Episode 76: The Thoughts That Changed Everything with Judith Belmont

Have you ever stopped to think about the power of a single thought?

Not just the passing kind, but the ones that shape your beliefs, your reactions, your inner world?

In this episode of The Well-Tended Life, I sit down with author, psychotherapist, and emotional wellness expert Judith Belmont to explore the life-changing power of tending to your thoughts. With over 40 years of experience in the mental health field and 11 books under her belt, including her latest 110 CBT Tips and Tools, Judith shares simple, practical strategies to shift the way we think, feel, and live.

We dig into the core of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), talk journaling as a transformational practice, and learn how reframing regret, embracing self-compassion, and being flexible in our thinking can help us bloom in even the toughest seasons.

Here are just a few heart taps from this episode:

• The quality of your thoughts determines the quality of your life. Period.
• Regret can keep us trapped in the past—but it can also reveal what matters most to us.
• Journaling isn’t just for venting—it’s a tool for reflection, reframing, and healing.
• We confuse thoughts and feelings all the time, and that confusion can keep us stuck.
• Positive reframing doesn’t erase the past—it gives it a new, empowering narrative.

If your mental garden feels overgrown with stress, perfectionism, or self-doubt, this episode is your invitation to start weeding with love, one thought at a time.

Connect with Judith Belmont:

With over 40 years of experience in the mental health field, Judith Belmont is a leading voice in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). She’s the author of 11 books, including her newest release, 110 CBT Tips and Tools, packed with actionable strategies for managing anxiety and depression. Judith shares how blending breathwork with cognitive techniques can offer powerful new pathways to intentional living, perfectly aligning with the heart of The Well-Tended Life. 

Learn More About Judith HERE: www.belmontwellness.com

Order her book here:

110 CBT TIPS and Tools: Proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Strategies for Working Through Anxiety, Depression, Perfectionism, Anger, Regret, Stress, and

A Whole New Way To Journal
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Transcript

The Well-Tended Life Intro with Host, Keri Wilt:

 Hey friends. Welcome to the Well-Tended Life podcast. What is a well-tended life? Well, let me start by telling you what it is. Not a well-tended. Life is not a set it and forget it life, nor is it a perfect life. It is though, a life that is worked on every day in the sunshine and through the storms. And the truth is what worked in our life gardens last year may not work in the next.

That's why. Here at the Well-Tended Life Podcast, we're interviewing people who have grown and bloomed true in a variety of seasons, and who are willing to share their well-attended wisdom and bead whacking advice with us. Listen in.

Episode begins...

 Keri: Hello everyone and welcome to the Well-Tended Life podcast. I'm your host, Keri Wilt, a speaker, writer, and heart cultivator, who is on a mission to help you and me grow through any season. Today's episode is rooted in this quote from my great grandmother's famous book, The Secret Garden, and it says, "Where you tend to rose, a thistle cannot grow".

And it's a beautiful reminder that when we intentionally care for thoughts, we allow to take root, we create more space for joy, resilience, peace, and less room for things like anxiety, regret, overwhelm to crowd us out. And today's guest, Judy Belmont, knows exactly how to help us do that. With over 40 years of experience as a psychotherapist mental health coach, author Judy has built her life's work around offering practical, powerful, emotional tools for wellness.

 Her latest book, '110 CBT Tips and Tools' is packed with bite side strategies to help anyone navigate life's toughest emotional weeds, whether it's anxiety, depression, perfectionism, anger, and yes, even regret. In this conversation, we'll explore the foundational principles of. Cognitive behavioral therapy, the connection between our thoughts and our wellbeing and how even the smallest mind shift can lead to big changes in how we feel and how we live.

We'll also talk about how journaling and maybe micro moments of self-care can be daily acts of tending that can truly transform your inner landscape. So if your mental garden's feeling a little tangled lately, this episode is for you because tending to your thoughts can change your life, and Judith is here to show us how.

So let's dig in. Welcome, Judy!

Judy: Thank you very much, Keri, for having me, and that was really a beautiful introduction. I couldn't have done it better. That was, so very beautiful. I like the analogy to the garden and to your great grandmothers or great grandmothers. Yes. The Secret Garden. And here you are sitting in a garden and as I'm seeing you on video and it's, that was just really beautiful.

Keri: Thank you.

I'm so excited about our conversation today. 40 years of experience has left you with a wealth of knowledge. And I'm excited to get to, to pick some roses, from that from that knowledge. But why don't you give people just a little bit more of, of an introduction and tell people give 'em a little background about how you arrived at your current kind of path, mission, and purpose.

Judy: Okay. Like with a lot of things in my life, I fell into it, but I did have a, a bachelor's in psychology and I went, and I have a MS in clinical psychology and always knew I wanted to be a therapist. But how I got into publishing and how I got into speaking fell into it. I was a continuing ed provider for other therapists and this continuing ed provider, which is actually the largest in the country called Pesi, they also became publishers, and they asked me to write a book.

