Nathan Daniel: 0:02
You are one decision away from the next chapter of your life today. Welcome back to be you and be real. We're talking about chapter four. And I have a special guest, Michelle Oxton, that's going to be talking about growing pains. So if you're ready, tune in, let's cue up the music. Welcome to the BMV real podcast. I'm your host, Nathan Daniel. And I'm excited that you're here because I want to help people tell their story. Because if you don't tell your story, no one else will. So we're going to jump in and have real conversation with extraordinary people. Let's open the next chapter of the bnb real podcast. Alright, so today, I'm excited to introduce our guest, Michelle ogston. Michelle, welcome to the show.

Michele Ogston: 0:48
Hi, Daniel. This is great, Nathan, it's so wonderful to be here. And I'm honored. I feel like I've watched this grow like it's been in the little baby stages. And I've got to actually get to be here. This is a wonderful experience.

Nathan Daniel: 1:03
You know, it was interesting as we were having a one on one, we're a part of a networking group together. And we were having a one on one conversation. And yeah, it was interesting. All of a sudden, I think we were having a conversation and I do what I do. And I kind of look off a little bit. You're like, oh, Nathan's got something cooking. So anyways, in that moment, it was like, Okay, this thing can be a reality. And it was like, you've got to be one of my first guests on the show. So thank you for being here today. You're welcome to honor. Well, I'm alright. So today, I want to jump in and I want to open up a chapter of your life and I want you to to have the have the stage. Okay. Before we get to the chapter, though, I want everybody to understand who is Michelle? So can you tell us a little bit about yourself where you're at? And maybe if you want to once you do, okay.

Michele Ogston: 1:53
Alright, so, um, yes, I'm Michelle ogston. I am a certified intuitive life coach, I actually specialize in mindset, particularly to where we're going to get to because of the chapter in my life. I am here in Northern California, I'm born and raised. I love it here, oceans, my passion. So very connected. I am also a psychic medium. And some people don't know that. But that is actually part of what I do. When I work with clients, I definitely blend that intuitive side into working with people. Sounds awesome. And it's part of the story.

Nathan Daniel: 2:27
Cool. All right, well, and we're gonna hear the rest, like behind the scenes a little bit, because it's gonna get a little personal today with you in this chapter. We're gonna uncover some stuff, and there may be some emotions and everything. So this is a safe space for you to do that. But along the way, these these lessons that we learn these chapters are actually how we are crafted. So again, thank you for being on the show. Let's dive in. And we're going to open the chapter with Michelle chapter four titled growing pains. Okay, yeah. So, so Michelle, let's jump in. And let's, let's start at the beginning. Okay, so so in the very beginning, you mentioned to me, you're one decision away from changing your whole life. So tell me a brief description and a story where you saw that in your life.

Michele Ogston: 3:15
Alright, so this is really my motto, I live by this. And I have seen this actually play out in reality where one decision either way can actually change the trajectory of your life for the better or the most positive direction or not so positive. And I have learned to really live by this motto of really contemplating your decisions. You know, I always hear this, like saying, like, life is short, you know, you know, do things. And I do agree with that on a certain extent. But I also think that for the majority of us, life is long, like if we're lucky, life is super long, and we live with the decisions that we make. And so let's be thoughtful about those decisions that we're making.

Nathan Daniel: 4:00
I love that. I love that. So So let's go back. You had you had an event happen in your life? Let's say several years ago, but tell me about one. Tell me about your friend.

Michele Ogston: 4:15
Yes. So I had a friend who was actually we were friends since we were 12. We ended up actually dating at some point in our life. We were very, very close. We were like best friends. And I was actually the one of the closest people to him and he went through a very depressive time in his life when he was about 28. He was very successful on the outside you would never have known the turmoil he was in. He owned a lots of things have a great job, was doing really wonderful but just had so much shame about struggling with some depression that he was suffering from and could not get his way out, couldn't ask for help. And they watched Slowly deteriorate over, it was about a nine month period where he actually chose to kill himself. And I was one of the last people to actually speak to him before he died. I knew he tried to do it the night before. It completely changed my life, it's part of the passion of what I do now is working with people, no one's you know, no one suffers in silence, to really create especially safe place for men, men have the leading cause of death and suicide for them. So it is a huge epidemic in our society. And it did change the whole course of my life. I knew at that time, I wanted to do something with helping people in suicide, but I didn't. I didn't know how it was going to show up. I was already in training intuitively. And I had been doing that studying since I was 16. So that was already a part of my life. But the coaching side wasn't there yet. It was kind of just like, peeking in a little bit. Just show me. I'm incredibly grateful for it. It did provide a lot of knowledge for 15 years later when I was in my own turmoil.

Nathan Daniel: 6:07
Okay, so so he passed. And of course, I'm sure that was very traumatic, like, as close friend to this individual. How did you feel like what was your emotions at that time?

