Episode 107: From Anxiety (of Recognition and Travel) to the Joy of Having the Courage to Have Fun with Special Guest Rebecca Shellito

Rebecca Shellito stepped into the spotlight,  as she accepted an honor that many would covet - yet for her, it was a mountain of anxiety to climb. Our heart-to-heart conversation reveals Rebecca's raw battle with the glare of recognition while juggling life as a caregiver for her child with autism. As I walk her through her trepidation and strategize ways to navigate this prestigious event, we uncover the universal stress of public accolades and the underestimated impact of seeking support. It's a compelling lesson in valuing our personal victories, even as we shoulder the weight of our day-to-day lives.

The conversation then takes a lighter turn as we swap stories of unexpected joy, like the time an employer-sponsored getaway offered much more than just a break from the office. Together, we celebrate the simple yet powerful act of fun and self-care and how it can rekindle our spirits and transform our relationships. We laugh over the familiar pangs of 'mom guilt' and debunk those self-imposed narratives that hold us back from embracing life's playful moments. It's a candid exchange with Rebecca about the friendships that see us through our highs and lows, emphasizing the beauty of honesty, intention, and the little efforts that keep our bonds strong. Join us for a heartfelt journey through the transformative power of honoring our achievements, seizing joy, and cherishing the friendships that light up our lives.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey friends, this is Stephanie here with Giving your Best Life podcast, and today I have a special guest, my good friend, rebecca Shalito, and she was actually on one of the top download episodes, episode number 55, where we talked about autism, grief and the greatest gift. So, rebecca welcome. Thank you about autism, grief and the greatest gift, so Rebecca welcome thank you hello, friend, so excited to have you back.

Speaker 1: 0:33

We've actually been trying to do this for probably a couple of months, yes, but something happened a couple of months ago and I told Becca I was like we should talk about this on the podcast. And then something else happened and I said let's add that to the discussion. So do you want to start with like that initial thing that happened in your life? You reached out to me and then you know we kind of yeah had a friend coaching session did.

Speaker 2: 1:02

I called you and said I need, I need some. I need to talk this through. Because I was being recognized at work for being an outstanding leader and I just felt uncomfortable with it because I felt like I was just doing my job and the way that I was being recognized was in such an outward way and for somebody like myself who doesn't necessarily love the spotlight, I just felt like it was not something that I wanted to do. So I was being recognized on a stage for a company that I work for. I had to get on a plane and fly to Texas and, as much as it sounded fun to a lot of my coworkers, for me it was going to be a lot of work. It was going to be.

Speaker 2: 1:53

It was during the week, so I had to figure out childcare, my husband needed to take some time off work, let alone get a suit and get fitted for a suit, and there was just all these little pieces that in my mind I kept thinking like is it worth it? Do I have to go? And ultimately came down to just the attention and I didn't feel I don't say I didn't feel deserving of the attention, but I didn't necessarily want that spotlight. So I called you and was like let's talk me through this, because I I didn't. I'm not, um, I was very honored, but I just uh, yeah, I wasn't loving the idea of it all right, and so that's one thing I want to say there.

Speaker 1: 2:40

one thank you for like sharing that on the podcast is like sometimes we do have I don't want to say our insecurities, but you know that, yeah, I'm doing my job. Somebody recognized me. Okay, I just want to keep doing my job. I don't want to. And this recognition was really big. It wasn't like, hey, we're going to go to a dinner at local. It was like you said get on a plane. You know, get a fancy dress, be away.

Speaker 1: 3:10

And so I think one thing that I want to point out is I love that you just didn't keep it in to yourself and make a quick decision. I think there's so many times where you know, fill in the blank, whatever a situation is for yourself is we're just like, okay, we're not going to do it, we're going to rule it out. I think you had some fear when we started talking that crep up. We started doing these what ifs, talking it through with somebody that we trust maybe their insight or their questioning. You know to work through that, so I want to give you kudos for like having the courage to text to say, hey, can we talk this through?

Speaker 1: 3:58

So I know I put my coaching hat on. Sometimes you have to do your friend. Sometimes you put your coaching hat on. Coaching is asking thoughtful questions, so do you want to dive into, just maybe, if you can remember like some of the questions or some of the things that we talked through and then like what decision that you ended up making?

Speaker 2: 4:20

Yeah, so I wanted to pick your brain about it because it seemed more of like a corporate, business world recognition activity, I guess, whereas I'm more used to I'm a nurse, so I'm used to you know. We caught you doing a good thing here's a postcard or here's a pizza party. You know what I mean good thing, here's a postcard or here's a pizza party. You know, yeah, like post-covid, we're happy you showed up to work here's. You know, right, your pat on the back, whereas, you know, in the corporate world is a little bit different mindset, and so that was part of the reason I was coming to, because I felt like it was such a corporate world, um, way to recognize. I just wasn't comfortable with that.

