Betty Jean Bell wanted to be an opera singer since she was 4.  I mean, not just dream about it—she truly had a gift.  She actually began performing when she was 8. She had steep ambitions and clearly knew what she wanted to do all her life.  But then tragedy struck when she was about to start college.  She began to have terrible pain in her throat, which was caused by a medical condition that lead to surgery. Doctors told her that in order to heal, she would have to not speak for 18 months, let alone sing again. Her lifelong dreams crushed, she also began to face an ongoing slew of further illnesses one right after another. Betty Jean also had to deal with weight and mental health issues, including depression, panic attacks and even a suicide attempt. Then something changed. Today, Betty Jean is the founder of Being Badass. She’s a body confidence model and a weight loss coach. She teaches women how to stop overeating, stop the self-criticism, and how to learn to genuinely see their bodies with love.

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Betty Jean Bell:                 00:01                    Have you ever heard the knock knock joke about the interrupting cow? No, that was here. It. Yeah, so it’s like, knock, knock. Who’s there? Yo. Yeah, you can do it with me. I always tell them by myself, so knock, knock.

Kathy:                                  00:12                    Who’s there?

Betty Jean Bell:                 00:13                    Interrupting cow.

Kathy:                                  00:14                    Interrupting cow who?

Betty Jean Bell:                 00:15                    Moo! No, the cow interrupts you and says, moo!

Kathy:                                  00:24                    You’re such a goofball.

New Speaker:                    00:25                    I know. My angels are total goofballs.

Kathy:                                  00:34                    Hello and welcome to The Inspire Cafe podcast where we bring you conversations and inspirational stories of people overcoming adversity and then how they came out of it transformed with a positive outlook or outcome. People are incredibly resilient and we need to hear more of their stories. This is Kathy De La Torre.

Kathy:                                  00:56                    Betty Jean Bell wanted to be an opera singer since she was four. I mean, not just dream about it. She truly had to get, she actually began performing when she was eight. She had steep visions and clearly knew what she wanted to do all her life, but then tragedy struck when she was about to start college. She began to have terrible pain in her throat, which was caused by a medical condition that led to surgery. Doctors told her that in order to heal, she would have to not speak for 18 months, let alone sing again. Her lifelong dreams crushed. She also began to face an ongoing slew of further illnesses. One right after another, Betty Jean also had to deal with weight and mental health issues including depression, panic attacks, and even a suicide attempt. Then something changed today. Betty Jean is the founder of Being Badass. She’s a body confidence model and a weight loss coach. She teaches women how to stop over eating, stop the self criticism and how to learn to genuinely see their bodies with love. We’ll have links to Betty Jean on The Inspire Cafe.com and if you liked this episode, please do the favor of sharing it with the brand.

Kathy:                                  02:11                    We’re all about spreading inspiration here and if you new to The Inspire Cafe, don’t forget to go to TheInspireCafe.com to register for the Be Whole Be Free Virtual Summit. I’ll be one of over 40 guests talking about health and wellness. The summit is free and runs from August 12th through the 17th again, you can find the link at theinspirecafe.com homepage. Okay. Let’s get back to Betty Jean Story.

Kathy:                                  02:37                    Betty Jean, thank you so much for being here at The Inspire Cafe.

Kathy:                                  02:42                    I am so excited to be here. I love the show so much.

Kathy:                                  02:47                    Thank you so much Betty Jean and I love what I’m reading everything about you and listening onto your other interviews. So a Betty Jean, I understand you are the founder of Being Badass.

Kathy:                                  02:58                    I am.

Kathy:                                  02:59                    What cool title.

Kathy:                                  03:00                    That is right. I know I bought the domain back in 2009 and I’m like, what the heck am I even going to do with this? And then one day at a merge there was like, okay, I know what I’m doing here.

Kathy:                                  03:06                    Really? You bought the domain before you even knew what the business you were going to have.

Kathy:                                  03:14                    Totally. Yup. I don’t even remember why I bought it or why, but yeah, I bought it. I had it for like nearly 10 years before.

Kathy:                                  03:22                    So that’s another form of manifestation, right?

Kathy:                                  03:26                    Oh my gosh. Yes, totally.

Kathy:                                  03:28                    That’s awesome. Okay, so everyone’s going to want to know what is Being Badass mean. And what kind of services do you provide?

Kathy:                                  03:35                    We help women, especially like a lot of the women I tend to naturally attract. I didn’t even do it on purpose. They tend to be very driven type A women. Women who are leaders in their community or they have a business or they’re leaders in their work or career. And I help these women with, they come to me for weight loss. But what we really do is we help women stop overeating, stop self criticism, and truly learn to see their bodies with love. Because what I have found through my own experiences and then through the privilege of getting into coach so many women, is that when a woman loves the body she has, that’s when it becomes the body we want. So often, uh, when women, you know, are feeling run down or low energy or they see themselves in a picture and they’re like, oh gosh, I hate what I see. Their first thing is I want to take my health back. And immediately they want to start like a diet or join a gym.

Kathy:                                  04:28                    And, and what I’ve found is when we moved straight to action, it’s not sustainable. It is more of like a, it’s a conditional love, right? Like I will love my body when it is a certain dress size or when it’s, you know, meets these certain criteria. But what we have found is how much more powerful way to address, you know, physical transformation as well as really any kind of transformation. It isn’t a start with action, but it’s actually just start with the mindset behind that. Because people hear me say it on Instagram all the time. Our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings create our actions and our actions create our world, including our bodies. So what we really do at Being Badass is we help them and dig into why is it you want to lose weight? What do you think you’re going to get out of that? Like there’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight. I believe that weight loss and body positivity should coexist, but we, you know, 100% of our women, you know, they all lose weight, but that’s not where we start. So, so Being Badass, we start with the mindset and the relationship with food and body and, and then we heal that first and then we, I believe that self love is

Kathy:                                  05:33                    not mani’s and pedi’s or you know what I mean? Like if it’s like I need to take better care of myself, oh, I gotta get a massage. I don’t have the money for a massage. It’s like, well, the night it was a nice little parts, right?

Kathy:                                  05:43                    But we have found that I believe that self love is making our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing our top priority. And I find that when we do that kind of, everything else in our life starts to work and the weight just falls away. Okay.