So that's how I fell into that one. And that was about 18, 19 years ago. And this is my 11th book. Wow. And I've been published by New Harbinger. WW Norton, other publishers too. But that's how I got started, just on a whim because I was the speaker for continuing ed and they needed people to publish and now they don't need anybody.

They certainly don't need me. They have plenty of people, but this was when they were starting out about 20 years ago. And maybe about eight years ago, I retired from a private therapy practice. I moved to Naples, Florida where I live now. And I do some mental health coaching online and I still am active in doing podcasts.

I do a monthly webinar on a workplace wellness topic communication. And so I like a lot of variety. And so, the wealth of knowledge I've gotten is from a variety of sources. 

Keri: Which is awesome, and I think that's how we should gather it, right? We gather our knowledge around along the way.

It's always matter of fact. I think I, I know every guest that I've talked to, it's you, when you were in the middle of learning in each season, you don't really realize how impactful it will be to those future seasons until you look back and you go, oh, right. 

Judy: I was very affected by the speech that Steve Jobs had at Stanford, and it was many years ago.

My, my son graduated there and now he's 41. I forget exactly the year, but it's on YouTube. It's a very famous speech. And he had three major points and one of them was connect the dots. And he, in his life, in founding Apple and founding, like a Pixar and everything he did. He said when he was younger, he would go to the Harry Krishna temple for the once a week warm food.

And he like fell into one thing every another, connecting the dots. He wouldn't have known where it would've led. Yeah. And I always thought that was a great image of connecting the dots because certainly as I was going through my path, I didn't know where it was going. I made a lot of wrong turns, but they brought me to the right place.

Keri: Yeah. I love that.  I love the fact that you said, I didn't know where I was going because I think so many people assume that everybody has it all figured out except for them. That that, oh, she knows where she's going. I remember being in high school and all these people are like, I wanna be a therapist.

I wanna be a doctor, I wanna be a, I was like, I don't know what I wanna be. Like, why how do these people have it all figured out?

Judy: And the funny thing is when people have it all figured out, sometimes it doesn't bring them where they wanna go. So, then they have to shift gears, and you have to be flexible.

So I know when I look back at some of the choices I made, and they're not anything dire or terrible, but they were choices I would never make now, but it brought me to the right place. You can't rethink and regret too much what you didn't know then that you knew now, because otherwise I would've been led in a different direction.

Keri: Yeah. And I believe that we are supposed to learn those lessons along the way.

Judy: Exactly. The, the turn that we think is the wrong turn is only the wrong turn if we didn't learn from it.



Keri: Right. 

Judy: Exactly. Yeah.

Keri: Good. Speaking of dots one of your most recent dots is this new book that you have 110 CBT tips and tools.

And you seem to have done several of these tips and tools, right? Series. Yes. Yeah, uhhuh. What inspired you to create this collection? And how is it different from the other ones?

Judy: My publisher asked me to write a book, so that is actually why I did it. It fell into that one.

And I've always been very a big, very big fan of cognitive behavior therapy. Cognitive means mind, behavioral is behavior, and basically your thoughts, your cognitions lead to choices and behaviors and it leads to your feelings. A lot of times people think that a situation happens and they feel a certain way, but your beliefs in your thoughts are the intermediary.

For example, if someone walks by you that and doesn't say a word, you might be upset. You might be amused, you might not be fazed, you might be angry, you might be sad and rejected. It's all because of the way you interpret that person not saying anything to you, right? So it's not the person walking by you that's making you feel upset, amused, whatever your thoughts would be.

Oh, he must not have seen me. He's so lost in thought. Or he thinks he's too good for me, so you'd be angry, or, nobody likes me. He doesn't even think I'm worth saying hi to. Then you feel rejected. It's all about the quality of your thoughts, creating the quality of your life.

Keri: Okay, say that again.

Judy: So, the quality of your thoughts determines the quality of your life.

It's often thought of. When you're successful, when you make the mark, the things that you attain, those are the things that make you happy. But guess what? It's really we all know people who have done very well with their lives money-wise or success-wise, and they're still miserable. The key to happiness is really to have good quality of thoughts, to have rational thoughts, to not over catastrophize, to be bound in truth and rationality instead of irrational cognitive distortions. That's really the key to a good life, and what CBT does is it gives you the tools because CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is very much oriented towards teaching tools that maybe you never learned before.

How are you gonna know something that you never learned? So basically it teaches you a new emotional language. It teaches you skills of how to detect cognitive distortions, how to do a thought log, how to dissect a situation. So you can  differentiate thoughts from feelings, for instance, because a lot of times, for example, people confuse them.

If they say, I feel like you're criticizing me. Guess what? That's irrational. Why? Because. You don't, that's not a feeling, that's a thought. I think you're criticizing me and I feel bad. But when we confuse thoughts and feelings, we can't detect the thought. So we can change it so our feelings could be better.

