Janice Holly Booth is a National Geographic author who chronicled her solo adventure travels in a book called “Only Pack What You Can Carry.”
In this episode she joins the guys and shares how she used challenges to help her overcome fear, manage her emotions, and build her courage muscle in a process she calls “Letting Go”. She also shares how you can do the same in your own life.
Guest Links
Janice Holly Booth – Adventurista
Pack Only What You Can Carry
Tune in to see “Letting Go” Through a Therapist’s Eyes!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Current Event Topic:
https://www.wbtv.com/2020/02/20/charlotte-man-arrested-sex-trafficking-child-porn-charges/
Relating to Previous Episode:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/2020/04/22/episode-83-sex-trafficking-with-thomas-martin/
Episode #94 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Craig, I can’t do the, the intro, man. You give me just a thumbs up. You’re supposed to do something.
Craig Graves: [00:00:22] Well, since we changed the show, you’re the guy who starts it out man.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:26] We have got to report
Craig Graves: [00:00:27] you have to get with the program now.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:28] I dunno. I dunno if I like that change though. You know what, the coolest, a start that we had at the show is, I don’t know if you remember it, but I just did transcribing a little bit.
I was playing with that and you clicked it on and the motorcycle went.
Craig Graves: [00:00:40] Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember.
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:42] That was a great little intro. I ain’t gonna lie. Hello everyone. I am Chris Gazdik he is Craig Graves. I am a mental health and substance abuse therapist. We are, I should say, I guess we need to do that though.
I’ve been, I’ve been on mr. Graves to write a book lately. I don’t know why that is, but. Do you have that coming out soon of March, I guess forever from now, I’m kind of excited about that. Rediscovering Emotions and Becoming Your Best Self. Craig is an unbeatable mind coach. So we welcome you to through therapists as the podcast, see the world through the lens of a therapist and a coach, but be aware.
This is not the delivery of therapy services in any way. Check out our website, Mr. Neil is with us. And he has been doing some rock and roll stuff on the website. I must say, publicly on air. I love what you’re doing. So keep tuning into that. We’ve got some neat things developing on there, throughatherapistseyes.com where you can also get full show transcribes, transcribes.
Transcriptions train. You can look at the trains. I dunno. I’ll get better with that guys. Craig, this is the human emotional experience. What shall we do, mr. Graves? Figure it out together. All right. So, also on the front end, we are a kind of newly relaunched and we want to remind you as you listen to the show and log in to the show.
Even if you don’t take every show and listen to them all, man, put us on the automatic download. That helps us to grow the show and improves our numbers and statistics and stuff, refer to a friend and all that kind of good stuff. Really, truly you do the listener make or break the show. So,
Craig Graves: [00:02:18] Hey Chris, let me jump in, man.
you mentioned your book, Chris, neil set it up a little giveaway for our email list subscribers. So if you sign up for our email list on our, our homepage there. On our website, then we’ll send you the first chapter of mr. Gazdik’s book for free to kind of give you a little, a little wet, your appetite bonus there for signing up for our email list.
Chris Gazdik: [00:02:41] I was going to say, I didn’t know, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And then you’re like, started going there. I’m like, Oh yeah, there is that where I thought you were going. And what’s also going to be very, very cool, which will help our listeners this evening as well. if, the authors are agreement to it and whatnot, we are planning on having a page on our website that has all the books.
I mean, Craig, you think about all the awesome topics we’ve had lately, you know, in the authors that we’ve had on. we’re going to have a, yeah, we’re going to have the link on our page where you don’t have to go looking anywhere you’re on our page anyway, and you can link on, click on the book links and actually get the books that we’re actually talking about.
Craig Graves: [00:03:14] Yes. We actually have a, an author guest this evening right.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:17] Yes, sir. We do. Before we go there, though, Mr. Graves. I was doing that transcribing and I wanted to hit a current event. You know, we do that on the show sometimes. And, ms. Janice booth is with us. So I, I told her if you, if you hear this and want to make any comments, you certainly can.
But do you remember when we had Tom Martin on his show?
Craig Graves: [00:03:36] Oh yeah, yeah. Cool. Tom was awesome.
Chris Gazdik: [00:03:38] Yeah, man. I mean, that, that was a, I was relistening to. To that as I was doing the transcribing and, you know, the human sex trafficking topic was, dude, you should listen to that one back. I mean, that’s one that we can all learn a lot from it.
It was. It was crazy dynamic and, not more than, than three days ago, somebody. Yeah. My office was talking to me and I popped this article up because they heard of a really high level house in Charlotte that has just been popped, just been busted. Fairly recently in the last month or two or three or something like that.
And it was full blown human sex trafficking operation right here in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Craig Graves: [00:04:19] Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. I think that’s probably bigger than we even realized
Chris Gazdik: [00:04:23] way. So I looked on there and I tried to Google it. I didn’t even find that one, dude. I found other articles. And so, mr. Neil will.
Have had this on our show notes, but this is a headline that I just saw and I chose like two or three headlines that were within the last four months is what it came up as Charlotte man arrested on sex trafficking, child porn charges. the, this gentleman is 43 year old. Gentlemen was arrested Thursday morning.
This was just in February. He was accused of sex trafficking, a minor in North Carolina. Wisconsin in elsewhere from December the 16th, 2015 to December the 31st, 2015. And you know, I think that’s a minor reality given what Tom was talking about, how they move these guys around and how all this happens.
It’s just like, wow. Wow.
Craig Graves: [00:05:09] Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, no doubt.
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:13] You know, it, it alleges that in December of 2015, re gone or re re re gone, I guess, is his name knowingly produced a visual depiction of the minor gauging specifically explicit contact. And he knowingly transported the minor across state lines for purposes of engaging in illegal sexual activity.
you heard those two States, right? North Carolina and Wisconsin. Yeah. That’s a lot of state lines. That’s a lot of miles. And the 1500 rule is that they take the kid, abducted him and they take them 1500 miles away from their town of origin.
Craig Graves: [00:05:50] Yeah. That’s what Tom talked about. Yeah. That’s consistent with what he said.
Chris Gazdik: [00:05:53] Right. That’s a pretty far ways out of Wisconsin. I mean, you know yeah dude. Yeah. It just, it disturbed me. Yeah. And our current events listening audience if you are new to us. I like to keep us up engaged with what’s going on all around us, because I see mental health at all corners of life. And so we want to keep you informed, keep you aware and do what we say.
We want to do promote mental health and beat down stigmas and stereotypes. Can you pop a light on for me? It’s a little dark, so let’s get going. What we got tonight, Craig, how much do you know about letting go go? The topic of letting go?
Craig Graves: [00:06:31] maybe just the little, not much, I’m hoping to get enlightened.
Chris Gazdik: [00:06:34] Right. Yeah. I actually really am too. And I’ll tell you why. When we get into this letting go fear and other emotional barriers with miss Janice, Holly booth, she do listen to this all she is, a national geographic author who chronicled. Her solo adventure travels. You’re going to love her travel stories.