Michele Ogston: 6:20
Oh, my gosh, it was a mix of emotions. I mean, at the end, if anyone's listening who has ever either suffered from depression or dealt with somebody losing someone to suicide, it's a very different death, I had actually lost somebody else to death. Another man I was dating a few years prior to that. So I have experienced death on a very intimate level before that. But a death from suicide was completely something new. Because we were so close, and we talk multiple times a day, noon and night, um, there was a void, like, it was a very lonely feeling. There was honestly a sense of relief, he was so depressed, and so down, and I couldn't save him. I mean, this is how I felt at the time, was I couldn't save him. I blamed myself, I, I was angry with other people who I felt like didn't reach out to him. I had to go into some grief therapy and grief counseling afterwards, because I had a lot of emotions that just I couldn't, I couldn't work through on my own. That was my first that was probably my third therapy attempt really was like working through geef grief counseling and how to navigate that it was incredibly challenging. And I was a mom at the time. So it was like, trying to compartmentalize my own feelings and be very present as mom, it was, I was probably one of the most challenging things I've been through.

Nathan Daniel: 7:43
Okay. And so I mean, a lot of emotions. And I heard you said, You blame yourself and there was some? Yeah, I mean, that's, there's, there's an element to that. But I want to I want to fast forward a little bit, and then you kind of entered into your own phase, right? There was a moment 15 years later, right? You kind of bury that, but that was kind of let's just say it went down a little bit like into the vault. Yes, I think I'll go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no, go ahead. 15 years later, tell us tell us about 10

Unknown: 8:13
years later, I think what I had learned was that, you know, death is not something we can rationalize. And we start to try to rationalize death. And we can't, we'll never really know the reasons why maybe later we do. I think I know now, but at the time, I didn't. And I was as healed as it was going to be in that moment. So 15 years later, I'm in my own marriage, I am on kind of experiencing similar to what he was experiencing, which was on the outside, I looked like I should be very happy. I was married I was, you know, part of the PTA I have two beautiful, healthy children. My parents are still alive. Like I have a lot of things to be very grateful and happy for. And I was absolutely miserable. I and I had so much shame again, and guilt over. Why can't I just be happy? Like, this is what I wanted. I wanted my whole life to be a mom and to have a husband and raise my children. And I just I couldn't wrap my head around. Like, why wasn't it working? Why was I not supposed to be happy. This is not part of the plan. Like part of the plan was like, check this box, check that box, and now I'm going to be happy. And I was not. And I tried to do the things that I thought would make me happy. So I tried to work out. I was eating healthy. I was involved in the community. And I was it wasn't working. And I had started to talk to my husband at that time about I'm not happy things aren't working. And I was really sort of dismissed at that time, which left me feeling really alone and I didn't talk to a lot of people about it just kind of my close friends knew. And it wasn't until one day I had dropped my kids off at school. Luckily I you know, work from Holmes, I have that luxury. And we got like a mass email and a mass call from the school, letting us know that one of the women who was part of like our PTA, or big group that we all associated with, she actually dropped her kids off as well. But she chose to kill herself. And it absolutely changed my life, like her death actually saved my life. Because in that moment, for myself, like right prior to that was literally sitting on the end of my bed, I was thinking, would my kids be better off? If I wasn't here? Like me? If my depression affecting people? Am I a burden? I'm so scared that I was like a burden to my parents? Or would I disappoint people, if I left my marriage, I was so wrapped up in the fear of what people thought with 100% certainty. Like I really believed these things like people were not going to accept me or my children, or it was just going to be this horrible, horrible thing. If I left it was going to disappoint my parents, that I just really did start to contemplate, could that be my next one decision? Would that be my next one decision, it was her Her name was Jade. It was her decision. It was my friend, Josh his decision. So clearly, people get to this place. And I don't think anybody wants to I don't think anybody really wants to leave. And when you feel like that's your only option. And luckily, you know, I had had this experience 15 years ago, where I saw this progression of depression just slowly take away his life. And I knew I was like, if I don't get help right now, maybe my one decision would be that one day, and that was enough to freak me out. Completely freak me out. I'm not kidding. I picked up the phone that day. I reached out for help. I started therapy, started coaching. And I learned a lot I learned about how to not be codependent, I learned about, you know, learning not to worry about what people think. I learned what was really important in life. And I think it was very confused on that. A lot of guilt.

