- It's once again time to get gutsy with Liz Hall
and her expert guests on the Gutsy Babe Podcast.
- Welcome to the Gutsy Babe Podcast.
I'm your host, Liz Hall.
On today's show, we'll be talking to our guest, Beth Valli.
Beth calls herself a motherhood story coach
because she believes that discovering, exploring
and clearing the stories
and interpretations we carry about motherhood shifts us
into greater freedom.
At 42, her unexpected journey
of missing motherhood plunged her into profound grief,
steeped in the childless, not by choice community.
She assumed she would coach women like herself,
but digging into the issue led her to realize
that childless, not by choice, women are a symptom
of a cultural root cause.
This realization paved the way for her,
blow up the clock program, blow up the clock,
empowers women still on their way to motherhood,
to unravel societal notions holding them back.
These women, often career driven,
have usually silenced this aspect of life
and are awaiting a distant someday.
Beth's program helps them discover their vision,
bring action to their journey,
and redefine someday on their own terms.
Beth, it's great to have you on the Gutsy Babe podcast.
- Thanks, Liz. It's so awesome
to be here. I'm so glad that we met.
- Yeah, I'm very interested in this topic
and excited for our conversation.
I too have direct experience with this, so I can so relate.
So can you share a little more about how you got involved
with this type of coaching?
- So, as you said in the intro, I am someone
who missed motherhood.
Um, at 42, my body dece decided to shut down.
Um, I actually went into perimenopause at 37
and then at 42 into full menopause,
which was not expected at all, very, very early for a woman.
So that left me in a space where I was
dealing with years of grief.
Um, and I was actually just coming out of my grief
of my divorce that I went through at 36.
And then on top of all of it, just when twinges
of joy started to come back, Yeah.
I was plunged into this.
Um, and there's just a wall that you hit
that you don't even understand or don't expect.
You can never fully anticipate what that feels like
to suddenly hit that wall of this thing
that you thought about happening in your life.
Just not ever happening.
Not in the way you imagined it, not biologically.
- Right. - And so, you know,
after many years of working through that grief, um,
I really thought at once I became a coach,
I would coach other women like myself.
I'm part of a child that's not by choice community
for women all around the world.
And I thought those would be my people.
And as I was doing writing,
so this is the great thing about social media
'cause it forced me to tap into writing about everything
that I was about.
And as I did it, it occurred to me one day, which
by the way, happened in Aruba
where I was living at the time.
So like it was a great setting
for all this to happen, but just
- There was, yeah,
- It was, but I realized, I was like, huh,
I'm a symptom in our culture.
I am not a root cause. What is the root cause?
Why is it that one in five women in the western world on
average are childless?
Not by choice? I'm gonna say, actually,
I'm gonna say are childless the majority
of those not by choice.
'cause some people intentionally choose it. Right? Right.
They want to be what? That's what we refer to as child free.
- Correct. - And so why was this happening?
And as I was writing, I feel I got a divine download.
Like this is just, there's stuff going on in our culture
that we're not paying attention to.
And it got me super curious.
So I started looking at that, which led me to a whole lot
of findings, which I'm sure we're gonna get into.
Mm-Hmm. . But that really is my story of how I got
to be a motherhood story coach.
I actually, the term itself,
which I ne I don't know if I ever would've come up with
that myself, came from a friend
of mine who is a marketing person.
I was in her marketing group
and she said, you're a motherhood story coach.
And I was like, what does that mean?
It even took me a while to like feel comfortable
holding that title.
Like, and adopting it.
Digesting it, because I just didn't get it.
'cause it's so different. Right.
And the way I like to describe it now is like this,
you may know coaches who are consider themselves money
coaches or abundance coaches.
Right. And what you do is you work with them to look at all
of your stories and all the things that you have
that are holding you back from the financial abundance
that you want in your life.
Well, I'm doing the same thing with motherhood.
What are all the stories and the things that you're holding
that are keeping you stuck?
And often women are very stuck in this spinning
that they don't even realize A lot of times they're in
that are holding them back
from getting that thing they want.
Or from even being able to decide if they want it. Right.
Mm-Hmm. , there's just so much cultural, uh, clutter
as I like to call it, that we're living in.
And so this is, this is what I help women do. I help them.
And on the other side of all of that is an ownership
that they didn't even know that they could take.
There's an agency that they take on.
It's like, oh, I didn't know I could do this. Wow.
And I didn't realize how much I wasn't paying attention
that I've heard that so many times.