If we can get to a couple of them briefly in a book called well, Oh, we got right here. Only pack what you can carry. She wants listeners to know that every adventure she ever came across with a healthy dose of fear and trepidation was she had to work hard to overcome in what she calls her quote unquote, real life.
As she has worked in the criminal court justice system. she’s been the CEO of three national nonprofits is currently the founder and CEO. Oh, the team building kit, a program that helps people become better after one thing they rely on most. And I can tell you, we do this in therapy, ms. Booth, all the time, focusing on communication at her website, adventurista.us. Did I say that right? Ma’am
Janice Holly Booth: [00:07:33] I say adventury sta you say adventurous. Let’s hope it all works out.
Chris Gazdik: [00:07:39] Gotcha. She blogs about fear, courage, and creating the life you want for yourself or approaches refreshingly nonsense, a refreshingly, no nonsense. And anyone anywhere can apply her hard won lessons to move forward in their lives.
Now she gave me this bio. Craig, but I was more prepared to kind of go on and give other highlights and whatnot. I’m going to not embarrass her and go on for 10 minutes, but we could go on for 10, 15 minutes on the talking engagements she’s had on a national level international speaking. She’s like the real deal professional speaker.
It’s great to have you on the show, man. What did I get? What did I miss? Who is miss Janet or Janice?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:08:17] Well, thanks. Thank you. thank you for the kind words. I’m sure they’re not deserved, but, I am just a regular person from Canada. Who’s lived in here in the States since 1985. And, I’m sure we’ll get into some of my adventures and misadventures, but I’m really excited to be talking to you both about the topics of, fear, resilience, and learning how to let go.
Chris Gazdik: [00:08:43] Yeah. You know, Craig, the reason why I said that, we’re, we’re gonna learn a lot from this show myself a little bit too. I know a lot about letting go. Don’t get me wrong. but Janice, when we were talking on show prep conversation, I admitted something to you. I don’t know if you remember, but I’m anxious to hear this metaphor, Craig.
I, I, I take a teacher approach in therapy a lot and a lot of times, and in a lot of ways, and I believe that that makes you know, therapy more effective when you’re kind of giving information. You’re teaching, you’re guiding that’s really super helpful. Well, Janice, do you remember, I admitted to you, I really, of all the things that I describe metaphorically, especially, that’s why I can’t wait to hear this metaphor.
I have not been able to find a really good way to describe even like what the definition of, of letting go is and, and how you go about that. Like, I cannot describe this. You remember? I admitted that to you. So, what is this metaphor manta? What is letting go please?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:09:39] So it’s a little bit of a story. but I use it as a metaphor for my life and I think it will apply to just about everybody else, but the story of my own experience with letting go, I was in the canyons of Utah.
standing at the very top and at the very edge of a 200 foot cliff. And now this was not a national park. This is deep in a Canyon, you know, wild, wild place. I was wearing, a rappelling harness and I was holding a rope and someone I didn’t know very well. And also didn’t like, was that the top of the cliff with me?
Holding the other end of the rope. And he was literally my, my only lifeline. And so, yeah, my instructions were very simple. Turn your back to the edge of the cliff. Let go over the rope and step into thin air. Yeah, so, okay. You got to understand something. I am, I’m afraid of Heights. I’m afraid of the edge and I’m really, you know, sort of terrified of danger.
So what did I do? I held onto the rope even tighter. I started having a full blown panic attack. And when, when that happened, something really frightening happened. I, I felt like I was. Completely disintegrating as a human being. you know, and I, in the midst of that, which was terrifying unto itself, I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
Like the person was going to let go of the rope. Cause he didn’t like me either. you know, the rope would break my harness wouldn’t hold. So like it was every doomsday scenario and, and I became completely. Paralyzed by fear and all the, what ifs that I had conjured in that moment. But, but the thing is, was somewhere in my brain.
I knew I couldn’t stay there forever. I had to do something. And so in that swirling a tornado of emotion, I had this little tiny moment of clarity and I thought, Janice, you just have one job here. Just one. Thing to do. And that one thing was to take a step backwards off the cliff. It was just one step.
Now it’s one mother of a step. Mind you, but it wasn’t just one. And the only way I was able to let go of that rope and let go of my, my place on Terra firma. Was to think only about the one little thing that I could actually do in that moment. And obviously I did it because you know, I’m here in Gastonia talking to you guys and not still standing on a cliff and in Utah, but I use that personal metaphor all the time when I feel stuck or overwhelmed or have to let go of, of something.
I say to myself, okay, Janice, what is the one single little thing that you can do right now? That will move you past the place where you’re stuck and you don’t have to go to a cliff in Utah to learn this. You can do this. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing. Everybody has the power to conjure that one little step and get unstuck.
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:22] Absolutely. You know, you eloquently and Craig, I might add, in, in reading her, her writing material, you’re gonna love these books because she, she is a storyteller. Is that fair to say, may I call you Janice? Or of course you have a preference yet. I mean, you know, her book is storytelling. On on deep concepts like that.
I mean, do ma’am I think you are delightfully good at that. That’s just our audience. Check out these books. As a matter of fact, did you check out the second one, Craig?
Craig Graves: [00:13:51] I did. I just got it this evening.
Chris Gazdik: [00:13:54] We’re not, we’re not going to talk about it at all tonight, but I really want you to come back on the show to talk about this other book.
What is it, Craig?
Craig Graves: [00:14:01] It is called a voice out of nowhere inside the mind of a mass murder.
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:07] We have got to talk about that. Ma’am.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:14:09] Yes, we do.
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:11] We really do. anyway, so you know what you’re taking me back to with your metaphor. I will absolutely take that with me and I, and I will use that. And I’m going to tell you how I’m gonna use that because I had the exact same experience and it’s funny.
I did not put two and two and two together to know that when I was jumping out of an airplane. Yeah, I did a tandem jump and it’s, it’s really the, I mean, exactly what you were just talking about.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:14:39] Yeah. And, and, even I haven’t, I haven’t jumped out of an airplane, but I have gone Paris paragliding, and you know, you are strapped to a stranger, but you can’t feel them there necessarily.
So when you jump, you feel like you are making the jump on your own and you still have to bring all your wherewithal to do, to do that. It’s it’s quite, It’s quite a Hill to climb. If, if you’re, if you’re battling fear at the same time.
Chris Gazdik: [00:15:10] No, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I don’t have time to tell you, but I’ll just tell you my, my adrenaline was wicked hopped up that day that I did that.
You know, it’s funny because jumping out of the airplane in your, your experience with cliffs that were going to come back doing a little bit, actually doesn’t fit with something that I actually thought about when we’re talking about the definition of letting go. It occurred to me as I was preparing for the show in my mind over the last couple of weeks, that is a brand new clinical thought for me.
I’m curious what you would think of it is as well. We talk about letting go. We’re going to talk about four processes of how to do that. Really the show audience and, and Janice has four core critical things that she talks about in, in this, project that she, she, she did, you know, it occurred to me, that Janice.
I kind of feel like we let go in pieces, meaning. You know, oftentimes letting go of something, isn’t a singular event that it it’s also, sometimes it can be. I mean, there’s a very freeing, powerful moment people have in their life, but I think we can also regrasp things that we’ve let go like trauma or childhood relationships or things like that.
