Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to Personal Development, Self Empowerment, and Happiness. In this weeks episode we talk about choosing to be happy even in the challenging moments. We also express gratitude for the many years of service Bets’ car has given her and the beauty experienced when people come together and support one another. All of this lovely wisdom is wrapped in a super yummy pretzel covered in chocolate! The real transformation in life begins with Celebration….so grab your chocolate…It’s time to Celebrate You!
Highlights:
The Wisdom…No More Waiting…Choose Happiness
The Chocolate…Stop Wishing…Manifest
The Celebration Moment…Love The Heck Out Of Life
Check out www.BetsDanko.Com to get more information on blogs, podcasts, courses, and monthly memberships.
Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to Personal Development, Self Empowerment, and Happiness. In this weeks episode we talk about choosing to be happy even in the challenging moments. We also express gratitude for the many years of service Bets’ car has given her and the beauty experienced when people come together and support one another. All of this lovely wisdom is wrapped in a super yummy pretzel covered in chocolate! The real transformation in life begins with Celebration….so grab your chocolate…It’s time to Celebrate You!
Highlights:
The Wisdom…No More Waiting…Choose Happiness
The Chocolate…Stop Wishing…Manifest
The Celebration Moment…Love The Heck Out Of Life
Check out www.BetsDanko.Com to get more information on blogs, podcasts, courses, and monthly memberships.
It's time to combine a guilty little pleasure with a new healthy habit. Kick up your feet and listen in. This is Wisdom. & Chocolate. My name is bets Danko and you are listening to Wisdom & Chocolate. I am super honored to be here with you today speaking to you with a little bit of wisdom and following that up with some really yummy chocolate. So let's get to it. Today's main topic is Love The Heck Out Of Life. I just want to take a moment to ask you to share this podcast with a friend give the gift of self celebration to the people who are closest to you in your life. Go ahead and take a moment and share this podcast. Love the heck out of life. This is the perfect day for this message and I didn't even plan it. To be honest with you, I literally sit down and I write down posts that I have put up on Instagram and Facebook - and I just put them in bullet points on sheets of paper. It is organized, I do have to admit, but the sheets of paper basically have headers, that say Main Topic, the Wisdom Moment Content Number Two, the Chocolate Moment, you know. They're their headers, and I basically put bullet points of what it is that I might talk about on any particular week. I rarely put down what it is that I'm going to say. Everything that I do is kind of off the cuff and, you know, when you just have a header that says your main topic is love the heck out of life and you've had an event, It's like was this divine intervention? Like I needed a reminder the day after that, you know what, it's your choice, it's time. Love the heck out of life. I don't know, I might have to think about that for a moment. Now that is the main topic. But the wisdom moment of today is No More Waiting... Choose Happiness. And again, I write down what the headers are and then I might, you know if a story comes up, and I think oh my goodness, this would be a great thing to cover in the podcast, I might have little items written below. And in this particular moment, I am looking at one of those items, which I guess I'll have to tell you about another time because something happened last night I need to talk about. But no more waiting, choose happiness...there was a day recently where literally, I could tell you that, "hey, it's been an interesting day, there's a man and lederhosen in my basement playing roll out the barrel." And that's the truth. It is a true story. That actually did happen. But the, No More Waiting Choose Happiness? I got a different story for you today, because it's something that happened last night. Now I was out and about. I had dropped off my daughter just like any other evening, and I'm sure any other evening in most of your your lives, where you've just got a thing to do and you recognize I got a little pocket of time after I'll go run a couple errands. Except in this particular case, I didn't have any errands. I just thought I'll just go and maybe stop at Lowe's. I'll look at some color swatches because I have this grand dream of repainting my house. And then maybe I'll head over and print some more planner pages, because you know, I'm all about the planner, and I had run out of pages. So my life was becoming a little chaotic. And then as I'm doing these things, everything is super relaxed. I'm having a good time by myself just hanging out. And I decide I'm gonna go grab my daughter some fries before I head up to pick her up. So you're catching the picture, right? It's relaxed. No need to worry. Everything's fine. And I wasn't in a position where I was expecting anything to happen. But I got on the highway and I'm heading North. North is beautiful direction to go. It's it's the direction of new possibility. I don't know if