531. A Story Is Worth 1000 Pictures

A few years ago, I hired a public speaking coach, and one of the things he said to me that I’ve never forgotten is, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a story is worth a thousand pictures.”

We all know this to be true. We very rarely remember the actual tactics and things of lessons or talks or speeches that we hear, but what we remember are the stories. What changes us and takes whatever knowledge we’re getting and causes us to be able to internalize it and apply it to our lives are stories. What moves us and connects us as human beings and helps us pass on our history, pass on useful information, teach and guide our children and one another is stories. And I also love that stories have a kind of beautiful artistic nature to them. There are a lot of different ways to tell a story. There are a lot of different components to good stories, and there’s so much to be shared in our humanity, and it helps us feel seen and connected. So I’m kind of obsessed with storytelling.

That’s not to say that I’m an amazing storyteller. It’s to say that I’m constantly working on trying to be a better storyteller. And so earlier this year, I decided, somewhat selfishly, to put on a storytelling event where I invited in Catherine Burns, who is a storytelling coach who worked at the Moth for over 20 years and still works doing amazing work with all kinds of people telling stories. She brought in a couple of other story experts, and I invited coaches and content creators and others of you who wanted to come and learn stories with me. 

And we hung out in the most beautiful spot. It was this little library, they call it, a “library room” in a hotel in Oceanside, California. I can still picture it there. The vibe was so perfect, and we spent the day listening to stories, telling stories, and learning all about stories. And I wish that every single one of you could have been there. But since you weren’t, I have a special treat for you today.

I invited three amazing individuals who happened to be at that event. I let everybody who was there submit a story to come and tell on the podcast, and a handful of people took me up on that offer. And I was just going to have one, but there were so many good stories that I couldn’t pick just one. So I chose three. So these three women are here to share a little bit of the insight we all took from the storytelling workshop, as well as tell you their stories. And I can’t wait for you to hear them. These are such beautiful, moving stories. I just know that you’re going to leave today’s episode feeling a little bit better, a little bit lighter, a little bit more inspired than you did before. So please enjoy. This is episode 531, A Story Is Worth 1000 Pictures.

Welcome to Better Than Happy, the podcast where we transform our lives by transforming ourselves. My name is Jody Moore. In the decade-plus I’ve been working with clients as a Master Certified Coach, I’ve helped tens of thousands of people to become empowered. And from empowered, the things that seemed hard become trivial, and the things that seemed impossible become available, and suddenly, a whole new world of desire and possibility open up to you. And what do you do with that?

Well, that’s the question… what will you do? Let’s find out.

Sometimes, listening to a podcast is enough. But sometimes, you’ll feel inspired to go deeper. If you hear things that speak to you in today’s episode, consider it your invitation to a complimentary coaching workshop.

On this live, interactive Zoom call with me, you’ll get a taste of the power of this work when applied in real life. You can participate, or be a silent observer. But you have to take a step if you want to truly see change in your life… two steps, actually. Head to JodyMoore.com/freecoaching and register. Then you just have to show up. Your best life is waiting for you. Will you show up for it? JodyMoore.com/freecoaching. I’ll see you there.

Jody Moore: Okay, everybody, today’s episode is all about storytelling and the power of stories. It’s going to be really relevant to everybody because if you ever give a talk in church or you ever teach a lesson to your children or you have a job where you do any kind of instructing, stories are the way to go. But there’s a lot of you listening to this also who are coaches, and it’s especially powerful if you have some kind of a profession like we do as coaches where we’re trying to inspire people and teach people and lead people. Stories are the way to do it. 

And I have set out on a journey over the last year to try to, well, several years actually, to try to get better at storytelling. It’s taking me a long time, and I still have a long way to go, but I’ve loved diving into the world of storytelling, learning more about it. And today I have three special guests with me on the podcast who are going to help me with this episode. And so you’re in for a treat because you’re going to hear some amazing stories.

So with that, let’s start with some brief introductions and then we’ll explain how these three ladies got here. So let’s see, Jennifer, let’s have you go first. Would you mind just introducing yourself for us?

Jennifer Townsend: Sure. My name is Jennifer Townsend. I live in Utah. I am a coach. I have four kids and a dog named Dexter. I love fashion. I have also a podcast. I love podcasts. I love listening to them as well as creating them. And I love making reels on Instagram, which isn’t for everyone, but I do love doing it.

Jody Moore: Everyone wants to know how to love making reels on Instagram. How did you grow to love it? Seriously, I want to know.

Jennifer Townsend: I don’t know. I think maybe I have a bizarre inner like wanting to be on stage, even though I’ve never – I don’t sing, I don’t dance. I’ve never acted, but for whatever reason, I find it very fun creating, figuring out what thing that I can do to create and put out there for the world. I like lip syncing.

Jody Moore: Awesome. I love that. And she does some good stuff on Instagram. How do we find you on Instagram again?

Jennifer Townsend: Happily Even After Coach.

Jody Moore: Happily Even After Coach. Okay, and we’ll get more into all these ladies, what they do as far as their coaching businesses and everything, but let’s go to Michele. Michele, tell us all about you.

Michele Reyes: Hey everyone. I am Michele Reyes, and I am a mother of seven. I am also a life coach and am currently doing a master coach certification. Coaching has blessed my life so very much. And Jody, you were the very first one to introduce any of it to me, listening to you for a really long time. And I am just absolutely thrilled to be here. Thank you so, so much.

Jody Moore: Awesome. So happy to have you here. And then we have Noreen.

Noreen Noble: Hi, I’m Noreen. I live in Southern California. I’m also a coach and in full disclosure, I am Michele’s sister-in-law.

Jody Moore: I know, and I didn’t even know that till we started we prepped for this call.

Noreen Noble: I know, it’s great. And we also have a podcast about how to use thought work to become a better disciple of Christ. That’s not our focus, but that’s what like our what, our passion project Michele you’d say. It’s called In Every Thought found on all the where you can find podcasts.