So I think that the concept to me also can live in pieces throughout our life. Like letting go and then letting go again. We’re letting go a little bit more. What do you, what do you say to that or think about
Janice Holly Booth: [00:16:25] that. I agree with you. And I compare it to the notion of courage because nobody is born brave.
It’s a, it’s a process of becoming. And if you think of courage as a muscle, it’s like any muscle in the body, it has to be exercised in order for it to be, to be strong and to do the heavy lifting when, when life calls upon us to be brave, And I think that, you know, you don’t just wake up one morning and say, I am going, I’m going to be courageous.
You have to start with these little exercises. for example, They do this and they used to do this in the army. or for repair paratrooper training. They’d have you jump off a box, you know, and then they’d have you jump off a ladder and then that sort of aggressively gets you to the point where you could jump out of a plane.
And, and that’s what it takes. I mean, you have to do it bit by bit and you know, if you’ve got a lot of trauma. Or you have a tremendous amount of fear, the expectation that you’re going to just be able to let go of that is not realistic. And I think, I think that, that, that exactly what you said, Chris, you let go of it a little bit.
Sometimes you regress it only to let it go a little more next time and that’s all. Okay. I think it’s all about that one step that I talked about, because for obviously for me, that one step. Led to the next led to many others and led to 10 years of repelling with, with, with exhilaration instead of fear.
But, But it took me taking those steps and it took me exercising that, that bravery muscle, which wasn’t there before I started all these adventures.
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:13] I love it. Absolutely. And what a cool way of thinking of progressively increasing your ability to let go and then go from a fricking. You know, box a stepping stool to a ladder, to a top of a ladder, to maybe the top of a building.
And ultimately you build your courage to, you know, the level of a, of an airplane. Now don’t, don’t give the cat. No, no, the bank. Cause I want Craig to get the, the idea here in a little bit of what you did and we’ve almost done it already a little bit, but that’s okay.
You did 13. attempts. It’s to do what I don’t want you to say yet that, that with the climbing and stuff, but the, the 13 times you went out to do an adventure before you could actually successfully do the adventure.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:18:54] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:18:54] That was 13, not failures, but 13 buildups, 13 points of time where you process the letting go a little bit more and a little bit more until you ultimately did it. Is that all, have you ever thought of that before?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:19:09] Yeah. And, and I often wondered what was the, you know, what pushed me over the edge. No pun intended.
And I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you this. Okay. You’ll laugh, but it’s true. I told you I’m Canadian, right?
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:25] You did.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:19:26] So Canadians hate to lose money. So darn it. I’m going back and 14th time, I’m doing this thing. So I’m going to hire a guide. And I paid money to hire a guide, which was non-refundable. And that was it.
Chris Gazdik: [00:19:44] That is awesome because that’s exactly the same way. I was able to go scuba diving. When I did in college, we have a lot, we are kindred spirits, man. Holy cow. So. In in the
book, you know, it was interesting. You really kind of start out in a really neat way as you described. I mean, Craig, I don’t know if you picked up on it, but this is, this is Janice, you know, kind of her personal process and story of what she went through to get this.
And, and, you know, interestingly enough, I wanted to point out on our show because I think it’s an important part of what we need to do. And what did we do in therapy? Like all the time. Looking at examining digging into really the baggage that we have now. It’s an often used word. I mean, everyone uses psychobabble nowadays.
I love it. But it’s funny the way that we talk about it in, in bridges, regular life, you really have to look at baggage, I would think. Right. What does baggage carry out and why is that a beginning part? Do you have to know what’s in there before you let go? Right?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:20:37] it’s very, very interesting. Chris and Craig, because.
that chapter was not originally in the manuscript that I sold to national geographic and, my editor who was wonderful, very insightful woman. She said, Janice, you have, you have to tell your readers about you. And she knew at this point I was notoriously private. I said, I won’t do it. I won’t do it.
That’s my life. I’m not sharing it. And she said, you have to. So I thought, okay, I asked for it and I wrote this, this OPA skill. I mean, it’s just a fraction. What’s in the book. It’s just a fraction of this, this, Magnus Opus that I sent to her, but it was such an amazing exercise because I did not realize my issues with authority, where they came from until I wrote that baggage chapter.
I did not realize why I had this outsized reaction to injustice that would just infuriate me. And, and then, and there, it was in the story of, not being allowed to wear pants to school. And so that that’s a really, it was a V it was a turning point in my life, you know, I mean, it really created. What I just talked about, that has sort of dogged me through my life.
And I’m, I’m proud of having these, these sensibilities, but they were running me. I wasn’t running them.
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:11] Right. I mean, it was really powerful to hear that, you know, and then you showed up to school actually in a bathing suit, right? Like
Janice Holly Booth: [00:22:18] the principal who, by the way, just passed away three weeks ago.
Chris Gazdik: [00:22:22] Oh, wow.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:22:23] He, yeah.
It’s so for our listeners who haven’t read the book. You know, I grew up in Canada, it was very cold snowed in the winter and girls were not allowed to wear pants even in the winter. So we would have to trudge through the snow, in our dresses to school. And so I, you know, confronted the principal about it and he said, well, if you can get a petition together and get all the girls to sign it, I’ll let you wear pants.
So I thought what a fool he is, but he had the, the benefit of age and cynicism on his side. And, he knew none of the girls were going to sign my petition because they didn’t want to get in trouble. So I finally, it’s a long story, but I finally, intimidated all the girls to sign and I went to his office.
I handed him though. The petition and he looked at it and he looked at me and he threw it in the trash and he said, Janice, you can come to school in a bathing suit. You can come to school naked, but you will never, ever come to school in pants. I was. So, I don’t even know the word, just like the rug.
Every rug had been pulled out from under me and I thought, okay, well he gave me permission. So.
Chris Gazdik: [00:23:40] determined Comes to my mind,
Janice Holly Booth: [00:23:44] stubborn. I, I, I did, I, I put on a bathing suit under my clothes, went to school. My mom had no idea this was happening. and then once I got into school, I took my clothes off and sat there in my bathing suit until.
The principal was called. I was yanked out of class. My mom was called to the school. She was absolutely mortified. And then I got suspended. and so that, you know, again, you think, think about I followed the rules, right? I did what I wanted was told, and then they just. what’s the word that I want.
I mean, it just, they took advantage of me because I was a child and I had no power
Chris Gazdik: [00:24:25] nowadays. They would say, or maybe I’m aging, my own self, but they dissed ya
Janice Holly Booth: [00:24:29] they just, they did. They dissed me big time, right?
Chris Gazdik: [00:24:33] Oh,
Janice Holly Booth: [00:24:33] that con that really, That changed me as a person. And it, it, it made me very suspicious of people.
I didn’t believe what people said. Mostly adults didn’t believe what people said. I’m not, I’m grateful for that, but you know, not being aware that it’s there and that it’s there all the time. I think was a detriment to me in my relationships. Like I wasn’t able to use that super power for my benefit.
It was using me.