that's true. I'm totally making that up on the spot. But it just seemed like a beautiful direction to go. And I was relaxed until the car next to me in the left lane started slowing down. We're going about 70 miles an hour. And so when this car started slowing down, I took note but there was literally not even enough time to turn my head to see what was going on. Because in a millisecond later, there was a deer in front of my car. I do recall screaming before hitting it. Now I have never hit a deer and I'm not one who normally hits anything head on, but this deer hit smack dab in the center of the front of my car. It's got a nice little dent. There are a few broken things inside there. And at the moment, however, I was in a little bit of shock. So after letting out my scream, I know that I put my right hand over my mouth. I don't know why, why would that be my reaction? But I do know this because the person who was in that left lane, they kind of were looking at me making sure I was okay. Clearly, they knew more than what I knew about what just happened. And eventually, the car told me,"Hey, yo, dude, it is time to stop, I can't keep going." And so I did. I pulled over to the side of the road. The car was smoking quite a bit... steamin quite a bit. My airbags didn't deploy. Thank the good Lord above. And the inside of my car wasn't messed up at all. I basically drive a tank. So that was super cool. But I was shaken up. I was pretty darn shaken up. And when you kind of live in this place of concern, and you know, making it through the challenges and working through the stuff that's happening in front of you, you get to the point, which is the point that I was at last night, where you just can't even react. You don't even know what it is you're feeling. And that's where I was at. And I know that there are a lot of people out there that are living in this particular state, every single day. You just get to a point where you can't even take anymore. So many things are thrown at you. So many things are in your path, that you just kind of sit there and you don't feel anything. Now I don't live my life that way. I'm actually someone who feels quite a bit. And I have a tendency to make light of just about anything, I can turn anything into something positive. One of the positives in this situation is that I really wanted a new car. Thank goodness, I didn't get one because I'd be out a new car right now. So this is a very old car, it's got 400,000 miles on it. It's, you know, it's , oh goodness, 16-17 years old. It's it's good, it's seen some life. So for it to be damaged is not as heartbreaking as a brand new car that maybe you're making payments on. But I was numb sitting in the back in that car, watching the steam come up from the front of my car. And just so you know, I did exit the car after the car stopped because there was so much smoke, I didn't know what was happening. And after I got out of the car lot, let a lot of the steam, which is what it ended up being, go up into the atmosphere, I recognize that it was the radiator that was completely destroyed. And I was safe after a bit to get in the car. So I got into the backseat of the car. For whatever reason I didn't feel safe being in the front anymore. It was like a signal. Hey, it's time to be a passenger, yo. It's time to just, you know, you don't need to be sitting up front right now. But even with not having a new car, there are expenses attached to this. And on top of the expenses, there's the stress of, "wow, my freedom has just been taken away from me." And then on top of that, it's the,"oh my goodness, my husband normally is the one to fix my car and he needs to be working.? How are we going to navigate this, right? There, there could be a lot of things going on in the mind. I have to admit that at that moment. or actually for the hour and a half that I waited for AAA to show up, I wasn't thinking of any of that. I was so numb, I couldn't even go there. But I knew that I had to choose to pull myself out of it. Everything is up to us. How we react to things, how we move forward after we react to things, how we navigate all of the challenges that come from things...it's all up to us. And at the end of the day, happiness makes me feel a whole heck of a lot better. So I choose happiness. I literally choose to find the positive. Some of it is so much ingrained in me that it's habit now and I just somehow find the positive or I can make a joke about it. In fact, last night, I made a joke about it. I had to tell my friend what happened. Well I didn't have to, but I chose to do it. Everything's my choice, right? Control freak that I am, I chose to tell my friend. But there's a little angle to the story I didn't mention to you yet. And that is that I knew that I had to go to the bathroom when I got into the car but I thought it's a 10 minute drive. I'll just go to the bathroom when I get to the location I'm picking up my daughter. But I didn't make it there, right? A deer I jumped in the middle of my plans. Now I did recognize that urinating out the side of a car is not the best thing to do when you are a woman. And it's quite difficult actually to do that without anyone seeing, especially when you're on the side of a highway in, it's not