In this solo episode, Betsy comes back to a line she's been circling for months - since being diagnosed with cancer. She records this episode on the other side of a summer of chemotherapy, which she didn't know was coming when she first jotted down notes for this episode.

She bites into Anthony de Mello's line "life is a feast but most people are starving to death."

This isn't a recovery story. It's not "here's what cancer taught me," tied off with a bow. It's Betsy asking the same question mid-feast that she asked in March, post-cancer diagnosis, pre-surgery, pre-chemo: are you feasting, or are you starving in a room full of abundance?

In this episode, Betsy explores:

• What it costs to keep choosing the feast when circumstances get harder instead of easier

• "Starvation consciousness" - the stories that convince us we're in famine when we're not: not enough, behind, wrong country, wrong timing

• Why abundance was never about the conditions. It's about what you let yourself taste

• The direct line between nervous system regulation and whether life feels vivid or flat

• The difference between numbing pain and actually metabolising it

• Why presence doesn't require the threat to be gone, and why that's the uncomfortable part

• What it costs to want things fully when wanting itself feels risky

• Why she refuses to sit here and politely starve

The discomfort practice for this week:

Notice where you're starving in the middle of abundance.

Where are you postponing joy? Where are you numbing instead of tasting? Where are you pretending not to want what you actually want?

And where might life already be offering you something you're afraid to receive?

Just take one bite...

The Discomfort Practice explores the edges where growth, truth and aliveness meet, the places we usually avoid, but where our real lives actually begin.

If this one landed, send it to someone who needs the reminder that life can still be vivid in the middle of not knowing.

How to get more of Betsy:

• Substack, Voice Notes from the Edge: https://substack.com/@thebetsyreed

• Work with Betsy - coaching, Embodied Leadership Lab membership, community circles, and People Like Us dinners across Europe: https://www.embodiedleadershiplab.com and https://www.patreon.com/embodiedleadershiplab

• Subscribe to the podcast and leave a five-star review