So CBT gives you a lot of tools of how to dissect and differentiate thoughts from feelings and how to restructure your thoughts and reframe your thoughts so that what could have been depressing ends up being liberating and educational.

Keri: I, as you're sitting here talking, I was like, why is this not taught in school?

Judy: That's a good question. Like, why are we not teaching? And I think though, I think we are, we'll probably get to that point at some point because I think it has taken the last 20 years to even make therapy, like not something that only those only the crazies go to. I think that we're getting there, but I'm just thinking I know math's important, but this is if a child can learn these things at a young age, like they're walking around with this, the most amazing tools in their toolbox, ever like they have the ability to see the world in a completely different way.

You are so right. And when I was much younger, I was thinking of doing something. To make that happen. And I'm not saying that there hasn't been studies. Martin Seligman with his positive psychology, they actually had a lot of research in the Philadelphia area schools on doing that. So there are spots of places that do things.

Yeah, I used to think that would be great, but I just didn't have the connections or resources and I was raising young children and I never did. But I agree with you. I think that these tools, learning at a early age can really be invaluable because I have seen people in my practice and even in my coaching practice now that don't know the basics of healthy thinking.

I'll never forget when this one woman, she was like in her forties raising a couple kids. She had an engineering background. I said something to her and she looked at me and she says, am I allowed to feel that way? And I thought that was so poignant as well, educated as she was and raising these children.

She didn't, she learned early on that she didn't have a right to her feelings. And by me saying, you have a right to any feeling that you feel, that is not anything to be judged. You don't judge feelings. You could maybe look at thoughts and identify unhealthy thought practices, but it's not about a matter of judgment that you're bad for feeling that way,

and that realization made a big change in her life.

But this is a fundamental truth and how we don't accept our basic human rights, such as I have a right to say no without feeling guilty. I have a right not to be Superwoman or Superman. I have a right not to be everything to everybody. I have a right to make mistakes. People don't often give themselves that.

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Episode resumes... 

Judy: I'll never forget, I had a client who, in front of my coffee table, she was in her thirties, like maybe mid-thirties, and she raised her hand way above the coffee table. And she said, I had this many failures and I can't afford one more. And I said, wow, that's a big pile there. And you know what? She could only name two things, but, and they were not, one was dropping outta college, and she ended up going back actually. But they were not like having bodies buried in the backyard. They were things that she was so disappointed, it defined her, and therefore, at her work, she was so perfectionistic and she was so worried because she only gave herself a tightrope to fall off of, which of course you're gonna fall.

She needed to give herself a wide plank and realize that we all make mistakes. It's human to make mistakes, but she saw those two big, looming mistakes as defining her, and that was really a shame. But I have seen many people like that. That is just one example that kind of stuck in my mind.

Keri: And do you think that most of, I would think most of this.

Stems from how we were raised. I always tell people like, you, you don't get a choice of who you know where you're born into, right? That's not a choice. But your first family teaches you how to choose your second family, right? What do you want? What do you but unless it feels at least it feels unless you were like either born into a therapist family, or it's just like the most super healthy family, nobody was probably taught any of this.

Judy: You know what I think that is true. I tell my clients that sometimes we learn pit Latin when you're younger.

When we're younger, it's like a language that doesn't make sense. And as we learn these skills, we're learning a healthier psychological language and. The most important thing though, is not to focus on the blame of where it came from. Yeah. Because in my over 40 fives, 50 years really of experience in, as a, in doing a variety of things I've never met young.

I've never yet met one person who meant to be unhealthy. I've never met people really do their best. I really am amazed and I think it's very beautiful of how people really try their best. But some people are more screwed up than others, and some people don't see things clearly at all. And so it's important not to say, oh, you were raised in, we're not talking about physical verbal abuse.

No. That, that obviously, that's criminal behavior. But also those people are very wounded. It's not like they want to be abusive and crazy. No. They have this instability. We all grow up with messages that sometime we have to unlearn. And it becomes a little bit hard.

And I talk to clients that sometimes even if you, let's say you come from. A European country or another country, you come to the United States, when you were very young, you still have an accent. So it still might stay with you, but it doesn't mean you can't learn the language and get with a program.

But we still have these inner learnings that still trigger us sometime. Gosh, so

Keri: Good. It's interesting to me too how, you were talking about. The beliefs and thoughts and it's really like what, like the story we tell ourselves, right? And two, like a brother and sister can be in the same household and hear the exact same thing and both have a completely different story that they tell each, you know themselves about it, right?

Keri: Absolutely. My brother and I have very different experiences growing up, but we're also wired very differently. That's what wiring is, at least half of your makeup the way you're wired. And it's important to honor how you're wired rather than think, oh, I'm just too sensitive, or, I'm too this.

This is who you are. You're wired differently. And we do the best with what we have in our wiring.