So it's, it's just super cool to watch them come out
of the darkness
and their blindness until like,
own this in a, a completely new way.
- That's beautiful. Um, I'm realizing that we have
so much more in common than I common, but
even - . Yeah.
- So, um, I too went into, um,
menopause at a very early age.
Um, in my early thirties, I had to have a full,
full on hysterectomy.
Um, and it all started with, uh, trying
to have children see the, it's the story
that you've heard a million times
and I suffered from endometriosis most of my life.
And with endometriosis, like the hundreds of stories
that you've heard, it's hard to diagnose.
I went to, I can't even tell you
how many countless doctors up until the time I was trying
to have, you know, a family with, with my husband.
And that's when I finally get diagnosed, come to find out
that it was too late for me to even have children.
So I had to make the harsh decision
of having a full on hysterectomy.
Right. And then going into full on menopause.
And they don't share any of like, you don't know any
of the feelings or any of the grief
or even knowing that you're gonna go into menopause right
after that surgery within like a day after the surgery.
Wow. But yeah, it was a hard decision.
And we did try for many years.
We even fostered a little two little girls for a while. Mm.
Wow. But I think that what you're doing is,
like you said, is from a pain point.
Right. And when it's from a pain point,
you are being truly authentic
and you're sharing your story
and you are helping other women like myself to empower us
and know that you're right.
It is a cultural issue and we need to be okay
and bring it up to the public
and have women say, this is okay,
and it's okay to blow up the clock and empower yourself.
And for me, I'm religious.
So what helped me, I had to say, well, this is
what my path is.
God gave me a path that I have to move forward and accept.
And I had to heal myself knowing that it was okay for us
and we didn't have to have a child in our life
to have a beautiful family.
Still. Can you share a couple
of success stories about a client that you've helped?
Like right now, you're helping me, so thank you .
- Thanks. Thank you. Um, for sure.
I love sharing these stories.
So I will not use their real names. .
Um, there of course was was a woman who, I mean,
I call these my early adopters, right?
So I just started my program for the first time in 2021.
And the people that were in my course originally were both
powerful coaches, people who went
through the same coaching program I did.
People who believe in transformation
and live their lives on purpose.
People who design their lives and how they wanna them.
And when I went to them, to this one particular woman,
and I told her about it, she said, huh,
she's very, a very intentional person.
She's like, wow, I never even thought about
this part of my life before.
Like, how did I miss that? Right?
She speaks to what's going on in our culture, right?
But there's just this even an awareness that we need
to think about it or talk about it.
And she's like, huh, because I realize
that I haven't talked about it,
or I'm not doing anything about it, giving it no attention.
I think I need to join this program. So she did.
She was in my first cohort cohort
and she was the person who came in saying what many,
many women say Mm-Hmm. ,
why do I have to be intentional about something
that should just be natural?
I if I had a, you know,
a hundred dollars for every time I heard that .
And also this idea of
I'm, so, it's like this fear about this
concept of being a mom.
Because as she would say, I feel bombarded with
the image of the tired, exhausted, sad mom.
And I don't wanna be that. Like, why should I, this is
what I feel I'm up against.
And throughout the course of the program,
I'll just tell you where she ended up.
At the end of it all, she was like, I realize
that I can own this.
I realize that I can make this what I want it to be.
I realize that no matter
what happens in my life, I'm gonna be okay.
And I'm gonna tell you she does have a
child , which is awesome.
She, she and her husband now have a child.
Um, but that was just so cool to be part
of that journey with her.
And I mean, I feel honestly like I did
so little other than create a container
because she's just such a powerful person herself.
And this is what's so cool.
I get to work with all these amazing people.
'cause the women who, the women who come in are going
to be women who have some kind of self-awareness already.
They're already people who have been doing the work. Mm-Hmm.
people who realize they need a little more support
to move them forward in this dream in their life.
And so that's, those are the people that enter.
It's not somebody who's not thinking it about it at all.
And, you know, doesn't,
don't ever look at themselves like that.
I've had some women like that come to me,
but it freaks them out and they run away.
So it's pretty much what happens. .
But yeah. So that's one of the stories.
Um, I'll actually talk about, uh, a woman
who just finished doing the program with me.
She, again, another coach . Yeah. Powerful person.
And within the first month of doing the program,
and this is not the first time this has happened,
she met her person, like who she thinks she's going,
who she's planning to marry it,
that they're already talking about it.
