The moment school ends, the rails disappear—and suddenly you’re supposed to design a life you’ve never practiced living. We sit down with youth coach Hillary Spiritus to untangle that leap, challenge hand-me-down definitions of success, and map a path that’s actually yours. From family pressure and social media comparison to the quiet tug of your inner voice, we explore how to move from borrowed dreams to authentic direction without waiting decades for clarity.
Hillary shares a powerful client story: a student on the med school track who couldn’t finish the applications because the dream wasn’t theirs. Together they surfaced the real fear—disappointing parents—then built the courage and tools to choose a different future. That shift captures the heart of our talk: you don’t need a fearless life, you need skills to act with fear present.
If you’re wrestling with questions like Am I behind, Do I owe it to them to stay on this path, or How do I know what I want, you’ll find a grounded framework here.
If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Your story might be the light someone else needs.
If you have a college aged child and want them to work with Hillary Spiritos, simply go to her website: batouttahell.net or follow her on Instagram @bat.outta_hell
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
I’ve still got a lot of fun left.
Hey librarians, welcome to release out with real purpose. And today is Hillary Spiritus. And she is so energetic. She wants to get into this topic with young adults about really getting them to understand the truth of their identity and not to get caught up in the world today. It’s a very interesting world we live in. And her consultancy um business, Bat at a Hill, was really something that caught my attention when I read it. I was like, what a curious title to that company. So without further ado, Hillary, thank you so much for joining us from London on Release Out with Real Purpose.
Hi, thank you so much for having me. It’s a real pleasure to be here, and I’m excited to chat.
I’m excited for you to chat about this mission you have to reach young adults through your business. So tell us how you landed in this space and why this is so important to you.
Great. So I have always known that I wanted to be a mentor or advocate or guide for young adults. I think that it is young adults, it’s such an interesting time because for so long we are asked to do the same thing at the same time at the same pace as everybody else. And we are graded, and it’s just a kind of we’re on a track. And then at a certain point around university, we’re asked to let go of those tracks and just kind of veer off and see what we want and what our place in the world is and ask these questions and figure out what classes we want to take and where we want to move and all of these things. And then after university, those tracks kind of fall away even further. And that can be a period of challenges and fear and anxiety, but it can also be a period of opportunity and possibility and experimentation. And I think that that juxtaposition is really interesting and exciting. I also think that young adults, especially this cohort of young adults, they’re very much not this is how it’s always been done, people. And I’m really excited by this opportunity because so many of our systems in the world of today are broken. And it’s really exciting to work with young people who are passionate about this isn’t working, this isn’t serving us. Like, let’s figure out a way to fix it and make it serve people, make it serve young adults, make it work better for us as a whole human race.
Yeah, you’re right about that. Because as I was telling you, in church on Sunday, our senior pastor was talking precisely about this subject matter, saying that the young adults of today are actually wanting to learn more about the about Christ. Whereas before that was never the case. They were like turning away, they didn’t want to come to church, they didn’t want to explore, but this this generation is very, very different than previous generations, right? And you see it in what’s happening in the world and things that are happening, all these world events are having a major impact on young people today. And some of us that have gained the awareness of what life is truly about, um, some of us take years, decades to get there, but it doesn’t need to take decades. You can learn this information early on. You don’t have to learn it or earn it on your own, which is the ultimate way of looking at things, right? Is we we and this comes from generation to generation. This is where we have to be very careful. I love my home base, I love my family, I love my home and my family of origin. But I also know as a life coach, as a certified life coach, there’s a lot of trauma, generational cred that gets passed down generation to generation that we accept as truth when in reality it’s not our truth, it’s somebody else’s truth that was like from 20, 30 years ago.
Truth. Absolutely, absolutely.
And we’ve accepted it because that’s what society has told us to accept. But that’s not always what needs to happen. And the earlier we can reach people, the earlier they can they can find their joy and find their purpose in life because we all want purpose. All of us want we were created for purpose. We all were created with a particular set of skills that are meant to be shared with humanity. A lot of people don’t get that either. They think, oh, it’s for me, and I keep it for myself. I tend to differ on that ideology, I think, because I’ve I’ve got past certain things in my life. I’ve reached a point where now I’m like surrendering control, which is a good one, uh surrendering perfection to God daily. But I’ve had I suffered a lot to get to this point. My mission is to reach people before that point. Why are you gonna wait decades for this? Do it now, like release yourselves from the cage, you put yourself in because we do put ourselves in when we program our mind continuously to do things in a certain way. We’re no one’s doing that. Nobody’s doing it to us. We’re choosing, we have free will, and we’re choosing these action steps that we’re taking in life. Subconsciously, I was all given that. You know, this is the subconscious thing, but I’m grateful that you’re out there now with young people. You’re in London. Are you one of these young people that you’re talking about that you’re trying to influence? Were you one of these people? Sure. Yeah.