Jody Moore: Oh, just a little plug there for everyone.

Noreen Noble: I love the beach. I love to craft like I crocheted this sweater I don’t know if you could see that and if you watch on the yeah.

Jody Moore: It’s gorgeous.

Noreen Noble: I love Hula. I love, I love a lot of things. I love to be happy.

Jody Moore: I love that. So good. Okay, so I’m so delighted to have you ladies here. I let me just give a little background. So earlier this year, we did a storytelling workshop. So for the coaches in coach access, sometimes we offer some extra opportunities to come and just to learn more that helps us in our lives and in our businesses. So we did a storytelling workshop. We brought out Catherine Burns from The Moth, which it was so amazing, right, ladies?

Jennifer Townsend: It was so good.

Michele Reyes: Yeah.

Jody Moore: I can say that because I didn’t lead it. It was so good. I mean, I organized it, so I’m still taking the credit. Catherine and her team were amazing, and we learned all about storytelling. And then we opened it up to people who attended to send in stories because I wanted to share a few of them here on the podcast. And these three ladies were the winners of that entry. So I want to hear just briefly from each of you what made you want to go to that storytelling workshop in the first place and just any thoughts and insight that you might want to give people from, and I didn’t tell them by the way I was going to ask them this question, so I like to just put people on a spot. 

What made you want to go? But also, what were your takeaways that you might share with our listeners that might help them with their own storytelling, and then after that, we will go through and each of them are going to share their stories, so you’re going to love that part. But let’s, maybe we’ll go in the reverse order. Do you want to start this time, Noreen?

Noreen Noble: Yeah, I’ve loved storytelling. It is kind of how my culture passed down cultural references, legends, how to behave things like that. And so in when I was growing up, I would just listen to all these women sitting around in Hawaii like talk story is what they call it, “talk story.” Let’s talk story. And I learned to tell stories, but I wanted to become more refined. Like, what’s the most effective way to tell stories? Because I’m kind of a loud person, so I make a lot of hand gestures and I do all that stuff, but I wanted to know like in business and in, you know, presentations, how could I become a better storyteller? 

And Michele was actually the one that said, “Hey, let’s do this together.” So we did. It was amazing because I’ve been a fan of The Moth for so long. So then to be in the presence of someone who knew how to do that, that was so great. And the my takeaway was the pattern in which she taught us how to build an effective story. I kind of just would tell a story from wherever. Start wherever, end wherever.

Jody Moore: What we mostly do.

Noreen Noble: Yeah, and so the pattern in which she gave it to us, how it could be the most effective. That’s I walked away with that gold that knowing how to oh just make it more impactful. So thank you.

Jody Moore: Do you remember any of that you could share? Or we could maybe between the four of us recall it?

Noreen Noble: Yeah. No, it’s just that there has to be a good story has a change.

Jody Moore: Yeah.

Noreen Noble: Has something that changed. I mean, you could tell a story about your trip and just give all the details, but that’s not going to be the juicy part of a good story. The good story has where something, something, I was this and then I was that or I thought this and then I thought that or there is something because that’s what people are going to hold on to. That’s what’s going to be most effective. And how you can take the different parts and have like when she taught us for The Moth, you kind of have like a set beginning and a set end, and then the middle is where you can play with lots of different things. 

Jody Moore: Yeah, for some reason our brains are really drawn to that change or transition or transformation if you will. Back to just what Jennifer said earlier about liking to make reels. So I was at the Backstreet Boys concert in Vegas with, I know, with three of my girlfriends, we planned this trip. I was like, we’re going to the sphere, we got to go see the Backstreet Boys. So everyone, in case you don’t know this, you have to wear all white, or they tell everyone wear white. So everyone’s wearing white at the concert. And so we’re like, we have to make a transition reel of us getting into our white outfits. Now, several of my friends were like, I’ve never made a transition reel. And I was like, don’t worry, I have. So we just did this quick little, you know, ten second reel of us like not showered, not ready in our grungy clothes and then it switches to us all pretty in our white clothes. And of course that reel’s gotten like more views on my Instagram than anything else. 

And it has nothing to do with like my business or the what I do as a coach. It’s just kind of for fun. But even that, it’s like a ten second transition, right? Like think about a before and after, a makeover story or whatever. We’re like so hooked on it. We want to see even if we know that you know, Chip and Joanna are going to make the house beautiful in the end. We know it’s coming, but we still want to see it. There’s something very satisfying to us about the fact that we can change, that we can grow, that we can develop. It’s like inspiring and motivating and maybe we get a little dopamine hit or something. I love that, Noreen. Like that’s what actually makes a good story. It’s not like chronological or listing all the events. All the events don’t matter. What was the change or new viewpoint even that happened? That’s what’s interesting to us.

Jody Moore: Anyway, yeah. I love that. Michele, tell us your thoughts on this. 

Michele Reyes: I really enjoyed attending that workshop. And the reason why I decided to attend was because I know that it was a skill that I wanted to learn to develop. I know the power of storytelling, and I have these things in my mind and in my heart and I just want to be able to articulate it a little bit better. And through storytelling, we can reach people, we can connect. I mean, I think humanity is built on storytelling and connecting through stories. 

And today I’m actually telling a different story, but the story I told at the workshop, the message of it was when we know people’s stories, we love them. And I think that’s why stories are so powerful because it connects us and it gives us a moment of viewing someone else’s world, and we realize we’re more alike than we are different. So there’s just such power in storytelling. And if I were to share my takeaway tip for your listeners, I would say to take your audience on an emotional journey. Like help them feel the different emotions that you’re portraying within the story. Help them feel the – if we’re talking again about that transformation from before to after, like help them feel the first part of the struggle or the despair or the hardship and then help them feel the opposite with the elation and the joy and the victory, whatever it might be.

