111: Why Change is So Scary | Post Traumatic Growth Moments

Change doesn’t just knock; sometimes it blows the door off the hinges. We dive into the kind of change you didn’t choose—losses that upend your plans, injuries that shake identity, and detours that feel like freefall—and show how to find your footing again without pretending it’s easy.

We start with the brain. Uncertainty isn’t neutral; it’s costly. That electric-shock study where a guaranteed shock was calmer than a 50% chance? It reveals how ambiguity spikes stress and drains focus. Layer that with identity—how tightly we cling to roles like athlete, partner, or founder—and no wonder forced change feels like annihilation. But there’s a way through: grieve the old story, then root down into values that exist beneath titles. If you loved sport for discipline, nature, and community, those values can live in a new form. If you built a future around marriage or a business, you can still create belonging and contribution, even if the container changes.

From there, we reframe. The mind is a meaning-making machine; give it better prompts. Ask, “What’s possible now?” “What matters most?” and “Who do I choose to be?” These questions steer you out of doom loops and into agency. We share practices that build resilience before the next curveball—micro-doses of uncertainty, a day with no plan, trips without itineraries, journaling that turns rumination into insight, and conversations that let grief move instead of harden. Gratitude becomes a state shift at the starting line, whether that’s a race with real risk or a hospital corridor where you hold a hand and breathe.

The throughline is simple and strong: accept impermanence, anchor in values, and train your recovery. The dip between impact and rebound can get shorter with practice. You’ve survived 100% of your changes so far; you’re more capable than your fear suggests. If this conversation helps, share it with a friend who’s navigating a hard pivot, subscribe for more grounded tools, and leave a review to tell us what question you’ll carry forward.

Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt 

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Why Change;

Samantha Pruitt 0:04

Hey superstars, welcome back. Polly here. What's up? Beautiful human. Sam Pruitt in the house. Let's go. Let's go. All right. Having so much fun today, dude. It's so good.

Polly Mertens 0:15

Yeah, you guys, just before airing, Samantha and I've just been we've basically recorded a whole nother podcast right now.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

I should have on all sorts of crazy going on.

Polly Mertens 0:25

But our topic today, I just wrote, you know, put it into the space. So it's for force change. So why change feels so scary and how to unlock growth on the other side. It's all about change, right? Change, change, change.

Samantha Pruitt 0:37

Change will do you good. And this is going to be the theme song of this episode.

Polly Mertens 0:43

Yeah. And like it's like, yeah, your brain is going to see it scary, and we'll talk about that. But like, embrace it. And there's a there's a yeah, there's so much good stuff in here. So part of this was because you were listening to this podcast, uh, this wonderful, amazing human, Maya. Uh, she's got TED Talks and stuff and a great book.

Samantha Pruitt 1:01

Um Shankar. S-H-A-N-K-A-R. Why have Shankar?

Polly Mertens 1:07

That's our inspiration neuroscientist out of Stanford who went on to, you know, do TED Talks and stuff like that. And it was

Forced Versus Chosen Change;

Polly Mertens 1:12

like, change is a good damn topic. And while we agree with like a lot of what we've heard, we neither one of us read her damn book, but I'm sure it's amazing because she's like worked in the White House and all this stuff, so she's super human. Oh, she has a podcast too, right? But we're like, well, we can give our own damn spin on change because I think we've been through a few changes ourselves. Dude, dude.

Samantha Pruitt 1:33

I think of myself as a game changer kind of person that goes out in the world like seeking change. But if I do a little historical moment, and I've been doing that recently, and I'll be doing that for the next year in this course, uh Year to Live. Yeah, um, you know, you do a life reflection. And so every now and then, you know, there's glimpses of your life, however, you but if you do a little bit of an inventory, what I notice for myself personally is it's been nothing but change. And then the reality is everybody's life is nothing but change.

Polly Mertens 2:02

Right.

unknown 2:02

Right.

Samantha Pruitt 2:03

Just pay attention. Open your eyeballs, it's changing every minute, constantly, all the time. A lot of it you don't even notice. It's subtle undercurrent.

Polly Mertens 2:13

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 2:14

Right. But that's living, that's life.

Polly Mertens 2:17

And one of the things we want to talk about that she talks about in her book and her talks is about forced change versus like chosen change, right? So the changes that we choose, like to be a better human, to stop being an asshole, whatever. Like the things that we want to get up to, our goals, our dreams, our self-expression, our self-evolution, if you will, those are all, I mean, they can have moments of suckness, right? Depending on what it looks like. But we don't see that as like. It's like, oh my God, I'm getting up to this and I'm growing in this way, and I'm shedding that old identity, and it's yucky a little bit.

Samantha Pruitt 2:51

We have a hunger for that kind of change. We seek that humanity, and we have a hunger for it, unsatiable sometimes.