I mean, part of what I do, and part of what brought me to this work is realizing that I also had to do some growth and had to do some um work as well. And that’s not, you know, my work is not finished, you know. I’m not an expert in anybody else. I’m just an expert in helping you find you. And that is what I want to be clear about. Like the exactly what you’re saying. It is not about these societal expectations. I would never tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing. Um, so much of what we do, and so much of how we understand success and failure and courage, and how we understand what is good enough, and our understanding of what we should be doing comes from our parents, comes from society, comes from leaders in different areas. And it’s, you know, that’s not wrong. It’s just the fact is the trick is to figure out what your definition is, what you really value, what you really want your life to look like. And that, as you said, like you could do it on your own. It’s just gonna take a long time. And potentially you might not get as far along in the process as you would if you had a coach with you. Um, and I also, it’s it’s not that it’s always helpful to do this at any age to reflect and figure out whether you’re doing what you want to be doing, um, at least at that moment in time. But exactly what you’re saying, the earlier you can understand that, the earlier on you can figure out at least how you want to start off on your journey, and the earlier you can build the skills and tools to execute the steps to move forward, which is self-reliance, self-trust, um, the ability to stand alone, to tolerate discomfort, cultivating your own voice, resilience, all of these, that earlier on you can cultivate that, the earlier you can get on your path and learn to listen to your inner voice, and the earlier you can learn to make decisions based on what you want. And then the more you practice that, the more ingrained that becomes, and the easier that becomes for you, and the bigger and bigger steps you can take. And you it’s not that life gets easier necessarily, it’s just you get better and better at dealing with hard, hard things, and that can kind of make your life a little bit easier and a little bit more joyous.
It’s true, because remember people have this idea, and I did, so I’m guilty of this, that I was gonna reach a point where I didn’t have to grow anymore, which is such a silly idea, because you you stop growing the day you physically die, your body physically dies. And then you, in my in my opinion, it’s humbly my opinion, you graduate into eternal life, and it’s a graduation of sorts, right? So in life, we’re learning all these skill sets and we’re getting better and better at them, and we’re giving, we’re sharing those skill sets with humanity, we’re sharing our light with humanity because sometimes we carry the missing piece that somebody else needs to hear to you know fulfill and become whole again, become the person they were created to be before all these layers clouded their way, right? Because they do, they kind of cloud your way, they overwhelm you, they can they can confuse you, you can accept them as truth when they’re in fact lies, belief systems that formed long ago that don’t have any place in the person that you are meant to be, and how you’re meant to lead or guide people in life, right? So in my case, I know I fell into ego traps early on based on what I saw at home. I was raised by a perfectionist, high achiever urologist, you know, who came to this country long ago and finished his residency and fought in Vietnam and did all these things and had a very particular view of success. And if I didn’t fit into the box of becoming a doctor or lawyer, I was not going to be successful. And that’s so as a little kid, you see that I was the rebel, right, in the family. The other two became doctors. I don’t know if it was because he pressured so much, and he was not pressuring in a bad way, in that he wasn’t doing it. He came from nothing, and so he wanted to prepare us for life, right? So our parents aren’t trying to mess us up, they themselves don’t do this personal growth thing. A lot of people never do this work that you and I are doing. Um, and so through life, they just kind of adopt these things as truths. Like, well, this is the way I’ve done it for so long. It’s worked for me, so why am I gonna change now? But what you find is that at somewhere in the middle of your journey, like what happened to me, was you get to a pinnacle of what you think is your successful life, and you’re standing on stage facing 300 of your peers, and the question and the thought that comes into your mind is is this it? Is this what happiness was supposed to feel like? And there’s this emptiness there, and that’s what happened to me. Was I became the number one pharmaceutical rep for the number one company in the world the same year I got divorced from my first husband? And I thought, I’ve been working so hard to get to this stage in my life, and now that I’m here, I find I feel empty. Did something like that ever happen to you? Like where you’re just like, eh, I really like you started off and then you had this epiphany and you started to shift gears.