Jody Moore: Absolutely. That’s what leaves an impression on us in the end, right? I love what you said about just the power of stories for connecting and then loving people. Did you guys watch The Crown?

Jennifer Townsend: Yes.

Michele Reyes: Heard of it.

Jody Moore: Okay. All right. I know there’s a lot of seasons. But I remember, okay, so The Crown is like on Netflix, all about the British royal family, right? And I had this thought when I was watching that because I loved it so much that I remember growing up in high school having to take history classes and hating history and being like, I don’t like history. I’m just not a history person. Some people love history, right? You have these like World War II buffs or whatever, and people get really into history. I’m like, it’s just not interesting to me. Not that it’s not important to know, but it’s not interesting to me. 

And then when I started watching The Crown, I realized like, this is super fascinating to me. I’m very into this because it’s not just dates and names and whatever and titles of things. It’s people’s lives. People are history. There were people living all of these things, and they were having like you said, Michele, emotional experiences and you know, if I had been taught history this way, I would love history. And it’s a shame we don’t always know people’s stories. We don’t know what they were experiencing when they went through all that. One of my favorite kind of books to read is a memoir, right? Like somebody’s real story that’s written well and told through the lens of what we learned at that workshop is super inspiring.

Michele Reyes: I think even on a spiritual level, you can see the power of stories. There’s been a time in my life where I’ve thought about scriptures and like, why doesn’t the Lord just like write it all out? Exactly what we should do, you know, Cliff Notes version, just straight to the point. Make it simple. And yet the scriptures are filled with stories. And that’s how we connect, that’s how we understand, that’s how we can picture ourselves there, that’s where we can gain hope by seeing their hope or believe because they believe. I just think as human beings, we are meant to hear stories from each other and learn from each other that way.

Noreen Noble: And to piggy back off of Michele’s comment, in the memoirs, in the scriptures, in stories, you have to be vulnerable to make help people feel that. And that’s what I realized also is like to tell a good story, you kind of have to be vulnerable. You kind of have to put yourself out there because how else are you going to take that person on that journey?

Michele Reyes: Right.

Jody Moore: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. So good. All right, Miss Jennifer, what do you got?

Jennifer Townsend: Well, I was super excited when I heard about it. I was like, yes, this is exactly what I want to do. I want to learn how to tell a better story. And I feel like stories help people share their experiences and it dissipates shame. I think a lot we hold a lot in thinking no one is like this. What’s wrong with us? And as we share our stories, we help other people and I’m very into healing. And I felt like if I can be better at telling my story, I can help other people heal and heal their wounds and stories and their brokenness. And so that’s why I went and I feel like the thing that I learned was you take a very small event in your life and expand on it. You don’t – it’s not like when the day you got married or those things. Like those are important stories, but it’s something small that you focus on and how it changed your life. Like these small moments in your life that maybe we glance over and think aren’t a big deal, but actually those moments are really what changed something for us.

Jody Moore: Yeah, that’s true. And it also that reminds me of, I can’t remember if we learned this that day or this is something I read somewhere else, but you don’t have to have a lot of people are like, well I haven’t had anything really huge happen in my life. I haven’t had a big trial or I haven’t had a huge success or something. I don’t have anything to tell stories about. We all have plenty to tell stories about. And sometimes those, like Jennifer’s talking about, that little everyday, seemingly normal interaction that you’re having with your child or with a stranger or whatever, can make for a powerful story if you craft it in the right way. 

One of the things I try to do is keep in the notes app, I keep a note for stories so that if something happens and I don’t even know if that is going to be a good story or if I’m going to ever use it, but when I’m, you know, preparing a talk or a workshop or something, then I have nothing. So then I go to my app and I’m like, here’s a bunch of stories. Can I make one of these be even if it’s like a metaphor or something. It doesn’t have to be a literal example of what I’m teaching. It could be a metaphor that just illustrates the point. So I try to capture those little moments because they’re happening all the time. We just don’t remember them, and then when you need a story, it’s hard to recall them. So that’s just anyway, something I would recommend for people to try out.

Michele Reyes: I think that is a really powerful exercise for multiple reasons because as I was preparing the story that we’re going to share that I’m going to share today, it was amazing to learn more life lessons as I kind of zoomed in on that moment in my life. And I recognize all these things. And I mean, again, I think that’s why stories are so powerful is because they teach principles. They teach messages. And so as you’re collecting those stories, it will give you an opportunity to learn like more life lessons. So I think it’s a powerful practice for being able to help others, but also to help yourself as well.

Jody Moore: So good. So good. Okay, well let’s get into your stories. And I think I’ll have you guys go one at a time telling your story. After your story, we’ll take just a minute and flesh it out a little bit and then we’ll go to the next person. So how do you feel about starting, Michele?

Michele Reyes: Yeah, I’m ready to go.

Jody Moore: All right, cool. Let’s do it.

Michele Reyes: Twenty nine years ago, I was a senior in high school. Basketball season had just started and on this particular Wednesday, I left our final day of cheer tryouts feeling more confident than ever. I couldn’t wait to help create new routines and cheers for the upcoming basketball games. It felt like this was going to be the best season yet.

That night, I walked down the school hallway with kids I was babysitting. One child held my right hand and the other child held my left. We were headed to a fundraiser event watching entertainment style wrestlers. It wasn’t my thing, but it was something to do before I left on my overnight trip to Salt Lake City. It was going to be an eight hour drive, but I wasn’t worried. I was fully planning on sleeping the entire way while our chaperone drove through the night to get to the stem conference we were attending the next day. Well passed 10:00 at night, we started the long drive to our destination. I settled into my spot in the middle seat, still unbuckled to be a bit more comfortable as I stretched out and drifted off to sleep. 

