Midlife Cry, Sis (Formerly known as The Bettys Podcast)

019 - Year-in-Review 2022 (Part 1)

While we’ve been recovering from Christmas and the end-of-the-year chaos (it’s not over yet . . . we still have our New Years party to plan!), Mary & Alexis have been looking back on this last year. And it was a doozy! Mary has a questionnaire she’s been using (and adapting) for several years now, as the only entry on her neglected personal blog. We thought it would be fun to put it here on our podcast, so you’re welcome!
 
We hit on a lot of different topics, like doing mushrooms, public shaming (Mary got the ‘Uh-uh-uh!’ finger wag for texting while driving), singing Shania Twain in a sandwich shop in Venice, mammograms, lost luggage and pickpocketing in London, concerts, resolutions, and “deepful” prayers. What else could you want? (A lot. We know. We’re noobs, so thanks for sticking with us! “Someday . . . when we’re podcast pros/ho’s. . .” We’re manifesting sponsorships from Ivy City and an interview with Ed Mylett.
 
If you would like to fill out your own year-in-review, and you’d like to use our questionnaire, here’s a link to a Google Doc, and we’ll post it on our socials. Please share with us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast what you got really, really excited about (question 14), what you wish you had done more of (questions 17), and what was your biggest achievement (question 8). Or choose some other questions to tell us a bit of how your year went! You can find us on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, on Twitter @bettys_podcast, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
 
If this show resonates with you, please make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
And please stay tuned for part 2! We love you more!!

018 - Modesty, Shame & Purity Culture

Greetings, Bettys and Jacks. This is NOT a light and fluffy episode; it’s more like Utah Culture 101. Mary and Alexis talk about some issues we have with “Purity Culture,” or the idealization of certain practices and belief systems over others. Specifically, we are triggered by the LDS Church’s usage of, and changes to Carlo Maratta’s “The Holy Night” for their “Light the World” campaign (and cover for the Christmas Devotional), and we do some real-time processing of these issues.
 
Lexy shares stories about growing up in “radical Mormonism,” and later as a wife and mother, meeting Elder Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Like Elder Renlund, Lexy feels like Jesus wouldn’t care what she was wearing, but that He would be happy we were trying to connect with Him. Mary thinks it’s our choice to be affected by how other people look, and we both agree that we all need to be responsible for our own thoughts.
 
Mary references the Brooke Snow podcast, Episode 123, about how our connection to God is constant and unconditional. We don’t believe we need to accomplish a checklist, or dress a certain way to feel the love of our Savior; these things may help, but they are not a requirement. And shaming people for what they do or do not check off on this list does not help them draw closer to God.
 
Lexy references Dr. Julie Hanks, who often talks about “Purity Culture,” or the shame-based teaching of abstinence and value of women and their bodies. We think there has got to be a better way to teach our kids and teens to navigate their lives with more love and clarity than with shame and judgment. Like Lexy said, “when you’re living in shame, you really cannot live your best life.”
 
Let’s stop judging one another for the way we look and dress, and start treating each other as Jesus would–-with love, understanding, and kindness. We are all children of God, and we’re all just trying to figure out who we really are, and to find peace with our real selves.
 
Our Better Betty Challenge for this week is to embrace our own journeys, and to find peace and healing in that process. We are all trying to let go of the shame, and feel higher-frequency emotions, like love and gratitude. We hope you can embrace others, even if they might have different beliefs or standards or priorities than we do.
 
Please follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast. Tell us how you feel about purity culture, and let us know how you overcome shame. You can also find us on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
We want to hear from you! Comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
If this show resonates with you, please make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
Thank you for listening, friends. You are “brave enough to be the sky.” And we love you more.

017 - Moulin Rouge!

Maybe it was the full moon last week, or maybe Mercury is in retrograde, but something about all things French that make Mary and Alexis swoon. Or speak like cavemen, or something. We definitely had a “W” in 2021 when we were able to go to France, so we kinda talk about it a lot (and the associated mom-guilt around traveling sans kids), because we can can can. And (of course) we talk about Elton John. And Double Switch (watch it here!). Elton, if you’re listening . . . we’re going to be best friends, and we’re gonna go shopping!
 