Polly Mertens 2:58

Yeah, yeah. And then there's the life hits you on the side of the head, or the detours, or the accidents, or the diagnosis, or the deaths, or whatever moments, big, large, however they impact you. I think the larger the impact, the longer the rebound, you know, the blowback, if you will. But both, you know, how do we navigate those is what, you know, and how do we not, you know, just go down into a spiral that we can't get ourselves out of in those moments as well. So we talked a lot, I think, in the world and other podcasts about habit change and growth and getting up to self-expression. So we're probably not gonna focus that much on that because you can go listen to those. But I think most of what we should talk about today is about that I didn't want this. Like this, I didn't, I didn't ask for this moment, right? Whatever that looks like. And how do we, you know, navigate through that? What's the path through that? So what are you or do you want to start with a story? Like any any stories that we want to tell to, you know, talk about?

Samantha Pruitt 4:02

Yeah, yeah. The neuroscience part of it is really interesting to me because there's a ton of science, and it's like, you know, the people don't like change. Yeah, it's scary. They like things to stay the same, they like consistency, they like knowing. And there's actual shot science that um one of the studies,

The Neuroscience Of Uncertainty;

Samantha Pruitt 4:22

which I thought was hilarious, is people would be brought into these study rooms and it was gonna be electric shock. Okay, and some people were gonna get it, and some people weren't gonna get it. And so half the room was told you 100% will be receiving an electric shock at some time, and they're monitoring their brains, their cognitive response to this and their neurons firing and all that kind of stuff. Um, it's just a matter of you know when you're gonna get it, but you're gonna get it. And the other side of the room is you may have a 50% chance of getting electrical shock today, right? And the difference in these two brains was fascinating, these two people's brains. The people that knew, without a doubt, shadow of doubt, they would be shocked if we had much calmer brain activity response. Yes, exactly.

Polly Mertens 5:08

Yeah, emotional aid regulation was yeah, brain, brain activity, I'm sure, and then tied to nervous system regulation was a different exactly blood pressure, heart rate, all of the correlations, all of the things that are impacted.

Samantha Pruitt 5:21

And then the 50-50s, hell was breaking loose. Okay, just the anticipation, and they call it um cognitive taxing. The ambiguity caused cognitive taxing. It was basically exhausting these people, the not knowing.

Polly Mertens 5:38

Knowing, right?

Samantha Pruitt 5:39

The not knowing, and really that's what we're talking about with change is first of all, none of us can know. Yeah, okay, but how can we be at peace with that and not run around, you know, henny penny, the sky is falling, emotionally taxed, exhausted, um, having these responses to every little thing. And a, how not to feed that cycle and create more of that than you need to have in your life. And some people let it rule them, and it causes a lot of disorders, by the way, which is really unfortunate. And then it's gonna happen, things will happen inevitably to all of us, including disease and death and aging and changes and whatever, and how to best be prepared and how to maybe ground yourself in that knowing, find comfort, believe it or not, in that process. Yeah, and I think that's kind of what we're about today.

Polly Mertens 6:28

The the one thing I just want to clarify is um just to give people their power back, is when you say, you know, we or the human, right? We don't like this or whatever. So I want to clarify between you, the observer, the spirit, the the one in the background of this, and then the mind, right? So your mind does all this stuff. This is the way your brain is built, not you, the soul, the spirit, the you know, the one who's uh experiencing this. You don't want this, right? Your brain operates this way. I just want to create that distinction. That's all.

Samantha Pruitt 7:02

Yeah, yeah. Oh, the brain. That brain, boy, she is, he is, they are tricky, tricky, tricky. So we have to start with what you were just touching on, which is identity. The source of all this is this sort of identity battle that we have. And when change comes into our life, yeah, unwanted change, we're talking about specifically, it is an identity crisis of sorts. Why is that?

Polly Mertens 7:28

So, a couple things I want to say from a hypnotherapist standpoint and all the things that I've read about neuroscience. So your two million-year-old brain is designed to have certainty from what it knows, like whatever you have experienced, read about, seen, like your known information that your brain has. That's safe, that's survivable, like it knows this, and it knows even like avoid that, like it, like that's a known problem or something like that. Anything outside of that, so like if you had like a circle, anything outside of that circle that it didn't know, like I don't know anything about that, right? It's like death to the brain. It's like at all costs, avoid that, right? And so that's that ring of uncertainty is there's the known, safe, survivable. I can live, I can, I can function in this way. You know, we would call it like the hyper-controlling, you know, when you see people like that or whatever, it's like this is known. Your brain is designed to keep you in that. And when we talked about identity, however, you've evolved, right, to create an identity for yourself through experiences, through lived experiences, whatever, how you identify yourself. One of the strongest forces in the human psyche is the need to stay consistent with that known. Like, I am this way. How you identify yourself, I'm this, I'm not that, I can do this, I can't do that. To stay consistent with that, it's this insurmountable, like force. Like I was just talking with our friend Jen this morning, and she was like, I have to get myself to do this thing. Like, let's I think it has to do with public speaking. She's like, I have to get on these stages because I need to, you know, in order to grow my company, grow my business, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, My brain, my body feels like it's in a prison locked down, like, ah, like death will happen. That I told her that I was like, your body and your brain perceive standing on stages as death for some reason because you haven't, like, what could go wrong and stuff like that. So it's a super

Identity Shock And Safety Loops;

Polly Mertens 9:35

powerful force. If you can get it going in the direction, what I told her is I was like, well, I just want to point out to you that just as powerfully as it's keeping you from doing that, because it you've a s it associates whatever it associates with powerfully anti. Once you can get that turned in your favor, like it's a force of good. Like it can, you know, like that's what gets you on these ultra things and these amazing things that you've gotten up to in your life, Samantha Proud, is like you see that as a good thing to get up to. And it's like you're a force of nature, girl, you know.