My eyes opened only for a short time later, long enough to see the sign directing us to turn north. Recognizing where we were and knowing it was a long trip still yet ahead, I went back to sleep. And then my life changed in an instant. a loud thud, free falling inside the van, glass shattering, bright light as sparks flew from metal scraping along the road, gravel flying everywhere. I couldn’t tell which side was up. The smell of oil, heat, and the road. Suddenly my back side felt like it was on fire as it made contact with the asphalt below the broken window. I screamed and winced in pain as we skidded to a stop.

And then silence and shock. What had just happened? I learned we had hit a horse that was lying in the middle of the road. It was moments later that I realized my left arm was gone. Jarring disbelief forced me to huddle in fetal position, crying for my mom, telling myself over and over again to just wake up. But it wasn’t a dream. It was my new reality. Recovery from my accident took weeks, months even, as I spent time in a rehab hospital because losing my arm wasn’t the only thing that happened. I also had major injuries to my left leg as it was literally scraped to the bone, as well as some major road rash on my back side. It was a difficult time of figuring out how to heal, how to come to grips with my new reality.

One vivid memory takes me back to occupational therapy. After my regular session, the occupational therapist handed me a magazine catalog. It featured different tools someone with one hand could purchase to help them do the ordinary things of everyday life. I just stared at it and felt a heavy, sobering despair. It was probably the lowest, darkest moment of my entire life. From the time of the accident up until that exact moment, I had been in pure survival mode, only thinking forward to the next surgery, the next bandage change, the next day. In seeing this catalog was like a slap in the face of my new identity as a person with one arm. I realized in that moment, this wasn’t going away. I wasn’t going to magically grow my arm back. I was going to have to live the rest of my life with one arm. 

That difficult reality of my new life continued as I left the rehab hospital and returned home. We lived in a small two story apartment where my angel mother rearranged the dining room to become a makeshift bedroom for me because my bedroom was on the second level and I had to be in a wheelchair for a couple months as I continued to recover from my injuries. It became yet another reminder that my life had changed dramatically and I was limited.

One day, I was sitting in my wheelchair in that bedroom/dining room, and I decided to wheel over into the kitchen. As I entered, I saw sitting on top of the pale wood table a bowl of oranges. The thick peel reminded me of the juicy slices that it held inside. It looked delicious to me. I looked around for someone to help me peel it, but no one was near. In that moment, I had a decision to make. Was I going to call for help, or was I going to do it myself? Knowing that I wasn’t always going to have someone to help me, I decided it was time for me to try to do something hard for myself. So I picked up the orange and maneuvered it for the first time with one hand. It was awkward to hold still while also trying to lift the peel. I dropped it. I tried again. It slipped. I got frustrated, made a big mess, but bit by bit, I peeled off the skin and was able to taste the sweetness of that delicious orange, as well as the sweetness of my accomplishment.

Since then, I’ve been able to do so many things that I thought once was impossible to do with one arm. I had seven kids. I ran a business as a newborn photographer. I learned to weave a Navajo rug, which is connected to my culture and means so much to me. But here’s the thing, it requires two hands to weave a Navajo rug, but I figured it out anyway. It requires two hands to pose a newborn baby and do photography, but I stuck with it and figured it out. It requires two hands to change a diaper and buckle a car seat, but I figured it out seven times over. And I still figure out how to do things literally every single day. 

But this simple, ordinary moment of peeling this orange for the first time after my accident was the tender beginning I will always remember. It represents a choice we all get to make when life throws us a curve ball and leaves us feeling like even the smallest things are insurmountable. We have a choice. We can either be victim to our circumstances or we can decide to be a creator, someone who challenges even our own assumptions of what’s possible and decides to step into the belief that everything is figureoutable.

The next time you look at an orange, I hope you will remember when it comes to being a creator, life is all about taking what you’ve been handed, no pun intended, your circumstances, if you will, and ask, what choice will I make from here? And I hope the next time you have that choice, you will remember to muster the courage to become a creator and create a life you love.

Jody Moore: Woo! Huge applause. Cue the applause track. Thank you so much for sharing that story. It just like makes me laugh, makes me cry, makes me love you so much hearing that story. How many years ago was the accident, Michele?

Michele Reyes: It’ll be twenty nine years this November.

Jody Moore: Twenty nine years ago. Yeah. Okay. So tell us a little bit about why you do what you do today and maybe a little bit more about the clients that you work with.

Michele Reyes: Yeah. So I am a life coach for women of faith who want to learn to be more intentional in their lives. It really is this message that we have the ability to create the life that we want that we don’t have to be victim to our circumstances that we can access tools and principles and help from coaches to just really create a life that is thriving and fulfilling and meaningful and full of purpose. And I just I love working with women and helping them discover that and helping them have those aha moments where they’re like, “Oh, wow, I really I really can choose. Like I have that ability to choose.” It’s just wonderful

Jody Moore: So good. I, for some reason, I think that maybe it’s socialized, maybe it’s a little bit in our DNA, but I feel like men understand that better than women because we tend to be more nurturing and a lot of our lives are spent in service. But it’s so easy to lose track of the fact that you still can be the mom you want to be or the right serving in any way that you want to and live your life in a way that is intentional. I love that word intentional. Like, what do you want your life to look like? It literally can look like anything you want to. And I know I felt the same way when I first found coaching. I was like, wait a second. Are you saying I literally can be anyone I want to be and pursue anything I want to and it doesn’t make me selfish or wrong or not loving my family. There’s just so many options and I don’t know about everyone else, but growing up in the LDS church, I just thought like this is what you do. Like you’re going to you’re going to graduate, maybe go to college, then you’re going to get married and have kids, and you’re going to stay home with them, and that’s the end. And that’s a great life for a lot of people, but there’s so many options, so many options.

