Episode 5 - When you are deep in it

In this deeply personal and reflective episode of A Gift in Strange Wrapping Paper, Kelly Goetz opens up about facing unexpected challenges and the emotional turmoil that comes with them. She shares her current struggles, including her husband's recent job loss, and how it has reignited old patterns of stress and overwork.

Kelly recounts her past experiences with financial uncertainty and how she instinctively turns to productivity and problem-solving in difficult times. She explores the influence of her upbringing—her father’s relentless work ethic and her mother’s resourcefulness—and how these lessons shaped her own approach to life’s hardships.

Through this journey, she recognizes her tendency to overcompensate by working harder and pushing herself beyond healthy limits. However, she also realizes the importance of pausing, observing her patterns, and making conscious choices to respond differently. She introduces a four-step process to break old cycles and cultivate a healthier approach to challenges:

1. Pause and Observe – Recognizing recurring stress patterns.
2. Reflect on Desires – Asking the heart what it truly wants.
3. Trust the Process – Surrendering to change instead of forcing control.
4. Celebrate Small Wins – Acknowledging progress in shifting towards healthier responses.

Kelly emphasizes that setbacks are often setups for growth. She encourages listeners to reflect on their own stress responses and see their struggles as opportunities for transformation. As she works through her own patterns, she reminds us that healing is a journey, and with awareness and intention, we can reshape our reactions to life’s challenges.

She closes with a message of gratitude and encouragement, inviting listeners to recognize the hidden gifts within their own hardships.

Instagram  | Facebook | Linkedin | YouTube  

Do you have a story of resilience that has led you to self-discovery, transformation and discovered a new purpose?  What guided you through the difficult times?  

Write a short synopsis of the story you would like to share. We truly would love to hear about it. We will respond and if your story fits our listeners needs we will contact you with a scheduling link.  Please add, "Podcast Interview Suggestion" as subject line.

With Infinite Love & Gratitude

Kelly

Join the Newsletter:

https://kellygoetz.com/subscribe

Transcript

00;00;02;17 - 00;00;26;08
Kelly Goetz
Hello and welcome to another gifts and strange wrapping paper. Well, I'm a little entertained right now because I just did a show for you that was so good. And the record button didn't go. So we're going to do it again right now. And I'm entertained by this, and I'm fascinated by it because it's really a subject I haven't wanted to talk about.

00;00;26;11 - 00;00;53;04
Kelly Goetz
And this subject has been going on for me since I decided that I was finally going to kick off my podcast back in December, and we were going to kick it off, and I didn't really know how it was going to kick off or when it was going to kick off, that I was going to kick it off in this year, and I was actually going to get it done, because this podcast gets and strange wrapping paper has been sitting and waiting to be birthed for two years.

00;00;53;06 - 00;01;18;26
Kelly Goetz
And all of a sudden it was like, oh my gosh, it has to launch on February 10th. I was getting this information outside of myself, this urgency that you must launch on February 10th. And that was when this concept of gifts and strange wrapping paper all began. The reality was, I'm sitting in a current situation right now as we speak.

00;01;18;28 - 00;01;54;00
Kelly Goetz
That is stressful. It is uncertain, and I don't know where it's going to land. And I've been hurting. My husband's been hurting. My daughter's been hurting. There's a lot of emotions going on right now. And what that is, is early in January. Well, I have these big plans of all these different things I wanted to create this year with finishing my book and launching my podcast and, launching my next big speaking platform.

00;01;54;03 - 00;02;21;27
Kelly Goetz
All these things that I had set into motion and ready to market and expand my business. Unbeknownst to me, my husband was laid off, and this particular layoff has felt very different from me. My husband and I have been married for 25 years, and during the course of that 25 years, there was a time that we went through a layoff.

00;02;21;29 - 00;02;53;00
Kelly Goetz
I think it was started like around 2008, where we went through a layoff every year in the month of January. At least that's my recollection. It was seen to time with my birthday month. And usually at the beginning of the year, coming off of Christmas, I had gotten really good at saving money or creating income through little part time jobs that I did as a stay at home mom.

00;02;53;02 - 00;03;20;22
Kelly Goetz
And usually in January. I was pretty, pretty like maxed out. I didn't have anything left in the coffers because when my son was born and I have sat down trying to figure out should I go back to working full time or should I go part time, what should I do? I didn't know what to do and my dad was an extremely successful, business owner.