Yeah, I think, and it’s happened a couple times in which I thought I was doing just various ways, I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Um people would ask me what I was up to, and I wanted to have an answer, so I decided to like choose a career that I thought, or even started out even before then, I chose a major that I thought people would find good enough that I thought I was like, I’m gonna study political science, and that’s gonna be good enough. And that’s what people are gonna think that’s oh good for her. And I love politics, I think that’s great, and I actually really enjoyed it. But actually in my junior year, I was like, I this is this is not for me. And so I changed my major to theater and comparative religion. And um I had various people in my life tell me, ask me if I could change it back, ask like ask me what I was doing with my life, like questioning my choices. And I had to, in that moment, it was quite pivotal, and I had to learn to stand tall in my decision. And I think, yeah, as as children, uh how we behave and and all of these things can have real serious consequences, and so we like mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and as we crave love, safety, and security, we need that, and we crave approval and acceptance. We adapt and amend our personalities, we change what we want to be doing, we we create our lives so that we can kind of have that and shy away from embarrassment and shame and um rejection. But really, like that’s not showing of our full, whole true selves, and we really need to engage with ooh, I really want to do this, but I’m afraid people will think that’s silly. Like, then we need to unpack that and we need to understand like who is that true? Why do we think that that’s gonna happen? Who where does our understanding of success come from? All of these things. Do we want to live our lives from a place of that fear? And that’s what the work that I do with my clients.
So kind of walk me through. Say I’m one of your clients, say I’m not 51, say I’m 21. Sure. And I’m at that crossroads of graduated college, and I picked International Relations and French as a double major, which was my my double major, that my father looked at and said, What are you gonna do now with that? Um so guide me through some of the exercises or work that you and I would do.
So the first question I would ask you, and again, just I want to preface this by saying every person I engage with is different. What resonates with someone will resonate differently with somebody else might not resonate with someone else. Like it, this is not this is a potential conversation. This is not like a definite thing that ever works for everybody. Um also, everybody comes to me with different angles of what they want to work on, a different understanding of where they’re at in that journey. So, but the first kind of conversation would be what do you want your life to look like? Like, what are you hoping to do? What are you, do you want to continue in that space? Are you looking to perhaps pivot? Are you like what is the what is the question that we’re dealing with?
I wanna I want to work abroad, right? So that question would be like I want to work abroad for a a company that I’m gonna be able to grow in professionally, in the that’s why it’s international relations, and I speak three languages. So I want to be able to use those skill sets, and that was the whole purpose of doing that. So, yes, I want to continue in that space. So after that, what would happen? Like, what other what would you help me understand?
So, generally the work that I do with young people is working through what’s blocking them from creating the life they want to live. So, if they are wanting to work in international relations and they want to work abroad, but they feel like they are incapable, they feel like there’s no path for them, they feel like they’re scared to move away from home, they are having trouble understanding, or if or if they want to change like professions, or if they feel like if there’s something blocking them from living the life and creating the life they want to live, that’s what we engage with. That’s the crux of the work, and trying to figure out and unpacking what that is and how to move through that and creating an actionable and strategic plan to move through that. If they feel like they know the steps to move forward, I can absolutely help you do that. But that’s just a different conversation of, yeah, I’m applying for these jobs and it’s I’m interviewing for these jobs, and I’m perhaps getting these jobs, and that’s a different conversation than somebody who might come to me with a needing a little bit more guidance, feeling lost, coming up against the myths that maybe young adults are dealing with, like, I’m behind, I’m I don’t know what I’m doing, my I’m not doing something that my parents want me to do, my parents want me to go to business school, and I don’t want to do that. Like those are the conversations that I deal with with my clients.
So on average, how long do they work with you?
So I have a standard three-month program, but I have clients that work with me for varying lengths outside of that program as well. And if you work with me on that three-month program, you can we can continue meeting after that. Um, and it also kind of depends on if you’re needing like if you want to work with me for outside of the program for multiple hours, like and for a quick like short period of time, we can do that. Or if you want to work with me once a week, one hour a week as ongoing, we can totally do that. I am very much about this is the like working within what the client’s needs and desires are because this is a human business, and I am not about like slipping into the client, like slipping the client into the program that I do without any consideration of what they need. So if there’s a decision or something that needs to be made quickly, we can like really try to work through it in a short amount of time. Um, that doesn’t necessarily it’s and it’s not that you will have every question answered and everything will be complete and you won’t ever have to think about this stuff again, because it’s important to recognize that same as you did, you will come up against things throughout your life. And the what I’m helping you gain is the skills and tools to navigate what you come up against.