Keri: Yes. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. So you write this book and it's it's practical strategies for your common mental health challenges, right? Anxiety, depression, perfectionism, anger and stress.

Judy: Absolutely.

Keri: But then you, the other one that's on there is regret. And I'll tell you, like I'm, I think, I feel like I've seen every self-help title and I've never seen the word really regret be lumped in there. And so I was like, oh so I wanna know more. Like where, why was regret one of those ones that you were like, I wanna tackle that?

Judy: In my practice, I think regret looms large and people have a hard time forgiving themselves for not knowing then what they do now. And they I've seen so many people put themselves in a mental prison because of things that they can't undo. And we either. I liken it to the rear view mirror in a car.

We need to know where we come from, but we still need to look forward. And if we spend too much time looking through the rear view mirror, we'll get in an accident. But a lot of times people are defined by their past and they're defined by their mistakes. Just like that woman that I told you about.

Who had that many failures and she couldn't afford one more. And I myself have certainly made some poor choices and I have grown through them, but I think we all have regrets, or most people do anyway. I certainly do, and I know most people do, and I think that the power of regret is enormous because what regret does, it keeps you in a moment of time that can't be changed.

And CBT gives skills to not have the past loom so much in your present. There's a really cute I just did a talk a few days ago in my local community and I had this old Charlie Brown cartoon that I saw years ago, and I put it up in my PowerPoint, and I don't know the exact words, but I'll paraphrase that.

Charlie Brown missed the ball when he was trying to catch, and Lucy said, or actually Charlie, it might've been the other way around, I'm not sure. But anyways let's stick with that one. And Lucy said, what happened? Charlie Brown, it was an easy catch. And he said, the pass got in my eyes.

So the past can so affect your present. And the one thing that I think is really important and a good takeaway from this webinar, this interview, is that self-esteem is really mostly gotten through how we talk to ourselves, but especially through self-compassion. And self-compassion helps allow us to forgive ourselves from making mistakes and not being as wise as we wish we could have been.

And there's so many times what I have to remind my clients about the importance of self-compassion. Because if you can't forgive yourself for doing better in the past, you're gonna keep on reliving it. Keep on retraumatizing yourself. And we have the power to not retraumatize ourselves because even prisoners, unless they, murder someone and they're severe, they get on parole, they get out.

But a lot of times people don't let themselves out of their mind. And I'll give you a perfect example of that. I had a client who was married to this woman, and I saw this, him and his wife, they were in their sixties at the time because their, they were living with the daughter who was coming for therapy and they had a lot of family issues.

The mother was an alcoholic and the father, the grandfa, the grandfather, the father. Felt responsible because his wife kept on saying, you are responsible. Because very early on in their marriage, he had an affair and she said, you drove me to drink. In his whole life, he felt responsible for her alcoholism and only when she died, of cirrhosis of the liver.

And she was extremely abusive to him. He became a different person and he came to me for counseling by himself, and he learned that he wasn't a bad person and he's not defined by his mistakes, and he is also not responsible for anybody else's choices. So he lived with regret and it poisoned him. And only later on in life he was able to set himself free.

And learn healthier messages.

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Episode resumes...
 Keri: And so what could be a tool that someone uses? Let's just say someone has someone marries the wrong person and then divorces them and then has to raise their children by themselves. And, but and they still feel guilty for like that, right? Even though the kids are grown, but they still have this immense guilt and this regret, right?

What, how does someone go about starting to reframe that narrative? Or what kind of tool could somebody use?

Judy: David Burns is a very famous CBT psychologist that has read, has written a couple books that are, probably read by millions. And one, his first one was feeling good. And then another one is feeling great and he talks about.

Positive reframing what you most regret tells the best things about you. It actually says something positive. So let's say you regret getting divorced and, but realizing there wasn't really much of a choice because it was not a good fit. It shows that your regret shows that you take your marriage bow seriously.

You take family seriously. You take responsibility for your actions. So there's all sorts of things that you could see that say what's positive about you rather than what's so bad about you. That's an example of a CBT technique. Positive reframing. Also, as I said before, being compassionate to yourself and realizing that you are in pain and.

You can't tell yourself you shouldn't be in pain. That would never be fair, and that you have a right to a healthier, happier life, and you do the best you can with the resources that you have. There's something that I think would be helpful to also keep in mind is having a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset.

A fixed mindset is, I was divorced, I did this, I did that. A growth mindset is, what did I learn? It doesn't matter if I was so good at anything, but I have evolved and I've learned lessons. Maybe a bit bruised, but now I'm wiser. And having a growth mindset frees us for some of the anchors in the past that didn't turn out so great.

Because there's one thing for sure. We can't change the past. Yeah. We can change our acceptance of the past. We can change our view of it. We can air it. The narrative and the story. You may be thought of yourself as a villain that I initiated that divorce to two. I was the survivor. I was the brave one who knew that I needed to move forward.