rush hour, but there are a lot of people passing at that moment. It's just, you know, maybe not something you should do. So I had to pour out my lemonade that I purchased to go with a french fries, and urinate in a cup in the back of the car. And I could sit here right now and just be so angry with that, or even at that moment, I could have been angry at that. But no, it's well, I am resourceful. What in the car can I use to urinated in and throw the pee out of the car. And of course, I found it - a lovely cup, a beautiful, lovely cup that I could use and then discard later, I didn't throw the cup out the side of the car for everyone here who is an environmentalist, I just threw the urine out. But I could have been angry about it. And I wasn't. I didn't choose happiness yet, but I knew happiness was coming. And I knew eventually, I'd probably tell you all about it. So I can be smiling and laughing about it at the time. No more waiting. No matter what is going on in your life, you have the ability to choose to feel happy, or choose to find the positives that are going on in your life. I'm not telling you to ignore the stuff that is a challenge to you. Absolutely not. Obviously, I was acknowledging that I had just been in an accident. But I also acknowledged that everything was going to be okay. I'm resourceful. I've got AAA, everything's good. My car didn't explode. Even though I was left there for an hour and a half, I wasn't standing outside the car in the cold. There were so many positives that were going on around this. And there's even one more that I didn't find out about until close to midnight. But I'll share that with you in just a little bit. Are you enjoying Wisdom & Chocolate? Then I encourage you to share this podcast with a friend. Make sure that you're sharing with them all of the love and peace and grace that you get from this podcast every single week. Reach out and share chocolate with a friend. There is one simple equation that holds the secret to an empowered life. It's called the I AM Equation, a powerful online course at BetsDanko.Com dedicated to creating real transformative change through self celebration. Celebrate, Motivate and Empower. It's that simple. The solution to the equation is personal transformation. The I AM equation at BetsDanko.Com. Plug your life into the equation at BetsDanko.com Today's chocolate moment, oh my goodness! You know, there are chocolates that I try and than it takes me for-ever to talk to you about them. And so I'll sit down, I'll look at my, my planning sheet for my podcast and I will see what chocolate is kind of next in line to talk about. And, as I said, I talk right off the cuff. I just I have bullet points and I just keep talking and so the chocolate that shows up, I have to figure out how to weave it into what I'm saying. So we're gonna figure this out in just a second. The brand name is one I don't know how to pronounce it's T C H O. So I don't know if you just call it TCHO or if there's some way to pronounce that but that's the company name. And the chocolate is the pretzel crunch dark chocolate with pretzels and sea salt. Fairtrade organic chocolate 54% Cocoa, this is so good. And if you're somebody who loves chocolate that has a little bit of salt in it, you know just that little salty kick, then this is definitely one that you would love and super crunchy as well. So it's not like the chocolate kind of messed with the consistency of the pretzel inside. So yum, yum, yum. I definitely recommend you go out and try that one. Now I've paired this with, Stop Wishing...Manifest. Stop wishing... manifest. We have this way of wishing for things, thinking that oh, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do this. I wish I could have these things. And that wishing ends up standing in our way when we recognize that the things we are wishing for are within reach and all we have to do is decide that that's the direction we're going to go then a lot more positive starts coming our way. Now, of course, if you were wishing that you were the Queen of England, that might be a stretch for you. Unless, of course you are the Queen of England, it is a position that you have to be born into. There's a whole lineage thing going on. But the things that you wish for, that are actually within your reach, or maybe a little bit of a stretch, it's time to manifest those things. It absolutely is. Now, as I said, I work with bullet points. And I don't look at what it is I'm going to be talking about at the beginning of recording a podcast. I literally just look at the bullet points as I go down. And the craziest thing is on this piece of paper. There was an accident that happened in front of a church in Los Angeles many, many years ago and it was a turning point in my life, a significant point in my life. I'm just going to tell you one little part of it, because it has to do with the way we treat one another and also the way that we look at life. Now I was at some sort of festival in front of this church. They had a grassy area in front and this was on a very busy street. And there were children there, there were a lot of cars going by. It was a beautiful evening. There was even a petting zoo, if I remember correctly. They brought animals