We’re always gonna have storms in life. But also think that oh, we’ve reached a pinnacle where it’s like, oh, we’re now in joy and peace, you’re enjoying peace because you have a mindset that has determined itself that will live in joy and peace regardless of what comes at you. You know, like even as my dad was dying um last year, I had my faith that I anchored myself in. And I had peace and joy still in my life as I was navigating that horrible dark chapter because I was facing one of my deepest, you know, monsters in my closet. Like the one of the biggest fears out there is the loss of a parent. It doesn’t matter if you’re young, old, or whatever, just that’s just you don’t want to even think about it, but it’s gonna happen, right? And when I got when we got the terminal diagnosis, I had a choice I had to make. I I could either do this on my own or I can invite God into it. And I decided to invite God into it because every time I invited him into it, I felt at peace and I had the courage and I had supernatural courage that the day before I did not have. And so I that was the difference, right? And so I just said, okay, I need to obviously learn how to surrender daily to you. I know what surrender to you looks like, so I’ve done it. And I did it quite well in 2012. Major, major life event, uh turning point that really that’s what got me out of corporate into the path I’m on. I’m an author now, my podcast host, my life coach at the church. It’s a very different view. Like people that knew me when I was in my 20s were like, oh my goodness, you’ve changed so dramatic, like so much. And I’m like, I went back to the person I was created to be. I wasn’t supposed to be that person in my 20s. I made choices that my my fear-based ego, and I say that very specifically, because there’s belief systems that we all have based on these events that we encounter in our life. Our subconscious mind is always listening, it has no filter. When you’re little, it it has zero ability to stop that thought from occurring. So you believe certain things about yourself and they become feelings inside of you. And anytime a certain feeling shows up and it and it’s triggered by an event, you have a series of programs that you’ve programmed your mind into reacting. You have a habit you formed around a pattern of behavior that showed up to protect you when you were little, and while that works for you when you’re little, when you’re when you’re getting older, that stands in your way, that becomes the block that you’re helping them past. So um that’s what I was asking. I was very curious of like, because you know, in this day and age, um, Hillary, people want instant gratification. Sure. That’s the biggest like block as coaches we went into because we’re like, you realize it took you a while to get to this point. To really think this way. It’s not, you now have had like 20 years of doing this, right? In my case, 51. I had way more decades than these young adults to get past certain things, right? But I did. Eventually I did, but I didn’t do it alone. I did it with God’s. That’s the difference. Like, and I’m grateful what the pastor said. I’m so happy that these kids nowadays want to know how to turn inward for those answers. That they’re my 10-year-old has these deep thoughts, and we’ve had we’ve started to write them down because they’re so profound. And it’s because they have so much information. We didn’t have that information when I was a kid. We didn’t have phones, we didn’t have internet. These kids have access to a lot of information and their minds are very rapid. I mean, they pick up on stuff that is like, how did you pick up on that? Like, how do you know about that? Very interesting, very quick. So I’m glad that your work is fulfilling to you. Share if you can share with us an experience you had recently with a young adult that really gave you like that awesome feeling of I’m so glad I’m living this purpose every day.
Sure. Um, sure. I mean yeah, I mean you you spoke about so many things that I would love to also address, but yes, absolutely. Um so yeah, um, I was working with a client who was planning to go to medical school, but um couldn’t just couldn’t complete their med school applications. They had finished undergraduate education, they had um studied biology, they were it was all the plan. Um and they came to me because they just couldn’t, uh they just knew that that wasn’t the path for them. Um, but it became apparent that they didn’t want to go at all, but it was what their parents wanted them, wanted from them and them to do. So through coaching and through the work that we had done, it they gained the ability to let go of that and let go of the picture that they created for their life when they were younger and uh and go against their parents’ wishes and forge their own path that actually was more aligned to their values. Um, even that if that missed um even if that meant like risking their parents’ disappointment, though to be fair, that’s another conversation of what that actually looks like. Um because it does come in a spectrum and there is fear of disappointment, and there is actual perhaps disappointment, and then there’s the question of whether you can live with that and create your own choices or not. So that’s a whole conversation. Um and it was actually really amazing. There was one session in particular that I that’s that stands out in my head because they started coaching themselves in the session, so they would say something and then they’d say, Oh, that’s actually kind of not true, or oh, that’s actually just I just think I kind of think that’s the case, but it’s actually if that happens, I’d be okay. And in they’d kind of talk them through the lies, if you want, if you will, or the stories that we’ve told ourselves, and it was really, really beautiful to see that they were actually the like tools and the tips that we were learning about stopping those thoughts and kind of questioning is it true? Do I want to like live in my life according to that? Do I want to hold tight to those fears and those thoughts and those stories, or do I want to decide to make my own way? And they were they were catching themselves, and that was really a beautiful, that was really a beautiful thing to see.