Chris Gazdik: [00:25:05] Go ahead, . Craig
Craig Graves: [00:25:07] Yeah. So let me make sure I understand what you’re saying, Janice. So you, you said that you had an, you had a problem with authority and you were able to trace it back to this, to this school event by writing it down. Yes. By,
Janice Holly Booth: [00:25:22] yeah, by, by just kind of reliving my, you know, chronologically reliving and writing my, my life story and, It was like this, this sun came out from behind the clouds and Sean it’s light on this, this, this, this trust and suspicion that has been behind everything that I have ever thought of or, or looked at.
And, and that was, that was really a huge gift. And so that introspection about my past life and on, on, on covering. This traumatic experience kind of set me free from it.
Craig Graves: [00:26:03] Okay. And that’s where I was going to ask you next is. So did writing it down help you kind of overcome that or was there, did that help you let that go or was there more work involved in the letting go process?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:26:17] Oh, sure. I mean, after you identified them, once I identified it, I had to make a decision. And I thought to myself, well, has this cynicism and suspicion served you well? And the answer was in some cases. Yes. so I knew I didn’t want to let go of it completely, but I wanted, I wanted to, manifest it when it served me.
If that makes sense. I wanted to, you know, if I walked into a situation and my spidey senses were up, I wanted to be able to pull on that cynicism and suspicion and let it help me. But I don’t want to go into every encounter, every human encounter feeling that way because, I don’t think that’s healthy.
Craig Graves: [00:26:59] Right. So I guess that’s the question maybe I have for both of you guys is like, no, I believe these emotional traumas that happened to it with some life, stay with us. But sometimes those things cause issues and the issues, we never tie back to that particular event. So you, you, you did it through, through writing your story down on paper and that’s one of the tools I’ve, I’ve heard you can use to help you identify things like this.
So what would you guys, Chris? You’re a therapist and Janice, you’ve got obviously some extensive knowledge in this letting go topics. So how would you recommend to people that might be listening? To, to maybe dig some of those past traumas and issues up to deal with them.
Chris Gazdik: [00:27:39] Yeah. There’s a lot to say there.
And that’s what I was going to say. You know, I’m glad you went there, Craig, because I mean, you and I are thinking usually totally in sync on these shows. I mean, that’s why I started this, you know, you, how do you do letting go if you’re not knowing what you’re letting go of. And so a lot of times when I’m talking about in people in therapy is, you know, I’ll say, you know, you can’t see my hands listening on these, but on the right hand side, You know, there’s, there’s this how life is, and, and we’re focused on how we want life to be on the left side.
And so we’re really moving towards that. But the thing that you gotta realize is way before that there’s this big feedback loop. And so there’s, there are lots of ways to manage this, that the main point is. And people are afraid to do Janice, what you did in looking into, I’m not surprised that you wouldn’t want to write that down in the book, in the, they had to be wet noodle, whipping you to get you to do it because we don’t want to look at the things that are all so long ago.
Craig people tell me all the time, listen, I happen to, with a child. I’m worried about that. Now I’m a grown up person. It doesn’t bother me. I let go of it a long time ago. And the truth is. When you talk about it with a friend, when you write it down, when you pray about it, if you have faith traditions, if you go to a priest, if you, if you watch a movie, if you, you know, and reflect on how that, you know, real story affects you, there’s lots of ways, but you’ve got to check the baggage out before you let go of something.
Well, otherwise, you don’t even know what you’re letting go of. Right? Does that, does that make sense, Janice?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:29:05] It does. And I w I would just say, you know, not all traumas are equal and of course my pants, my pants petition can’t compare to some of the terrible traumas that people have endured. I would just say, you know, if you, if you’re going to do that exploration and you get the sense that you’re approaching territory, that is really frightening or debilitating that you might want to.
Bring somebody along for the ride, either a professional or somebody that you really, really trust, because in my case, you know, I felt like I had a lot of resilience at the point where I wrote this book and that, whatever I discovered about myself, I would just be able to use it as information. But, but you know, some traumas when they reveal themselves can be extremely devastating.
So I think, One must know oneself and, and recognize that if it’s too hard, there are people out there who can help.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:07] Yeah, a big, big keyword. There is trust, you know, you need to have the ability to trust and to have people that are trustworthy, which is why professional artificial environments, as I do in therapy is a good way to go, but that’s not, you know, that’s not in an exclusion.
People can get well in other ways and not do therapy, but, you know, there’s, there’s a lot there to unpack. Okay. Let’s move on a little bit though, because I want to get to some of the things about how to let go and yeah. as usual Craig, I mean, could we do a three hour show someday? Would you let me do a three or four hour show?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:30:37] Hey man, Joe Rogan does them all the time.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:40] I know. Right. I always feel that way, Janice, when we’re doing this and I’m just like, ah, so listen, Craig, do you remember this guy? That you had me watch a documentary on when it comes to, climate cliff climbing for free free. You don’t talk about
Janice Holly Booth: [00:30:55] Alex handled.
Okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:30:56] Alex, Alison, tell the audience about who that is and what the story was. Cause I think you’re talking to a real life female version of mr. Alexander.
Craig Graves: [00:31:03] Alex handled is a, is a world famous free climber or free soler, which means he climbs with no ropes. And he is the only person to date to even attempt the, let alone successfully climb it.
But he climbed a L L cap and Yosemite national park, which is about a 3000 foot straight up and down rock face. With no ropes.
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:29] How about that for let go, Janice?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:31:32] Well, you know, what’s interesting is Alex doesn’t tell his mother when he’s going off on one of these
Chris Gazdik: [00:31:39] things. She knows him. Craig knows all of them, I should say, or whatever. Do you know him?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:31:44] I don’t know him. I certainly know of him because, I’m outta absolutely fascinated about why, how he can control his fear, because if he succumbs to it for one single second, he’s dead.
Craig Graves: [00:31:58] Yeah. Right. Yeah. Have you seen the show? Have you seen the movie, Janice? Yes. The hippocampus is not firing like everybody else’s or something like that.
One thing about his mom, I want to say is during that, during that movie free solo is, the name of the movie. She said he’s mostly, he feels most alive while he’s when he’s climbing. And why would you ever take that away from somebody he’s one.
I remember that
of a certain death and his mother had made that statement and I thought that was so awesome.
You know, why would you take that away from someone?
Chris Gazdik: [00:32:31] And, and, you know, as a matter of fact, Neil is with us, Neil, can you make a make sure that makes it in the show notes that the audience needs to check out that movie? That we were talking about because it will, it is a, it is a powerful depiction of what it is, Janice that was in the center piece of what you did in press.
Craig’s going to listen to this. Craig will tell him about slot canyoning and what, what this is that you’re talking about, that you took 13 times, you kind of get into to it. Listen to this man.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:32:58] Okay. So, One point of reference that people might know is, 127 hours. Aaron Ralston was canyoneering, which is basically repelling on, on ropes through these super narrow slot canyons that had been carved by ancient rivers are extremely narrow.
very dangerous, really beautiful, and a rock roll. A Boulder rolled onto his army had to cut his slower arm off. Did you have heard this story? Yeah. Okay. So Erin that’s Aaron. So Aaron was canyoneering when, when that happened. Now, my fascination with slot canyons came when I was 17 years old and living in Canada, I saw a picture in national geographic of a slot Canyon and they truly are like the most beautiful, mysterious, gorgeous.