Like this happens because when we open up, as you know,
we are integrated beings.
And if you think of the world
or our lives as like a room with doors,
the motherhood door gets completely neglected.
And often we just have cobwebs that are over it. Right.
We don't open it until we absolutely have to.
And so what I ask them to do, oh,
lemme go back to this though.
When behind that door isn't just a contained room.
It is a room that connects
to all the other rooms in our lives.
Right? We are integrated beings
and what's going on in one room affects all the other rooms.
And so when we're not paying attention to that, it has
ramifications for other parts of our lives.
So it's not a surprise when women start to open the door
and look at what's inside that room, that other parts
of their lives start to fall into place.
It's just, it's not unusual.
I hear things like, wow, this has changed
how I am in my business.
This has changed how I am in my career.
This has changed my romantic relationship
by just taking the time to pay attention
to do the work that's undergo, uh, with the things
that are going on underneath.
- Right? Yeah.
When you're listening to your inner voice, right.
It does really help. And that resonates with me.
So I I definitely know what you're talking about. Yeah.
Um, what's the procedure for accessing your services
and what should your clients expect from working with you?
- There are lots of ways to access my services.
I have different, you know, entry points for people.
Um, they can easily, I have an assessment
that people can do online.
Mm-Hmm. , it's called your, uh, conscious path
to motherhood com.
You just go there and it, it just covers all areas
of your life, from health to mindset to community
and support to get an assessment of
where you stand in relationship
to your motherhood journey just gives you a view into that.
And I also have a text community.
So this is for people who aren't yet ready to talk about it.
- Yeah. - They can just sign up for it.
And I send out a text once a week
that asks a question they may not
have considered to ask themselves.
It's just that simple. They don't
even have to interact with me. .
They don't want , . It costs nothing to do. You just
- Sign up.
Yeah. I mean, women are at different stages, right? Yes.
Of how open they are to it. They're still struggling. Right.
Like for me personally, it did take me many years, um,
to accept that, you know, I wasn't, uh, meant to,
I wasn't meant to be a mom.
Right? Mm-Hmm. . Um,
but I also do believe that you could be motherly
in many ways, right?
Um, I feel like I'm a mom to my, to my dog,
Charlie . Mm-Hmm. .
- Mm-Hmm. - . And also to my friends and girlfriends.
Right. Um, there's a lot of things
that you could be motherly at.
And I think that's just for me, that brings me peace.
- Yes, totally.
- But you're right. I do want to mention
that it is a cultural thing that they put a taboo.
Like, oh, you're not a mom.
I mean, I've had till this day I get, you know,
questions like, oh, how many children do you have?
Or Do you have children? And I, I don't get offended at all.
Um, I I just say, no,
I think we don't have children Mm-Hmm.
end of story and move on. And it's okay.
And when I was younger, I was self-conscious about it.
Uh, but I think it comes with age and acceptance
and not letting someone else
their feelings reflect Right.
And project onto how I feel in my life,
because I don't feel like we're missing out on anything.
Um, Yeah.
And I think it's important for, for women to, um,
be they have to go through that process
whenever they're ready for it though.
Right. 'cause everyone has their own stages.
- Yeah. Really. Well said.
And I, you know, I think every woman who's gone through
what we've gone through would say the same thing.
It's difficult.
And you come up against a lot of cultural barriers.
So I'm gonna actually on that, I'm gonna share the story of
what it's been to be a motherhood
story coach without children.
- Yes, please. - And what I've had people say
to me, Yeah.
It's the same thing. Like, as soon as I say what I do,
and I use that term that they'll go, well, are you a mom?
Like, they automatically assume that
that's who I need to be.
- Right. I could see that. I could see that.
And, and that sucks. But you know what?
I think that is actually very empowering for you, .
- Well, it, it isn't at some points.
I mean, I've had to learn how to,
because I was struggling to own it myself, struggling to own
moniker of motherhood story coach.
Like what does that mean? And how can I call myself that?
I mean, talk about imposter syndrome, right?
I even had two coaches who I respect male coaches
say to me, well, people don't go to a coach.
They go to a coach because that coach has what they want.
Like, you're not a mom. Why would they come to you?
And man, that, I remember just as soon as I heard that, I,
I just went into like,
I got hugely triggered . Right?
- Yeah. - You know, and then I was like
trying to process through that.
And it took me a long time.
And it even took me, I mean,
I would say it took me like a year
or more to really have perspective on it.