00;03;20;24 - 00;03;59;23
Kelly Goetz
A lot of his success, though, came from the way he built relationships with people. It came from his integrity and his authenticity. It came from his hard work. And I watched my dad, his consistently over giving, adding extra value, working on vacations. And I watched this most of my childhood into being a young adult. And there was a part of him that on some level was a workaholic because it seemed like he was always working.

00;03;59;26 - 00;04;22;05
Kelly Goetz
And so what I learned from my father is that hard work equals abundance. And I actually thought, that's what my hard work would do, mostly because of me. I wasn't ready to have kids and babies when we first got married. We didn't get married until I was in my mid 30s and my husband was at the beginning of his 40s.

00;04;22;09 - 00;04;50;21
Kelly Goetz
I wasn't ready to have babies right away. I was in my career. It served me. It made me feel proud of myself. It made me feel productive. It made me feel. It gave me an identity. When I was deciding whether or not to go back to work. I'd already had over 16 years of being in corporate America, and while I was on maternity leave, my dad and I met for lunch.

00;04;50;23 - 00;05;14;13
Kelly Goetz
And of course, we brought our son with us. And as I'm sitting there with my dad, I said to my dad, I'm not sure what to do about my career, about my job and my beautiful overachiever father. And he said to me, why would you want to go back to work? You now, have you now have this son?

00;05;14;16 - 00;05;39;02
Kelly Goetz
In that moment, I thought I took what he said to mean, oh, what's wrong with me? That I want to go back to work? Or that I want to work and take care of this baby that I want it all? In that moment, I realized for the first time how old fashioned my dad was. Old school gentlemen that provide for his family.

00;05;39;05 - 00;06;05;08
Kelly Goetz
So there's wife can take care of his kids. My mom was the caregiver for me and my siblings. She's the one that stayed home with us. And she also was the one that, when we needed braces, went and got a part time job at the orthodontics so we could get braces. She also was the one that serve my dad's business as the administrator is doing the bookkeeping, answering the phones.

00;06;05;08 - 00;06;36;04
Kelly Goetz
I'm not even certain all that she did, and I'm certainly not certain whether or not she even got paid financially, other than reaping the benefits of what they sewed together. And so for me, having seen my mom was the primary caregiver, the one that stayed home with the kids, the one that did these part time jobs to make the added income that was needed for the braces, that was needed to serve my dad's business.

00;06;36;07 - 00;07;12;29
Kelly Goetz
I took what my dad had to say to mean why would you want more? You have everything you need right here in this child. So we made the difficult decision that I would stay at home and I would take care of our kids. And it was a difficult decision. So now having one income, there's a part of me that had also lost my identity and finding that doing things like going on a date, and I do believe in date nights.

00;07;12;29 - 00;07;46;09
Kelly Goetz
So if you are a young parent and you have just had a child or you have little kids, the importance of finding your way on date night where you don't talk about finances or children is so critical. Oftentimes we would find ourselves in a movie having popcorn, something economical to eat because on the flip side, we'd be paying our babysitter and we were actually paying the babysitter at that time more than we were paying for our date.

00;07;46;12 - 00;08;14;00
Kelly Goetz
But we made it a priority. So I found part time solutions manager on duty at the health club where I could take my child, and he had daycare. Then my son, it was at least near me, started teaching swim lessons on a part time basis. And bonus, my son got to take swim lessons a couple lanes over, which ultimately led to my son being on swim team for many, many years until he was.

00;08;14;03 - 00;08;36;07
Kelly Goetz
He finished his sophomore year in high school. I gave him a sport. It gave him a skill that he will have with him for the rest of his life. And then I learned, oh, you could be a part time instructor for CPR at the hospital. How do I do that? Let me figure that out. So I find my way into being a part time CPR instructor.

00;08;36;09 - 00;09;01;19
Kelly Goetz
We'll have a little extra money that we can put towards a birthday party, or we can put towards a dinner out or something. And then guess what? My husband would have a last minute business trip and there I would be with no babysitter, no one in the family to take care of my child, and now having to figure out how to get out of the class, or how to pay for a sitter.

00;09;01;22 - 00;09;07;29
Kelly Goetz
And then I wouldn't be making that extra money. I thought I had.

00;09;08;01 - 00;09;29;15
Kelly Goetz
All this to say is the grass is not greener on one side or the other. Right now, as I'm sitting in this situation where I don't really know what is the gift and strange wrapping paper going to be, what is my husband and I? What are we going to learn from this situation? Why is this happening to us again?

00;09;29;17 - 00;09;35;16
Kelly Goetz
How are we meant to learn and grow right now?