Because we love France, and we love musicals, Mary took Lexy and Dave to see Moulin Rouge! (the musical) at the Eccles Theatre as a Christmas gift. The musical is based on the spectacular, spectacular 2001 film by avant-garde director/producer/screenwriter/auteur Baz Luhrman, who Mary particularly loves for his song “Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen,” which is based on an article written for the Chicago Tribune by Mary Schmich in 1997. We also talk a little about Lexy’s first love, Elvis, and the 2022 Baz Luhrman film about him, which you can stream on HoBoMax.
 
Moulin Rouge is a good love story, but we believe that at the heart of it all, as well as at the heart of our lives, is the great truth: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return” (from “Nature Boy” by eden abhez; listen to the Nat King Cole version here, and the David Bowie version from the movie soundtrack here. 
 
Our Better Betty Challenge for this week is to look at your relationship with love. Identify how you give it, how you receive it, and please try to accept the fact that you are deserving of freedom, beauty, truth, and love. Or at least a week in NYC or a fluffy farm in France.
 
Please follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast. Tell us how you feel about Moulin Rouge, and how you give and receive love. We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
 
We want to hear from you! Comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
 
If this show resonates with you, please make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
Thank you for listening. You are a sparkling diamond, and remember–we love you more.

016 - Spotify Wrapped

Hey there, Bettys and Jacks. We know we missed the zeitgeist on this cultural touchstone, posting it two weeks after our Spotify Wraps were released. We recorded it right after they dropped (and right after the last heavy episode about manuals), and last week was a beast, okay? But Mary & Alexis make up for this lack of timeliness with a light & fluffy, Seventeen Magazine-type getting-to-know-you episode about our music and movie preferences, our ‘listening’ personality types (Mary is an FTLU, and Lexy is an ENVC). We also talk about Lizzo, and reclaiming the word b*tch, so there is a lil’ bit of mild profanity. #sorrynotsorry
 
No one will be surprised at Lexy’s number one artist (considering that we devoted an entire podcast episode to her), though apparently she listened to Miley Cyrus’s “Plastic Hearts” 2,900 times. Mary is a little bit ashamed that her number one is the Glee cast. Not unlike this podcast, Mary thinks that Glee is “so out there and random and ridiculous . . . and I love it!” If you’re interested, check out Mary’s Twitter threads about Glee (season one here), season two here, season three here, season four here, season five here, a short thread on “The Quarterback” here, and (the final) season six here. Hey–I worked hard on these, so they should be documented somewhere!
 
There is no official “Better Betty Challenge” for this episode, but we’d love to hear about your Spotify Wrapped! Tell us who your number one artist, what your top song is, what’s your type. From this “Early Adopter” and “The Replayer,” we hope you learned a little more about yourself from this great platform, and we hope this gave you a little insight into what our 2022 was like, including more about us, our music preferences, and the random things we do and love. Life is hard, so light & fluffy episodes are just what we need sometimes. That, or maybe a hit of Julio Iglesias. 
 
Here’s a link to Shane Hawkins playing “My Hero” with the Foo Fighters at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in London. And here’s Miley Cyrus being way cooler than she has any right to be, singing with Def Leppard at the Tribute Concert in Los Angeles.
 
Follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast. And please leave a comment, telling us if you like Rock, Pop, Pop Rock, or every form of Pop, or Hollywood (which is also pop). Or Reggeton, Latin Trap, or whatever else floats your boat. You do you, boo!
 
We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
 
We want to hear from you! Comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
 
If this show resonates with you, please make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
And remember–you can't go wrong with Elton John. And we love you more.

015 - Manuals & Agendas

Today’s episode is pretty therapeutic for Mary; Alexis helps her process some big life changes in real-time. There’s a lot of talk about expectations, and Mary evangelizes Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework. Knowing whether you’re an Upholder, an Obliger, a Questioner, or a Rebel (or a combination thereof) can help you achieve your goals and understand your motivations.
 
Mary also talks about a concept she learned from Brooke Castillo, called “The Manual” (we highly recommend listening to this episode of The Life Coach School Podcast to learn more). Understanding someone else’s lane, or agenda, while staying in (and honoring) your own, is something we could all be better at!
 