Nathan Daniel: 12:04
Wow. So so in this chapter, there's, there's, there's a lot to unpack here. But looking back at that moment, like, You're, you're doing the things that that society is saying, like you should be doing this, you should be happy and in yourself, like, Hey, I this is what I wanted my whole life. society says I should be acting this way and doing this and feeling this way, but I'm not. And then another moment comes along where it sounds like you saw yourself in that person's shoes, and possibly walking down that same path. And that ultimately kind of rattled you back to the 15 years earlier. And absolutely, it woke you up. And so now, like you're in counseling, and you're getting, you're getting help, and you're working through all of this, and and as you're growing, talk to us about those growing pains that you went through at that time, and once you realized,

Michele Ogston: 13:02
those were some growing pains, you know, it's true that before you get to the light, you have to be in the dark. And so I was I mean, I was very much in the dark and questioning my identity and just in the sense that what I thought would make me happy. And I think this is something in society we do is we put these markers, and I heard a really good saying the other day from Bernie Brown, which was the shame is in the prerequisites. And I was like, that was my life. I was living by these prerequisites of like, this is what I need to do in order to be happy yet, it was nothing that aligned with who I was, or what I ended up doing. I mean, I was literally living a fake life. Like I felt like I was the pictures on Instagram, like I was, I was living this, like Instagram life. But it wasn't really me. And I learned in this process of being with coaches and therapists that there was so much value in myself and in the worth that I had for the Society for community for my children, that what mattered most to my parents was that I was happy. It wasn't about you know, how many years I'd been married. I was married for 18 years. So I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't a short term. And this was a long term, you know, equation here of spending a lot of years with the same person. So there was a lot of shame and that guilt. I mean, I think we all get married and think, oh, we want to be married for you know, a lifetime. 50 years. We want to hit that that marker, and I realized it just wasn't for me. And I'm going through that took a lot of ripping back the layers of like what was really underneath. I have a lot of PTSD. I learned that I didn't know that I actually had had a lot of trauma in my childhood. That would be a whole other show. It's a whole nother chapter. But I learned so much about myself that I had just been bearing all these years and becoming very Aware was the first step of being like, I'm okay. Like, this is me, and I'm okay. And I'm not perfect. And like owning that like owning like, I'm not perfect. And that's okay. was life changing? I had so much like guilt on that, like, I'm not perfect.

Nathan Daniel: 15:18
Yeah, well, I, you know, that's powerful right there. Like once you have that moment like, Hey, I'm not perfect and I don't have to be perfect, right? Yeah, that's, that's empowering in itself. And and I think that's, that's a great lesson to learn. So if you're listening to this right now, and you haven't learned that lesson, learned here, don't learn it the hard way. You know, but along the way, right, like you're having these growing pains, you're having this, these breakthroughs. Now. And I love this quote that you've said, and it says, you know, what is your next one decision, out of that therapy out of peeling back those layers, and now you're faced with a decision that you're going to have to make that's going to honestly impact a lot of people. Right? Tell us about that.

Michele Ogston: 16:08
Yeah, that was the next next one decision, because life is a series of one decisions, right? We're all making the next one decision until we get secure there. And then the next one decision. And so I was I was healing, I was learning a lot about myself. And in that recovery, I learned that in order for me to actually live a life that I was going to be proud of that I felt like I was going to teach my children, the most important thing, which was to value themselves and their worth and their happiness, I was going to have to stand up for myself. And in doing that, I had to learn to ask for what I needed, and what to do if that was not reciprocated. So if that did not come to fruition. And so I did try that and it didn't work. And so I knew I was gonna have to leave my marriage. And that took probably another eight months for me to really wrap my head around, like, I am going to hurt these people. Like I'm literally creating a fork in the road in my children's lives, that I was going to create a road for my ex husband, we had been together a long time, I wanted to still be friends, that was not going to be an option. I knew it was going to change my children's lives, that was going to change everything. And honestly, our parents, I mean, it was gonna change our families. And I had to really get to a place where my peace meant more than my own happiness for a long time for years. years, I just was like, well, this is my role. I'm a mom. And my job is to provide peace and tranquility and to take care of, I can check all those boxes, I didn't really think about anything else. And so to step away from that was terrifying. I didn't know my identity without that, those titles. But once Like I said, I started to heal from that and learn that I actually did have an identity and I had value and I had worth and that had to learn to ask for what I needed. And to be okay with that. And learning how to step away when it wasn't, was incredibly terrifying. And I kept waiting to be 100%. I think this is something very interesting. I kept waiting to be 100% sure, like, I was going to be 100% Sure. And if anybody's listening right now, and you're in the situation, what I realized was that you're never going to feel 100% about blowing up your family. You just know, it's not a reality, you can't ever think I'm going to be so confident in doing this. So I got as close as I could, I think I got to like 80%. And then I was like, Okay, this is probably as far as I'm gonna get. And then the rest, I just have to be, be kind and be brave. That was my motto, be kind and be brave. And I pick the next steps into separation.