Speaker 2: 5:06

But really I came to you with all of my quote unquote excuses of why it wasn't going to work. Yes, the biggest reason was it was during the week. I have a child who has special needs, who needed transportation to and from school and to and from all of his different therapies, and that's a lot to ask of someone. You know, I have a supportive family, mother and sister and family but it's just a huge responsibility that I didn't want to hand off to somebody else. And so what we decided. You know, talking with you, it was like what if I went with a friend, you know, can I pause there for a second? Because?

Speaker 1: 5:52

that was your. One of your things was is your husband? Like the original plan was and sometimes we can do this is we're presented with option A and we only see option A, and so your option A was you and your husband going, and so it was both of you going to be gone, both of you traveling, both of like him having to buy a suit, like all this other stuff. So that was like where you came in is both of you having to go leave, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 6:22

And with both of us being gone, my biggest, my biggest thought and worry was my child, right, my son who, um, how am I gonna relax knowing that, you know, neither of us are there caring for him, right?

Speaker 1: 6:36

yeah, um. So I think I wanted to point that out because sometimes we can, we you get so deep into whatever you're dealing with, which is always good to have, like somebody outside to go. Well, what about this? So I think that's one thing is like, well, what if your husband doesn't go, yeah, and a friend goes with you, right, um, and so maybe talk through about even just changing one thing in the scenario, how it helped you yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:07

So then I thought, what if I took a friend from work and that way freed my husband up to stay here with our child? And that would be the biggest um mental block. The biggest reason that I didn't want to go was leaving him and all the needs that come with that. So that in itself, just like was a weight lifted off my shoulders, right like knowing that someone would be here to take care of him.

Speaker 1: 7:30

Yeah, um, I think the other thing too was like oh my gosh, the travel like there was. Just there was a lot that was going into it, and so that was another thing that I think, if I remember correctly as you were struggling with, of like, okay, even just being gone and the travel, and like all this stuff for one night, right to be recognized, right for one award that I don't even feel like I need yeah exactly like is it worth it for me to do it so?

Speaker 1: 8:00

and we haven't even talked about this, so we haven't got to talk about it. So let me ask you one did you end up going?

Speaker 2: 8:07

I know the answer to this, but yes, okay.

Speaker 1: 8:09

So you ended up going, which I was so proud of you for making that decision. But then two did you. Were you grateful? Like were you glad you went, like, share with us.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Yes, I was very glad I went. I was so glad I ended up going. Yeah, I ended up taking a friend and had more fun than I thought we would. Right that we thought even possible. It was really good for my soul to get away to just put Any worry concern.

Speaker 2: 8:45

The way that my employer had this set up was so nice. I hope that I get invited next year. I love it. It was amazing, my friend and I, we did not worry about a thing. Everything was set up in this hotel and I said we don't even have to worry about taking our purses, everything was paid for. I mean it don't even have to worry about taking our purses, everything was paid for. I mean it was literally carefree. There was not one thing we worried about. We slept as late as we wanted to sleep, we ate whatever. I mean everything was right there at the hotel. We were able to leave if we wanted to.

Speaker 1: 9:20

We did.

Speaker 2: 9:21

We checked out some things outside of the hotel. It I walked away feeling renewed, rejuvenated and I couldn't put my finger on it. I kept saying it feels like a natural high, like what is this? And somebody said you forgot what it was like to have fun. Oh wow. And that was a huge light bulb moment because I'm like you are right I forgot what it's like to live in a world where I'm not worried and stressed and like literally like let things, everything go and just had fun for the moment.

Speaker 1: 9:56

It was so much fun well one.

Speaker 1: 9:59

I'm proud of you that you ended up going and uh, but you said a couple of things that I think are important. Is, you know, all the things that you worried about never came true, right, like even with the travel and being gone during the week and obviously your husband stayed home, but still, like all those things, even once you even had that figured out, going there is. And two like the rest, and rejuvenation and I think I'm not a mom, but I know a lot of moms is like you almost feel like you don't deserve that right, oh, mom guilt for sure.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, 100, but don't you think that you, coming back from that, you taking some time for yourself, like better mom, better?

Speaker 2: 10:50

wife yes, better mood overall. Like I said, like a natural high, it was just like like you like life again. Right, like the sun is shining. You know, you just it. Yeah, it made a huge, huge impact.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Yeah, and part of giving your best life is like how do you give to yourself? Yeah, um, and that's really one thing that I encourage you like, hey, take this moment you're being honored to give to yourself and to do this, take this and take it in, um, but have you thought about, like, okay, now that I've done this, like how do I incorporate fun and giving to myself in my life now that I'm back?