Samantha Pruitt 10:07

Well, I seek those things out, but I wasn't always that way. And a really striking example of what you're referring to is people staying in this known where they feel like they have some control is the cases where people are in abusive relationships or in really toxic jobs. Those are two really big ones that you see quite frequently. And they'd rather stay in the abusive relationship or the toxic job because it is a known entity. Rather than knowing these things, could literally kill me because they're horrible for me and I don't deserve them. But going out beyond that bubble is scarier, and so their mind has can their thoughts and their mind have convinced them that that is a rational decision. Yeah. And any outsider would go, hell no, right? Not to go.

Polly Mertens 10:53

Yeah, exactly. It's it's fascinating how the brain is designed that way, you know, and we won't go into like how it works, whatever, but just no, like that's why change feels so damn hard, right? And I just want to, this may be the segue to why when these force changes or these unexpected changes, especially at the identity level, like we were talking about you with you know how what's happened to your back and recently. And I mean, you are like athlete 100% head to toe, inside and out, through and through, like see yourself as this athlete. And so you get this left curve thrown at you called, you know, your back injury, you know, injury, and it's like, oh, surgery and what's gonna happen, or whatever. You come out of that, and it's like, I'm still an athlete. So, like, what what new capacity and stuff? So, whatever, if you're you know, oh, I see myself like I was telling you about my story of being married, and then the idea of that was a chosen one, but you know, like, oh my god, my brain was like, you talked about being in relationship, going out and not being married, but what but that meant this, and that meant this, and that meant this, and all this uncertainty, and like, can I navigate inside this relationship? All the things that my needs aren't getting met and whatnot.

Samantha Pruitt 12:06

So this is why it's so hard, and we want to really show compassion and understanding. A, we've been there a thousand times, each of us individually. Uh plenty of things have gone terribly wrong that we didn't want to happen. Okay. Um, we there is a grieving of the loss of your identity attached to not only who you think you are right now, how you identify, but your future self that you envisioned for yourself. You were marching down this path to be a married woman, to be a business owner, to be an iron ultra woman, to be a whatever, fill in the blank of your thing. And then all of a sudden, that changes.

unknown 12:45

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 12:46

Out of your control, something happens, something transpires, and it all changes. And you feel like in that instant that your world and identity have just been shattered. Right. And that's pretty brutal. And if you don't have the skills to move through that, you can stay stuck there. And that's what what we're really hoping to get with people today is like help them work through that. There's no reason to be stuck in that phase.

Polly Mertens 13:11

And we likened it when before we started recording, it's, you know, when there's an external loss in our life, like there's a loved one, right? That passes away, that there's a grieving process. Like we, we as a society, as a culture, expect that. Like we've seen it enough, depending on how old you are. Like you you just know, like, oh, there's gonna be grief. There's something that happens to our heart, right? And I think we don't associate identity loss in these instances where it's like, oh, I'm no longer an athlete because I got paraplegic or whatever, right? That there's going to be an adjustment period that your heart, your mind, your I look in it too, like when when I thought about the being married or whatever, it was like a dream, like I lost a dream, like you talked about a vision. It was like, oh, that dream is dead now, right? So, like, however, you, like you said, you saw your life going. I called it a dream, uh a vision, that's no longer that that door is closed. Okay. And you grieve the loss of that self, that that thing, just like you grieve the loss of a loved one, is what it seems to me.

Samantha Pruitt 14:18

And it's healthy to do that, to allow yourself that process and to be open and honest about it and fully express it, not pretend it's not happening or be in denial over it or try and medicate it away because it's there and it needs to be reckoned with almost right. And yeah, I think one of the ways you reckon it reckon with it is to get re-grounded, if you will, in your values, your sense of worth and value system that are unconnected to those things, to that identity, to that particular thing. I mean, it's very difficult to do with the loss of somebody that you love. You know, my sister-in-law, my brother recently passed, and my sister-in-law is in a heavy grief, and I'm in a heavy grief period. That's my brother. This is her husband, right? Died very young. Should not have happened. Everybody's in this place of like, what does life look like now? Yeah. And for her, her life looks completely different than she ever envisioned, right? And that's going to be a very slow and tender process that she needs to give herself and all of us who have lost pieces of ourselves or people that we love should allow that process to happen and not to shy away from it. Yeah. But if it's something that happens, let's say I have lost businesses, um, opportunities, I've moved a lot, and you know, there's lots of stuff that happens

Grief For Lost Futures;