Pieces of, of rock sculpture you’ve ever seen. And so the grand Canyon and all the grand jury grand Canyon. And then. squeeze it together, squeeze that squeeze each side together so that there’s only, it’s only about five to three feet apart at any, any given place. And then you get up to the top. You put on your harness, you throw your rope and you start rappelling down through that beautiful twisted labyrinth of rock.
And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to see inside a slot Canyon up close and personal. The problem is when I first went out to Utah to do it, I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t really understand the danger involved and it was just overwhelming. So I didn’t do it. Come on back.
13 darn times until I paid that. money Okay. So the guide and finally made it happen. And even with a guide, I was terrified the whole time, but, but I finally managed to do it. And then after that it became, you know, I went, I went back into the canyons eight or nine more times and, had just, you know, it’s unspeakable beauty.
Very, very difficult though. I mean the last one I did. I had to repel through, I think, 13 waterfalls. Wow. I had to climb. I had to climb a rope 400 feet to get out of the Canyon. And that was the last one I did. That is fancy. Like
Chris Gazdik: [00:35:26] I need to seek Craig, please. Can we go see a slot canyon,
Craig Graves: [00:35:29] man? I’d love it. I’d love to go see one not sure I would climb down in there
Chris Gazdik: [00:35:32] i’m there. I would do that. You a heartbeat that would be, you have just born a new bucket list for me, man. That that needs to be done.
Craig Graves: [00:35:41] Feeling a little cluster. I’m feeling a little claustrophobic is you’re talking there. Janice
Chris Gazdik: [00:35:46] Craig you’re going spelunking. No, never do it. That is all spelunking, man. That’s fun as heck too, man.
You get, you get yourself into a cave and I’m you, ain’t never seen dark till you’ve been in a cave without a light, like a dark cave. There is no light. You, you cannot see anything. Thing. And you just go in this cave, man, you explore and you just go run around in this cave and that’d be interesting. I mean, it’s scary.
This stuff is intimidating. And I think what’s cool is, is, is using, like you said, Janice, we don’t need to do one of these things to get over fears. And we have so many insecurities which are massive fears. Which again, I would say you didn’t jump over the cliff, but all three 13 times, you’re letting go a little bit more of an insecurity, letting go a little bit more of your fear of control or whatever, kind of goes on.
Maybe, you know, reflecting back to that principle, letting go of all the things that you do until you do. And then you take a step.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:36:40] Yeah. Well, and the other thing that’s really important for people to understand was I did think of those 13 tries is 13 failures, but I was taking other adventures at the same time.
So, you know, I’d go out. I, I, I wouldn’t get into the slot Canyon and then I’d go and I do something else that challenged me and tested me. And so I was building in addition to letting go of the fear bit by bit. I was also becoming more resilient and more. I’m willing to kind of trust my own, my own body’s capabilities.
So it was a combination of these things, but it gets back to what we talked about at the very beginning. You got to take those steps, right? It’s not just going to show up, knock at your front door and say, Hey. You’re brave. Let’s go, you know, you got to take, you’ve really got to take some responsibility for helping that along.
Chris Gazdik: [00:37:34] So I’m curious, did we actually redefine that a little bit tonight? When did, did, did you, do you now see that that has 13 failures or 13 parts and pieces of the success?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:37:43] The ladder? I absolutely. I mean, I was, you know,
Chris Gazdik: [00:37:48] is that new or not?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:37:49] No, no, no, no. I mean, I. I talk about this. When I speak to that, that, you know, I, I did for a long time think of not going into the canyon in his 13 failures.
But in retrospect, when I look back and I understood the concept of courage being a muscle, I realized I was just exercising it every time I went out there, it was getting stronger and stronger until I was, is finally able to do what I needed to do.
Craig Graves: [00:38:15] So Janice that that’s, you’re speaking basically an unbeatable mind speak, if you will.
And I’ll explain what that is. If you don’t know in a minute, but
Chris Gazdik: [00:38:23] you beat me to it. Cause I was just say, Craig, this is all. Yeah.
Craig Graves: [00:38:27] I need to introduce you to Mark Devine and gets you on his show. He is a retired Navy seal who developed the unbeatable mind program that I’m talking about, but, Courage courage being a muscle and building that up.
I believe that a hundred percent. Is that what you set out to do or were you trying to increase your, your, overcome fears and become more resilient and an increased that courage muscle? Or were you just basically on a, an adventure, if you will. And I guess I’m asking them, what’s their purpose to you going out and doing these adventures.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:38:57] There was, and, and the nuances came later, but, when I went out to Utah, the first time he didn’t get in the. Canyon because of my fears. I thought, well, I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want fear dictating what I do and what I don’t do. And so you got to remember, I took all these trips alone because nobody would go with me.
Nobody wanted to get in a Canyon. Nobody wanted to, drive a, you know, a team of dogs across the pros, frozen, lake nobody was interested. So I ended up having to do these things by myself and, I wa I really did not want fear to be running the show. That was my life. And the only way I felt like I could ensure that didn’t happen is if I picked these adventures that scared me somehow, and then, you know, went out and did them, or didn’t do them.
The nuances of. Building resilience and courage being a muscle, came to me later on because as I was making my way out to the West, every single time I went, I felt like my outlook on life was different. You know, I Cape extension extensive travel journals and I, I would go back and read them. And it was so obvious that my outlook on life was changing and morphing.
And I was. I was getting, I was becoming a deeper person on, I was thinking about things differently and it was really kind of startling to see that transformation in, in hindsight, but that, I, life is so much richer now that, because I did all of that with the intention of not letting fear dictate my geographical boundaries.
Craig Graves: [00:40:45] Right. Right. So let me, I know Chris is getting ready to explode over there, but you know, after you do these, after you do these things, after you took that step off of that repel, were there other, when you came back from that and got back into the real world or whatever, were there other situations where you said, you know what, I stepped off of that ledge.
I can, I can definitely do this, whatever this thing is. I mean, did you have situations like that where you felt that courage building and. And you were able to overcome smaller things, you know, once you got back to life,
Janice Holly Booth: [00:41:17] Yes. And I’m going to tell you two really quick stories cause they tickled me. But, as we say in the South, I, I used to, I ride horses and I used to have haul horse trailers with horses in them.
And. And the trailers would sway and you could never break, fast enough, you know, if there was something and it just, I was, I would get literally sick to my stomach in the morning when I had to drive, a trailer full of horses. And anyway, so after about five trips out to the Canyon, a friend of mine and I, we have our horses, we’ve trailered them out and she, she got sick and she said, Janice, do you have to drive the trailer home?
And I walked off and I thought to myself, you could get your stuff together, girl, because, and I was like, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I got in that car. I got behind the wheel, put my foot on the gas. I’m like, wait a minute. I’m like 100% okay with this, what happened? so that was one thing that was really like an unexpected benefit.