Kathy:                                  05:58                    Pretty much everything goes into place. And when you start taking that into practice, right.

Kathy:                                  06:02                    Totally. So that’s kind of our approach to weight loss over Being Badass.

Kathy:                                  06:07                    I love the mantra that you were saying how it all starts with our thoughts. Yeah. And then you, you very wonderfully said that it begins with your thoughts and know we connect all those dots, It leads to our reality. So our thoughts create our reality or our environments.

New Speaker:                    06:26                    Totally. Yeah, totally.

New Speaker:                    06:27                    What a major connection that is. Yeah, and I believe that’s true.

Kathy:                                  06:33                    Yes, it is. Because I feel like, you know, again, when we go into just stay on the topic of weight loss, but true like you’re saying, it really does apply to everything because like women in our program, they come in wanting to lose weight, but by the end of it they’re like, oh yeah, I lost weight. But really that was just the cherry on top. I also like quadrupled my income or I found the love of my life or like all these other things happen and I’ve had so many interviews with graduates of the program who that’s what they were saying. They were like, man, the weight loss just became so secondary. Just kind of icing on the cake. But I was loving my life and loving myself and my body so much that it just totally changed the approach and the, the approach to everything in life, you know? Because I feel like the energy that we bring to one thing is the energy we bring to most things.

Kathy:                                  07:18                    Yes, that’s true. Okay. Jumping back.

Betty Jean Bell:                 07:22                    I know, I digress. Sorry.

New Speaker:                    07:25                    I could immediately drop into that realm of discussion, but this is The Inspire Cafe. So you talk about the stories of overcoming adversity and you have a very, very interesting story that stemmed all the way back to when you’re very, very small, actually. I understand that since the age of four, you’ve always wanted to be an opera singer. Is that right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 07:46                    Yeah, yeah. That’s where it all started for me. When I was four, I started singing and composing music and I, I don’t know, it just kind of was always my thing. So I, I started singing opera. I was in my first children’s opera is when I was eight. I’m like ages eight to 12 and I was studying at a college level, like taking voice lessons at the local university. That was what I wanted to do. It was my passion. So I was very focused and driven and I practiced every day. And that’s what I wanted to do with my life. It was not just my purpose and direction, but it was my creative outlet. It was my coping, you know, it’s my coping mechanism, everything. Music was everything for me. And then when I was 11 years old, I started to develop, my body started to develop and, and I developed before everybody else and I went from being this stick figure to looking like I had like a swimsuit model figure, you know, like hourglass and big old boobs.

Kathy:                                  08:38                    At eleven.

Betty Jean Bell:                 08:40                    Oh my God. At 11. so it got a lot of attention and here I’d been, you know, oblivious about my body before that. And so boys at school started to notice and unfortunately it wasn’t. I’m sure they all had crushes on me, but the way they communicate it was very abusive. So I started, like the boys at school started abusing me when I was 11 you know, seeing really, really hurtful things and leaving stuff in my locker. And it was just very physically and emotionally abusive from age 11 until I moved away until I was 17. I lived in very small town. So anyway, that was when everything started to really change for me. I had gone from being kind of oblivious about my body to suddenly being really self conscious and my whole life just kinda changed cause I never told any adults about what was going on with me and, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

Betty Jean Bell:                 09:31                    So music was my coping mechanism. And so I just saying a lot. But this whole time, all through high school I, I, you know, I started developing severe depression, panic attacks, anxiety. I had severe acne that I didn’t realize by the, had the early stages of a binge eating disorder. It was just, I didn’t, as a kid, I didn’t know how to process what was happening to me. And I wasn’t telling anybody what was going on and music was my coping mechanism. So 17 years old, it’s time for me to graduate high school and go off to college and all of a sudden my throat starts to hurt. And so it turns out I had really severe acid reflux. And this is 1997 so you know, [inaudible] wasn’t a thing yet. I was in one of the research studies for prior sec. It was very early in the understanding of a gerd and acid reflux.

Betty Jean Bell:                 10:19                    And I had one of the most of your cases in the country. And so the first doctor said, you’ll never speak again, let alone sing because I had such severe damage.

Kathy:                                  10:28                    Oh my God, you’ll never speak again, let alone sing.

Betty Jean Bell:                 10:31                    Yeah. And so that was devastating. So I tell my voice teacher this and she’s like, Oh, you are getting a second opinion. So she sends me down to North Carolina to a research hospital where they’re doing some of the leading research on acid reflux back then. And they didn’t say, they didn’t kind of curse me in that same way, but they did say, if you ever hope to sing or speak again, you need to not speak at all until we can figure out how to heal this for you. So for 18 months I was mute. And, and this is again 1987 so we didn’t have texting back then.

Betty Jean Bell:                 11:04                    So I’m carrying around a notebook and that’s how I’m communicating with my friends and I’m writing in my notebook and I’m a freshman in college and I can’t sing and I have all these music credits and, and it was just a really dark, difficult time for me. And again, I’d never told anybody why this was happening. I’d never told anybody about the abuse or any of the things that had happened. And so it really Kinda came to a head for me. I had my first reconstructive surgery to my stomach when I was 18,18 close to 19.

Kathy:                                  11:33                    and that was for the acid reflux?

Betty Jean Bell:                 11:35                    Yeah, for the acid reflux. And while it helps tremendously, I still had to do voice pathology for five years to learn to speak without pain. And for all my schools, they wouldn’t take me anymore. Now I had so much vocal damage, I couldn’t get back into school. They wouldn’t accept me, so I couldn’t sing opera anymore. So my opera career was over and I was really lost. And that’s the first time I kind of had like a PTSD snap and like all this stuff, everything started to come down kind of around me. But I did a lot of work, you know, like I, like I said, I went to voice pathology. I was very committed to trying to sing again during that time. So I did a lot. I started going to therapy. I started doing a lot of work for myself to, to start to heal. But, but after I lost my voice and I finally graduated school with kind of like a hodgepodge degree of like audio engineering and Metal Smithing, they’re are all these art credits. I’m like, what do I do to get out? You know? So I got this art degree, but I really had no idea what to do with my life after that.