It still, I still get twinge of it sometimes.
But the thing that really helped to shift it
for me was this, was realizing that in a culture,
in any culture, the people that are in the minority,
which I consider us in the minority Mm-Hmm. ,
see the intentional
and unintentional acts of discrimination.
People in the majority only register the intentional
acts of discrimination.
Things that are blatant.
When you're in the minority, you see it all.
And so it gives me a, a sight into this world
and into this whole concept of motherhood in general.
That somebody who has become a mom
and just gotten the, had the path
and got what they wanted that they don't have.
And that's not anything against them,
it's just what their life is.
And I have a completely different perspective.
And so I could see more clearly
what are the things going on in our culture.
And I was listening for the things that women are saying of
what they experience in our culture in a way
through the child is not by choice community, through women
who struggle with infertility,
and then through women who are on their way
still to motherhood.
And what's interesting about is it's all the same ,
it's all the same things that we're all stuck in.
It's just we're all at different points.
Kinda like you were talking about with grief.
We're all at different points. Mm-Hmm. in that journey.
And so the women who are still on their way there have this,
there's still this hope that they're,
and this idea that life's just gonna
work out the way that they want.
Right. It's part of that comes with youth , part of it comes
with like not having the experience.
And it's hard for them to grasp
this concept that I'm putting out there
because they're just like, well, I'm fine.
You know, I'll, I'll have a child. You know?
And that's why it takes people who are paying attention
and like aware, do the work and are aware of that.
They need to do the work. Mm-Hmm. to really embrace it.
At least at this point. I'll, I'll tell you, I have, like,
I've looked for other ways to communicate
with women who aren't in that space.
And I finally had to resign, not resign,
but settle on the fact that these are my people.
Like my people are the deep people, the intense people,
the people who do the work, the people who want more.
Um, not someone who who doesn't, it just,
they, it doesn't connect.
Right. Just doesn't connect.
- Right. Well, that makes sense.
I mean, everyone has someone, there's, there's
so many different types of coaches, right?
Yes. And there could also be another motherhood story coach,
but it's gonna give a different perspective
or different Yes.
Energy. And you're going to attract the,
the customers and clients that are attracted to your energy.
- Exactly.
- Mm-Hmm. - . Exactly.
- Well, I'm attracted to your energy
because it, it resonates with me. .
- Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Of course.
- Um, can you name three things you love about what you do?
- Sure. Oh goodness. Um, there's so much.
Well, I think one is I get to be fully expressed in who I am
and bring all my creativity to bear on everything that I do.
You know? And, and apart from being a motherhood story
coach, I'm gonna take it up a level.
Being an entrepreneur, being my own boss. Yeah.
You know, I get to create my day.
I get to create my life the way that I want it to be. Be.
Um, I have always been somebody like who's done
that since I got outta college.
Mm-Hmm. . I've never followed like the mainstream
path for a while.
I did. Which I'm grateful for. Yeah.
And I like, I don't know, at 22, I was like, all right,
well, you know, I was in film, I as a film major,
so right there that was like, you know,
hanging out in the basement at the film school
with all the people who were black.
You know, we were all like, a little bit different .
And then, you know, I, I ended up getting into,
um, I did that for a few years.
I went through a lot during that time.
So a lot of career shifting.
'cause my mother passed away when I was 23.
So I was dealing with a lot.
And that led me into nonprofits
and then, which led me to working with homeless youth,
which led me to working, you know, in, um,
somehow then getting into web design and, and everything.
So I like being my own boss.
And I like the freedom to answer your question.
Like, I love that. I've always had this sense of,
I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.
I'm not gonna follow everybody else's path.
And, and I continue to do that . So Yeah.
Um, but I need, I need to give you one more
because you asked for
three , I think.
Um, I had, what's the third one? Oh, I know.
Just the amazing people that I get to meet in life.
I love the amazing, like these amazing people who come to me
who, who want to change their lives.
You know, like it's just who are brave enough
to step into the unknown and do that. Yeah.
- It's beautiful. And I could see,
and yet you get to see the progress, right?
Mm-Hmm. you to witness that, that is very special.
I think for me, I think maybe for you as well, is
that you are tapping into speaking your truth.
And that when you're speaking your truth, that
just makes you shine.
I feel that, um, I, I like you,
I've had many careers
and experiences that brought me to where I am today, even
with the gutsy babe and with my travel.
Right. That now
sharing you menopause issues,
my hysterectomy being childless,
and where it's brought me to where I am now.