And then the other thing was at work. I had this board of directors that just was so difficult to manage. And after I’d been in the canyons a few times, they completely stopped bothering me and I was able to come and to manage them without getting upset and without getting, without being super reactive, you know, I could be more strategic and I really do credit the.
Experiences that I had, where I had to manage my emotions. I credit those with helping me get better in these smaller things in my life.
Craig Graves: [00:42:59] Wow. So you just said something big there to me. So not only were you building that courage muscle, but you were able to manage your emotions in different ways after going through those things.
Chris Gazdik: [00:43:09] Right. That’s awesome. It’s a powerful reality. You know what I’m bursting over here, you correctly observed is, you know, you might think, you know, therapists, we get a little bit of a, prejudice, if you will. Cause like I said, by the way too, it’s another thought we did racism last couple of shows, and this is letting go of a lot of them.
Fear and anger. I actually designed to show letting go. And the next one we’re going to do is on forgiveness. And what, if you remember Craig, those were key components in that whole discussion on racism that we did. And now that these were great people that were going to have on show this guest in the next guest, talking about these very powerful parts of the racism issues in our country, right?
I mean, Prejudice. If you will. There’s prejudice. I think about therapists that were peace, love and liberal people that happy that just never really heard of bug and were so, you know, quiet and whatever. You won’t find a lot of passivity about me, you know me well. Right?
Craig Graves: [00:44:01] Who says that?
Chris Gazdik: [00:44:03] Well, people would believe that I think, a lot of times out there.
And I’m thinking that when we’re talking about. Fears when we’re talking about insecurities and we’re talking about very primal parts of our brain and bodies, even neurologically, when you come across these things, you really have got to fight it. Like we’re, I’m talking about attacking fear. And, and Janice I’m I’m, it’s so cool to talk to you because you like went out there, literally cross country and attacked this stuff that you said.
I don’t want this in my life anymore. I think therapy would go a whole lot better. If people came into a first session, not abashed, not full of shame, not scared to death, not shaking in their boots, which oftentimes they are like, I’m showing up in this therapy, all this I’m ready to attack this stuff.
Let’s go let’s rock and roll. And I’d be like, wow, like, how about that let’s attack. Right?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:44:53] Well, you know, I had an interesting experience, again, with, with this navigation of fear and every time I went out the out to Utah. Okay, well I’ve beaten fear and there it was again, and I finally realized, okay, you know what, I’m not going to beat this thing.
I’m going to acknowledge it. And I’m going to slit her and I would talk to it, I would say. Okay. I see you there behind the bushes.
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:18] Ah, perfect.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:45:20] There, I know you are trying to keep me from going off this cliff, but I’m going and you can come with me or not. It’s up to you.
Chris Gazdik: [00:45:27] Listen, I tell you what, if you identify with that baggage and I love the way that you’re actually purposely saying, Hey, I see you there.
I notice your abandonment and insecurity. I’m aware of you and I’m coming after you. And we, you are not going to stop me. That is powerful.
Craig Graves: [00:45:45] So Janice, what you’re saying, there is the fear doesn’t go away. You just say, well, to manage it in a better way. Right?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:45:50] Yeah. And, and as I was telling Chris in our, in our pre-show talk, you know, fear, isn’t a bad thing.
Okay. It it’s designed to, to protect you and keep you safe. the problem is we’re no longer having to fear saber tooth tigers. We are, you know, we’re fearing the most mundane things in our lives. And, but, but if. You know, it would be wrong to try to eradicate fear because there will come that moment where you might have to run for your life and you walk fear, you know, fueling your legs and, and, and giving you superhuman strength.
You want that. But what you don’t want is for these inappropriate appearances of fear to keep you from living the life that you want to live.
Chris Gazdik: [00:46:36] Right. I tell people all the time and in my therapy, one of the things I’m really, really working on is I want to identify the patterns that you have. You get to decide which ones you keep, which ones you tweak and which ones you drop.
And that’s totally within. What we want to do with is kind of what you just said. Right. Yeah. Listen, interesting question for you on this. And then I know I want to get to the we’re going next to think about in your mind, solitude, introspection commitment and how commitment and all three of those things work together to, to, to really be a process.
But here’s an interesting question for you, Janice, letting go that occurred to me as I was really pondering this show prep letting go takes courage. Or creates courage, which says you or both. Let me say that again. Letting go takes courage. You have to have it in order to let go or letting go creates courage.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:47:32] Well, I think it’s a little bit of both, but if I had to put my money down on one, it would be the latter. You can let go. Even when you’re full of fear before you have developed that courage muscle, you just have to figure out a way to do it. Like I did with that one step. And that was just like totally.
You know, I was grasping for anything. that wasn’t a okay, well, Janice, you know, just calm down and think about one thing. It was like, Holy moly. I got, I got to do something, but the letting go made me realize, Oh, I can do this. I am stronger than I thought. So that gave me the confidence to go a little bit further.
So I think that you can, you, you can let go without being courageous, but. You can’t let go and not become more courageous, if that makes sense. So yeah, you can get to the place where you’re letting go and not be courageous, but once you do let go, you started building your courage muscle. So it, you, yeah.
and that may be convoluted, but, yeah, I really do think you can be at the place where you can let go, if you can figure out how to do it. And. And then from then on, it becomes, It can become a practice that makes you stronger and more capable of doing it. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: [00:48:56] Very cool. You know, I want to end this show on talking about the benefits of why we want to let go.
Cause I think it is such a difficult and intimidating process to kind of do, and I want people to know the payoffs, so be thinking that guys in the back of your mind, and, but before we get to that, And I knew it was probably unfair. Janice, how are you, how do you summarize an entire, like four or five chapters of your book in like, you know what, like five, right?
We’ll do our best. Tell us about the process. You know, what it is? Is it all, I mean, developing, developing courage you’ve talked about and then getting into solitude. How that did that for you? Is that for you and everyone introspection what that is and how that goes. And then really Craig’s going to love the last part, right?
Craig? Commitment. What are you always telling me? Like get on it.
Craig Graves: [00:49:44] Get after it,
Chris Gazdik: [00:49:45] Chris. I see. I even said it wrong. What about all those things?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:49:49] Okay. So the original subtitle of the book, well, the book, the original title was only pack what you can carry for the four essential keys to life’s journey. And these four essential keys are the keys that I discovered during my decade of traveling alone.
And there are four of them. They are. Solitude introspection, courage and commitment. And so solitude is something that most of us consider to be punishment or deprivation, but actually carving out time to be alone and truly alone. When I say alone, I mean like away from devices and distractions, it allows you to go to the next essential, which is introspection.
And it’s an introspection is really only possible in solitude because, if you want to think deeply about your life and, you really want to think deeply about your life in that place, where you tell the truth, you’ve gotta be alone. So introspection then leads you to face your fears and allows you to, face them and develop courage.
And then commitment is twofold. One. It’s I’m committing to this process of solitude, introspection and courage for your whole life. And then part two is committing to not living a life less than what you want for yourself.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:20] In other words, Craig, get after it, it’s a dynamic processes and it wrapping things together like that is really cool.
And, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m one of the things I really wanted to point out that I thought was really interesting. Janice, when I was kinda. Picking your brain on online Craig it’s amazing the onlineness that we have. Like I could get to know somebody and pick their brain, actually. Not even having met them before.
Isn’t that neat?
Craig Graves: [00:51:46] Yeah, it really is.
Chris Gazdik: [00:51:47] You know, you talk about two different kinds of solitude. I thought that was fascinating, right? The, the kind that you just sort of do busy work and, you know, keep yourself, you know, Just distracted and that’s why people don’t sleep well because all the busy work goes away.
It’s not as helpful a form of solitude as is the type that we see more with mindfulness, you know, carving out specific time to be alone and alone with your thoughts and your feelings and all, all the sort of distractions that are internal. So we get to identify in that type of mindfulness in the moment what we’re experiencing, and that’s a very different type of solitude and just.
Keeping yourself busy and doing stuff. Does that make sense? Did I do that Justice?
Janice Holly Booth: [00:52:28] Yeah. And, you know, one of the things I, I would do after I figured out these four keys and what I was actually, you know, how I was actually living them was when I would go on a solo trip. Which would be anywhere from a week to two weeks, I would take one big question with me.
One big life question that I was wrestling with and only one, and in my solitude, I would, I would ponder that question. And, it’s, it was amazing what the, you know, the depth I was able to plumb by focusing on one question by giving myself the solitude. and getting rid of the distractions and are we now would come back from these things that have great clarity around something that had been dogging me and bothering me for a long time.
So, you know, I see people hiking with, with headphones on and I, I just shake my head because they’re missing such a great opportunity to use their solitude for something that will be truly helpful to them.
Chris Gazdik: [00:53:29] Yeah, that’s a neat reality. I love, I love taking a hike with, you know, with quiets and just being in the woods.
Although I like listening to podcasts too, and I do too. So I’ll do both, but I agree. It’s a great opportunity to be one with yourself in nature and how powerful that could be. Craig, I see your coaching in taking people through this stuff, like all over this topic. I was thinking of you.
Craig Graves: [00:53:49] Yeah, it’s all over this.
I think Janice and I are kindred spirits. I wish we had, I wish we had two more hours. Janice, you know, you’ve used the, these adventures and challenging yourself like that, to overcome your fears and manage your emotions and build that courage muscle. If people are, if people are listening and they say, you know, that sounds cool, but I don’t have, I can’t go to Utah.
I’ve got kids and you know this, and now I’ve got a job and stuff like that. What, what can they do locally? Where, where they are. I mean, what kind of challenges would you say people could do to, to, to do these same things
Chris Gazdik: [00:54:25] and even in their house? if they are agoraphobic
Craig Graves: [00:54:27] potentially. Yeah, absolutely.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:54:29] And that’s the key. So, I remember number a lady coming up to me after one of my presentations. And she said, God, she said, you’ve inspired me, but I’m so scared. I want to camp. I want to, I go camping by myself, but I’m afraid, you know, I’ll be raped and this and that. And the other thing. So we talked it through and I said, you know, you can, you can take a tent up to Crowder’s mountain and you can pitch your tent.
Next to where the boy Scouts pitch their tent and you’ll be by yourself, but you’ll, you know, you’ll have people around you and you all, you have to spend one night, you don’t even have to sleep. You just stay up and listen to the sounds and, and you’ll be okay. So she did that and she got back to me and she said, I don’t know what I was worried about.
She said it was the most awesome thing ever. So there are definitely things you can do. There’s another person that. kept in touch with me after she decided she was going to try to become brave. And her thing was getting up on stage and singing karaoke. She’d wanted to do that her whole life, but she was so afraid of being humiliated.
And she finally said, I’m just going to do it. They’re all drunk anyway. And so you got up there, she sang her heart out and it opened the door for other things for her to do so the key is not. I’m mimicking my head adventure or trying to be an Alex Honnold or, or an Aaron Ralston. The key is finding out for yourself.
What scares me that if I could overcome it would bring great resonance to my life. So the fear of going yeah. Outside for one thing, I mean, what a terrible, prison you’re in. Well, if you can, if you can somehow step by step address that that’s huge. My courage is not your courage and vice versa, but the first key is using solitude and introspection to determine, you know, what is scaring me?
What can I try to overcome so that my life will be better.
Chris Gazdik: [00:56:34] Yeah. And you know, that can be, I do this in therapy, like all the time with people, my folks that work with me kind of understand. I try to actively find Craig challenges. I’ll look at people they’ll sometimes they’ll, they’ll, they’ll go through four or five sentences.
They’ll say something and they’ll know what’s coming and I’ll look at them and they look at me and I’m like, you realize there’s a challenge right here coming, right. Yeah. And they’re like, okay, I know, what am I going to do? Because there’s like, if it’s just a conversation with your child about drugs, I’m afraid of upsetting them.
I’m afraid of, you know, triggering whatever, whatever. And I’m like, well, you know what, go have a five minute conversation with your child about sex. Go take, go to a job interview. You know, w we work up with, I mean, the application is what I’m trying to say are so wildly varied it’s anywhere and everywhere because the fears in you that you’re attacking.
Right.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:57:30] Yup. Well, I’m going to share with you one other thing that might be helpful for people. And it’s something that a horse trainer told me. I used to show horses for other people, and I had this one particular mayor who, was perfectly fine until the announcer would announce the N number 32, the Palomino mayor.
who’s doing so well on rates per sale, and that horse would go ballistic. And buck and rare and pitch and try to jump the fence and it never failed. And so I would get literally sick before I had to get on this horse and ride. The trainer pulled me aside one day and he said, listen, whatever happens in there, you’ll handle it.
It doesn’t matter what’s gonna happen and what the horse is going to do, you’ll handle it. And I’m like, well, yeah, I will. And so I take that mantra with me all the time, you know, and, and especially in, you know, covid with people dying and you’re having to go and say goodbye, and you don’t want to cause you don’t want to say goodbye to them.
And in those moments I say, Janice, doesn’t matter how you’re feeling. You’re going to handle it. It’ll be fine.
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:43] Go. And, you know, what’s so cool in a therapy session when people come back and they tell you those little success stories, the big ones are great, but it’s those little steps, those little success stories of like, you know what I did that.
And I’m like, yeah, man, hell yeah. I mean, I, it’s just, it’s exciting to see people do that.
Janice Holly Booth: [00:59:02] Yeah. And, and everybody can do that. Just trust that you’ll handle it. Hey, maybe you won’t handle it well, but you’ll handle it. It’s okay.
Chris Gazdik: [00:59:10] One way or the other let’s let’s turn people on, man. This is a hard process, right?
Let’s let’s end up here on like, why do we want to do this? What are the benefits of letting go? I’m curious, Craig, what your thoughts are, Janice? I’m curious what your thoughts are. Here’s my pre-list. I got a chance to think, but I did more you like 10 minutes ago, right? Getting rid of stuck spots. We did a show on stuck spots, right?
Having something new inside you. Hey, that rhymes stuff just comes to me. Sometimes. That’s not even on the show notes. It just did that. Right. Adding to what already is there inside of us, more open to others, being more available to others, being more present with other people, more giving to others, if you let go of stuff, you actually allow yourself to be able to give to others.