Betty Jean Bell:                 12:35                    Because I had lost my, like single life focus, what I thought was my purpose. Yeah. And I also didn’t have a coping mechanism anymore for my life. Right. Um, and I was so lost so it got a lot worse before it ever got better. So after school, after college, I had always kind of been interested in entrepreneurship. So I got a job as a bookkeeper and an oil company out of college. I mean it was just like a Gig, but I’d never done accounting or bookkeeping or anything like that. So I was teaching myself accounting by night and then working as a bookkeeper all day.

Kathy:                                  13:07                    That’s awesome. Sure. I know how to do that. And you’re like cramming at night.

Betty Jean Bell:                 13:13                    Well, we got it. And that’s so story of my life. Oh my gosh. I was so good at getting myself into jobs. I want, I teach myself there. Um, it was really cool. So I did that. And then about six months in the manager just quit showing up to work. And so I just kept the business going. And so I ended up running this multimillion dollar oil company for like three or four years.

Kathy:                                  13:36                    Wow. So the, basically that was your first job at a college?

Betty Jean Bell:                 13:40                    Totally, but it was like by accident. So I never felt like I was an entrepreneur. Like I wasn’t ambitious. I was just like trying to keep my head above water. Right. But what was so cool is like I got all this amazing experience. Right. But again, you know, looking back, I didn’t know what I had at the time. I was just working and learning and I was still just struggling with like severe depression and lack of purpose. I just felt really lost all the time.

Betty Jean Bell:                 14:04                    So during that time, while I was running the oil company and, and like learning a lot, like I was learning new stuff every day. There’s so many aspects to that business. The owners of the company also happened to start a clean energy company. So I started helping with that, helping with operations while they were getting that started. So I was working these 16 hour days and really driving my body into the ground because again, if I had a moment of quiet the depression and the like, what am I doing with my life? Like it just really took over. So I threw myself into my work during this time in my life right there. Here I am 25 years old working these 16 hour days. Um, I am sick. Like I’m still sick. I still have the acid reflux, but it’s way more manageable now. But one of the things I didn’t mention is like when the boys started abusing you back in high school or middle school I should say, and all the way high school, I went from being this trim like horseback riding girl, you know, oblivious about her body and I put on all this weight because I had these early stages of binge eating disorder.

Betty Jean Bell:                 15:00                    It was a coping mechanism. So I put it on a bunch of weight. I had severe acne. I didn’t realize how inflamed I was, knowing what I know now. I had a lot of inflammation problems. I didn’t realize back then. So all of this was getting worse during these workaholic years when I didn’t want to be quiet and listen to what was going on. I didn’t know how to deal with how I felt. Right. And so, you know, at age 25 here I’m working these 16 hour days and all of a sudden I can’t see out of my left eye. Like part of the vision of my left eye goes out and I don’t know, I don’t even go to the doctor for two weeks cause I was too busy. So I get to the doctor, to the eye doctor and she’s freaked out. She’s like, oh my God, you need to get yourself to an emergency room right now.

Betty Jean Bell:                 15:43                    I’m like, why? And she was like, cause either you’re having a heart attack or you have multiple sclerosis. And I’m like, well it’s not a heart attack because I’m going with this for two weeks. So I went to the neurologist and ended up not being multiple sclerosis, but I had to go through all the tests and everything. It was optic neuritis and it was just like I was 25 years old. I had all these new diagnoses, like more diagnoses, and I can remember, but every year it was like I had a new diagnosis, I was on eight medications three times a day. It was just getting crazy. So, so I get to be about 26, 27 and I’m like trying to figure out how to change my life from all this workoholism and you know, how do I lose this weight? And so I did what any woman would do and I joined a gym. Right?

Kathy:                                  16:28                    Yeah, of course.

Betty Jean Bell:                 16:29                    Right. So the, the, you know, it was great. They had this great community there and so that was really awesome. But I was still working these really long hours and then I would immediately go to the gym. I was going to eight bootcamps a week.

Kathy:                                  16:39                    Holy Moly.

Betty Jean Bell:                 16:41                    Exactly. I was, you know, doing all this training, working out two to four hours a day because that’s what they’re telling me to do. And then I am eating 1200 calories a day cause that’s what they told me to do. So I’m massively under eating for my body, massively overworking, still working these long hours, operating on very little sleep and, and this goes on for years. So eventually you can kind of predict what happens, right?

Kathy:                                  17:06                    Sure. Something gave.

Betty Jean Bell:                 17:08                    Exactly. I get really trim but I get a lot sicker before I get better. Um, okay. So at age 30, my metabolism tanks, like I’ve told, I’ve got all this metabolic damage. I blow up like a balloon for like all the work that I had done. Like everything just starts, all the wheels start coming off. I ended up with an an illness called gastro-paresis where the electrical system in your stomach quits working. And so they say, I’m never going to eat solid foods again. Um, yeah. So I was on liquids. I didn’t follow the traditional gastro-paresis diet because it’s all sugar because your body doesn’t, your stomach doesn’t digest food. So they have you on like rice pudding and Vanilla Pudding and soda and all that stuff. I was like, I’m going to have type two diabetes in a year. Like, yeah. So I chose the green juice route and just green juice like crazy. But I did that for 18 months and I hired a, an eating disorder coach. Not so much for the eating disorder, but you kind of go a little batty when you don’t get to chew foods every day.

Betty Jean Bell:                 18:10                    And so I needed emotional and psychological help to help me cope with not eating food. And so I was drinking all these green juices and, and uh, having one cup of chicken every 24 hours so I could have a little bit of something to, to chew. And, and I did this for 18 months and, and that’s just like one, one little blip. I had so many diagnoses. It really is hard for me to remember all the ones I had, like interstitial [inaudible] Hypothyroidism, depression, anxiety, you know, like I said, the acne, it was just so much wrong. Yeah. And it really, really added up. And, and so here I, I eventually am 33 and it’s my 33rd birthday and I had spent so much time, like all this time I had been accomplishing different like accolades. Like I’m an ambitious person and I would throw myself into work to try to find purpose.