Michele Reyes: Well, one of the things I love helping women, especially when it comes to intentionality, because intentionality is, you know, this ideal, this like thing that we’re chasing. How do we ever know that we’re truly being intentional, you know? And so that’s what I do in my program is I break it down to how do you do it? It starts with getting out of survival mode because no one can plan ahead if you’re just trying to take care of put out the fire that’s happening right now. So it has to do with learning how to ground yourself. Then you are able to access that higher level of thinking, do the thought work that we talk about, and then step into that creator mode. So it really is this way, this clear path of how to actually be intentional in your life.

Jody Moore: I love it. So good. Okay, so if people want to come and learn more from you, where do they go?

Michele Reyes: I have a freebie right now that is you can find it at MicheleReyesCoaching.com/creatingcalm. So it’s a video series that allows you to just start at the beginning of that journey of being intentional by first coming to calm, grounding yourself so that you can then shift into that higher level of thinking.

Jody Moore: So good. Okay, and it’s Michele with one L, right?

Michele Reyes: Yes.

Jody Moore: We’ll put a link in the show notes too, but for anybody that’s just on a walk or whatever, it’s Michele with one L, Reyes, R E Y E S. MicheleReyesCoaching.com/creatingcalm And it’s totally free, right?

Michele Reyes: Yep.

Jody Moore: Yep. So everyone go grab that video series and learn a little bit more about how to live intentionally. So good. All right, let’s go to Jennifer.

Jennifer Townsend: All right. I want to take you back to the year 2021. I was about to turn fifty, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like things were finally looking up. My husband and I were also preparing to celebrate our twenty fifth wedding anniversary, a milestone that meant so much to me, especially because just a few years earlier, I had filed for divorce. But somehow we reconciled. And in that reconciliation, I found hope. I believed our marriage could be rebuilt stronger, better, different. Our kids seemed to be thriving. We had grown closer during COVID. I had discovered life coaching, started the certification process, and was slowly finding myself again after years of being stuck in betrayal trauma and feeling lost as a stay at home mom raising four kids. 

As I looked ahead, I told myself my 50s were going to be my decade. To celebrate my fiftieth birthday, my husband went all out. Because COVID limited big gatherings, he planned a five day celebration with small groups of my closest friends. High fitness and yoga with some, a mani and pedi with others, breakfast dates, and even rented a party bus for a night out with other couples. He showered me with flowers, gifted me the purse I had wanted and surprised me with plans for my dream anniversary trip a few weeks later. There he gave me a new wedding ring. I thought, this is it. We’re on the right track. We even made plans to start a podcast together to show other couples that healing and forgiveness after infidelity was possible. It felt like everything was coming together. 

Not long after our anniversary trip, spring break arrived. We live in Utah, so any time we had the opportunity to go to the beach, we did. We planned a trip with three of our kids and their friends to spend a week at our beach house in Galveston, Texas. Our oldest daughter couldn’t join us because of her new job back east. Our trip was full of memories and a lot of fun, the perfect kind of vacation. As we packed up to travel home, our rented SUV was full of kids, luggage, and a lot of chatter. I slipped into my usual role, the cleanup crew, gum wrappers, water bottles, random papers, nothing unusual, until one scrap of paper made my whole world stop. It was a crumpled up receipt from the UPS store. I almost threw it away, but something made me look closer. The receipt listed a woman’s name and address. Not just any woman, someone I knew. Someone my husband had often critically compared me to. She was beautiful, fit, a woman I thought was a friend. 

And then the question I couldn’t unask, why was my husband sending something to her? My hand shook, my chest tightened. I couldn’t breathe. I handed the receipt to him silently. His face changed instantly, not with guilt, but with calculation. And in a whisper so the kids wouldn’t hear, he began spinning a lie, elaborate, detailed, smooth. He was too good at lying. But I knew deep down I wasn’t going to get the truth from him. But I already had it in my hand and I felt it in my body. The next hour was pure hell. I sat trembling in silence as he drove us to the airport. I stared out the window thinking, I want out. I want to open the door and run down the Texas highway. But I didn’t because my kids and their friends were in the back seat, because I had to hold it together, because moms don’t get to fall apart in rental cars. On the plane, sitting beside him for three hours, I felt like I was next to a stranger. My skin crawled, my thoughts raced. Somewhere in that chaos, I knew this wasn’t just another lie. This was a pattern, a sickness, and I was done pretending it wasn’t. 

In the days that followed, I asked questions. He denied, deflected, blamed, gaslit. I tried to function, to mom, to think straight, but I was consumed by a thick fog. Then one morning, I dragged myself to a high fitness class with a friend, one I had been going to for years. My therapy before I had a therapist. The music started and Cher’s deep, powerful voice came through the speakers and filled the room as she sung, I’m strong enough to live without you. And in that sweaty, loud room, I heard God speak directly to me, not with thunder or lightning, just with clarity. Jennifer, you are strong enough. Those words pierced my soul. I had just gotten certified as a life coach, and I knew how powerful thoughts could be, so I chose that thought and added something to give me some time to figure things out. I’m strong enough to live without you, but I’m choosing to stay. And for the next year, I did stay. I worked on myself. I questioned everything. I watched him, hoping I was wrong, hoping he’d change. 

But a year later, it happened again, another affair, another woman, another lie. This time it wasn’t just betrayal. It was the clarity I needed. He wasn’t going to change, but I already had. I finally remembered who I was. I wasn’t willing to settle for breadcrumbs anymore. I was strong. I was confident. I was done. I was finally ready to end my twenty six year marriage. The words from Cher’s song came back to me louder than ever. I’m strong enough to live without you, period. Not but I’m choosing to stay. Not if he changes. Not maybe one day. We filed for divorce, and I finally saw the truth, not just about him, but about me. What I was willing to accept, what I had been afraid of, and what I was strong enough to walk away from. I’m grateful now that I found that receipt. What I thought would destroy me, instead helped me finally see what God already saw in me, that I was strong enough.

Jody Moore: Jennifer Townsend. I love you. Thank you for sharing that story.

Jennifer Townsend: Well, thank you for letting me.