Speaker 2: 11:33

Yes, definitely so. I've made a priority and a commitment to both my husband and some just friends just to set time aside to do those things, and it's so funny because, so, so, going forward, my husband and I have a day date set aside. It's on the calendar. I love this because we get a sitter. Because we can't it's available, we can, there's no excuse not to and just put aside any worries. Any adult, you know conversations and it's just, we're just gonna have fun, and so it's.

Speaker 2: 12:08

The running joke, though, is it's like, well, yeah, that was fun, but was it Texas fun, which is where the convention was at, where the award ceremony was at? It's like, well, it's fun, but did it live up to Texas? Like, you know, but a little joke that we have, but no, it's been good. We've had a couple of really good dates throughout throughout the last couple months, and it was it's. It's good for us and I have, um, an outing coming up in May with some girlfriends. We're going to a winery yeah, a couple hours away. So just it's good to like put things on the calendar, have something to look forward to, something to some fun to plan for.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Um, it's so important and it's just something that I hadn't done for a long time, you know you mentioned a couple of things is one I want to go back to Texas, because that's one thing. When we were discussing it, you had told me, like I'm not gonna have fun right, like.

Speaker 2: 13:02

I don't want to dress up, I'm not gonna have fun.

Speaker 1: 13:03

I don't like these dress up, I'm not going to have fun, I don't like these things. And then I hear you like the joy of like I had fun. And now it's even become this thing of like is it Texas fun? And so that's another thing. Women, is I want to challenge you is we can get in these mindsets, we can stop ourselves from doing fill in the blank. Before we get there, before we experience it, we tell ourselves a lie when we have nothing to base it on. You had never been to this event, you had never been to Texas.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Never been to.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Texas. Everything's bigger and better in Texas. So I think that's one thing interesting is, you went in saying I don't want to go because I'm not going to have fun.

Speaker 1: 13:47

That was a lie, that you're telling yourself and we tend to do that in life Like we tell ourselves these lies to get us out of doing things that are going to make us, at the end of the day, uncomfortable. That's why you didn't want to go. That is so right and that is one of my big things. It's like we have to get ourselves out of our comfortable lifestyles to experience things that we haven't experienced before, Because then one we usually learn something which what I love about you is it can be transformative. And I look at you, which I'm so proud of you of stepping outside your comfort zone, going and doing this.

Speaker 1: 14:26

But it's had this ripple effect in your life now oh sorry, Becca's going to start crying, maybe here, friend, you can't see us. But seriously, having a fun date day and if you knew her husband, he is a ball of fun. I love him, he's one of my favorite people. But you know the ripple effect of that in your marriage, your life. But you know, like the ripple effect of that in your marriage, your life, your mental health with your girlfriends, and my guess is, maybe before. Let me ask you this Did you tell yourself the lie of I don't have time to do this.

Speaker 2: 14:58

Yeah, or it's not worth the effort that goes into it you know what I mean. Like it's more work preparing for this than it will actually be worth, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 15:08

Is that true?

Speaker 2: 15:09

No, not at all. You know, looking back, maybe several years ago, maybe because life was really really hard Right. When my son was much younger, with his needs. But at this point, no, it's hard to say back then, right.

Speaker 1: 15:26

You know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 15:27

Yeah, but now totally worth the effort, yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:30

Yeah, and I encourage people. I wish I had a Kleenex right here we're like recording this.

Speaker 1: 15:35

I'm fine To go back and listen to 55, because episode 55 with Rebecca because that's you did talk about like those hard times.

Speaker 1: 15:49

You did talk about like those hard times, and so I do want to make sure that I'm cognizant of is. You might be in that season where it is hard and you can't make the decision to do the uncomfortable thing or go to Texas, like several years ago. Maybe you couldn't do that and that was your truth, right. So I do think that you have to get good, or have somebody in your life, or a coach, whatever it is that can almost challenge you, or you learn how to challenge yourself of what is real and what is the lie that I'm telling myself, because several years ago that would have been real. This time it was a lie you were telling yourself because you didn't want to be uncomfortable. And so, people, if you've been listening to me for a while, there's always two questions I say to ask yourself is is that true? And who told me Because a lot of times we can make excuses of, well, I'm not going to have fun Is that true.

Speaker 1: 16:45

Right, like who told you you were going to fun? Have you experienced it? You know, like you can quickly kind of check yourself. So I do want to like say that is like if you truly are in a season not to push yourself out of the comfort zone or go have fun or whatever, um, that is the case sometimes.

Speaker 2: 17:03

There was a time I don't know if you remember, it was several years ago you guys still had your lake house and you had, and you had invited us to come out and visit you know I'm talking.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember this um becca's gonna cry again.

Speaker 2: 17:22

I'm just saying this because we're not on video and um, you had talked about spending most of the day on the boat and I wanted to come so bad. But I knew that there was no way that my kid would stay on a boat, right, and that was how you guys had spent the majority of your time. And so I was really upset because I felt like I missed out, you know, and because because of that season that we were in Right, but I think it's so important to remember that seasons are just that. You know we would be, we'd be OK on a boat. Now, Right.