in for the children. And it was really a lovely evening. And all of a sudden, there's a large thud and chaos going on. I, who am not one to normally run away from tragedy, ran directly toward the sound and the chaos. There on the pavement was an elderly gentleman and there was quite a bit of blood and he was unconscious. His eyes had kind of popped out of their sockets. His lids were still closed, but it made him look like his eyes were kind of bugged out. And one of his arms was most definitely broken, it was kind of misshapen. And there looked to be a head injury. And it was chaos. But I went out into the street to be with this man. I was afraid that someone else would run over him. It was dark outside in in the Los Angeles area, with people kind of rushing about. It definitely wasn't safe for me out there either but I didn't want this man to be injured a second time. He was still alive. And I as I walked out there, other people were skeptical, but they eventually came out and we all began to pray over this man. Now, there was a moment where there were two people who had been trained in emergency rescue, they came over and started yelling at me because I was holding the hand of this man trying to comfort him because I know even if you're unconscious, you can react to the kindness of others. And they were angry with me because he could have a blood borne disease and here I was handling him. But when they recognize that it was praying over him, they became calmer, and they relaxed and let it go. But then at the same time, there was an elderly woman standing there who realized that the driver of the truck who hit the man was standing right next to the man. And she started yelling at him. He was clearly broken up. He had no idea what had just happened. All he knew was that he hit a man and he was now on the pavement. And this woman, lovely woman that she was, she she was just overcome with the the emotion of the moment and didn't realize how much injury she was causing to this man who hit this this pedestrian who was in a crosswalk. And so I looked up at the man and I said,"everything's going to be fine. Do you pray? Do you believe in God?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "please get down with us and pray over him." And so he did. Now ultimately, the man who was on the pavement he lived. He lived. It's a beautiful ending to the story. We didn't just stand around, looking at him and gawking at him. We were actively engaged in helping to reassure him...give him comfort. We were praying over him. This was a gorgeous, beautiful moment that changed my life. And all of these beautiful people who came and knelt down next to me they were moved as well. The entire scene was a moment where we could live our faith where we could come together and we could support one another and we could be there for someone who had fallen and we could make sure that we were engaged, we were actively doing our part. We weren't wishing. We weren't standing back on the side. We were actively participating and comforting this man. We were manifesting the beauty of coming together and loving one another. I see the wishing going on around me all the time, people wishing that things would be better, wishing that everything would go away, wishing that the stuff would just stop. And they do this out of that that same thing I was talking about in the opening section where you're just kind of numb. You've been through so much that you just can't react anymore. And so I understand wanting to have things done, but when you start recognizing that happiness is a choice, that you can see the happiness around you, if you just allow yourself to do that, things can change. So you see, this was a tragic moment. This man was hit. He was seriously injured. But there were so many people who came together. And then the ambulance showed up fairly quickly. The man was taken to the hospital. He did have his sight after this. His arms were taken care of. His head injury was taken care of. And he did live. There were a lot of positives. And there were positives from the people that were next to him, the people who were moved by the situation, the gentleman who hit him who got comfort in that moment when he knelt down and prayed with us. We've got to actively engage in our lives. We need to stop wishing. We need to manifest the positive. Engage in the things that are challenging to you so that you can flip them and create something beautiful from them. No more waiting. It's time to choose happiness. And sometimes choosing happiness means going through some challenge that is very uncomfortable, so that you recognize the value of your life. o I said that there was more to my first story. So I'm just going to give you the the summary. Let me tell you what happened once I got home. I didn't just wait for the AAA truck to show up for an hour and a half... then I had to wait another hour and a half for the car to show up at my house. And the reason is - I hit the deer, it flew over my car, and it hit a second car, and the front of that second car was totaled and the people were injured. The flip side - the beautiful side of this? They are alive, walking, and doing fine. I am alive, walking, and doing fine. On this particular