Betty Jean Bell:                 18:59                    Like, will this make me happy? Will that make me happy? Will this make me happy? Uh Huh. And all this time I didn’t know how to heal my body. I didn’t know how to love my body. And I genuinely believed that because of all the things that happened to me, no man would ever love or want to marry me because I still had a lot of the baggage of the things the boys said to me when I was growing up. And I really carried that with me through life. And so it was just a really long journey. So my 33rd birthday after trying to do everything, everyone told me, you know, trying to do the dieting, trying to do the gym, trying to find work that, you know, filled me, trying to do all these external things. Everyone kept telling me, when you have the money, when you have the man, when you have the body, when you have all these things, then you’ll love yourself, then you’ll be happy. Yeah. And none of those things. I just couldn’t, I couldn’t make it work for me. And so on my 33rd birthday, I nearly ended my own life.

Kathy:                                  19:51                    Really?

Betty Jean Bell:                 19:52                    Yeah. It just got so hard that even though I had all these friends, had all this success, I didn’t know how to be well or how to love myself. It was just a really, really dark time of trying to pick myself up. But a well-timed call from my dad helped me make a different decision. And uh, thanks dad.

Kathy:                                  20:11                    So he interrupted?

Betty Jean Bell:                 20:13                    He did. Yeah. He called to sing happy birthday too. Oh my God. And I’m like sobbing. He’s like, oh my God, what’s happening? Right.

Kathy:                                  20:23                    Wow. Thank you dad. Good timing.

Betty Jean Bell:                 20:26                    I know, it’s totally, totally good timing. Yeah, so, and it helped me make a good decision. And then like that evening I was like, Dang, if that was really what I’m considering, why don’t I just try doing whatever the heck I want instead. Right. Like instead of trying to make myself happy with all of these external things, I’m just going to try stuff that I just didn’t know what made me happy. Yeah. Right. Cause I was trying to make myself happy with everything I thought would make me happy. All the external goals. Yeah. And that’s when my own self love journey started to happen. To that point, I had been atheist, I grew up singing, you know, opera and spiritual music and, and things like that. One of the things my mom had said to me, and she never meant it like this, this is just like little kid brain deciphering it this way. So it got totally skewed. But one of the things my mom had told me was growing up was never take your voice for granted or God will take it away.

Betty Jean Bell:                 21:20                    Oh yeah. And then I lost my voice and so I hated God. Like I was, I just liked the whole concept. I’m like, what kind of God would do that? Cause I was never a diva. My kid brain was like, oh cool, don’t be a diva. Like kind be humble. So that’s what I did. So you know, that’s obviously not what she meant.

Kathy:                                  21:40                    I know that a little kid, you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m a bad person. God took it away.

Betty Jean Bell:                 21:45                    Yeah, totally. So that’s kind of what set me on my atheist path. But on my 33rd birthday after I had had, you know, nearly ended my own life, I realized the one thing I hadn’t tried was what if there was this like loving concept of spirituality or something like that. So that’s Kinda when I started my spiritual journey. It was like both love and spirituality, right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 22:09                    Self love. What is, what is it like for me to just love myself because I thought I loved myself, right? I was trying to get, well, I was doing all these things so that I could be happy and be loved. But those external things, that’s conditional love, right? Saying like, I will love myself. I’ll be happy when x, Y and z happened. That’s not love, you know, like things that we love. It doesn’t matter what kind of mistakes they make, you know, like we are there to make sure that the things we love have what they need to have the best possible life so that their wellbeing is taken care of. And that’s what I had to figure out for me. Like what does it look like for my mental, physical and emotional wellbeing to be fully taken care of? Like what do I need to truly feel happy and it, and the only way I could figure it out was why was my totally disconnecting myself from all the friends and family and people, everything I knew because I was so distracted by like shiny objects by everybody else’s life and like what they look happy and they seem to have it figured out, you know?

Betty Jean Bell:                 23:10                    Yeah. And as long as I was looking outward, I wasn’t able to go inward and really figure out what it was that lit me up. So I disconnected basically from everything that I had been doing and just kind of kind of been in my own healing cave for the past. I Dunno. Since 2003, 2004. something like that. So or not that long. No, 13 2013 right.

Kathy:                                  23:34                    Um, so if I’m hearing you correctly, are you saying that your journey began by initially trying to unlearn everything you had learned?

Betty Jean Bell:                 23:46                    Totally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I had spent so much time trying to like I have all these entrepreneurial friends, they seemed happy with their businesses. I’m like, well business make me happy. Like I’ve just always, when I took the strengths finder test, you know that strengths finder 2.0?

Kathy:                                  24:02                    No, I don’t.

Betty Jean Bell:                 24:05                    oh my God, I love it so much. I’ve taken it 10 years apart. It’s like one of those personality tests things. But it tells you your strengths. Well, both times I’ve taken, I’ve taken it 10 years apart and my number one strength on both tests was number one achieve or a number two focus. Huh. So I have this ability to just like dial in on something and move on. Like that’s just how I show up in the world. So one of my coping mechanisms is to focus in on something, you know, that’s what gives me life. That’s what makes me feel alive. So opera was always that for me and when I lost it, I just was sure that if I had another career that I loved, that it would all make sense.

Kathy:                                  24:36                    Okay. Let me ask you something. Yeah. Do you think that there is a connection to your mindset and that was manifesting in your body and your health the way it did with the eating problems and all the illnesses that you were suffering from?

Betty Jean Bell:                 24:53                    Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. That was totally it because that was during my healing time when I was able to disconnect from the rest of the world. That’s what I was able to figure out is that I believed that, you know, my whole life I just wanted to be loved. I wanted to love and be loved by family, by men, you know, by romantic partner and like my, by my work, you know, the whole bit. Yeah. And when I started being mistreated by the boys, it made me feel like I was broken. Like I couldn’t love or be loved. I was too broken, too ugly and believing that I was ugly and unlovable. It led to binge eating. It led to finding purpose in the one thing I felt like I was good at, which was singing. I know now that I got sick and lost my voice because I wasn’t able to express what was going on with me.