Well, and I love that because when I was in sales, um, this as you were speaking brought me to a memory. And when I my manager said, when your doctors can repeat back to you everyone ever told them, you know you’ve done your job. It’s the same thing in coaching. When you when they catch themselves and they say, Oh no, that’s just my habit, or that’s not true. Here’s the evidence to show that that’s not true. That’s just a belief. I need to just shift that belief over. That’s why and it’s like, whoa, and and it gives you purpose, and we all seek purpose. We all are we’re born with purpose, we’re a bright light in this world, and we forget that sometimes because we’re stuck in these systems, and we keep our heads down. And if you come from an immigrant mentality like I did, you know, my father um came to this country uh in 1967 through legal channels, walked into Visa office, and they were like, hey, go fight for Vietnam. And so it’s like, okay, and he goes, right? Um, marries my mom, comes back, finishes residency, gets drafted, spends like a year and a half. But that whole immigrant mentality has carries with it like this certain view. And and you grew up thinking like that, and you think that’s your truth, but that’s his truth. Yeah, that’s how he grew up, and that’s why he was like, he just wanted to prepare us. I’m just so grateful that that I was able to stand in my truth and kind of rebel against my father, which was not an easy time because he was a strong personality, very strong personality, very persistent. He just wanted to protect us. He’s you know, we forget that men um we were talking prior to the interview, we’ll have to fill in the people at released out real purpose. But I was just to kind of guide men before we start the interview of like, hey, you need to give me a chance to come in and just give some bullet points. Um, because I know you always tendency to want to continue making your point, but we only have 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and there’s gotta be a back and forth. Versus women, we kind of give each other that space to come in because we love dialogue like this. We have a thousand taps open in our brain, it doesn’t bother us to get interrupted. But men are a little bit different in that my father he was a protector and a provider, and so he was providing wisdom, and but protecting me meant like putting me on the path of what he deemed to be successful. So I, you know, understood that after many years of like going to therapy and going to coaching and stuff because there was just a lot hitting me, there’s a lot of layers there that I had to get through, and every layer is a triumph to get past, you know. Um, and I started later than these young people. So I’m glad that you’re that you’re hitting them young, that you’re in London. So is this like, are you doing this internationally or is it just in London?
No, it’s international, absolutely. So I work with clients virtually, and then if possible, because I do travel around and meet with clients. So if you’re in the UK, I’ll meet with you in person, or if I’m traveling and in that, like I we can meet in person. But um, yeah, no, my work is online.
So where are you from originally? Because you certainly don’t have the British accent.
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I work I am from New York City originally. Um and I yeah, I I worked in the theater and live events production for a while, but then I actually realized that I wanted to live in this world, in this passion of mine. And I remembered that I was an RA when I was at Duke University in undergrad, and I loved working with young adults and helping them figure out who they are and what they wanted from their college career and beyond, and and what their place in the world was and what they were capable of. And I loved that so deeply, and I was really good at it, that I decided to go back and got my master’s in education and in actually international education, and worked as an advisor at NYU and Northeastern in Boston. And I again loved working with these young adults, and I realized that young adults were really looking for somebody who wasn’t parents, friends, or a therapist, and instead were looking for someone who was a near peer who could listen to them, not pathologize, who has gone through what they’re going through, who understands the world of today, and can really just be a objective, third-party, empathetic, joyous person that they can speak to and relate to. And so I opened up my business bed out of hell in the pandemic, and it’s been going ever since. And yeah, and I moved to London and am living here now, but the the work is international, the the business is online mostly, and and I’m I’m so so thankful to be able to meet with all these young adults and and and they’re inspiring to me. I’m learning so much about myself and and the work and you know it’s it’s just such an amazing experience and very soul feeding.
And why loved it of all places, right? I’m curious.
Sure. Um, I have always loved to travel. Travel is a huge part of my life, and part of the reason I moved to Europe was because once you’re already over here, it’s very it’s much easier to travel. Um I also have lived abroad before, and I have lived in different cities in the US and also in different countries outside of the US. And I really deeply love that experience and that challenge and just that lifestyle. And also just I’m a real arts and culture person, and being from New York was is wonderful, and I was able to access all of this theater and live performance and music and galleries and all this stuff, but London also can like give you that as well, and so enjoyed totally. So it’s just a joy to be able to experience that here.