Jody Moore: You’re so you’re so inspiring and beautiful. A couple things. First of all, at the beginning of your story, you said that you had the thought, right? That your 50s were going to be your decade. And I’ve known you for a long time. You’ve been a student and a friend of mine, and I’m like, the 50s are your decade.

Jennifer Townsend: They are, right?

Jody Moore: Yes.

Jennifer Townsend: They started out a little rough.

Jody Moore: Yeah, it didn’t play out the way you thought it was going to in the beginning, but I was like, she was right about that.

Jennifer Townsend: Yes, I was I do feel right about that. I, you know, I’ve been divorced for three years now, and I feel like I’m living my best life. Like, I haven’t ever been this happy. I think wow, I didn’t know this was possible. So, yes.

Jody Moore: So amazing. The other thing is I when you described that moment, well, first of all, when you’re talking about going to high fitness in your 50s, I’m like, how do her knees tolerate that? How does she do that? But more importantly, when you describe that moment of hearing Cher’s voice and we all can like hear Cher’s kind of strong, raspy voice in our heads, right? singing, “I’m strong enough to live without you.” I was like, I love that God speaks to her through Cher.

Jennifer Townsend: I know. God speaks to me in ways like that too. Well, and I would have never heard that song had I not been at the class because it’s not like I listened.

Jody Moore: She’s not on your playlist.

Jennifer Townsend: Yeah, so it just I needed to go that day.

Jody Moore: Hear that song. So good. And now you help other women in similar situations. Tell us more about that.

Jennifer Townsend: Yeah, so I’m a betrayal coach, and I do also help men. So I help men and women heal from betrayal because the thing that I learned from my own life experience is healing is necessary. If you want to create any sort of life for yourself, you have to heal. And most people, betrayal is so painful that most people don’t want to feel those feelings of pain. And so they just avoid them or pretend or just resist feeling those, and they just bubble up and, you know, you create a life that you do not want because you’re not feeling your feelings and I think for coaching, what changed me is that my thoughts can have so much power, but also feeling my emotions, feeling sad, and it’s okay to feel angry and all those things that, you know, I just was always taught like contention isn’t good and, you know, we should just forgive. 

I mean, the amount of times that I forgave my former husband is nauseating. And what I really learned is I had to forgive myself and not because I had done anything wrong, but forgive myself for, you know, allowing someone to treat me that way or to stay for so long or just the different things that I experienced and understanding the trauma that it had caused me and my nervous system and all the things that I’ve learned, I’ve done lots of certifications and really wanted to understand. But the healing component, especially in betrayal is so important, and so many people want to skip over that part and just they get divorced or even if they stay married, they’re just pretending. And I’m sure I was doing lots of pretending in my marriage because that felt safer to me.

Jody Moore: It’s interesting when you talk about healing like physically, when we when we get injured, we don’t have the choice to just push it away, right? Like our bodies either we stay injured or our bodies heal. And it is often more painful before it gets better, right? Like I think about my kids, like even just like spraining a ankle or something and it’s like, oh, it’s probably going to hurt worse tomorrow and maybe the next. Like it’s going to hurt worse for a few days and then it’s going to start feeling better. But emotionally, we kind of have this weird ability to push and hide and pretend and not acknowledge and whatever else we do. But then it just stays in there, right? And create other problems. So it’s interesting. It’s such important work that you’re doing. So how do women know like where to begin and where would you send them to if they’re just kind of curious about whether or not coaching could be helpful for them?

Jennifer Townsend: Yeah, I think I mean, you can always go to my website, which is LifeCoachJen.com And there I have a free quiz that you can take. And I created like the seven stages of betrayal because I feel like if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And so you need to figure out, okay, where am I? Are you at the discovery stage? Are you at the rumination stage and the questioning stage? Are you at the blame and shame stage, the grief, right? Like we have to move through the stages. People like to skip from discovery to their happily even after. And that’s what I’ve called my business, is happily even after because I want people to know that they can be happy whether they stay married or get divorced, but they have to choose it on purpose. And they have to go all in to whatever their choices because many people, like myself, just we were just I was flailing and trying to be into my marriage, but that’s really hard when your spouse is not. 

And so anyway, so figuring out that stage, I have a podcast, the happily even after podcast. So people can, you know, listen to that. My Instagram on all socials, they can, you know, follow that. But I think if you’ve experienced betrayal, a lot of times you think you might be healed. And many people that I work with, they’re like four years out or twelve years out or because they ignored it for the first year or they were in survival mode, and then they’re realizing like, wow, this is still affecting my life today. And so if the betrayal is still consuming you and you’re still thinking about it and you haven’t been able to move past, then you probably need help. For sure, I mean, therapy is great, but sometimes coaching helps you start from today and go in your future, right? Like we don’t need to figure out the why and, you know, the what happened in your childhood. I mean, those things can be important if you’re not functioning and you can’t, you know, get out of bed or if you’re just surviving your life, that’s just no way to live.

Jody Moore: Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, and that’s kind of this comes up a lot. Do I need a therapist or a coach? And I know Anna for night kind of both subscribe to the philosophy that there are things that require therapy and there might be clinical intervention or something necessary, but we are always pointing our clients towards that. If we think that’s necessary, we are not therapists to be clear. But coaching for a lot of people either picks up where therapy kind of ends and leaves them going, but what else? Surely there’s more.

Jennifer Townsend: Well, and I think therapy doesn’t teach you the tools, right? Like I have the practical tools that if you do this, this is going to help you stop thinking about the affair 24/7. It’s gonna you’re going to stop going down the rabbit holes. If you do this, then and most therapists, they’re not they’re not teaching you the tools. I mean, maybe some are, but my experience with therapy, they are helping, but sometimes you just need the practical tools. Like help me, help me with these.

Jody Moore: Yeah. Okay, so everyone go check that out if you want to at life coach Jen with one N, LifeCoachJen.com. And there’s a quiz there that sounds to me like the perfect place to start. And it’s totally free, right?