And in the past I never brought those topics up, right.
It was all personal and private.
But by speaking our truth now, I just think that it
makes life so much sweeter. .
- It does. . It really does.
I mean, and that's like, it's doing that I can speak
for myself and I'm guessing for most people
or maybe all people that when you're in that vein,
like your words are aligning with your energy.
Right. And it just, it amps up your energy.
It's like that's what you're putting out into the world.
Um, it, it aligns. I think that alignment is so important.
- Exactly. Yes. - Yeah.
- Well, Beth, how can people contact you further, um,
with information and get, uh, set up an appointment with you
- Appoint?
Okay. Well, they can go to Bath Valley coaching.com. Okay.
Um, uh, they can contact me through that.
Um, and they can also, I have,
they can do my assessment online at your conscious
path to motherhood com.
They can, um, find me on Instagram,
they can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn,
and d DM me through those.
And I'm just Beth Rave coaching in all of those places.
Or just Beth Rave on LinkedIn. Okay.
And yeah, it's easy to get in touch with me.
You, my calendar link is out there.
People can set up appointments.
Um, I do this, I have this entry level call that I do
with women called the Motherhood Clarity call, where
I give them an opportunity.
I ask them a lot of questions
and it's basically presencing them to
where they're in their journey right now.
Mm-Hmm. - .
- And then looking at where they wanna go,
but more about all the things they're holding inside that.
And then looking at what might be in the way of getting
what is they that they think they want at this point.
So it's really, it comes out, they walk away with an action.
One thing that they can do
to start moving in the direction they want.
- Can you share one action with me? Sure.
- Yeah. Yeah. There's a, I mean, there's so many
that people take on.
I would say one that's really important, I love to call,
I call curiously collecting stories.
And so in my book that I've been writing,
that's a whole chapter.
It's actually a whole session in my program
where I have the women collect stories from other moms.
So, because we have all these ideas about what motherhood is
and usually not good ideas, maybe they're good.
But even so, our scope is limited.
And when we can really listen to other moms,
especially moms, we consider empowered, it shifts.
It's one of the biggest shifts women have in my program
because it opens them up to going, oh, wait a second.
It doesn't have to be this way. It could be that way.
That person does it. I could do it too.
You know, like my friend Sarah, she lived in Mexico.
I, I mentioned her earlier before,
but she lived there as a single mom with her child,
- Uhhuh, - You know,
and that was a choice that she
wanted to make for various reasons.
And people are like, oh, she did that. Like, I can do that.
You know? Um, there's a really cool, uh,
YouTube channel called Fly the Nest, uh, that is a couple
who travel all over the, the world.
They stay in different places and they have a toddler and a
newborn - . I love that.
- Uhhuh. And it's just more, I think
because in our culture we can tend to be, the child runs
the roost, whereas like maybe in Europe it's more like the
child joins our family.
- Yes. - That mindset is different.
And so here, people getting to see that more,
just they don't get stuck in that space than of,
oh, I'm gonna lose my life.
Because that's what a lot of women say.
I'm gonna lose my life. I'm gonna lose my career.
I'm gonna lose all these things if I become a mom.
Well, what if you gain all these other amazing things?
Right. It becomes an addition rather than
a subtraction in their life.
And they, once they shift their mindset.
- Yeah. No, that is beautiful.
You know, it's funny is that when I thought I was gonna be a
mom Mm-Hmm.
early on, I always had that vision
that I would have my baby on a backpack trekking around .
- That's awesome. - So I think that I,
like my mom has said in the past
that I've always been a natural rebellion .
Mm-Hmm. I've always done, you know, beat to my own path.
And I feel that you are the same Beth
- Pretty much.
But yeah, it's funny
'cause I've also been like such a rule follower
and such a, a follower for so much of my life.
But at the same time, with this underlying rebellion going
on, that not everyone always saw .
- Yeah, no, I'm just saying
because I'm a rule follower as well.
So there's certain little things
that were rebellious Uhhuh. Exactly.
- Exactly. - Thank you again.
So people can contact you@bethelli.com
- Or beth veli coaching.com.
- Beth veli coaching.com. And that's R-I-V-E-L-L-I.
Correct. Alright.
Well thank you for joining us and sharing your wisdom, Beth.
Oh my gosh, this was beautiful.
- Thank you, Liz, for the space you're creating.
- Well, until next time, this is the Gutsy Babe
with Liz Hall.
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