So you can edit, you can change the narrative, but you can't change what happened. And that's the beauty of CBT. It doesn't so matter. Matter what happens. And again, we're not talking about killing someone or criminal behavior. We're talking about non-criminal type of stuff. It doesn't really matter what happened, it's our take on it that matters the most.

Keri: Yeah.

Judy: People have very different perceptions. There's no, sometimes people think their perception is so right. And that's why I often do this exercise with my clients where I have them fold their arms. Do you wanna try it now? Yeah. So you fold your arms and on top?

Keri: For me, it's my right arm. Okay.

Judy: The same with me. Try it the other way.

Keri: It, I don't know. It feels like I'm not doing it right.

Judy: Exactly. Exactly. So when you put the left arm on top, and I'm the same way I put my right arm, it feels awkward. It feels strange. But when I do live. Presentations. It's usually about 40, 60, half and half. And so many times people think other people, this is like the natural way of doing it because we think our way of looking at something is the right way.

But sometimes we have to shift our perspective and might be a little strange for us because it might not seem like a no brainer. And maybe it seems like it's wrong, like you said, but it's actually just a different way of looking at things, love. And sometimes we need to do that because a lot of times we think we're right.

We think we're right when maybe we actually are wrong. And you know what? Being right is overrated. Being kind is much more important than being right. And if people had that in mind, there'd be so much less arguments.

Keri: Yep. Oh my gosh. So good. So good. Okay. You also incorporate incorporate elements of D-B-T-A-C-T and positive psychology into your resources.

Give us an idea of what those are and and maybe some tips or like how we could apply some of those to record me today.

Judy: CBT started out the precursor of CBT was RVT. There's all these little acronyms, right? Emotive therapy, and that was started by Albert Ellis and then Aaron Beck coined the term CBT.

CBT has been the cornerstone ever since, like the 1950s or sixties. And then some of the other types of orientations. Evolved with a basis on CVT, but for instance, DBT is softened by mindfulness. It focuses a lot on mindfulness and distress tolerance, and it was created by Marshall Lenahan at the University of Washington.

And she herself was in a psychiatric institute for a couple years as a patient, and she realized for hard to reach people, she needed some eastern type of practices. So she incorporated CBT with mindfulness, and which means being more present oriented and accepting the present more, and tolerating frustration rather than.

Breaking apart by it. And then a, that's DBT Dialect Behavior Therapy. So that's often used for people who are very treatment resistant. And CBT just doesn't seem like it's enough. Although now CBT in the later years, the more recent years has also incorporated mindfulness too. So they're not that different really anymore.

But they do have different techniques. One of DBTs techniques is she has a lot of acronyms and each of the acronyms or things to practice wise Mind accepts and a stands for this CC and it is like different tools. Yeah. So a CT Acceptance of Commitment Therapy is saying sometimes it's not enough.

And that's by Steven Hayes. He's the founder of a CT. He thought that sometime restructuring and reframing thoughts isn't enough. Sometimes you might need to shake hands with your pain and just accept it instead of being in a quick sand and trying to get out of it. The more you try to get out of it, the more you sink in quicksand.

Not that I've ever tried it, but he said the best way of not sinking is just going with the flow and just being spread eagle. So an example of his orientation, which I like very much, and I also incorporate in my practice is. Called cognitive diffusion. Cognitive means mind, and diffuse means take out of your mind.

So sometimes we are so fused with the way that we think. We are not observers. We don't have an observing head. So for example, if you think I'm a loser, you are fused with that thought. That's one of the thoughts that are fused into your heart. A CT would say, imagine I'm a loser on the clouds. Imagine those words on a cloud, and then they drift away.

Be an observer to your thoughts rather than look from the thoughts, look at your thought. That would be an example of acceptance and commitment therapy or sitting in a movie theater and seeing your thoughts that are disturbing you, like a ticker tape on the movie. And then maybe change your seat from the middle of the movie to the back of the movie and get more of a perspective.

So it's not necessarily trying to change, but it's observing them and having what I call an observing head. So good. So

good. Let's see here. At the end of the day, like what do you hope someone will do or even believe differently after reading your book? What do you hope that they walk away with it?

Keri: I want people to have a lot of life skills and a lot of tools such as identifying cognitive distortions. So for example, if someone says to you you never listen to me, instead of getting so upset, realizing that person is not thinking rationally, they are being a good thought detector. You never listen to me.

What's that magic word there that shows that they're being irrational? Never. So you might rephrase that. So you become a victor instead of a victim. You're not a victim of other people. You're more of an observer and you're, you can become healthy and react healthy even if someone else doesn't. So you could say, it sounds like you.

Are disappointed in me. So that's a fact. But a lot of times people think fiction is really fact. He really never listens to me, whereas he often doesn't listen to me. So I'm hoping that listeners and my readers have empowerment tools so that they are victors instead of victims.