00;09;35;19 - 00;10;06;19
Kelly Goetz
What I have discovered in the last couple weeks, what I started to notice and observe in the last couple of weeks, is like my pattern when there's a layoff and we need added resources. What I've come to learn is that I go into how can I be more resourceful, how can I give or serve more? Where can I add value to increase the income?

00;10;06;21 - 00;10;38;01
Kelly Goetz
And so what I've learned is that I go back to my roots of what I did 25 years ago when we were on one income, when my husband was traveling, when we didn't have enough money for the birthday party, I would find little part time things to do. Now. I've had a business for several years now. Having a business, really what I've been is a business operator, and as an operator you wear all the hats.

00;10;38;08 - 00;11;10;22
Kelly Goetz
You are all things. You are the teacher. You are the creator. You are all of it. But what I've been learning over the years is in what way can I become that business owner, where it's truly a business that operates? Whether or not I'm in the house, one of the things that draws people to doing this is the desire that they want to support and serve other people in their growth, in their transformation, in their empowerment.

00;11;10;24 - 00;11;38;28
Kelly Goetz
It's a very, giving job. It's a very heart centered job. And often people that are creative and heart centered and want to serve, they don't always have those business skills. In fact, I would venture to say that most of the practitioners that I've taught over the last several years, most every one of them, doesn't have that business mindset.

00;11;38;28 - 00;12;03;11
Kelly Goetz
In fact, instead, the mindset that they have is, I don't want to market myself. I don't want to sell myself as if to say, the universe and all the people that need your services are going to just show up just because you've hung your shingle. They all resist this concept of marketing and sales.

00;12;03;13 - 00;12;54;07
Kelly Goetz
What I've learned over the years of being a business operator, wearing all the hats that I wear, and having this stress response to layoffs in my household of overworking, over giving over producing to the point of I start other habits like eating the wrong foods, over eating, over giving, over serving, not getting enough sleep, you name it. So what I've learned is, between those two stress responses of having to do it all, and also having that stress response of be like your father, be resourceful, work harder, work more hours, give more, serve more.

00;12;54;09 - 00;13;20;15
Kelly Goetz
Comes from that place of me that says, hey, if I'm not producing, then I'm not doing enough. I heard a gentleman today much younger than myself saying, you know, I think for most men he has been focusing on his career. He's now ready for to find a relationship, as many men are. But most men need to build their castle, he said.

00;13;20;15 - 00;13;52;26
Kelly Goetz
You know, men have this need, or at least I do, that. I need to produce and how I'm valued is what I bring financially to the table. And I say, well, that's an interesting concept I need you to know, as a woman, I have that same need to produce. And if I don't feel that I'm producing or providing or making an income worthy of my skill or my hours, it supports my family.

00;13;52;28 - 00;14;20;28
Kelly Goetz
There's a part of me that doesn't feel that I'm bringing enough to the table, or I'm worthy enough. He was surprised by that. I can't say that when my mom and my dad married, it was that same thing. I don't know that we had that same dynamics. I think it was a little bit more old school where men worked and provided, and one women took care of the kids.

00;14;21;01 - 00;14;48;25
Kelly Goetz
Now, in my past 22 years of getting married and raising a family, it's not like that. In order to afford a household and all the costs that go with it, in order to take care of your kid and put them through college, both parties in an average average income household need to be bringing something to the table financially and otherwise.

00;14;48;28 - 00;15;23;27
Kelly Goetz
So there's two parts of me that have been kicking off and what I call my fight flight freeze response. We call it in the world of energy medicine. We call it triple warmer. One part of me watched my dad and how he responded to situations, circumstances where his kids needed a college education and where he wanted his kids to have an education without struggling for the extra years that he struggled doing every odd job he could do in order to put himself through college.

00;15;24;00 - 00;15;55;02
Kelly Goetz
He didn't want his kids to struggle. I learned from him that parents are meant to provide for their kids. I also learned the balance from my mom that yes, we're going to provide clothes and food, but I'm not here to provide you with the best of the best. When my friends started buying designer clothes or getting special haircuts or special dresses for the dance or whatever, we didn't have that mindset.

00;15;55;02 - 00;16;30;24
Kelly Goetz
Our mindset was, yeah, we're going to provide you with clothes, but if you want those extra special designer jeans, you have to be resourceful. You need to get the part time job. You need to make it happen. In my husband's world, completely different environment altogether. He wanted to go to college. His dad's frowned upon it. He got pushback, and my husband swam against the grain, swam against the grain that his father father desired for him and said, no, I'm going to put myself through college and found a way.