Betty Jean Bell:                 25:52                    I didn’t know how to communicate boundaries. I didn’t know how to say what I needed to be healthy cause I was a kid. I just didn’t have the, I didn’t know. Wow. And so as a result, and it went on through my twenties and early thirties I just kept getting sicker and sicker because my life, I was like this. I was still that 11 year old girl trying to be an adult. Right? Carrying that stuff through and my breakdown to break through at age 33 helped me learn that. Something about that shift and what I started learning on my own journey of why don’t I just start figuring out what, what lights me up and stop trying to find external answers to my internal problems. And it, and I learned it through action. Like I learned it through. By shifting my mindset, I suddenly was making my mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing my priority on the other of that experience at age 33 and as a result, my body healed, my, I know, I’m like, I’m engaged to the most, like my dream guy. I’ve been engaged, so like for three years now, we’ve been together for five years. Like all my dreams started coming to true. I was able to reverse all my health conditions. I manage, I still have reflux. I’ve had a second major reconstructive surgery on my stomach when I was 34 but I don’t have gastro. I was able to reverse the gastro-paresis. It’s super fun because the doctors, both doctors who are gastroenterologists, they still argue over who misdiagnosed me. I’m like, okay guys.

Kathy:                                  27:20                    Wasn’t it the doctors who told you that you were incurable?

Betty Jean Bell:                 27:21                    They all, they always do, and then they argue over who did misdiagnosed me and I’m like, it’s because I listened to my body and gave it what I needed and didn’t give it sugar.

Kathy:                                  27:32                    Oh, they couldn’t have just imagined that you helped heal yourself. Right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 27:39                    Right. Totally. It’s never like that. Right? It’s like really fun. But yeah, you know, one by one it’s like I don’t have anxiety, depression, no more acne. All the weight fell off by itself. All the inflammation healed on gastro-paresis went away. Interstitial cystitis went away. Reverse the hypothyroidism, like my hormones and thyroid are like beautifully bowels. Like all my blood work looks incredible and the only thing I now manage is I manage the reflux with diet and lifestyle and and like, like my life is seriously picture book now, but it was all because of exactly the point that you made in that I stopped looking for action to solve my problems for like conditions, like external circumstances and these things. Happy. Then I will feel good, then I will love myself. Then people will love that. Right? Then I will feel purposeful and instead I learned how to make my mental, emotional and physical wellbeing the top priority. And when I did that, everything else kind of takes care of itself.

Kathy:                                  28:34                    Wow. Wow. That’s so incredible that you were able to be self aware enough to stop yourself, pause from all the activity and actions that you had been doing all your life and then create a whole new plan for yourself. I understand that you had a positive affirmation when you were first practicing. Do you remember what, when you said to yourself whenever you saw your reflection in a mirror?

Betty Jean Bell:                 29:02                    Uh, Oh my God, I’ve had so many. I can’t actually remember which one you’re referencing.

Kathy:                                  29:06                    I heard you say that whenever you saw yourself in a reflection, wherever you were, you would stop and say, Hey, Gorgeous.

Betty Jean Bell:                 29:14                    Yeah, Hello, Gorgeous. Yeah, I love that. That is one of my favorite ones. Oh my gosh. Now I get all my babes in my program to do it too. And it’s so fun. Cause hearing them, what I love about hello gorgeous. That is one of my favorite. And anybody listening, especially if you, if you have the habit, which honestly, 80% of women who I chat to do. Women secretly, tell me that secretly every time they see the reflection, the first thing they think is, Oh, I’m disgusting. Yeah. And it breaks my heart, but it’s so rampant. And women, they whisper it to me as if they’re the only ones. And I’m like, girl, you don’t even know how many times I’ve heard women say that.

Kathy:                                  29:52                    You know isn’t that true because we are not alone in that mindset. We all, okay. So I always say we all say daily affirmations, but none of them are always that nice. Right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 30:02                    Right. Exactly. That’s right. And so one of my favorite activities cause it’s so simple, is that every time a woman sees her reflection, because I learned it myself, you say hello gorgeous. And the girls, they’re like, oh my God, this is so uncomfortable and awkward. Right? And they don’t like it. And I’m like, and it makes me laugh and I’m like, you know, it was super uncomfortable and awkward when you learned to ride a bike, right? Yeah. Like it’s super uncomfortable and awkward when you learned to walk. He fell down, you got hurt, but you kept getting back up. These self critical things that we think to ourselves. We think that’s just the way we are. And we think, God, if I just started diet or, or start a fitness program or something, then I’ll stop thinking this things. Yes, that’s not true because it’s a habit. Right? When we are habitually saying these things to ourselves, which we are, we have built these deep neural pathways where that’s just our norm. And so the way to reprogram that isn’t by moving into action and saying, well, I need to change the conditions about my body so I stopped hating it. No, you interrupt the thought and start reprogramming the thoughts and just like we were talking about at the top, when you start to love the body you have, you start taking care of it. It forms different actions on, you’re like, I want to put something cute on today. Like I’m looking good today. I think I want to do my makeup. You know, I think I’m going to eat Kale instead of a, instead of a snickers bar. You know, you just start wanting to be good to yourself, but it does all start with something simple. Like, hello, gorgeous. I’m so glad that you asked about that one. That’s like one of my favorite things.

Kathy:                                  31:37                    I thought that was great because you know, you’re so right on about how we listened to our habits are that the habit of our negative self talk and it’s usually one of three things that we tell ourselves we repeat over and over. And I think we brainwash ourselves into this negative thinking of our self image, what it is so we can unbrainwashing ourselves, or re brainwash ourselves into the hello gorgeous mantra. That’s just incredible.

Betty Jean Bell:                 32:09                    It’s so true. It is. It’s just a habit and that’s, that’s what’s really liberating is like when we recognize that self criticism, it’s just a habit and habits can be broken like anything else. And, and saying that you are gorgeous is more true than saying that you’re disgusting. Yes. Cause it’s just not, nobody is disgusting. Right. That is like you wouldn’t let somebody come up and say that to somebody else you loved. You’d be like, oh wait a second. No, you can go on with yourself. We act like it’s okay to say that to ourselves and just not even true.

Kathy:                                  32:40                    That’s so true. You know, we could always just treat ourselves like we’re our own best friends. We would be so defensive, protective of ourselves. Like if somebody tried to tell her like you’re ugly. Yeah. You would be knocking out that person on behalf of your best friend. Right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 32:56                    Yeah, totally. It’d be like serious catfight immediately or for all your girls back in you up. Oh yeah.

Kathy:                                  33:05                    we need to, we need to join that club, of our best friend club and now [inaudible].

Betty Jean Bell:                 33:10                    Yes, totally.