We discuss some of the big life changes we have experienced (like childbirth) and those we are currently going through (parenting teenagers, changing jobs, etc.). There is a mourning process, and we all need space to grieve and grow. We also need to decide what levels of guilt we are willing to live with. Like Oprah says, “You teach people how to treat you.”
 
Our Better Betty Challenge for today is to take the Four Tendencies quiz at https://gretchenrubin.com/quiz/. Tag us @thebettyspodcast on Instagram and tell us what your tendency is, and how you are handling the changes and expectations in your life. You can also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast 
 
We want to hear from you! Please comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
 
If this show resonates with you, make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
Thanks for listening to this episode. We hope it helps you to light it up, rise above, and be a Betty. We love you more.

014 - Fortress Around Your Heart

This episode is a little bit different, friends. Today we’re taking a deep dive into an 80’s song, which Mary discovered thanks to BMG music service in the 90’s (remember that?). 
Fortress Around Your Heart by Sting (a.k.a. Gordon Sumner) has been one of Mary’s favorite songs for a lot of years, so we go through the poetic and multi-layered lyrics to ask ourselves how they can apply to us. Listen to the original here or check out this very artistic and moody video here.
Both Mary and Alexis were lucky enough to travel to Europe with their community choirs last summer, and they talk about the history of the land, the Fields of Gold, and the beauty of the ruins we saw. We don’t always know how or why something is destroyed, but it can still have tremendous value to us today. Even building in our imaginations, like Inception, has value–when we don’t let it become a prison.  
We may find ourselves being ensnared by the battles we’ve invented inside our heads, and the mines we’ve laid for ourselves. What kind of relationship do you have with yourself? How do we protect our hearts? What kind of fortresses do we have? Are we willing to build bridges?
Our Better Betty Challenge for today is to figure out what kind of bridge you want to build. Please share pictures of your favorite bridges, tag us @thebettyspodcast and tell us how you will be connecting with others, what your flag looks like, and how you feel about Sting. We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
 
“The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.”
—M. Scott Peck
“It is important for God to arrange our circumstances in such a way that we eventually have to face ourselves.”
–Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind
 
Here’s a link to Mary’s cover of the song on Youtube, and coming soon to Spotify. The incredible piano arrangement is by Daniel Blomberg and this song was mixed and produced by Landon Alley at Noisebox Studios in Provo, Utah. 
 
We want to hear from you! Please comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
 
If this show resonates with you, make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
Our dear Bettys and Jacks, we hope you will tear down the walls of your own fortresses. Build those bridges, set those battlements on fire, and let people in. There is beauty in ruins. 
P.S. If you need a good laugh, check out Our Flag Means Death on HBOMax
P.P.S. We love you more

013 - Christmas Traditions

Today we’re talking about Christmas traditions . . . and many other things. In fact, we talk about how Mary’s family ‘did not hear the bell ring’ growing up, and things kinda take a MomTok-type left turn around the 43 minute mark, so be aware of that going in (that’s what she said). And here’s the link to the Marie Forleo podcast that Mary was referencing. 
 
Alexis talks about her family traditions, and despite some crazy holidays and adventures when she was young, and how she has come up with new ones for her kids. We also talk about skinny dipping, Taylor Swift tickets, and the new Christmas tree ornaments we pick up on our travels.
 
Please excuse Mary’s sniffling and wheezing during this episode; ‘tis the season for respiratory viruses as well as the Christmas Spirit (*wink, wink*). Find some little things that bring you joy, don’t be a stickler on the HOW of it getting done, and remember to put up the lights on your trees with the male side of the plug down. Zeke would be happy to demonstrate.
 
Our Better Betty Challenge for this week is to create some holiday magic, if not for you, then for somebody else. Please tell us what your traditions are, and what you are doing to light it up this Christmas season.
 
Please follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast. Leave a comment and tell us about your egg-celent spiritual experiences. We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
We want to hear from you! Please comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
If this show resonates with you, make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
And to all of our Bettys, our Jacks, and the amazing Santa who is NOT wearing a costume: we love you more!

012 - Eggs & Tangents

Hey, friends . . . today we’re serving up an episode about breakfast food. Actually, it’s about animals. And head wounds. Or maybe it’s about spiders. Maybe it’s about Julia Roberts rom-coms. Or all of the above!
 