Keri: I love it. I love it so much. I'm thankful that you have, done 11 books. If somebody was to go out and buy this book, what other book that you have written would you suggest they buy also?

Judy: I've written, I. Different types of books depending on the publisher. But this book that has just come out, 110 CBT tips and tools is ones for therapists as well as clients.

And it's basically the culmination of all the other books. And the nice thing about this book is that you don't have to read it cover to cover. You look at the table of contents and let's say you're feeling stressed out one day you read the chapter on stress. Maybe in every chapter there's 10 chapters and everyone has a self-test at the end of how you're doing with that.

And you can keep on revisiting those self tests. So I'm very proud of this book. Not that I'm not proud of all my others, but I think this is the culmination of everything that I've learned.

Keri: I love that. Awesome. Okay, so I also saw that you are you have a five minute self-care journal for women on your website.

Yes. Uhhuh. I'm a journal girl. I got mine in my hand right now. But it's one of the things that I do, I'm very passionate about teaching. I believe that journaling is so important. So tell me about your specific five Minute Self-Care journal.

Judy: The Self-Care Journal basically gives you different prompts and, it sounds, seems like you're very good at just journaling without needing prompts.

Keri: No, mine is based off of five prompts oh, it's, oh, okay. Practice. Yeah.

Judy: Oh, okay. Yeah. So I have different prompts and different lessons, and I have it's not a lot of reading, it's more reflecting. And I have an inspirational, either a quote or an affirmation. I think affirmations are very important.

Affirmations are basically positive self statements to remind yourself of your worth. And so I might have a, for each of the tips, a affirmation or a quote or something to inspire you, and also something to help journal, with using certain prompts and to reflect. I,

Keri: I love that because I do think, I think one of the biggest hindrance for people to journal is that blank page.

Exactly. Is they're like, I don't know what to write. What do I write? And I I love that you give them something to jump off of, because for me, the magic and journaling happens when you allow it to be what it needs to be, and you follow it.

Judy: But let's say, when you journal, let's say someone says, I don't like myself, I don't like this.

I screwed up here. I don't want them to journal in a way that's gonna make them feel more negative. So I ha I set the stage for positive reflection, and I even have examples of what would be a healthy way to journal versus. Using cognitive distortions. And one of the pages, for example, might be how to eliminate cognitive distortions.

What are some of the distortions and what are some of the ways to refrain? So I actually make sure that people aren't just going wild with their negative thoughts.

Keri: Because it can become, and I think that for many people it can become a source a place of rumination, right? Like of just staying in that loop.

Exactly. Someone said, oh, you should write down your, the things you're upset about, dump it all on the page. Then you keep doing that every single day, you just stay in it.

Judy: So that's actually a great example because what I would do with my clients and what I do in that journal and definitely in, in really all my books and a lot in my latest book is it's not enough just to write down those thoughts.

Observe those thoughts. Dissect those thoughts. Imagine yourself using a magnifying glass. What are the quality of those thoughts? Remember we started off this interview with me saying, the quality of your thoughts determine the quality of your life, and if your quality of your thoughts, our really unhealthy and negative, you don't wanna keep on feeding yourself these kind of things.

And so it helps structure with these positive prompts. Identify write it all down. First. You can write it down, but then what do you do with it? Do you keep it there or do you question it, or do you rewrite it in a kinder voice with a more self-compassionate voice? It's,

Keri: it's interesting 'cause, so today actually I posted on social media I, I wrote perspective is everything right?

And I took a bunch of words like discomfort, problems, rejection triggers, darkness, failures and pain, and turned them into, so discomfort is growth, right? Problems are challenges, right? Rejection could be redirection. Triggers could help you reveal your wounds. Like darkness reveals light, failure teacher August.

Judy: So you're doing that. Yes. You're, yes. Not stopping at the rejection and the darkness. You're redirecting it.

Keri: Redirecting and just like changing, like you were saying earlier about stepping back, moving to the back of the movie theater. As you watch those words that you're spewing out, those the thoughts that are coming out and go, wait.

Is that really what this is? Or if I look at it from sitting over here slightly to the right where the popcorn and the candy is, right? Like maybe I can see this as, a learning lesson instead of a horror film.

Judy: I think the saddest people that I know are ones that can't change their mind and ones that are stuck in a certain way of thinking and are very judgmental and can't grow.

Yeah. Those are not happy campers. Yeah. Yeah. And they're often not that helpful to other people because they're met with judgment. You're not like me, then there's something wrong with you. And you said a word like me, that's not good.

Keri: Yeah. You said a word earlier and I think I always glom onto it because I love the word flexibility.

Because I think that's right. If we can be more flexible in our thought. And be able to like move and shift and see that maybe there's another perspective, then we don't get stuck in that space.

Judy: Absolutely. It's all about a growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. So good. 