Kathy:                                  33:12                    Okay, so I understand that. I want, I saw one of your Instagram posts, it reads self-love leads to weight loss. Yeah. So are you seeing that if we learn to love ourselves and not focus on the Diet plan, just the habit of loving ourselves that that way it will naturally just come off?

Betty Jean Bell:                 33:34                    Totally. Yeah. Totally. Because again, yeah. So the way I define self love and if you agree with this definition then it kind of makes sense. When you understand that self love is making your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, your top priority. That idea of, you know, our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings create, our actions, and our actions create a world including our body. Okay? It leads that when you love your body and you love yourself and you make your wellbeing, your top priority, then you’re going to make choices. It’s about making feeling good, your north star, and I don’t just mean emotionally feel good. Sometimes it’d be like, well, pizza makes me feel good.

Kathy:                                  34:19                    Yeah, right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 34:20                    There are worlds where pizza can make you feel good.

Kathy:                                  34:23                    And Margaritas, right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 34:26                    Totally, and I actually still drink, I eat pizza and have a Margarita, you know? Not every week, but pretty regularly, but with the place that I get pizza, it’s all gluten free. It’s all organic. You know, it’s about feeling good in the body. When you can make choices where you are making yourself feel mentally, emotionally, and physically good, and you make that the top priority, okay? You’re not going want to eat pizza that is full of preservatives and toxins and things because you literally will not feel good afterwards. It might feel good for a second, but you’ll feel bad emotionally. You’ll feel guilty physically, you’ll feel lethargic and low energy, but when self love is making your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, the top priority, then feeling good in all those areas becomes your guiding light and that includes your choices. So it’s so much easier. You’re choosing things that light you up but also make you feel good.

Kathy:                                  35:21                    Okay. I’m really glad that you explained that again in this context because you know, following a diet plan is just like ugh. You know, it just makes you feel like, God, I don’t want to count calories. I don’t want to look at certain recipes. Totally. You know what I to follow a step by step system like that, but if we focused on our wellbeing, like you were saying, your guiding star, your North Star, then it makes it a lot simpler.

Betty Jean Bell:                 35:38                    Yeah. It dies and like we’ve been really lucky. We’ve been able to boast a 100% success rate in our programs. Yeah. It’s pretty much unheard of in our industry. They just did a big study that I read not too long ago where the, they did like a whole comprehensive study of the weight loss industry. All the do it yourself stuff, right? It’s like weight watchers, Jenny Craig, the direct marketing products, you know, like just ah, I can’t remember all the ones. Right. And then like the freezer aisle, like the Diet meals and the meal replacement bars, like really comprehensive. And when they took all that into account, they found that there’s an 80% fail rate, which is just like, whoa. It’s like, and then there was another study where they say the average American who is overweight or obese, they spend an average of more than $8,000 it’s like $8,365 or something like that for every single year that they are overweight or obese. And most of the women that I get to chat to you, they’ve been trying to lose weight for like 10 or 20 years. So that’s like eight more than $80,000 in the past 10 years lost, trying to get healthy, trying to take their health back or just living overweight or obese. And one of the big reasons that we’ve been able to be so successful is because we, we help women start with their relationship with food and their body, right? We start with self love and then once we start really kind of changing, helping them heal that inner dialogue, then we focus on health, right? What do we need to do? Just like you’re saying, find what feels good in your body, right? For some it might be, it might be certain dietary theories, right? For every single one of our women in our program, they’re all on wildly different dietary theories. There’s not one diet, and that’s the big thing too. I want people to understand there is no secret weight loss diet. You don’t need to be Keto cause all your friends are successful with it. You don’t need to be Paleo, you don’t need to be vegetarian for weight loss reasons, any dietary theory will work if it’s right for your body, right? It’s all about feeling good in your body and your energy and how you are you, do you, are you having fun? Do you look forward to your food? Things like that. Does your body feel vibrant and alive?

Betty Jean Bell:                 38:09                    Like those are signs that something is right or wrong for your, you know, if you don’t feel like that’s wrong for your buddy. Right, right. Um, so we start with that inner dialogue and really helping women make themselves a priority. And then we move into what feels good for your body, what’s right for your body. We dial in that health. And usually by then, just in those first two phases, the weight print, pretty much everybody loses weight, right? But if, if a woman’s still hasn’t quite lost the weight, that’s when we start dialing it in for like weight loss purposes. Often it’s an inflammation thing or maybe they’re just eating a little too much still. And, and those are little signs that, okay, are you still, let’s take a look here. Are you using food to cope with life, right? Or You, do you, are you bored with life?

Betty Jean Bell:                 38:56                    Are, are you craving love? Are you lonely? Like you know, we start to look at these things cause it’s usually not that you need to eat less and work out more. It’s usually that there’s something else going on. Cause weight loss isn’t actually that complicated. Once you heal your relationship with food and your body and you’ve made feeling good, your guiding light.

Kathy:                                  39:13                    Do you ever come across like any of your clients afraid to approach this section of, you know, what is the underlying causes that you think is creating you to eat, overeat eat and all that stuff I may with like what kind of reactions do you get?

Betty Jean Bell:                 39:29                    Oh yeah. Oh my God, I love it. Um, almost every woman after joining the program within like 24 48 or 72 hours, I’ll get a text where they’re totally freaking no. Like, oh my God, what have I done? You know. Exactly and I expect it. I’m like, Hey, this is totally normal. I would almost be a little bit concerned if you didn’t freak out a little bit because what’s happening is you’re, you’re kind of coming to terms like you joined when we joined something, we’re excited to start, right? And then that initial excitement wears off and you’re like, oh my God, like I’m really going to look like what’s underneath all this right were going to sit and we’re going to be with like what’s there? And so that can be really triggering and, and it’s totally normal. And so like I’m really good at helping women relax about it and also because the work we do, it’s very immersive and community driven. So you’re immersed in women who are new like you and also women who have been in the program for like two or three years because that’s one of the biggest things is, you know, we only have two programs as you are babe, the initial one and you are a babe for life. I know that you are made for life because women’s number one fear is what happens when it’s over. I don’t want it to ad.

Kathy:                                  40:51                    Yeah, I bet your whole graduating class, right?