It was wonderful, it was a wonderful trip we took. Yeah. But I’ve been in London twice before when I lived in France. Like I told you, I studied abroad in my junior year, and I was in Leon, and every other weekend was like a three-day weekend, so it’s like, oof, get on the train and go somewhere. And we were so close to Switzerland and Italy and Spain that was like, okay, we can do this in London. So we just would travel as students and live off bread and uh goat cheese and and whatever, you know, wine, because they were the cheapest ones, sodas were so expensive. Bottled water, don’t even think about it, just wine was best, you know, what else? Um you’re right, it’s a it’s a really different way of life. It is very beautiful to live in Europe because they do slow down, they’re not like the US in any way, shape, or form, and that keeps your mindset in your heart uh from in that present moment. I used to people watch all the time, and I used to watch even the big cities, people learn how to take breaks. In the states, they don’t, you know that. That’s like more, more, more, more, more. I was like, really? Why? You know, like there’s like what what are we reaching for here? You know? So that’s why.
I think it’s really important to recognize like it’s a great question that you’re asking because it’s really important to understand like what you value and what you want. And so I when I work with clients, like I’m not saying everybody needs to do this, everybody needs to like be expansive, value travel, all these things. I’m trying to help young adults, and my mission is to help young adults find and live their fullest, most authentic, fiercest life according to who they are and what they want. And as you said earlier, like look inward rather than outward for the answers and be able to strip back those layers and to be able to listen to and trust your inner voice because as you’re as we’ve talked about, like childhood wounds go on top of it, societal expectations, social media comparison, um all of these, just like general fear and anxiety of rejection, fear of being alone, like all of this stuff can can cover up and can can blur what you actually want to be doing and learning to listen to your inner voice and we want to be able to unpack that. And I think it’s also really important to recognize like you don’t have to be completely free of all those layers to do the thing.
No, you don’t move through that easily.
Yeah. So it’s really important to recognize, you know, you can feel the fear and do it anyway. And so it’s it’s that. It’s I’m really anxious to do this thing, but I’m it I also find it really exciting and interesting, and I know that I want to do it, so I’m gonna choose to do it, even though it’s a little nerve-wracking and new. And then reframing, you know, obstacles as opportunities for growth. We talk about all of this stuff and recognize that it’s it’s just um it’s recognizing that you have the ability to like live the life that you want to live, and it’s up to you. Like you’re you’re the only one who can make that happen, and you’re the only one who has to live with the choices of your life, even though you might think they’re gonna think some way about it, or what if they think it’s really doesn’t it’s academic, like it really doesn’t matter. Um, but it feels like it matters, and so we talk about that as well.
Yeah, and one piece that you were talking about, like do it anyways, is is a very good piece of advice because fear is an illusion for the mind. It is something that, yes, it’s we feel it, and so we feel like, oh my gosh, this is real. But this is how you’ve programmed your mind to feel based on a all of it is connected through the feeling piece of it. We’re emotional human beings, so we know that the feeling is tied to a trigger, it’s it’s tied to a pattern of behavior, it’s tied to a habit, it’s tied to a uh significant emotional event in a belief, right? Because the belief is under and propelling the thought, and the thought is propelling that feeling forward. And that feeling is gonna, we don’t keep it to ourselves, we tend to react or act on a feeling depending on which side we’re that, you know, if we’re acting out of love, for example, that’s a beautiful thing, right? And we move forward in love, or sometimes we move forward in fear because we’re reacting to something. So I find it like so great to be able to talk to you about this and also know that sometimes facing that anxiety, like head-on, like sitting with it to see what it informs you on. Sometimes, sometimes when you sit with it, it actually gives you the missing piece.
Yes. And I think it’s very important to recognize that when you look outward, you don’t allow yourself for that. So it’s very important. Like one of the big things that I talk about, and one of the things that I I um suggest people do is really give themselves time to sit with it. Really give yourself time to wrestle with what does this mean? Do I think I want it? Like give yourself the time and space to do that before asking for the opinions and thoughts of other people and allowing that to color your own perspective because you will get to the answer. And I do think that everybody kind of knows it’s just the question of do you listen to that? How very how do you trust it? How buried is it?