Ad read by host Keri Wilt for free Journaling Template available in shownotes:
 And now it's time for my favorite part of the interview because it's inspired by my life tending general practice. But let me be clear, this is not your grandma's journal. It's more of a growth chart, reflection, diary, planting reminder, observation deck, and research notebook all rolled into one. And when used daily, this practice is a life changer.

To produce big, beautiful purpose-filled blooms in any season. Now it's by far the most important tool in my own personal life gardening shed. And I wanna gift you a free journaling template today. So check out the link in the show notes, or head over to the wells midlife download started today.

Episode resumes...

Keri:  Let's move on to the second part of the interview, and I ask all my guests the same few questions. The first one is about your life season, the life season that you're in.

When people ask me, what's one thing people can do to live their best well-attended life? One of the biggest things I think is that they need to know the season that they're in. They need to have a good understanding of really what is truly taking place in their life so that it can inform their yeses in their, most people get into trouble with, let's just even say goal setting because they haven't thought about truly what season they're in.

And so tell me about the life season you're in and how does that inform your yeses in your No.

Judy: Never, I never really thought of a life season and I don't know if there's like some guidelines to what a season is about. No, there's not. But what I would say is I'm 70, excuse me, I'm 71. So I feel like age-wise I'm in the winter because, I'm not young anymore.

And I find it a lot of people that I know are getting sick and they have life-threatening illnesses. And it has made me very acutely aware of the privilege it is to be alive. And I don't, I think mentally I. I am more in the spring season because I feel like my life keeps on blooming. There's always growth, there's always blossoms. And maybe because physically and age-wise, I'm in the winter of my life. I'm very fortunate for the life that I have and being able to keep on learning and growing and evolving. Love it.

Keri: Do you have any regular practices that would help us to live our best well tended lives?

Judy: I don't have anything formally. I'm not a meditator, I'm not a yoga person, whatever. But I do. Certain things that, that work for me. I love walking and I like walking with other people and that is a good way of giving me exercise, but also connecting with others. also some of the things that I might suggest in my books as suggestions, I don't necessarily do every single day.

But I do think of them sometime and I'm constantly thinking if I'm upset about something or something doesn't work out, I try to always balance it with one thing I'm grateful for. And I think gratitude when people focus on what is, just imagine like a donut or a bagel. Some people look at the whole.

HOLE and some people look at the whole W-H-O-L-E and I constantly try to replace what I don't feel good about, with what I'm grateful for. Because really for everything that you feel bad about or sad about, you could also feel very grateful for also.

Keri: A hundred percent. A I wanted to stop down and I, 'cause I love your idea of walking with other people.

I actually read something recently that it's like one of the best ways to add like seven years onto your life is, and actually, and they use the they use the analogy of art, like art classes. But it's that connecting piece. That helps us to grow, that helps us to feel younger, that helps us to make all of those pieces.

And it's, I think sometimes, we are, we've been a society that's I'm gonna retire. I'm moving to the country where there are no people and there's peace, which really, it's the opposite of what we should be run running towards. Uhhuh

Judy: connect. It might work for some people, but not for me.

Yeah. But it's very interesting that you mention about our classes because in my retirement I fell in love with Fused Glass and now I have a Fused Glass studio and quite a few students. And I love it. I mean it is a lot of work, but. I meet all sorts of cool people and people come in saying they're not creative.

And then because I have real nice material and I know how to fire pieces and I have to do my end of it. People are amazed at the masterpieces that come out, even if it's just like a little trivi or something like that, or a plate. And it's interesting that you mention about art because that has actually helped me in my winter years feel more like spring.

Keri: Yes. Oh my gosh. I love that. So we've, I feel like we've already gone into the next part, which is actually based on my journal practice. Every day in my journal practice it's based off of five words. It's read, reflect weed, seed and water. Similar to you, we, I encourage people to read for 10 minutes something that's good for them, positive inspiring.

And I encourage them to look out for the heart taps the ahas, the head bobs and write those down and follow those where they lead. And then we reflect we look back on the day before to spot the joy, goodness and growth that was there because I believe that everyday joy, goodness, and growth is planted around us.

We're just, we're moving too fast to see it. I stop down every day to identify those things. What is bringing you joy? Is it the fuse glass or, I know you are currently visiting some people, so maybe that's what's bringing you joy these days?

Judy: There's a lot that brings me joy.

Being alive brings me joy. I live on the water in Naples, Florida. It's a beautiful place. And aside from the time that I was flooded with hurricane Ian, I have since moved to a higher floor. But still looking at the water that brings me joy. My family, my grandchildren bring me joy. I'm visiting them now.

And I would say my glass, yeah, I would because it brings me around other people and we're creative and people say, I'm not creative. I said, no, you can't say that here, because we're all creative in our own ways. And then people realize, yeah I really do have some creativity. But also my.