Jennifer Townsend: Yes.

Jody Moore: Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much, Jen.

Jennifer Townsend: All right.

Jody Moore: Noreen, let’s hear your story.

Noreen Noble: Okie dokie. Growing up, I was always told I was too much. I was too tall. I’m 5’8″ now, and I’ve been this height since I was in elementary school. And while 5’8″ is not giant as an adult, it sure felt like it when you’re eleven years old and you’re taller than most of the other kids and the teachers. So I learned to live smaller. I would hunch in pictures and in groups. I also talked too much, and I would get in trouble at school, which meant then I got in trouble at home. So I learned that being quiet meant safety. Not only did I talk too much, I was too loud, especially my laugh. I always got shushed, so I learned to quiet my joy and tone down my energy. I was also too emotional. In a house full of boys and Asian parents, there’s really no room for my emotions. So I learned to swallow them. 

And of course, I was too big. I always thought I was chunky. That’s what I felt. I felt uncomfortable in my ballet clothes. I couldn’t borrow my friend’s bathing suit when I was at their house. So I hid behind people in the pictures. And so I’m hiding behind people in the pictures and with the hunch, those were not good pictures. But with some exercise and some Weight Watchers, I thought I’d outgrown it until there I was at my middle school graduation in an ocean blue tiered ruffle dress that I had sewn myself. We were sitting on the benches in the field when I heard a boy say loudly, “Hey, do you have butter for those rolls?” and pointed to my belly, the same belly that I’d worked so hard to shrink. And then when the laughter started, so did the hurt. The kind of hurt that when you tell the story thirty eight years later and 800 times later, you still tear up because you can still feel the pain. 

So I learned that my bigness needed to be hidden behind baggy clothes or a fun personality. It didn’t matter. It just needed to not be seen. So fast forward, in my early 20s, I was a missionary for my church in Guatemala, and I was an adult, but of course, I still carried the pain of being too much. My parasites and worms helped reduce my weight, but I still stood a head or two taller than most people in that country. And when I had shoes made there, I returned to the store to pick them up, and the outline of my foot, my size eleven foot, was pinned to the wall with the words in Spanish for reals, this is the foot of a woman. It didn’t help that I was paired up with another young woman who was slender and a fitness fanatic, and so there I was far from home, unable to run away from my insecurities. 

We lived in the middle of a village above a little store. Now, in that bedroom, our balcony overlooked the street, and on Friday mornings starting at 3:00 a.m., one of the largest open air markets in Central America came alive on that same street. The sounds of all sorts of animals woke us up. But this story is actually on a Saturday. So Friday night, we came home after a hard day of walking the mountains. We had taught some lessons, we had visited other villages, we had helped care for some animals, and my stomach parasite was acting up. So needless to say, I was exhausted. I lay on my cot not wanting to get up, but the breeze was blowing through the window. And so I heave myself up, got up, shut the window, shut the door, and mumbled some prayers, and then I promptly fell asleep. 

Only at around 2:00 a.m., I heard something. I heard footsteps. I sat up and looked over to my companion who sat up at the exact same time and looked at me, and then we both looked over to the doorknob that started turning. I jumped out of my bed and I ran to the door and tried to hold it closed, but there was a man’s hand between the door and the door jamb. And so I’m holding this door shut. And as I’m holding the door shut, my companion runs to the window, opens it up, and yells for help from the neighbor across the street. And she yelled like this, “Um, perdon, Hermano. Hermano!” And I was like, are you kidding me? Who is going to hear that? People are used to hearing cows mooing, roosters crowing, and goats bleeding at full volume. Who is going to hear that type of yelling? So I did it. 

I was holding the door and I was yelling at the top of my lungs. “Hermano Felipe!” I yelled help and I yelled fire and I yelled and yelled until people started coming out of their houses. And as I’m holding this door, we’re explaining to them what’s happening. And my companion is throwing the keys to them so that they can come up and help us. So when the men finally come in, it took two of them to drag that man away and one of them to hold the knife they had taken from him. I sat on my bed and I took a breath, and I guess the adrenaline was coming down, I don’t know. But I was going over and over in my head what had just happened and I realized that my too much saved me, saved us. 

And so I learned that being too much wasn’t a flaw. It was my superpower. And I wish I could tell you that I have lived every day since in my full power, but the truth is, I still fight the instinct to shrink, to go quiet, to hide every day. But here’s what I can tell you. Yes, my too muchness saved my life once, but every single day that I choose to show up as my whole, unedited, laugh too loud, feel too big, be too much self, that’s the day I’m not just surviving, that’s the day I’m creating the life I want to be living, and maybe, just maybe, being too much is exactly enough.

Jody Moore: Yay! Cue the applause. Oh my gosh, I love that story so much. I can just picture like the hand in the door like flapping. And oh, man, I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad that happened. Thank you. I am too. And I didn’t write that to my mom, by the way. I was going to say, we should give a disclaimer before this episode that if you have a daughter on a mission or going on a mission, you may want to skip story. I know. I didn’t tell my mom about that or the malaria or but she found out later. It’s all good.

Noreen Noble: Why do we have to send our kids out into the world? It’s a terrible idea. Terrible idea.

Jody Moore: Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that. It’s so beautifully told and such a great reminder. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. So some of us have this idea, I’m too much, and others of us have this idea, I’m not enough. And it all comes down to something’s wrong with me. But, you know, I just think it’s so fascinating and through the years and years of being exposed to coaching, I still am constantly thinking about, okay, but where does it come from? Like the root idea that there’s a right amount. There’s a right size to be. There’s a right volume to be. There’s a right amount of emotion, or there’s a wrong amount. There’s too much and there’s not enough. Like it’s all just made up. It’s all made up.

Noreen Noble: Yeah.