It’s a discernment piece, right? Is it a thought? Is this my ego mind, or is this God, the Holy Spirit? Like, is this my soul speaking? Is this my ego? And and I talk a lot about this in my book. That’s why I can follow these conversations really well. Uh, in Faith I Thrive, Finding Joy Through God’s Master Plan was released last year, September 21st, 2024. I love the number 24, obviously. And what I found to be true in that book is when the ego is not the issue. The ego is your self-image, and that’s why you need to sit with these things because a lot of these identities that are dictating your actions right now were were created long ago from a trauma at times. A lot of trauma. Not all traumas, you know, but a significant emotional event, right? Good ones, bad ones, ugly ones, they’re all inside our mind, right? And I found recently the actually the interview that’s out on release at Reveal Purpose today, um, that released last Thursday was of a girl I interviewed that gave me the last missing piece. I had been trained on neurolinguistic programming years ago, uh-huh, but I had forgotten that lesson, and God sent this girl to me and sent her book, and I for the first time in my whole life I’ve had guests send me their books, and sometimes I get I have a chance to read it, and sometimes I don’t. But for whatever reason, my soul pulled me to read her book. And I’m glad I did, because in it was a piece that I desperately had been praying for, and the answer came in that book. And when I interviewed her, I I just couldn’t even contain my emotion. It was I missed what I’m wearing a circle around, like now. I don’t know if you see my uh necklace, because I’m coming full circle to the woman I was created to be. Yes, and it I was so grateful to Alexis because she wrote a book called Uh Pain as a Portal to Beauty, and that’s why we say sit with it. As coaches, we say sit with your pain, your pain has a lot of information to give to you. Sometimes it just needs to be acknowledged. They show up, they just want to be acknowledged for they’re just trying to protect you, they’re not trying to hurt you. The subconscious mind’s not trying to hurt you. It was it was trying to help you and prevent you from feeling pain when you were a little kid. So it’s just it’s just saying, please see me and please recognize me. I’m not trying to hurt you, but we push it down so quickly because of the systems that we live in, that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. It’s such a muscle like memory. We’ve done it for so long that we think avoid pain is gonna be better. It’s not. Yeah, avoiding your pain is not better. Your pain has a lot of information for for the the blockages that you’re trying to get past in your mind. So sit with it a couple of days, it’s not going to kill you. I mean, you sit with other stuff in your head. Why not sit with something that’s actually real to you, you know, and try to figure out. Invite God in, invite your higher source of power in, and just say, please reveal this to me. Like, what’s my blockage here? And show me what my next step is. It’s a lot like you said earlier in the interview. It’s not that life becomes easier, it’s that you get better at it. Yeah. You get better at you get better at asking God, hey, just reveal that to me. This is an easier conversation than me trying to do this on my own.
Right. Yeah, it’s very important to recognize that exactly what you’re saying, so much of what protects us as child, as children, is exactly what blocks us in adulthood. And it is really important. And what’s so interesting about what you’re talking about is in going full circle, is it’s actually so much about returning to who you are and what you wanted as a young person, like a kid. And because it is as children that we receive all these messages and we have childhood wounds, and we receive that these stories, and it’s really what I’ve noticed in my work is like so much of it is like, what did you enjoy as a child? Like, what did you how did you like to spend your time? What did you believe when you were younger? And that so often actually informs what they want to be doing ultimately, and how they want to see themselves and how they want to engage with the world ultimately. Um, but we exactly what you’re saying, we bury it down and we and we shove it down because we feel like we don’t want to engage with that pain. But really, in order to get to our passion and our curiosity and our zest for life and our like spark and all of these things, which I believe in lives in our inner child, like you have to engage with the fear, insecurity, and anxiety that comes with that, because that is like a full picture of a human being. Being that is true, full self-acceptance and self-love. And um it isn’t not is until you get to there, you’re going to be constantly shoving it aside and muting and dulling yourself. And what’s important to recognize is that it’s gonna keep coming up. It’s gonna keep coming up, it’s going to keep showing itself, you’re going to keep getting into conversations or like circumstances that are uncomfortable. Like it’s you’re going, it’s gonna happen until you decide to engage with it and recognize it and decide to not be at the mercy of those feelings and those fears, anxieties, and insecurities anymore. Um, so what I hope to do with young adults and what is very is wonderful is we’re trying to get there faster and we’re trying to get there sooner so that you live most of your life with that knowledge rather than spending a lot of time pushing it aside and being like not engaging with your life in a fierce, authentic, full way. I mean, there was even a TikTok like trend or Instagram trend a while ago that was like joy is all about returning to who I was as a 13-year-old or something like that. That’s true, it’s true, it’s really true.
It’s when it’s when we were fearless.
Yeah.
