But it was funny because it’s so much that I’m learning about post-COVID health and all of that sort of stuff. You want to just say, I’ve read this, this has really helped me. But not like you should blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Same with my kids. It’s always about how does that feel in your tummy? I know we can all eat different things, but you just check in with yourself how you’re feeling.

Belinda Smith:

Yeah. So important. I mean, I think, stay in your own way. You bring in amazing experts into your programmes and Lisa Carpenter does the programme not only to get Lisa caught off, but you get Lisa Carpenter.

Lisa Corduff:

She’s amazing.

Belinda Smith:

Her voice, stay in your own lane, is something I hear all the time. Like, is this actually really my shit? Like, do I need to get in that puddle with it?

Lisa Corduff:

Yes. Oh, God. Yes.

Belinda Smith:

I have to say it’s not always easy because when you are habitual, like this is what you have been doing for 50 years. Well, actually I’m 50. I haven’t been doing it for years, I’ve been doing it for a lot of years, at least 20 in this relationship. It’s hard to catch yourself, but so many times I can tell you where I’ve actually heard myself. And I know that if I hadn’t have heard that little voice, I would’ve got in that puddle, I would’ve kicked around in the dirt. We would’ve both had mud and crap all over us. It’s actually really so much more peaceful for yourself and for your partner when you can actually just disengage. Hands off the wheel. Let it go.

Lisa Corduff:

It’s not mine, this is yours.

Belinda Smith:

Yeah.

Lisa Corduff:

So tell me just to finish up, what have been just the major changes for you? What would you say maybe… And you’ve alluded to this a lot throughout like the book and all of that sort of thing, but where do you think you are now? And even Israel too, because I mean, he’s had some pretty big changes off the back of you kicking off your own changes. Where are you right now and why does it feel better?

Belinda Smith:

I think because I’ve actually really become present to that, there’s stuff that’s always going to go around outside of you and you can either be a victim to the circumstance or you can go, okay, that’s what’s happening, what can I do? Like what can I control for myself? And just always coming from a place that around the edges, anyone can say anything, you have the choice about how do you want to make it feel. Like, do you want to take it on, do you not want to take it on? We really are the master of our own destiny. And I’m coming up against that even now. Like COVID with schools closing down and had to change the models of my business. So we had to start to go online and now schools are going back. You’ve got no control over whether it works.

Belinda Smith:

So a couple of weeks ago I was due to be in a school. I had left home due to be in a school and then I had to return because my daughter got COVID and we had to go into at ISO. So I’ve just had to reshape that side of the business again so that we can not have to worry about going into schools. If someone gets COVID, then another instructor can step up and we can do it remotely. So it’s always knowing that all of that’s happening out there, but we can actually still move forward. We don’t have to be the victim of what’s going on out there. We have that power right in ourselves. So that’s massive. And I really do. I know that my kids are seeing that and I know that they’re changing for themselves. I mean, my daughter last night and I was having a chat about feelings, big conversations that I would never have had the language or the inclination to do before.

Belinda Smith:

And it’s actually like work that’s going to be so powerful for her because she can put a label onto things about how she’s feeling rather than I’m just angry. Yeah. But why, where are you on this spectrum?

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah.

Belinda Smith:

So as a parent, I would never have had those conversations, very different. And I guess the other thing, the synchronicity of timing your programme came along, obviously just at the right time. Because I was prepared for when COVID hit. I was okay, right, that’s out of my control. What do I need to do? But also, because not long after that Israel’s dad took his own life and had we not done RFC, and Israel done his own work, I’m pretty sure that the circumstance of his dad taking his life would’ve fundamentally affected in a negative way, what went on in our family. But we were able to take a step back from that and really look at it and go, yes, okay. It’s horrific, it’s sad. I got the right to be angry, but I can also be really like, what did I learn from my dad? What a gift all of this is?