How about that emotional piece? Emotional freedom them freedom from all the negative emotions that we deal with. If you choose to let go of insecurity, if you choose to let go of fear, if you choose to let go of anger, if you choose to let go of all these things, man, like it’s, this is like exciting stuff.
We can do this.
Craig Graves: [01:00:10] Yeah, it really is. And you know, Janice correct me if I’m wrong. But earlier when we were talking through this, through this, about your trips out to Utah, you said that, you know, in reviewing your journals, you. You just had a better outlook on life. And I mean, that’s what it’s all about, right?
I mean, did I get that right, Janice?
Janice Holly Booth: [01:00:27] And, and, you know, I agree with everything Chris said and, I, and I will add something to that which might sound silly, but it’s really true. You become a more interesting person to yourself.
Chris Gazdik: [01:00:40] Oh good. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Janice Holly Booth: [01:00:42] You become more curious. And I think it’s more important to be curious and to be able to do math.
I’m serious. I mean, it, having curiosity about the world is such a great gift, which you can, you can develop within yourself, but when you do these things, whether it’s it’s hanging off a rope or whether it’s singing karaoke or whether it’s camping overnight, when you’re afraid to do so. You become more interesting and your world expands and that nobody can take that away from you ever.
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:15] You know, what you’re making me think of is like being giddy, you know, like Christmas morning, you, you just described, I don’t know if you realize this Janice, you just described like a kid’s fascination with the world that we get jaded. We get negative, we get sarcastic, we get downtrodden that we lose and you just like brought it back.
Janice Holly Booth: [01:01:33] Yeah, that’s great. Well, you gotta take it with a grain of salt too, because before I even started my adventures, I lived up in New York. I used to go out at night and October and lay in the dark in the leaves and listen to the worms crawling around.
Chris Gazdik: [01:01:51] Have you ever heard of worm crawl?
Janice Holly Booth: [01:01:53] Yeah, it was like, Oh my God, this is in my back yard. This is so tender and beautiful. And, and, you know, I’d hear owls hooting, and,
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:05] I gotta say this, you know what? My dream house is Janice. Well, they were doing, he knows this. I don’t think anybody in this room knows this.
very few People know this. Now everyone’s going to know that. I guess my dream house would be that I could in this house. We’re in a basement. No, I’m from West Virginia. We had true basements. I’m talking about being under the earth in your house in a basement people down here in North Carolina don’t know that.
But I want to be in a house in a basement and one entire wall to be completely glass. I want to watch the bugs. I want to watch the roots grow. I want to be like able to observe those types of things, man. Is that, is that weird? Craig?
Craig Graves: [01:02:40] you are a Weirdo dude.
Chris Gazdik: [01:02:44] Oh man. Craig. What are you hearing? What are you thinking, Janice?
How do you want to sum this up? I want people to be excited about this. This isn’t something to be intimidated by this. Isn’t something to be stuck by this isn’t something to be like in emotional chains about letting you know, letting things go though, is a process. It could be hard, man. How, how liberating it is?
I think we’ve described,
Janice Holly Booth: [01:03:10] well, I would just say this and Craig, I hope I didn’t interrupt you, but, COVID-19 this, this. Profound historical moment that the world is sharing together has pressed the pause button for all of us. And in this pause, it’s an unprecedented time to. Learn something new, learn an instrument, learn how to paint, learn how to dance, learn how to speak another language.
It’s the time is there for you and, and the opportunity is there for you because everything’s online now. this is, you know, I know that a lot of people are, are, are suffering because of the consequences of the pandemic. At the same time we have to look at the gift and the gift of the pause is going to allow us if we take advantage of it to grow as people
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:05] couldn’t agree more.
Absolutely. I want to do a, a, a clap tradition that I did. I’ll explain that to you here in a second. Janet Craig, you got anything you want to add or burning thoughts that you’re jumping out of your skin about here?
Craig Graves: [01:04:18] No, it’s hard to follow up what you said, Chris. I just, I just like get that it’s something to be excited about.
It’s something to be able to look forward to. And Janice, the things you’re saying about learning something new during this, during this downtime. I, I couldn’t agree with that more either.
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:31] I mean, I’ll give you a plug man. The unbeatable mind coaching program is right up this alley. If you want this, this, that does this right.
Craig Graves: [01:04:37] Lots of parallels.
Chris Gazdik: [01:04:39] He did some amazing Janice. When people come on to, throughatherapistseyes, I started a tradition, on, on an experience that I had when I was, when I was a little kid and somebody actually gave me a high five and it really felt liberating and really cool. To me. So when people were on the show and we’re in person, we actually do a high five on the zoom platform.
And when we’re doing video conferencing like this, I can’t do a high five. So I want to do a clap. So we’re going to clap here in a second and it gives a significant of, of doing, of doing a high five or are you open to that? Right. So, because you know, this takes courage. How about courage to outspeak your story and, you know, be on a national and an international stage to talk about, you know, some of these things that’s not easy.
So I just appreciate you being on the show and being willing to share really is your personal story about such a dynamically cool thing, such as letting go. Of negative emotions and the things that hold us down and act as emotional barriers. It’s really been absolutely cool. So I’m going to count us down and we’re going to clap on the count of three, two, one.
Right. Thank you for your high five. That is awesome. Craig, you want to take us out of here and Janice, is there anything else you want to kind of type us out with?
Janice Holly Booth: [01:05:54] Well, just thank you for the opportunity to speak to your, your folks. as I told you, you know, My book’s a few years old now, so I’m not trying to sell books.
I just want to help. And, if, if, if somebody pulls one little nugget out that helps them, this has been time. Well, well spent.
Craig Graves: [01:06:14] So Janice. So you mentioned your website. Adventurista.us I thought S is that right? Easter not.com. Yes. A D V E N T U R I S T a dot U S. Do you have an Instagram or a Facebook you want to plug?
Janice Holly Booth: [01:06:31] Jack? Well, if you go to the website, it’ll hook you up with all of that.
Craig Graves: [01:06:35] Great. That sounds good.
Chris Gazdik: [01:06:37] Sounds good. You’re a great speaker. A great storyteller and an absolutely awesome author if I might say so. Well,
Janice Holly Booth: [01:06:43] thank you, but thank you very much. And again, appreciate you having me on the show.
Craig Graves: [01:06:47] Our pleasure.
Chris Gazdik: [01:06:48] Craig take us out of here. We’re going to hit forgiveness in the context of marriage. How did Courtney forgive a sex addict is what we’re going through next week? Man.
Craig Graves: [01:06:57] Sounds good. Find out more about us at throughatherapistseyes.com, where you’ll also find links to our social media. So you can hook up with us there and you can also get that free chapter of Chris’s book by becoming a member of our email list.
And Neil promises not to spam you. And that includes myself.
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:15] Craig will hurt him if he does.
Janice Holly Booth: [01:07:17] That’s about it,
Chris Gazdik: [01:07:18] man. Thanks, man. We’ll see you all next week.