Samantha Pruitt 15:40

in life. Life is chaotic as hell. And since I was young, we moved a lot. So this is kind of a part of my story, apparently. Hello. See how I why I can live out of a tent in a backpack. I mean, bring it. But if my values are still clear to me and I feel grounded in them at my root, then I still feel stable and secure and confident to move forward because it's that value system that gives me the strength and the comfort and the wisdom to move beyond the incident, if you will, the circumstances, if you will. I'm not a different person because I don't have that job anymore, that business anymore, that home anymore, dah-da-da, whatever the thing is. Even if I could never run again with this back injury and going into back surgery. Of course, I made a deal with the surgeon going into the operating room. I mean, that's a whole other thing, which he made good on. Well, I made a bet. But if it I came out the other side and it was told to me because of the discovery in the surgery or whatever, you won't be able to run. Well, first of all, I would have tried anyway, because that's my nature. But that's why I couldn't. That's just a good. And even now, I will be slower. I might not be able to do the same things or whatever. It's gonna look different. And that's because it's grounded in my value system.

Polly Mertens 17:19

And I think one of the things that I appreciated about that book and that uh Maya had shared in a couple of stories that I heard her talk about is she talks about how she was a prodigy in um learning to play the violin and da-da-da, whatever. She had this bright future as a violinist, and she was super hyper dedicated and loved it, and it just was like, ah, and then at 15 had an injury and it disappeared, right? And I was thinking one of the things she talks about is how she went on after the grieving period, she went on a path to discover what was it about that, not just violin, this physical thing and the playing of it that was important to her. I get you on values, but also like, you know, there was like you talked about she had a community, she liked connecting with the audience, you know, she probably loved the discipline of like the practicing or whatever were the things, right? Where can you take that experience and recognize? Oh, that's what I love about this. Like you, if you, I mean, you have a connection to nature, right? And moving or whatever. Let's say you, I mean, I don't think you'd ever be bedridden, but it's like, what if you couldn't get outside or you couldn't, whatever? Like, well, what, like, what is it that those experiences or that playing of the violin or whatever was meaningful to you that gave your heart a tap on the, you know, tap in the heart, uh, connection was important to her, or the discipline, or being able to improve herself, or you know, connect with the audience. I we talked about the fabric of the identity created this community that she was a big part of, and that got ripped away, right? It doesn't mean you can't have community ever again. You just don't have that one, right? Or you you can't ever again connect with people or be in nature, whatever. It's like it's just gonna look a little different. So finding the nuggets of what that brought for you, what that meant for you, and can you recreate it as closely as possible in a different place or somewhere else?

Samantha Pruitt 19:23

And even better, how can you use that sort of pivotal moment in your life, one of the many that will be coming your way? And be like, dang, okay, what's possible for me now? So after you've moved through the grief and after you started to process and you know, grounded yourself again in this value system we're talking about, like how can you go? So, what's possible now? And maybe there's things I would have never made time for, had room for, had awareness about that are possible for me now because this thing went away.

Polly Mertens 20:01

Right. Yeah. And one of the key points that I really, as we talked about talking about change, is helpful for me or as I look at this and the work that I've ever experienced is knowing that our brains are meaning-making machines. If we don't guide that meaning-making with our own lens or give it some guardrails or direction or intention, we can quickly, especially feeling in a place of grief and loss, go down a p spiral of hopelessness, helplessness, you know, devastation, doomsdaying, whatever. We can just not as easily, but just as readily choose questions and empowering direction and intention to guide the brand. Like, well, what else could this mean? Or what's the best, you know, like what could this mean for my future? Like, and and guide it in a direction of possibility. Like, wow, I wonder what's possible now that I'm not doing that other thing, right? Type of thing.

Samantha Pruitt 21:04

So or that

Regrounding In Values;

Samantha Pruitt 21:05

I've experienced this moment in time, you know. Um, it's been a year of illness and death in my family and in around me, and it's continuing to be that way up until even this last week. So the death is on my mind. How can it not be? It's been a big part of my journey for the last year and a half, really. And like I said, it continues to be. So the gift in that for me is that I have very wide open, full awareness and full open heart to understanding and experiencing my own existence in this body, in this lifetime, and that of all humans that I interact with, and of course, my loved ones, my friends and family, at a whole other level, right? To the points that literally I'm gonna spend the next year studying in this program around death and dying and coming to the terms and taking an inventory of your life, right? Like this is how passionate I feel about it. And I feel what an incredible gift I've been given in these circumstances that I got to be part of these people's lives and death stories. And how can I continue to facilitate that with other people, friends and family, people that I love, and including my own. Yeah. It's very empowering rather than the opposite of why is this happening? And I'm so sad and I can't move through it, and I'm gonna stay stuck there, and you know, none of these, like the the continuing story of um unjust, unfair, unaccepted, and all of that kind of stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 22:42

This is how I'm choosing to do it. It's different for everybody, but I do want to share my personal experience.