Interviews like with you. I love that. I love connecting with great people and sharing. I love psychology. I love anything having to do with mental health and wellness. I have Keri:Yeah.

Judy: So I think when people don't have interests and don't have passions, they're generally more alienated.

And one of the things that I talk about really in all my books, but I have a, again, featured in this latest book is about stress. People think stress is bad for them, but it's not. Stress is what keeps you engaged. It ke it's what keeps you committed it. Now, it could be negative stress. I'm not saying that's good, but we can manage it and it becomes positive stress.

So instead of escaping stress, why don't you chase it and find meaning in your life? With stress.

Keri: So it's interesting. So my my word of the year this year is discomfort. And stress. And I, yeah. So I ch I have chosen to do things and push myself because growth is on the other side of discomfort.

And discomfort is what keeps me from pushing and doing the next thing. So I actually, I call it dancing. I say my word of the year is dancing with discomfort because I really, I feel like people should embrace it and try new things. 'cause it really lead to joy.

Judy: That's great. It's just like that hand exercise we did.

Keri: Yes.

Judy: With the arm. And you can also do the same exercise with grasping your finger. I have my left thumb on top. If you intertwine your fingers.

Keri: Yeah, I do too.

Judy: Okay. So we are similar that way. Now try the other way. And again, it's about 40 60. 50 50.

It feels very strange. It does. It's, so what you're doing is you're going from one more no-brainer kind of practice to something that's challenging you. Yeah. And that shows a lot of confidence in yourself. That's good. It's been fun so far. It's definitely been fun

Keri: so far. Awesome. Okay.

All right. Last one would be, 'cause we really already talked about what you're grateful for. You you went through some of those. Last one would be growth. Where are you spotting growth? Like where are you feeling growth in your life right now?

Judy: I am learning more and more from my children watching them raise their children.

I'm learning things that I would've done differently and I'm in awe of them. It's wow. They really have it a lot more together. I did than I did when I was younger. And I love seeing my grandchildren grow. They don't live close to me, but I see them often enough and it's really a privilege I grow in my ability to help people make beautiful pieces in my fuse glass studio.

Because so much of what I need to do to make it happen is knowing the technical aspects of glass. If I ramp up too quickly in the kiln, it will crack pieces. So I have to keep on learning in order to make sure that people can, I. Have a piece at the end of it. Yeah. So I find that I'm always busy because I am interested in so many things.

And I wanna be physically fit. So I do physically physical kind of activity such as pickleball and tennis. And so I try, but I'm, I don't worry so much except at fuse glass. I feel like if I have a studio I should be pretty good at it. But other things, I don't worry so much how good I am 'cause I'm really very mediocre at a lot of stuff and especially as I age, I don't move around as well.

But I really love it. I love being physically active, so I have a lot of ways I wanna grow. I love it.

Keri: Judy, thank you so much for coming on today. And sharing. Will you tell people how they can like, find you, follow you, buy your book, all the things? 

Judy: Yes. If you go on Amazon, you can look on Judith Belmont and you can find my author page and see all my books there.

You can also go on my website, Belmont Wellness. It's just as it sounds, Belmont with one L Wellness. And in my site I have a lot of free resources and handouts and all sorts of, little videos.  I do have a webmaster that I'll send some things to, but I would say that's a great way to reach me through wellness.

Keri: Everybody, all those links will be in this show notes, so you don't have to stop what you're doing right now to write any of that down.

We'll have it in the show notes. So thank you to everyone who has been listening to this podcast. I sincerely hope that this episode has inspired you today to of course, number one go by her book, right? But then really number two is to think those quality thoughts, right? In order to live out your best well tended life.

So until next time, y'all. Blessings and blooms. Thank you, Judy. 

End of episode

Outro of The Well-Tended Life podcast with Keri Wilt:

 Oh my goodness, y'all, that was so good. Don't forget to check the show notes for my favorite Heart Tap moments from this episode. What is a heart tap? Well, whenever I read, listen to a podcast or watch a speaker, I'm always on the lookout for those like head bob, heart tap, and aha moments. You know what I'm talking about.

These are the things that cause your head to Bob, an agreement, your heart to make that tap. When a much needed word of wisdom comes along or your soul to scream. Aha, that was the word I was looking for. So for each episode, I like to share a few of my heart taps in the show notes with you, but I'm curious what.

Are your heart tap moments from today's episode. Run on over and direct. Message me your favorite moments, questions, heart taps, and more over at Instagram or Facebook today. And if you are inspired by this episode or maybe learn something new, make sure to share this show with a friend or post about it in your stories.

Finally. Could you do one more favor for me today? Will you take a minute and hop on over to Apple Podcast and leave a kind and thoughtful review for the well-attended live podcast? You see, this is how people find us, and every positive review helps to unlock the door for someone else to get in on the magic life.

Tending to thank you again for listening and being a part of this well-attended life community. And until next time, y'all blessings and blooms.