Belinda Smith:

So I know it’s not just talking about today. I’m just thinking that it’s so profound that when you really embody it… And I guess in some ways I’m, I’m a bit of a lurker. I value not being on social media all the time and I don’t want to be turning up everywhere. And so I was quite a lot of the time, but when I really like some of those lessons were like, wow. Just so huge. And I think for anyone that’s out there, if you’re thinking, I don’t know if I want to uncover stuff about myself, or I don’t know what happens if my partner doesn’t get it. Just be curious. If you’re actually been thinking, sitting on a fence, do I really need this thing? I’d actually say, yes you do. Because if you’re thinking like, do I, do I not, then it obviously means that there’s something there. And you won’t look back. I mean, you will be confronted in a good way, in a really good way. And it is a ripple effect. It really is.

Lisa Corduff:

Yeah. Yes. I love hearing all of that. And we encourage people when they join to choose an area of their life that feels particularly sticky. And some people really do focus in on that area. Other people just cannot help, but have the principles that they learn, just shift things all over the place. And it’s always for the better. It’s never a bad thing for a woman to get curious about herself, discover stuff about herself. It’s actually freeing. It’s freeing when you think, oh my God, it’s not my fault. That was just sitting there. I took that on when I was 18 and I have literally not stopped telling myself that thing. Oh my God, well, I can get rid of that with the process that we teach. And then, oh my God, if that’s not real, I’m I can do the thing or I can say the thing.

Lisa Corduff:

It’s amazing. I love people also just knowing you, who might not have known you, even though I think everyone should know you, but just in case they don’t, we’ll have all the links of where to find you. And I think you’ve got your kids’ health quest coming up soon. I don’t know when this will go live, not this week, so not next week, but the week after probably. Will people be able to learn something from you if they’ve liked what they hear around food and stuff?

Belinda Smith:

Always. I mean, obviously I’ve got loads of stuff that I give away free on my socials, which is the root cause AU, but I am running an empowering kids master class on the 31st of March, two of them on that day and then one on the 1st of April. So if people have heard this before, then be sure to jump on to that. Otherwise, you could reach out through our support box and we might be able to click you a replay of that as well.

Lisa Corduff:

Awesome. We’ll definitely give everyone the link to that, and they could buy your book. Yours is still one of my favourite weekly emails to receive. Can I just say?

Belinda Smith:

Thank you.

Lisa Corduff:

So always jam packed, but that’s the integrity piece. You are in this because you really, really want to make a difference. And I think you’re doing a smashing job and I’m going to be cheering you all the way with your Ted talk. I can’t wait to see it. I can’t wait to see the continued evolution of Bel Smith because it’s an exciting ride to witness.

Belinda Smith:

Thank you. And I just want to say thank you to you and your team, obviously, because none of us can do what we do without our team. But yeah, the TED Talk is challenging me in more ways than I would’ve liked, but I would never have thought I could take it on had I have not got all the courage that I’ve got from doing your programmes.

Lisa Corduff:

I feel like you had it all the time. You just needed to get out of your own way. So I’m glad that you did. Thanks for sharing your story of change, Bel.

Belinda Smith:

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you everyone for listening.

Lisa Corduff:

Hey, if you want to learn exactly how to start moving through the stories that are keeping you stuck and you want to delve into these self-defeating thinking patterns that so many of us have, then I’ve got a free workshop that you can go and watch right now. In it, I highlight some of the main stories that I see women telling themselves that often lead women into a spiral of self-sabotage. You also learn how to let yourself off the hook a little bit more because when you understand how your brain is actually working to create this, then you feel a lot breezier about your life. Trust me.

Lisa Corduff:

In this workshop, you’ll also start moving towards the things that you want by the end. I absolutely promise you’ll have a new perspective on your next step forward, and that can be in any area of your life where you feel stuck. I can’t wait for you to go and check it out. It’s totally free. The link is in the show notes. Enjoy. Hey, if you are enjoying the conversation, then it would mean the world to me if you head over to iTunes and give us a rating and review. It really makes a difference. And it’s my intention to get as many of us involved in real conversations that really change the game as possible. Thanks so much for your help and I’ll see you in the next episode.