00;16;30;26 - 00;16;54;02
Kelly Goetz
I didn't know that detail about my husband until two years ago, when I learned that detail about my husband two years ago, I was awestruck. I couldn't believe the amount of energy and effort he had to do to swim upstream to get himself a college education. So he could make a better life for himself and his future family.

00;16;54;05 - 00;17;24;10
Kelly Goetz
I was dumbfounded because in my family, that person had been my father. I didn't see my father struggle trying to build a better life for his family. I saw the results that he created, the results of having a college education, the results of being a hard worker. The results of making his word match his actions. I saw the results of hard work.

00;17;24;12 - 00;17;41;18
Kelly Goetz
That's what I learned from, and I was blessed to have my college education paid for. My husband and I have come together and over the last 25 years, the struggle that we have faced, coming from two different mindsets.

00;17;41;21 - 00;18;05;09
Kelly Goetz
Me wanting to provide everything that my kids desired and wanted, and my husband saying, hey, they have to have skin in the game just like I did. It's been a balancing act, trying to figure out how to best navigate that. And as we've watched our son, you know, find a creative way to cut the cost for his college education at Purdue University.

00;18;05;11 - 00;18;41;24
Kelly Goetz
It's pretty magical the growth that we've seen in our son, because we couldn't provide the whole college education for him. And yet his resourcefulness that he learned from both me and my husband has given him an amazing college education, as well as the pride of having had skin in the game, the tremendous muscle he's built and still, when my husband got laid off, that part of me that goes into fight flight, freeze.

00;18;41;26 - 00;19;07;20
Kelly Goetz
I need to be more resourceful. I need to increase revenue, and I don't want my clients to have to worry about that. That part of me that is creative and resourceful and says, okay, I better go in overdrive right now because in order to be of value to my family right now, I have to produce more. I have to create more.

00;19;07;22 - 00;19;27;01
Kelly Goetz
I have fallen right back into that workaholic nature that I watched my father do when he was producing for his family. Thankfully, I also have his qualities of being generous of my time, being authentic, being real, being honest.

00;19;27;03 - 00;20;01;04
Kelly Goetz
And that part of me that has gone into overdrive thinking if I'm not producing this problem isn't going to be resolved quick enough to support our family. Not that it's on my shoulders. My husband's doing his own actions. I'm recognizing the pattern in me that goes on overdrive and works harder, faster. I shown up again, and when that pattern shows up, you might notice that however, it shows up for you when there's a struggle.

00;20;01;05 - 00;20;27;28
Kelly Goetz
Think about it. When that happens to you, where do you go? Do you get quiet and go within? Do you get sad and go away? You get busy and take action and get resourceful. What is it that you do? Pay attention. How do you tackle stressors, challenges that come up in your lives? It's going to give you some clues.

00;20;28;00 - 00;20;34;13
Kelly Goetz
I know I go into overdrive, I go into overworking.

00;20;34;15 - 00;21;06;28
Kelly Goetz
The great thing about that right now for me is I haven't been in this old pattern for very long, and I'm noticing the breakdown of how it's impacting my relationships, my personal relationships, how it's impacting my household, how it's impacting my health. And I can stop the pattern right now and choose to do something different. Like simply surrendering.

00;21;07;00 - 00;21;33;22
Kelly Goetz
And trusting that this too shall pass, no matter how bleak it might look right now, no matter how much this old traumatic event has happened in the past, we've always gotten through it. Now is the time to surrender and trust and create a new pattern. Create something different.

00;21;33;24 - 00;22;02;00
Kelly Goetz
So right now I'm deep in it, and I'm recognizing that I haven't wanted to record this particular show because I feel bad. I'm deep in it and I haven't found the gift yet. I'm starting to, as of today, starting to see the gift of recognizing and understanding that there's a part of me that feels like she has to produce and fix things.

00;22;02;03 - 00;22;31;02
Kelly Goetz
When things get challenging or stressful, it's time to do something different. The first step in any pattern in breaking any parent is just to stop and observe it, and to recognize what the pattern is. Where did you learn it? How is it serving you? I know for me how it's serving me. It's it's giving me a level of control where I feel out of control.

00;22;31;04 - 00;22;52;29
Kelly Goetz
So the second step, once you've observed it and you've stopped the pattern in the second step is simply to go into your heart and ask your heart, what would I choose? Is this what I would choose? Actually, no. In fact, I decided recently I'm like, I have been giving and serving in so many ways, in so many ways.