Polly Mertens 22:46

Yeah, and I think that's what we're inviting people as forced change shows up in your life. I just started to think of like a little formula. First is, you know, there's there's a level of acceptance, right? Like things, you know, there's a level of acceptance, grief. I wanted to add in there compassion for the process, right?

Samantha Pruitt 23:06

Huge compassion requirement.

Polly Mertens 23:08

And then then beginning to look at possible, like what's possible now, right? And how do I want to frame this? How do I want to grow from this? How do I want to move forward from this? How do I want to, you know, change the course of my future? This obviously has happened. That's what's so. Okay, so what? So what do I what am I going to make it mean? And being with intention, because the question, the questions that you ask in those moments will guide what trajectory you get on.

unknown 23:37

Right.

Samantha Pruitt 23:38

A hundred percent. And if you're not capable of asking these questions to yourself, get with people who will ask you these questions and walk you through it. I mean, you and I obviously have the skill set, but like those spaces, whether they're circles or communities or friendships or coaches or whatever, um, can help you do this. So if you're feeling stuck or you just can't seem to see through it, sometimes it just simply means you need a helping hand and the support and the space and time for that to be nurtured so you can move through it. Because we both strongly believe that there's a massive amount of possibility open to you in the next chapter when you are ready. And so priming yourself to be ready.

Polly Mertens 24:21

And I think um one of the things I wanted to just touch upon is whether you do it verbally, like with a coach or a therapist or a loved one, that you have this dialogue. You know, grief, I think one of the best things, a little bit like when Brene Brown says that um, you know, shame in the petri dish of acceptance and unconditional love, it just dissolves, right? Like, you know, when you feel seen and heard and whatever. And the same I think with grief, like processing it verbally. If you are in that space, you know, there might be like an initial shock, right? And then, or journaling. I just wanted to introduce, like, you know, writing things out, right? And some of this is like putting on the top of a piece of paper a prompting and then writing from there. You know, the work of Byron Katie, right, comes to mind, right? Like,

Extracting Meaning And Possibility;

Polly Mertens 25:10

you know, is that true? Do you absolutely know that that's true? Okay. And then like what like possibility thinking, questions on the top of that page when you're ready to elicit what could this mean? What's the best outcome from this? What else is possible now? You know, like who do I want to become in in in the face of this, you know, or right? So journaling I think can be a really nice way because I find that people that get stuck or are over processing or stuck in the process are either so in their mind that they're not moving it, right? Like it's just iterations, analysis, if you will. So journaling, speaking it, you know, moving it, walking something, um, meditations, whatever, but get in action around it.

Samantha Pruitt 25:57

So a part I want to mention about the people that tend to get stuck, what I've seen, and I've experienced this for myself, I'm sure, many times, um, is maybe when this thing happens, they have a couple stories they're telling themselves, perhaps, that are keeping them stuck. Like, you know, I deserve this.

Polly Mertens 26:18

Or why is this happening to me?

Samantha Pruitt 26:19

Or why is this happening to me? Right. There are different kinds of loops of stories that people can get sort of sucked into that's a bit of a vortex that will keep them in that stuck place. And that's why breaking that wide open and shining a light on it is the only way to liberate that untruth. And also, how ludicrous that people think they have that much control over their life or over circumstances. We don't have that much control. Like she references in her book about she interviews hundreds of people around their stories of change. You know, she's a neuroscientist, so she's a nerd and she wants to study all this stuff, right? But some of the most remarkable stories around people that um either got a life-threatening diagnosis or uh something major happened to them physically, right? And time after time, they didn't see themselves as a victim of it or that this happened to them, right? If they had taken that identity on, it would have held them back from really experiencing the rest of their life. And so, through other pathways of discovery and just really this deep understanding for knowing that everything is impermanent and we really have very little control, there's a huge liberation and freedom there. You know, we don't control the economy, we don't control the weather, we don't, there's so many things. And so if we just walk around on our daily thinking that we have or we're attempting to hold on to those things, it's really a slippery slope, right?

Polly Mertens 27:52

Well, that's your Buddhist impermanence, right? The impermanence of this moment, the impermanence of this relationship, this economy, this whatever job, whatever relationship. It's like if you you and I were talking about how I think our lives have been a patchwork quilt of experiences where we put ourselves in uncertainty. It's me, a love of travel.

Samantha Pruitt 28:16

Great intention.

Polly Mertens 28:17

Yeah, with the love of travel.

Samantha Pruitt 28:18

Quite a bit of enthusiasm.

Polly Mertens 28:22

And what what it what it what it created, you know. So like I think about the amount of times I've been on planes and trains and buses and la la la, whatever. Globe trotting, globe trotting, whatever, and like, oh, whoops, okay, well, now what?

Samantha Pruitt 28:36

Now what? Well, I'm in another country accidentally, yeah.

unknown 28:40

Now what?