Nathan Daniel: 18:57
He took the next steps into separation. And it was, you know, he said it took eight months to work through all of that through guidance and everything else. And at the end of the day, and I'm sure this wasn't this was an incredibly hard decision. Like you said, You're you were causing a fork in so many people's lives. And that was probably very heavy. And once you broke through that, you know it. I think there's a lesson to be learned there though, right? Like if it's, if at that moment, you had a choice, right? That one decision is to stay where you were at and continue down the path you were at. And that's setting one expectation, right? That's setting precedents for everyone around you. And the other one is an totally opposite decision that's going to cause a major fork in the road. But that's a different decision that could lead to something else. So what lesson did you learn there in that fork in the road for those around you after you made that decision?

Michele Ogston: 19:53
Um, what I learned was, there was a lot of things that I learned there. One of the most incredible things that I learned was that sometimes the fear of the unknown is better than what is expected. And I knew in that moment that I knew I knew if I stayed, what I was going to get was going to be more of the same, it was going to be more disappointment, more loneliness, more hurt. I didn't know. And I was willing to risk that. I don't know what life has in store for me or my children after this. But it is absolutely has to be better than what I'm doing now. And I'm willing to chance that. And so sometimes that fear of the unknown is actually better than staying what's predictable and comfortable, there is a lot of comfort in that predictability. You know, you find security and complacency. And it can provide a really great foundation for a lot of years. Until it doesn't sometimes

Nathan Daniel: 20:48
security and complacency. Okay, so now, like fast forward, you've had, you've had a lot of growing pains in this chapter, made decisions that have impacted everybody else. Like there's, like tons of lessons along the way that I'm sure that you've learned, and you've shared with us today. So, so wrapping everything up like with with growing pains, right, that's the that's the chapter that you're sharing with us today.

Unknown: 21:13
Yeah. You know, like,

Nathan Daniel: 21:16
what, what's one more thing? Like, if there's one more thing with this whole chapter that you share with us? What would it be

Michele Ogston: 21:23
that if you believe it, you can have it? I really wasn't really sure of that. And I remember being in therapy, and this was after my divorce. And I was talking to my therapist, and she was like, I told her, I said, I think my barometer for choosing men is broken. I think it's completely broken. I mean, let's be very honest. This was not my first failed relationship. So I felt like I had this pattern of really picking the wrong men, like I was really good at it. And so I felt like I had this broken barometer. And she was like, you need to start manifesting everything that you want. And somebody I thought she was absolutely crazy. But she's like, No, I want you to go home. And I want you to write down everything you want. I mean, it can be anything. She's like, you want it to be a good kisser, write it down. She's like, you want them like, whatever, I don't want to be oatmeal, whatever it is, you just write it down. Okay, so I did, I was like, Well, I have nothing to lose, okay. My way was not working. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this. So I literally wrote down every single thing I could think of, and as I was dating, I was like, No, I don't like that. I'd cross it out and put something down. I literally manifested my husband, do you remember that? movie? Weird Science? Oh, yeah. The person? Yeah, oh, my gosh, I actually did this. And so I do believe in the power of really putting your thoughts and your ideas to really what you want out of life, what you're wanting to create what your what your ideal sort of partner is, or job, whatever it is that you're really wanting to come to fruition, that I learned that there's so much power, and positivity, and the thoughts towards actions that really actually can manifest just from our thoughts. That's why it's so important about like, what we think we are what we think is because it does actually work. And you know, I am, I mean, I was happy on my own. I mean, I was at peace, I was so much happier. I mean, literally, the day my husband moved out, I was so elated. I was like, Oh my gosh, um, so it wasn't like I needed to be married again, to then be happy. I just had done so much worth me that then I started to attract people who were at that level of worth and that level of self love. And I think sometimes that's what we forget, is that you will only attract what you are capable of thinking. So if you're if you're low, if you're low over here, your vibration is low. But that's what you'll attract. I had to learn how to really raise that, to really take care of like everything else and just manifest that. So

Nathan Daniel: 23:53
that's a great lesson. So powering positivity and raising, raising your level of awareness to what you desire to have. Yeah, I think that's that's a great lesson. Well, Michelle, thank you. Thank you for coming on. And thank you for sharing this chapter of your life. If you're if you're tuning in and wondering who we're having a conversation with today. We've been talking to Michelle ogston and chapter four talking about growing pains. So again, Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show and being a guest with us.

Michele Ogston: 24:22
Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, Nathan, it's been an honor. I hope somebody gets something out of it.

Nathan Daniel: 24:28
Sure, they will. I'm sure they will. Well, so thank you for tuning in to chapter four. I'm excited. And I hope you learned some lessons with this today. And if you're somebody who wants to share your story or needs help sharing your story, this platform is for you. And if you want to be a guest on the show, go to be you and be real.com to find out more and we can set up a quick call. My name is Nathan Daniel, thank you for being with us today. And we'll see you on the next episode. Be you and be real as we open up the next chapter.