00;22;52;29 - 00;23;18;06
Kelly Goetz
I have given my time, my resources. I'm decided I'm going to invite the universe to bring back to me all of that energy I've given out into the world. All the ways that I've given and served other people. I'm inviting the universe to show up with creative abundance, where I have to work so hard. Where I can enjoy the process of this transition a little bit more.

00;23;18;09 - 00;23;53;28
Kelly Goetz
I'm also inviting myself to say, you know, what do I really want? And I realize I want to be my creative energy. I want to write my talks for my speaking. I want to finish writing my book. I want to continue to serve in this podcast and awaken you in each and every one of you, to recognize that all of the challenges that you have faced have just been a set up to discover how strong and resilient you are, how heart centered you are.

00;23;54;00 - 00;24;17;13
Kelly Goetz
It's set up to help you have compassion for yourself and have compassion for others. All of these challenges that we're facing in the world right now, that everything looks a little chaotic. I'm not going to deny it. It does. Whether you like what's happening, you don't like what's happening. It's a little chaotic. It's all some great set up for whatever your next big thing is.

00;24;17;15 - 00;24;40;10
Kelly Goetz
It may take a week, it may take a month, it may take years. Nobody knows what the time is going to be, and you may not even recognize your growth. You may not recognize all the ways that you are going to contribute in the future for having gone through the challenge you're sitting in right now. I don't know right now.

00;24;40;12 - 00;25;24;05
Kelly Goetz
I can link other ways that I have grown from past situations, but right now, this current moment, all I know is that I can choose if this is going to grow me, and that I can choose to break an old pattern. Which is what I'm doing. And so step one in pausing and stopping that reactive cycle and that old pattern that is no longer serving you step two in observing that old pattern, asking yourself, what do you really want to create as you go through a similar stressor that you've had in the past, or a new challenge, what do you want to create?

00;25;24;05 - 00;25;51;17
Kelly Goetz
Asking your heart what is that? Step three allowing yourself to trust and take the first step to breaking the pattern. And it's not going to be easy. Breaking an old pattern. How you break an old pattern is through repetition and consistently doing it again and again and again. If you think overnight, I'm not going to become a workaholic.

00;25;51;20 - 00;26;18;09
Kelly Goetz
No, that's not going to happen. But every day I can reset and I can go back to health and vitality first, put your own air mask on first, and then look around you and see who needs your gifts, your talents, your service, whether it's in your family or it's outside of your family.

00;26;18;11 - 00;26;30;20
Kelly Goetz
In step four, after you've trust allowing yourself to notice the new pattern that's forming.

00;26;30;22 - 00;27;00;02
Kelly Goetz
Are you surrendering? Are you trusting yourself more? Are you celebrating the victory of slowly every day chiseling at the old pattern that's not serving you while developing a new pattern and celebrating the small wins and the small victory as you take each step forward, one baby step at a time.

00;27;00;05 - 00;27;25;08
Kelly Goetz
I'm grateful for the last 25 years of all of the growth and development that I've done, that I don't sit in an old pattern as long as I did that. I can now coach and teach other people to break the old patterns and create new, empowering patterns. And when you do that, it doesn't mean you're not going to have challenges.

00;27;25;11 - 00;27;51;21
Kelly Goetz
It doesn't mean that old patterns aren't going to show up and test you. They will. What it does mean, and one of my first mentors taught me, is that you won't sit in that old pattern, that old emotion, or that own old thought process as long you will self and course correct a lot quicker.

00;27;51;24 - 00;28;20;06
Kelly Goetz
So I'm grateful for the 25 years that right now, as I'm sitting in this particular event and challenge in my life, that I'm having a wake up call where I can say I'm I can use my skills and my tools to break the pattern of reactivity and come back to responding from a place of love and gratitude. So no matter what you're going through, no matter where you are, I just want to wish you infinite love and gratitude.

00;28;20;06 - 00;28;45;15
Kelly Goetz
And thank you for joining me. My hope is that each week and hearing the various stories of gifts and strange wrapping paper and ways of growing and learning that you will wake up and recognize all the challenges that you've gone to to date, and you will see all the ways that you have grown and evolved for having walked through that challenge.

00;28;45;18 - 00;28;52;21
Kelly Goetz
And hopefully, if you haven't discovered that gift from that challenge, I hope you look at it with fresh eyes and go, wait a minute.