Jody Moore: And it’s so fascinating to think about, right? How in the end, we get to decide and obviously nobody’s too much and nobody’s not enough. We just all are unique and different.

Noreen Noble: I’ll let you talk in a minute. Sorry.

Jody Moore: But I had one other question I wanted to ask to you because I have this theory that I actually came up with this one day listening to, you know, the song with Eminem and Rihanna. I think it’s called like watch stand there and watch you cry or what I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t know what it’s called. But I love that song and I’m like, you know why this song is so awesome and beautiful is because it’s got the contrast of like this angry white boy rapper, right? And then this soft, feminine black girl voice. And when you put the two together in the right way, there’s something like kind of magical and beautiful about it. And I think as human beings that we’re drawn to somebody that has that kind of balance of what we might say is masculine energy and feminine energy. Like there’s a reason that all three of us were drawn to learn from Brooke Castillo is because she’s a very feminine woman, but she has a lot of what are traditionally masculine traits in terms of her confidence, her volume. 

She has the same like, I’m too much kind of thing, right? And because she’s embraced it and she embraces her feminine side and her masculine side, there’s something that feels like kind of magical and complete about it to us. And there’s other, you know, men that I follow who like you look at a Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, who is, for those of you not familiar, he teaches entrepreneurship and marketing and things, but he’s like, you know, lives in New York, immigrant parents, swears a lot, you know, wears a t-shirt everywhere, and he’s kind of like, I don’t know, abrasive you might say, but what he’s talking about, he’s saying it in this abrasive way, but he’s talking about be kind to people. Be nice to people. He’s talking about what are traditionally more feminine values and qualities. He’s talking about getting ahead by serving, by giving more. Don’t be so greedy. Don’t be impatient. And I’m like, he actually has the balance also of like this masculine kind of persona but this feminine message. And I’m curious your thoughts on that.

Noreen Noble: I love that you brought this up because I feel like sometimes, especially as women, we feel like we can’t have those masculine tendencies, but my answer to that is yes, and no matter what amount you have of each is you. And so yes, it’s perfect. That’s right. You know, some people are like what you the people that you just described, but then there’s also the ones that are very soft and very and that’s fine. It’s totally fine because there’s there’s an audience for all of us. And I love that you brought that up. I also love that you brought up that I have this, I’m too much, but I have both. As we all do. Yeah, I have the I’m too much and I’m not enough. So where do I belong, right? Yeah.

Jody Moore: I have that. In this area, I’m too much, but in this way, I’m not enough.

Noreen Noble: And so being able to have the awareness of that and then hold, hold that is kind of cool. 

Jody Moore: It’s so good. Well, and tell us about what you do now as a coach, Noreen.

Noreen Noble: I kind of coach people like me. I have these two things. Yeah, exactly how it goes. But I help women and men if they want to find freedom from that survival mode. So Michele introduced me to you, Jody, and that introduced me to life coaching.

Jody Moore: Thank you, Michele.

Noreen Noble: And I think she’s like, you can use a life coach, but she’s she framed it in this way, “Oh, I think you could be good a life coach.” And then she’s like, listen to her. Anyway, so, however you got to listen to Jody, that’s the point.

Jody Moore: Michele’s shaking her head for the record saying that is not what she was trying to do. But okay.

Noreen Noble: But so Michele and I actually certified at Life Coach School and I had just started my coaching practice when I got diagnosed with cancer. And so what a blessing to have the ability to manage your mind during something like that. But it wasn’t till in the middle of chemotherapy and I, you know, from my story, you know that I haven’t had the best relationship with my body. It was never how I wanted it to be. But during chemotherapy, as I’m pumping poison into it, it’s getting up. It’s going to the bathroom. It’s laughing. 

And I was like, I need to get a better grip on my relationship with my body and my intuition. So I then right after my radiation, I started somatic coaching training. So that’s what I help, I help women or men just try to find put down the overthinking, put down the over the overperforming, the perfectionism, and really dig deep, have them rediscover who they are, help them rediscover their intuition, help them calm their nervous system, and find joy in the life that they’re creating because I think so much of us, so many of us are chasing joy and not actually living joyful.

Jody Moore: So good. Okay, so where can people go if they want to learn more from you?

Noreen Noble: NoreenNoble.com. But I have a little five day little journey is called overthinking to inner knowing and they can sign up for that at NoreenNoble.com/trustyourself.

Jody Moore: Trust yourself, everybody. What a novel idea.

Noreen Noble: Yeah. And it just helps people because I know I was corporate America for twenty over twenty years. You know, launches, product launches, do this, lead teams. And it helps them put down some of that stuff and really, you know, focus in on like, what is my intuition saying? What do I want? That’s another thing women have a hard time saying, what do I want? Most of the time it’s I don’t know or they want I want my kids to be happy. No, no, no. What do you want? Right? Right. Yeah. Just on a little journey like that. Yeah.

Jody Moore: Love it. Okay. NoreenNoble.com/trustyourself. And you can get Noreen’s five-day journey from overthinking to inner knowing. And it’s again, totally free. Yeah? 

Noreen Noble: Yep, totally free. 

Jody Moore: Okay. Thank you ladies for taking the time. Thank you for sharing your stories. Every one of these ladies was so vulnerable and real with us today. I hope you feel inspired. I hope you feel just better than you did before you listen to this episode and maybe you took away some storytelling tips as well. You have lots of more help available from all of these ladies. So go check it out and thanks everyone for your time.

Oh wow, look at that. You made it to the end. Your time and attention is valuable, and I don’t take it lightly that you made it this far. In fact, it tells me you might be like me; insatiably curious about people and life and potential and connection. Maybe you have big dreams but a small budget and no time. You’re tired, but bored. You’re content, but dissatisfied. Sound familiar? Come to a free coaching call and see for yourself what’s possible: JodyMoore.com/freecoaching to register. That’s JodyMoore.com/freecoaching.