Betty Jean Bell:                 40:53                    Yeah, totally. Totally. So we have like a really, really strong family vibe because um, I’ve found that we really truly are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. And, and it’s important when we want to create real and lasting transformation. It doesn’t happen when we only get to see our coach once every two weeks. Right. Or once a week in between those sessions at the stuff. That’s when we need the most help, right? Yeah. 10 o’clock at night it’s um, when we want to eat a cake instead of go to bed, you know, or, or whatever it is that, that’s for that individual.

Kathy:                                  41:29                    It’s just like an addiction sponsor, almost.

Betty Jean Bell:                 41:33                    It Is. It’s so funny. And so like we have tons of support but the whole thing is it’s very community driven. So you’re surrounded by women who have both been through it and like lots of success stories and, and everybody is still going through it. Even I, I do the work alongside with everybody cause you don’t arrive at full and total. Like there’s always a new level. Like we always come up like, cool, this goal now what’s next? Right. So the other thing I’ve also found is like there’s nothing new when it comes to health and weight loss. It’s always the same handful of basics. So all we’re ever doing is, you know, if we’re suddenly not feeling great, it’s like, oh well I haven’t been going to bed. Like I haven’t been getting enough sleep for the past week. Right. It’s always like reconnecting to what we’re eating, reconnecting to, are we sleeping, reconnecting to, are we taking care of herself? So that’s what it’s really all about. And so, you know, when we have times like we’ve had, we’ve had clients who’ve had a loss in the family, right? Things happen in life.

Betty Jean Bell:                 42:28                    And so we don’t lose weight or get healthy in a vacuum. We have to learn to do it while living our lives. Cause there will no, there will never be a perfect time to start or do. Right. And so that’s what I really love is like we’ve had clients who have gone through loss of, you know, family members and stuff and then the whole group is right there supporting them. We’re able to help deepen their, well this is more important time than any to not use food to cope with your emotions and really helping them learn to be with their emotions so they can heal more rapidly. So it’s a really incredible program. Like I feel really blessed. I feel like I always thought I was supposed to be an opera singer, but now being able to look back, I feel like God always had a plan for my life and it was never opera.

Betty Jean Bell:                 43:14                    It was always, it was to lose my voice. It was to understand what deep sorrow and loss and like abuse and like coming through all of that self doubt and fear that I would never heal or never get better or it was nothing was ever going to work for me and no one would ever love me or want to marry me. And coming out on the other side, being able to support women. I’ve been through so many things that now it’s like nothing anybody can bring to me. It’s like nothing new to me. I’m like, cool, we got this. Or like, right, hey, Kathy’s been through that. You should go chat to her. You know, there’s always somebody in the program who’s, who’s been through it, so it’s really, it’s a real blessing.

Kathy:                                  43:51                    Let me ask you, would yo u change anything? I mean, you’ve been through years and years of suffering of illness and mental stresses, but look at you now. I mean [inaudible] you’re like helping, I don’t know how, how many clients have you helped so far and your programs more or less?

Betty Jean Bell:                 44:01                    Well, Gosh, well, in the new, so I had different, I’d had hundreds back when I used to sell, when I used to sell it as like a do it yourself a little course, but I retired all of my programs, all of my courses like that because when someone buys a $37 course, it’s like 1% of them do it. They buy it and they don’t do it. And it was too heartbreaking for me to watch people have the tools in their hand and do it. So I quit doing it. Now we only do full immersion coaching and we only work with women who are like line in the sand, done with being sick. Like this is it, we are, I am healing and transforming. Show me what you got, right. Because that’s the way we are. We’re like super passionate. You know, they’re like all up in your business seven days a week, you better be committed. Yeah. So now like you’re doing, you’re helping all these women. It’s not just the weight lies, it’s basically the inner wellbeing of all their mindset. Really. Yeah, totally. I wouldn’t change a thing like I honest to God, like I mean like especially this year, this is the year that everything, it’s like I’m able to look back and be like, all my dreams are coming true this year. All the things I had always wanted. It’s like my health is at a level that I never thought was possible. My, like my fit, like how I’m physically put together like my physique. I like I have the body I always wanted, I’ve got like my, my clients have become some of my best friends.

Betty Jean Bell:                 45:43                    Like I don’t feel like I’m working at all. I just feel like I get to hang out with all these rad ladies every single day and we meet for meditation every single morning. Like it’s so fun and I’ve got this amazing fiance who is my absolute dream guy. Like the kind I have always wanted. Um, and his family is amazing. Like I’m best friends with this family. So it’s like my, my life really feels picture book. I never thought this would be possible for me and it’s only because of everything that I’ve been through that I cannot only have this because this is the out-picturing like you were saying, manifestation. This is exactly what I wanted and more and I only have it and I only appreciate it because of all this stuff that I had been through.

Kathy:                                  46:27                    It’s so true. You’re like, sometimes we appreciate things more now because of what we’ve been through. So we know, We’ve been on that dark side. Right.

Betty Jean Bell:                 46:36                    Wow. Yes, exactly.

Kathy:                                  46:38                    I’m going to read a little extra from your website if that’s okay. Cool. Yeah, totally. It Says, I believe that when we love the body you have, you will get the body you want. That means making rest, meditation and healthy meals. Your priority, getting serious about reducing environmental toxins with every purchase you make and taking full responsibility for the negative thoughts and judgments you habitually think about yourself and others.

Kathy:                                  47:05                    Now going back to the beginning of the interview, you were talking about it all starts with thought. Can you elaborate a little bit more about like how or have tips, how can we stop the negative thoughts and self-talk? Just like an easy tip that maybe listeners can start doing today.

Betty Jean Bell:                 47:23                    Oh, I love it. Oh, my gosh. So glad you asked this. So just like, hello, gorgeous. I was in meditation one day and I feel like so like I’m, I’m pretty woowoo now. Now that like, you know, when I started to get into spirituality I just like, I started going to like sham and circles. I was like, I don’t know. This is all super weird. So I’m just gonna like try it all on. Right. And so it was so fun. And so, you know, now I meditate everyday. I have a, you know, a, I’m not religious, but I have a very, I am so open to every sort of spirituality that I just love hearing about everything, right. Every day I meditate every day. I spend a lot of time doing some spiritual work. And one day I felt like I got this download of, it’s called the Interrupting Cow Trick or have you ever heard the knock knock joke about the interrupting cow?

Kathy:                                  48:08                    No. Let’s hear it.