Speaker 2: 18:00

We're OK to get on a plane to. Texas. Yeah, but a couple of years ago. There's no there. Just it would not have been safe for anybody to have him on a boat. So, yeah, I think that it is important to remember that your seasons seasons aren't. They don't have to last, they don't always last, you're not.

Speaker 1: 18:17

I think that's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up, because my guess is, though, when you're in that season, it feels like you may never get out of that season.

Speaker 2: 18:28

Yes, yes, like is this my life Right?

Speaker 1: 18:31

Yeah, yeah, um, and you guys have done a lot of hard work, you know to to get where you are now. Um, I want to switch gears real quick. Um, to something else that we had pop up, and becca and I are great friends, and so I think you can kind of gauge your friendship by how honest sometimes you can be with your friends. Yeah is, uh, we've been trying to set this up for like a couple of months now to have this conversation and, um, we had a friday, late friday afternoon I think it was like three o'clock that we had scheduled, and do you want to talk about like that?

Speaker 2: 19:10

yeah, that day, that afternoon, it was something I've really been looking forward to because I hadn't talked to you since I got back from texas. Yes, so I'd seen you before I went on my trip and I wanted to tell you about it. We were like, no, let's save it for the podcast. And then just the way our schedules lined up had been a couple weeks out. So I was looking forward to it, but that week in particular had just been a tough week, had been a tough week at work, I think, just not sleeping. I wasn't sleeping well at night and I was like man, I'm just tired, yeah, but I knew I wanted to do this podcast, I wanted to fill you in on everything and I thought, if I can just sit here in the sun, it was really sunny out when I left work and I thought I just need like 10 minutes.

Speaker 2: 19:54

I hadn't eaten that day. I was like I need to grab something to eat, I need to just sit in the sun, rejuvenate, and I will be good to go. And I was leaving work late, so I was already late. So I texted you and said, hey, I know I'm supposed to be there in like 20 minutes. I haven't left work yet and I commute an hour. Um, can we put you know, are you okay if I come a little later tonight? And you had said yeah, you said well you want me to go, I'll go.

Speaker 1: 20:25

So one I just I wanted, becca, to bring this up, because one I think as women is sometimes we have those weeks, or maybe often we have those weeks where we're go, go, go, go go. We don't have good sleep. It's been a stressful week. We have plans with somebody and we go ahead and we suck it up and we do it Right. And you very much could have just done that Like, oh, I made this commitment and I'm big on commitment. So I'm not saying like, flake on your commitments. But again, going back to you know, know yourself, you know what's going on, and so I was proud when I I felt proud for you, I was proud of you when I got that text, because I was like I knew it took courage to do that, um, to say like, hey, I just need some space. Yeah, I need a couple of, you know, a couple extra hours. It's been a hard week, like I think that so many times is. If we look at social media, everybody looks like their life's great, everything's put together. It's like, no, a couple of extra hours. It's been a hard week, like I think that so many times is. If we look at social media, everybody looks like their life's great, everything's put together and it's like. No, a lot of people are struggling, we're all struggling. We struggle with sleep and for you to be honest. So I just wanted to pause and say that Now I can't remember if I had told Becca is I had to be up the next morning, I think around 3 or 4 am because I had a speaking engagement.

Speaker 1: 21:41

I think it was like an hour and a half away, it was a different time zone, so I was losing an hour. I hadn't prepared, I hadn't packed my car, or I had prepared but I hadn't packed my car. I always do my talks, like multiple times, and so the two-hour bump like pushed me into a difficult decision. I always say old Stephanie would have said sure, come on over, I didn't want to, I'm a people pleaser, I didn't want to let you down. And I basically was honest and was like that's not going to work for me because I still have all this work that I have to do. Plus, I knew, and so I was proud of myself for being honest with you.

Speaker 1: 22:26

But I think the important thing in friendships is one honesty Like we both know each other's hearts. We weren't just thinking, but I think it's also showing each other grace. Yeah, like I showed you grace, you immediately showed me grace back, and we knew that we would. I think the other thing, too, though, is being intentional of one scheduling time with your friends, and we were intentional of like hey, we're going to make this work, and here we are today to make this work, and here we are today. So any other like follow-up comments of you know when I message you back, or like you just being able to have, then that whole evening to yourself, which I think I even said something to that like. Hey, like, maybe you should just have your whole. So, um, any other final thoughts?

Speaker 2: 23:13

no, just give yourself some grace, give your friends grace and step out of your comfort zone.

Speaker 1: 23:18

you, you might have fun, you might have some Texas fun, or it might not be like Texas fun. So I think we'll wrap up there, friends, and this is just another example of how you get to giving your best life. Thank you so much, rebecca, for being on the call. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Bye.