Mary & Alexis talk through their Thanksgiving hangover with lots of tangents on our way to a discussion about eggs. We know that seems really random, and although we are all over the place, please stick with us. We think it’s a pretty good analogy!
 
So whether or not you think raising your own backyard chickens is the way to go, or if you want to join us someday on our fluffy farm in rural France, we hope this podcast episode inspires you to try some new ways of eating eggs. Or at least reminds you to shake out your shoes and check your toilets..
 
Our Better Betty Challenge for today is to call a bison. JUST KIDDING! Please don’t do that. We do want to hear about how you like your eggs, and how you feel the Spirit (or the ‘anti-earthworm effect'). Let’s love each other through this journey, and get to the huevas! 
 
Please follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast. Leave a comment and tell us about your egg-celent spiritual experiences. We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
We want to hear from you! Please comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
If this show resonates with you, make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
And to all of our Bettys, our Jacks, and especially to Pepe the Cardiologist: we love you more!

011 - Forgiveness & Emotional Processing

Greetings, Bettys (and Jacks)! We hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and now we’re serving up a healthy portion of delicious forgiveness, with some emotional processing on the side. That’s just what you wanted, right? We thought so.
 
Mary and Alexis talk about family traditions, Christmas cards (update: Mary’s cards are ordered! Yay!), interior design, and “rewriting” our holidays. Lexy talks about a quote she came across from Irish author James Stephens, in The Crock of Gold: “I have learned . . . that the head does not hear anything until the heart has listened, and that what the heart knows to-day the head will understand to-morrow.” This leads into a discussion about emotional processing centers, and making peace with emotional triggers. Lexy also mentions her friend Andrea Ward Berg, whom we hope will be a special guest in the future.
 
We let our discussion go with the flow and take a lot of tangents, including learning what our bodies are saying when we are feeling certain emotions. And we get to a conversation about forgiveness, trust, and boundaries. Mary shares a couple of stories from her mission to Belgium and from her work as a surgical tech, and Lexy talks about her son Asher’s forgiveness timeline that answers to no one. We should avoid holding expectations for other people, especially when using religion or beliefs as leverage. As Lexy says, “Identify your boundaries, and don’t apologize for them.”
 
Our Better Betty Challenge this week is to find a way to re-equilibrate (recollaborate?) ourselves so that we can align our boundaries and our emotions in a way that feels right personally. That may be taking some extra time to process, rage clean, or even talk it out so that we understand what’s happening and how we want to respond. After all, as Mary says, “It’s your responsibility to take care of your peace.”
 
Please follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast. Leave a comment and  tell us what you are doing to re-equilibrate yourself during this season.
We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
We want to hear from you! Comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
If this show resonates with you, please make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
And to all of our Bettys (and our Jacks): we love you more!

010 - Jonah, the Relatable Prophet

This episode is a little less Disney (though Mary can’t resist throwing in Pinocchio and Finding Nemo references), and a little more Old Testament. Alexis and Mary talk about Primary Programs, and a classic Bible story with a strangely relatable subject–a dude who runs away, and gets swallowed by a whale.
 
Although we do spend entirely too long discussing fish anatomy and vomit, we also talk about how many of us feel like we are drowning, or that it might be easier to run away or give up, than to get through whatever trials we may be facing. We’ve been there, and we believe that better days are ahead. And as Lexy says, “Sometimes you need a freaking whale to wake up.”
 
Our Better Betty Challenge this week is to think of something hard going on in your life, and figure out what it is trying to teach you. We all find ourselves in the belly of the whale sometimes, and we all need to shift our thoughts to come from a place of abundance, and to look at the bigger picture.
 
We hope you will recognize that dawn is coming, and that you’ll open your eyes.
 
Book of Jonah
Don’t Miss This talking about Jonah
Stay Alive by Jose Gonzalez
 
Follow us on Instagram @thebettyspodcast! And please leave a comment, telling us what thought shifts you are making.
We're also on Facebook as The Bettys Podcast, and on Twitter @bettys_podcast
We want to hear from you! Comment on our posts, shoot us a DM, or feel free to send us an email at thebettyspodcast@gmail.com
If this show resonates with you, please make sure to like, follow, share, subscribe, and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
 
Please support our sponsor, Get It Done services
 
And remember–we love you more.