Polly Mertens 28:41

And it and when you come back from those experiences, right, with a new capacity to face uncertainty, detours, unexpected, they don't always feel good. I'm not saying like, oh, a smack in the face feels fantastic. And you know what? Now what? Okay, now what? Right. And you know, the the meaning that we make in that moment, it's um, I think what we have to, there's a phrase of something like, um gosh, I wish I could remember. But it's basically is like like you said, there's so much change, right? And that which doesn't change is like the essence of life, right? And like who we are, the essence of who we are is the essence of who we are. How our outer circumstances, how all this, whatever, it's like just remember in your essence, you're not that thing, that that that dream, that role.

Samantha Pruitt 29:35

You're not that role, you're a soul.

Polly Mertens 29:38

Yeah, yeah. Like that, that's the core, and that is not changing, right? That will be here after life, after you make your own transition, right? Like you will still be that essential self, if you will. And that's like always a coming home to that and remembering that because this outer game of life, of you know, this virtual reality of how we see ourselves in this role, and I'm supposed to get up to that, and oh, I'm not doing that now. Um let it all go, right? Like, I mean, that's the Buddhist way of like the impermanence

Impermanence And Letting Go;

Polly Mertens 30:10

of it, doesn't that? You know?

Samantha Pruitt 30:12

And so there are ways, this is where we're getting, and we'll close out the episode with these kind of things, like to build that muscle. Yeah, there are ways you're you know, you're alluding to it now. Like we by choice, um, sometimes by life circumstance developed our personalities that are still evolving. I hope to be evolving till the day I die. I really hope I'm still learning and evolving, literally, until that moment, and even beyond that moment. I don't know, maybe. Okay, that's cool. But like we make it our lifestyle to choose things that look pretty. I don't know, don't know how it's gonna go. Looks like a grand advent. We call them adventures, but right, they are business choices, they're professional choices, they're new relationship choices, they're going to new places, they're meeting new people, they're trying to do things that are really physically hard, that have so there's so much unknown in all of those things that we kind of seek out because we understand that the that muscle strength, the flexibility and the tone of that muscle, that adaptable, nimble muscle, will get us through the hardships of life.

Polly Mertens 31:22

Right.

Samantha Pruitt 31:23

Right? Emotional resiliency, people.

Polly Mertens 31:26

Yeah, yeah. I think our I call it a high need for variety, you know. Um, so the greater amount of uncertainty and variety you can tolerate, I think life doesn't occur like a what's woe is me, right? Like the victim mentality doesn't live inside of a mind where uncertainty is a cust, not a custom, you know, like you don't want everything, but you're like, okay, so what? Now what? Okay, got it, got it, right?

Samantha Pruitt 31:55

Well, people work very, very hard to constrain their environments to be highly predictable. And unfortunately, they do it for their children also. So I will give my parents credit. Um, they didn't know they were doing this, creating a game called My Life, but hey, you turned out a pretty remarkable person because I can do it's like chaos can be raining, and I'm like a freaking ninja, right?

Polly Mertens 32:16

Adaptable, yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 32:17

But for uh all other people listening, our audience, you know, by choice, you andor for your children or people that you do have influence over, um, maybe should examine how you're living the daily and the choices and the surroundings and whatever, and and intentionally bring in some unpredictability in order to build more emotional resiliency and flexibility and strength in that muscle, the adaptable muscle. So when the real shit happens, and I mean real shit is coming, people, when that happens, you're like, we got this. And it's even better if we got it together. Yeah, if I can count on you, right? We can go anywhere in the freaking world right now, in any circumstance, be dropped there and out of a helicopter with our freaking parachutes. And we love it. Yeah, let's yeah, we're up for that. Like we'd be able to survive and figure it out and like we're you know, like we should be on these game shows and these things where crazy stuff like that's happening. But our audience too can put themselves with intention into these things on a regular basis for new environments, change of scenery, make things challenging for yourself and for your loved ones so they can build this muscle.

Polly Mertens 33:32

I love it, I love it. Yeah, you know, like what if you didn't have an agenda for a day or a week or you went on vacation and you had no plan? You just had a week and you just you know, like I can remember when I there was time, um, because I'm very much a planner and I like my schedules and know what's going on, and I'll have like these days where I'm like, I'm just gonna like I've had that as a like a meditative um listening to my inner compass where I have like a whole day and there's no plan, and I literally will just follow the impulse. It's kind of like where the wind blows me. I'm like, oh, I feel like going in the garden. I'm gonna go out and garden for however long I'm gonna garden, you know, until the next impulse is like, I'm gonna go shower now, and I'm gonna go this now, and oh, I'm hungry, you know, and like the last thing I just want to say that um I often hear myself either say this to people or think this to myself when they're they've faced or encountered an abrupt detour is um the serenity prayer, you know, it's just still is as valid to me, you know, accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things that I can't. You know, we talk a lot about that, but like accept the things I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference, right? Because when we don't have the wisdom and we resist the change or this shouldn't happen or whatever, that's when um just all this upset happens, right? Like that's where that's what's so so what to me is like the the embodiment of that.

Training Emotional Resilience;

Polly Mertens 35:05

I'm like, okay, I accept this change. Okay, so what? All right. I'm still me, I'm still a soul, a beautiful soul here to express, I'm the purpose of love, you know, la la la, those things are impermanent, right? They will still be who I am afterward. So it's like, okay, this is what's happened. This is what's happening right now.