night, all of the people involved were reminded just how valuable life is. No more waiting. Choose happiness. Stop wishing for things to get better. Manifest a better outcome. Manifest a better attitude. No more waiting. Manifest your happiness. Looking for a way to help support BetsDanko.Com and Wisdom&. Chocolate? Head down to the bottom of the podcast description. Click on Buy Me A Coffee. That will take you to the website, Buy Me A Coffee, where you can make a donation to help support everything that we do here. And of course, we dedicate everything we do to celebrating you. So thank you for helping us do exactly that. Okay, we are in the homestretch because this is the celebration moment and the celebration moment is... Love The Heck Out Of Life. Right? That's the main topic and we're covering it again in the celebration moment. Oh my goodness, I have this friend who, lovely friends that she is, and she's kind of a sidekick every once in a while in my life. I can be her sidekick as well. We're kind of dynamic in that way. But she said to me one day, "nothing is ever easy for you." And I 100% disagree. I think that when you have the tools for bringing yourself inner peace, when you have the tools for finding self celebration, then life does register as easy. I just take care of what needs to be taken care of. Something challenging can happen and I go, "okay, well gotta take care of that." And there are times when something challenging happens and I go, "well, thank goodness I took care of this or that." Like the day that there was a surprise to know that was kind of icy and I was super happy with myself because I had scrubbed the algae off the front steps. Because, oh my goodness, one of us could have fallen. There could have been an accident. But there wasn't because I cleaned the algae up. You've got to think of the positives. You got to lean toward those positives and create the reality that is more pleasing to you. Sure, she told me that life isn't easy for me. Whatever. She's not living my life. I do have challenges, I absolutely do, and that's one of the reasons why I have so many tools to share with people. I've lived through the things that I'm helping people work through themselves. And the main thing that I try to impart to people is, is the main thing that we're talking about today. You got to love the heck out of life. You gotta find the positive. You gotta choose happiness. When you do have tragedy hit, of course react to it. Oh my goodness, I am not here telling you don't recognize what you're going through and just mask over with with false positives. No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Look at the situation that you're in and find the positive. Look for it. Normally, it's it's right there in front of your face and you're just so hit by the tragedy that it's difficult to see it. When your life is wrapped up in a great big pretzel, whether you're covered in dark chocolate or not, that pretzel feels like you can't unwind it. You just can't make it through. I know this. But you can. Pretzels were a straight line at one point, and somebody twisted him up and turned them into a pretzel. Untwist. Find the ends. Find the positives. Find the straight line. No more waiting. It's time to choose your happiness. Whatever is happening in your life, you can overcome it. You have before. My goodness, how old are you now? Are you in your 20s 30s 40s 50s? Are you in your 60s? How many times have you been hit by challenge and you have made it through? And you may say to me,"Yes, but nothing was like what's going on now." Well, nothing was like what was going on then! You can do it. Choose happiness. Stop wishing for things to be better. Make them better. Today. Love the heck out of your life. It is a gorgeous life and the challenges are there so that you can learn, so that you can recognize what is valuable in your life. Love the heck out of the ups and the downs, the learning and the courage that is necessary to navigate your life. You are so flippin amazing. I know you got this. Love the heck out of life. If you'd like me to wrap a little wisdom around your favorite chocolate, reach out and let me know just write a little comment. Let me know what your chocolate is and where you're writing from and I will find a way to weave it into one of my podcasts. And I'll even give you a shout out so people know that it came specially from you. Check out everything that BetsDanko.Com has to offer at BetsDanko.Com. If you're on social media, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you can follow me and BetsDanko.Com and keep up to date on all the little bits of Wisdom & Chocolate that I post Monday through Friday. Subscribe to this podcast and start enjoying your weekly dose of celebrating you with Bets Danko. And while you're at it, if you're enjoying Wisdom & Chocolate please take a moment and share with a friend. Go ahead, tag a friend today with Wisdom & Chocolate and get them started on a path of self celebration. Experience the wisdom that helps to motivate and empower you in relationships, business, family and most importantly, self celebration, getting the picture. It's wisdom and it's all about you want to hear the chocolate tune into Wisdom & Chocolate weekly