We, you know, we learned to walk and we would fall constantly, and we just got back up like no big deal. But then we started to hear our parents like fears come over us. Oh my god, oh my god. Yeah, exactly. And it just is like, what the heck did I do? You know, I had a trauma at seven, and that really impacted me. And I wrote about it in in Faith I Thrive, and it took people on a journey, on a spiritual journey of forgiveness and self-love and self uh those aha moments. But mine is more faith-based, as you even the title itself in Faith I Thrive, finding joy through God’s master plan. It’s like because some some people look at that restriction of like, well, it’s his master plan and why, why, why? And I’m like, his master plan is way bigger and better than mine. Will ever be. Like, I can’t even the joy he has given me is not something I imagined for myself. It’s way more than that. And that’s the piece that I was trying to engage people on, is just saying when you turn inward, when you stop looking to the outside world and systems for your answers, you’ll find that the truth and your identity and who you were created to be have been inside of you this whole time. Yeah, and the happiness that you’re seeing. Yeah.
And I also think it’s important to recognize like the more, or let’s say this, the less you try to control your life and control what the circumstances and exactly then this is gonna happen, then this is gonna happen. The it’s it’s important to have goals and it’s important to have drive, and all of that stuff is. I’m not saying that, I’m just saying leave yourself open to the path, leave yourself open to the possibility of oh, and then I met this person and they told me about this book, and I read that, and then I met someone like, or oh, that’s how I met my partner because I went to this thing because I was interested in this. Like, you we want, but that takes courage, yes, yourself.
So it takes openness and curiosity. Um, and in this world with the systems in place, it’s all about control.
Yep.
That’s why COVID was such a pivotal moment for a lot of people, because that whole illusion of control and perfectionism, like just I mean, it just like went to blah because we didn’t have any control, right? And it God kind of showed us like you guys don’t have control. I don’t know what you guys are thinking, but this isn’t control is an illusion of the mind, you know, turn inward, you’ll find your answers there, and that’s that’s what I found at the end of that journey.
Yeah, yeah. And if you feel um secure within yourself, and if you feel like I can handle it because I’ve learned that I can handle it, like I trust myself to be able to get through these things. If I’ve built self-reliance and self-trust and resilience and all of these things, grit, then in spaces where things happen, maybe you lose your job, maybe you break up with someone, maybe you get a job, but you have to move to a different place, may like whatever it might be, you’re secure in yourself because you can’t control what happens in life. So as long as you can say I trust myself to be able to engage with this world, I trust myself to be able to take care of myself or do whatever I need to do or whatever it might be, then that is peace, right? That is the ability to stand firm and tall and not get knocked over by whatever way the wind blows. Um and that is what we try to do, that’s what we develop in the work that I do.
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So I have to work with you. Where do I where do I find you?
Absolutely. So my website is bat outahell.net, and I’m sure this is all gonna be written in the show notes, so I’ll send you the stuff. Um and then my Instagram and TikTok are bat.outa o u t a underscore hell. And then yeah, you can schedule a consultation with me so we can learn about you can learn more about who I am and how I work, and we can discuss whether this looks like it would be a good fit. Um because also like you have to trust the person and want to vibe with the person you talk to, or else it’s not gonna you’re not gonna go open and honest with them. Um yeah, and then we can move forward that way. So yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for sharing that. And any last words of encouragement before we sign off?
Yeah, I think it’s it’s really just about living your life according to you and recognizing that you have the power to create your own life and that the rules come from inside of you. And so we want to live our fullest lives and mine for your own magnificence. So let’s get started.
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today, Hillary from London. I know it’s I don’t know what time is it now? It’s like two. So it’s like, yeah, it’s eight. So I’m sure you’re gonna start winding down while I’m still revving up because it’s two o’clock my time. But thank you so much for joining us abroad and for sharing your wonderful stories of transformation for young adults and and the work that you’re doing. Thank you so much for the work that you do, Hilary, because it is very much needed in this world, especially for our young people. They are very impressionable. And you’re right, if you we can reach them younger, better. You know, because they each have carry a beautiful light within them that when they have the courage to step into it, um they will shine so brightly and they will maybe fill in a piece for somebody else because we’re all interconnected this way, you see. Um, there’s we all serve a purpose in each other’s lives, and the sooner we understand that concept, the sooner we can step into our joy and purpose um fully and wholly, you know. So thank you so much for joining us on release down and reveal purpose. And for those listening, remember Matthew 5.14 to be the light because you are a big bright light and this world needs you. Have a wonderful week. Stay safe. Love y’all. Bye now.
So that’s it for today’s episode of Release Doubt, Reveal Purpose. Head on over to iTunes or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes. We’ll win a chance to grand prize drawing to win a twenty-five thousand dollar private VIP day with Sylvia Portion herself. Be sure to head on over to sylviaworsham.com and pick up a free copy of Sylvia’s gift and join us on the next episode.