Samantha Pruitt 35:26

Okay, got this. And if you if you've tuned your intuition, like you were referencing to earlier, having days where you just listen to your intuition, you know, if you've tuned that and then you get into different circumstances, like you have direct communication to that. Oh my God, my intuition tells me that I'm gonna listen to it, trust it, respect it, and move forward.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Right?

Samantha Pruitt 35:46

You feel it's very empowering to be in those circumstances and not be just waiting for the next brick to fall, for the next thing, or someone else outside of you to make a decision in order for you to be able to move forward in whatever way you know needs to happen.

Polly Mertens 36:03

I love it. I love it. Good stuff, good stuff. What's your one point? Like, what do you want to remind? Um, I mine is about the direction that questions can guide your mind, right? So the stuckness is either ruminating questions that don't move your life forward, right? Or keep you in helpless, hopeless, you know, doomsday. So having questions that guide the meaning of possibility that take you into the world of possibility in like a potentiality way, not a what's the worst that could happen, but like what's the best that could happen. That's what I really want to leave people with is asking better questions in these moments.

Samantha Pruitt 36:43

And I just want to double click with a lot of people have asked me in this last very challenging year, like, how in the hell are you doing this? Yeah, they're pretty confused that somehow, like, you know, every 10 minutes, something. And and how am I doing it? And how am I doing it? Pretty gracefully, not all days. Like, I have my days and moments where I'm like, fuck this. I'm just gonna be laying down now out in the woods on the middle of the whatever, but in general, so they have asked me that, which makes me want to just reiterate then I have trained these muscles, right? So I have chosen a life. Well, first part of my life wasn't chosen for me, right? I was young and growing up, and so my parents, uh to their, you know, probably had no intentional idea that yeah, um, create a lifestyle for me that led me down a certain path. But then once I was a young adult and really a preteen, I owned, started owning my life myself quite young because of circumstances, and became this very independent person. So I have continued over that long journey of building this muscle, putting myself in places that are challenging, trying new things, new businesses, living in new places, whatever, and and really exercising that muscle. So I really want people to know that like I'm relatively gracefully handling this very difficult year because of all of that. Okay. Not because I'm special or not because I have some magic wand or not because I'm invincible, or not because I don't give a shit. It's because of all of that, every single one of those things.

unknown 38:28

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 38:29

So when it gets really serious, I'm still able to stand tall and weather the storm, you know? And I want people to do that for themselves.

Polly Mertens 38:39

Well, you know, and that reminds it the parallel I started to see in your life is this life, let's say unintentional conditioning, meaning the circumstances of your young adult childhood and whatnot, you know, uncertainty and move being flexible and nimble and like adaptable. You had to adapt that way. You you were were forced because of the environment, if you will. It's like, okay, that conditioned that. And then through your life, you've strengthened these muscles and you know, you you didn't make it, you weren't so tightly wound, if you will, like, oh, can't have any change, like whatever. It's like, no, I embraced, I I got this, like I've been through this enough, right? And you strengthen that. It's like when you train for your races and stuff, right? So you're you you you put yourself in, let's say, a 240 race or a hundred mile or something like that. You have this conditioning that you do beforehand so that when like a hit, boom, go. You're like, all right, I'm on the race, you know, and like so you've done this life of conditioning, and it's like, boom, your brother's got a cancer diagnosis. Whew, okay, gonna navigate this, right? And so that period that you're in that race or whatnot, you've got this life experience that prepared you for that race that you enter of a change moment. You're like, Whoo, okay, well, here we are.

Samantha Pruitt 39:58

So exactly many, many. Many, many starting lines. The other night I was watching a YouTube video about somebody I can't even remember, and they were at the starting line of the Western States 100. And so they're like filming it from this angle. And I'm like, I stood right there. I think that's actually me. Holy shit. Right. Like I immediately went back to that moment in my life at that time, standing at the starting line and going, game on, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 40:23

Like, you know, like just to the insanity of like all the things I had to do to get there, and then being there at that moment and how precious like that experience was. But like stepping into the arena. Okay. So this is very much man or woman in the arena, quote. And if you don't know that by Teddy Roosevelt, look up Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt. Okay. And Brene Brown did a female version of it. It's so beautiful and so eloquent. And for a long time I had that hanging on my wall. But that place is, and it can be a disaster, by the way. Western States was a disaster. I ended up in the med

Build Uncertainty Tolerance;

Samantha Pruitt 41:00

tent. I almost died. I got a stroke. I was a complete insane what happened that day. Okay, but I didn't die. They carried my body off the mountain into the med tent, and I lived to fight another day. Okay, people. So the story wasn't all tragic.

unknown 41:14

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 41:15

You know, and so it's not about like them being me getting, you know, warrying through and getting doing it. And you know, no, sometimes disaster. Somebody you love dying is a disaster. So we're not saying there's always a happy ending, but the point is you can handle it. This is life.