Betty Jean Bell:                 48:10                    Yeah. So it’s like, knock, knock, who’s there? Yo. Yeah, you can do it with me. I always tell it by myself.

Betty Jean Bell:                 48:16                    So knock knock,

Kathy:                                  48:16                    who’s there?

Betty Jean Bell:                 48:18                    Interrupting cow.

Kathy:                                  48:19                    Interrupting cow who?

Betty Jean Bell:                 48:21                    Moo! The cow interrupts you and says, moo!

Kathy:                                  48:27                    You’re such a goofball.

Betty Jean Bell:                 48:32                    My angels are total goofballs. So they gave me this download. Yeah. And then so I got this download and what I realized that is how we reprogram our minds. Yeah. We interrupt. And often people are like, oh, okay. So I’m calling myself disgusting in the mirror. We’ll use that as the example because we talked about that earlier. So I’m calling myself discusting in the mirror, people immediately think that hello gorgeous or something like that’s the right thing to do, right? It’s the opposite. So you say, Oh, I’m so disgusting, no I’m not, I’m gorgeous. But honestly that’s, so for many people that’s so far out of their, like that’s so far out of what they’re used to doing that it just feels like bs. Right? Yeah. So they have a hard time sticking to it because it doesn’t feel anywhere close to true. So I don’t actually start people on, hello gorgeous. I start them on the interrupting cow trick.

Betty Jean Bell:                 49:22                    Okay. Because when we first see ourselves and we go, Oh, I’m so disgusting. And you go, no, no, I’m not. I’m not disgusting. No. And so all the girls start mooing and it’s super funny. And what I have them do then is immediately look at something funny. So I get everybody to like either make an album on Instagram or on Pinterest or whatever thing they like to save photos on and like baby ducks, baby deer, like just cute little like little babies being hilarious little baby animals, whatever, something funny and uplifting. Cause one of the best ways to reprogram our thoughts is with laughter and fun. And so it’s to, when we have critical thoughts about ourselves or others you mu cause it’s hilarious. Yeah. And then you look at something funny and uplifting or like baby animals and you start to reprogram the neuropathways to, to start focusing on what’s good and what’s right instead of what you deem wrong about yourself. And eventually next thing you know you’re used to having fun and your brain, it starts to happen more automatically. Suddenly you need the pictures anymore cause the moo is enough to lighten you up and get you out of it.

Betty Jean Bell:                 50:32                    The critical, you’re like I am not disgusting or you’re being so ridiculous again, Betty Jean, you’re doing that thing. No, no I’m not doing that. Then it becomes much easier to adopt. Hello. Gorgeous. Because you’re so used to moving into silly and fun. Ah, okay. Right. So that’s my favorite trick is the Interrupting Cow Trick.

Kathy:                                  50:51                    That’s awesome. It’s similar. I used to just say, knock it off Kathy. You know, I just like, see, I just say it out loud. You know, like I’ve, I’ve got another person in the car and she’s telling me.

Betty Jean Bell:                 51:03                    Yeah, Exactly, but it’s still fun and light. Right. And that’s the real key.

Kathy:                                  51:10                    That is awesome. I love that. It’s so funny. Oh good. Oh right. Okay. So winding down here, I mean we could talk all day, but yeah, there’s no fun. Um, any last thoughts about, you really want listeners to be aware of or you want to share with them?

Betty Jean Bell:                 51:30                    Whatever it is that’s on your heart, the thing that you truly have always wanted, you know, you might think it’s opera, like I, and I don’t mean actual opera. For me, I always thought my life was about opera. Sometimes we don’t know until way later how to all make sense, how it all is going to make sense. But at the core, underneath the opera and all that. For me it was that I wanted to love and be loved more than anything. I wanted to be in a loving romantic relationship. Like I’ve just always wanted to be in a loving monogamous relationship. And until I got quiet, it was hard for me to know that, right? Cause I was always focused outwardly. So anybody listening, I really want you to understand that whatever it is you truly desire, if you are believing, you know, if you’re really wishing you could be physically while you’re feeling rundown or exhausted, if you’re really wishing and hoping for that relationship or that purposeful career or whatever it is that you really want, I want you to understand that you really can have it.

Betty Jean Bell:                 52:32                    All of these things are completely possible. No matter how impossible it seems, but it’s only going to happen if you draw that line in the sand and you decide it isn’t about you knowing how, how is not your job. Your job is deciding and having unwavering commitment, determination and faith that you don’t know how. But this is what you’re doing. Dang it. And I’m doing it, and you make your mind up and universe will support you. you gotta be the master of your thoughts. And you have to have the unwavering faith that this will happen for you. And I’m telling you it will.

Kathy:                                  53:12                    That’s incredible. I love that. Yes. Making a decision and being committed to what you really want. The how will come later.

Betty Jean Bell:                 53:21                    Yeah, totally. It just unfolds. The universe always tells us how, but we have to be clear in our decisiveness.

Kathy:                                  53:27                    Wonderful. Okay, so Betty Jean, if listeners have more questions or they want to learn more about your programs, where can they find You?

Betty Jean Bell:                 53:36                    They can Find me. I’m at BeingBadass.com and I am so excited because I’m working on a brand new masterclass. It’s not out yet, but by the time you hear this recording, it’ll probably be out and it’s answering everybody’s top questions that they have for me about how to stop overeating, how to stop the self criticism and how to genuinely learn to see their bodies with love. And that’s totally free. Anytime you gotta being about us.com I have the masterclass everywhere because I want everybody to watch it, so it’ll be there for you. Lots of free resources for you there at the site. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. You can also find me on Instagram at Being Badass.

Kathy:                                  54:09                    Terrific. Betty Jean, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your story and, and now what you’re doing teaching others how to love themselves, love their bodies that they have. Thank you so much.

Betty Jean Bell:                 54:21                    Thank you for having me. I love your show so much and if you guys haven’t listened to more of Kathy’s show, you definitely should. I’ve been listening on it all day yesterday, so.

Kathy:                                  54:32                    I appreciate that. Thank you.

Kathy:                                  54:37                    You’ve been listening to The Inspire Cafe podcast. You’ll find the show at theinspirecafe.com and also we’re on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you like what you’re hearing, please subscribe and share with your friends until our next conversation. Thank you for listening.

 

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