Polly Mertens 41:35

Preparing you for that race, preparing you for those moments. Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt 41:39

And what an incredible, rich, epic life you can have if you choose that consciously and you step out of those comfort circles that you referenced earlier. You know, there is so much life waiting. Sometimes it's a shit show. Yes, granted. But it's also extraordinary.

Polly Mertens 41:59

Adventure. Extraordinary adventure. I just have I think this morning in the shower, I was thinking about this moment, like you talked about standing at Western States. I can remember the gratitude I had when you I was in the wetsuit going to do my Iron Man, and you and I you were standing there with me at six o'clock or whatever the hell. And I was just, I was moved to tears because I was like, oh my God, I'm so grateful for this moment. And I literally started thinking back behind that. I was like, wow. And that swim, like you talked about Western States, was a fucking shit show, like a survival of the fittest moment. Like, oh my God. So here's what's funny, dude. I think you know, I was remembering, so you know, I hadn't swam for training for that damn thing. You know, I was like swimming in the pool or whatever. I remember a month before you I had asked you, there was um the the um it was like so I did the iron half Iron Man, and there was like a short a sprint. There was like a sprint triathlon at um San Antonio, and you're like, yeah, you should do that, right? So I entered that. I, you know what? That was a month before. Samantha, I didn't make it to the first buoy, and I was having chali horses. I swam on my back doing the back stroke through the whole thing. I was like the second to the last one getting out of the water. Yep. And I got out of that and I went, holy fuck, I got and then for a and then I can remember you remember me and that training for the Iron Man getting in the water, and it took me an hour to warm up. Like I was shivering so bad.

Samantha Pruitt 43:24

I was like, like so many degree waters, people.

Polly Mertens 43:27

Yeah, Arctic bullshit. So many breakdowns. I was like, the swimming, I don't like if you had looked at like this girl's not like if you had said, Hey, this is gonna be the swim of your life, like I didn't know it, right? And they said, How's your swimming going? I'm being, that was not my strongest moment. So I was like, couldn't did a backstroke over here, got you know, like practically last place in that swim, and oh my god, almost died, you know, doing the practice swims and all this stuff, whatever. And I show up to the swim and I'm like glowing in gratitude. I'm like, oh, I can't wait to do this. And then I jump and didn't know what was I was about to do. Swim for your life moment, but like this is life.

Samantha Pruitt 44:07

The tide turns and tried turned and tried to suck you all out, and that's why half the people ENF'd and got yanked out of the water or didn't make it out of the water, you know. I mean, that was really literally a life and death situation, and you were able to not only complete that and in the time cap and keep moving and finish the whole damn race, by the way. Hell yes, but seriously, to get to the starting line, knowing what you were about to enter into with gratitude, with grace, with joy, that's freaking remarkable. That is the freaking money, that is the money called your life, and that's what we're telling people to get up to.

Polly Mertens 44:50

Like, what is their story? And you know, in what it what just came present to me is fear, you can either be in fear or gratitude, right? So I could have been standing and I I don't even know how, whatever. Maybe it's because you were there because I was so grateful for you being there that whole day. I'm still so moved by that. But like I could have stood at that starting line and been fucking scared to death. Like, this water has frozen the shit out of me every time I've gotten in it.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yep.

Polly Mertens 45:17

I don't, you know, like my last swim went horribly wrong, and this is way more tide, way harder, way more people in the water, like so many, like whatever. But I was so in a state of gratitude going into that water, and it was like it wasn't easy, but right, and so like the state we're in can shift so much, and that's what gets you through it.

Samantha Pruitt 45:43

That's what not only allows you to show up and do the hardest things of your life, grace, grace, holding your brother's hand while he's dying, starting a race that you know you could literally die in. I mean, come on, people, but you don't get to the starting line of those experiences without doing this work. And this is the call to act call to action. Get busy doing it now, on whatever level you can. And when the shit happens, and it will embrace it, learn from it, ground in your values, move forward. Yeah, because at some point it's gonna be these epic things like you and I are talking about, where really everything is on the line.

Polly Mertens 46:26

And guess what? You have survived a hundred percent of the changes you've already experienced. You've survived you're pretty damn good. Hey, guess what? You know, however this looks you have survived them. So just be like, check, I got change. Okay, I got it, I got it, I got it. Don't always love it. Okay, I got it, I got it. And it's the dip. Like how quick, how re how short can that dip be? Get it, you know, it's okay, and off we go, right? The ones that rebound most readily make that dip as sm short and narrow as possible. They don't make it deep and take forever, you know. So there's gonna be a dip, but you can come back. So yeah, love it. All right, what do you want to tell our beautiful humans as we sign off today? What do we want to share?

Samantha Pruitt 47:11

Oh, how your life feels sucks. Just kidding. Change. Motto change. Oh God, how your life feels is the most important thing, not how it looks.

Polly Mertens 47:28

And every day is your opportunity

Gratitude Over Fear;

Polly Mertens 47:30

to find your awesome.

Samantha Pruitt 47:32

So go find it. See you next time.