Podcast episode 13

Ladies, I’m back. Welcome back to the Anna Bey podcast. This is season two, starting as of today, after a very abrupt break that I had to do in December. And that I will talk a little bit about shortly and I am back for good now. And ladies today’s topic is going to be all about making a comeback because I am officially making a comeback in my life after a lot of struggle. And after a very long uphill that I had to go through, and then I’m going to share the details with you today. Exactly what has been going on and how to recover when life gives you lemons, basically. But first ladies, I want to talk to you about the time of the year that we’re in, because Easter has just passed and happy Easter to everybody by the way. But I think now is a very interesting time, especially for myself who is currently going through this big phase of transition and doing a massive rebirth because Easter actually symbolizes transformation and rebirth.

I think the season we’re in as well as spring is starting, winter has pretty much ended. We are also seasonally going through a transformation, and the rebirth. Flowers are starting to bloom. Animals are waking up after a long winter sleep. And I think so, do we as well, we have been hibernating probably for a long time now because of COVID because of winter and now slowly, slowly, we’re waking up to life. So it’s a very special time of the year. And actually I really liked this time because it always feels very magical. However, we also had Easter and I think that Easter is actually very interesting in what it symbolizes because Easter happens during this time of spring of rebirth of transformation and Easter also symbolizes these things, you know, with Christianity and Passover, it kind of symbolizes the end of a cycle and a transformation.

And also in many other religions, you have stories of kind of renewal and rebirth during this time of Easter. Plus let’s not forget that the Easter egg symbolizes birth. So there’s many interesting things. And, and just to add one more thing, you also have astrologically. Astrologically we are now entering a new year because in astrology, when the Zodiac turns to Aries, which is on March 21, a new year begins. So it’s a new cycle. So loads of things going on and energetically, and I really feel it myself. I really do. It has also been my birthday. It was my birthday last week, a week ago on March 29. And I was not online. I went offline and that we’ll talk about that in a second, but I think also I’m turning while I turned 35, made me really realize how well it’s definitely a new cycle, the beginning of something new. And that me as an Aries, I do like changes. And I love, you know, when something new happens and I embrace change. I think it’s very healthy to look at life this way, because when we always hold on to whatever happened yesterday, in the way, it doesn’t allow us to grow to our fullest potential. And we might miss out on things the life has to offer as a result.

So since I spoke to you last time, loads of things have happened in my life, loads of things. I’ve also taken a bigger social media break. I have been really running on, well, almost like 10% in that sense. And there hasn’t been many weeks, sometimes almost a month where nobody really saw, saw me anywhere. And I really had to take that time out because end of last year I started getting health issues around October was when I started having problems with my thyroid. It started going into hyperactive mode. So we were kind of watching that closely and didn’t really know perhaps what was going on. And I took some time to really figure it out, but that’s a totally different story. My hyperactive thyroid became worse and worse and worse around December, January February was kind of the peak of it.

It was also when we were able to identify that I have something called Graves’ disease. It’s an autoimmune disease. And it’s something that you basically get probably genetically or I think you can also get it through some form of virus. I have thyroid issues in my family, so it’s probably a hereditarian however, it has been forever dormant in my life, but one big trigger that my endocrinologist really do believe in. So I’m not saying this has proven, but statistics is starting to show this a little bit. That’s what he told me because I was sick with COVID in 2020, and then X amount of months later, I started getting problems with my thyroid and this is not uncommon of what he has seen it. And I started researching this myself and I also heard from several followers of mine who also started getting issues with their thyroid after having had COVID.

So I believe that COVID triggered my Graves’ disease of which was dormant in my system. And basically that’s why I got it. Now Graves’ disease affected me in many ways. It affect me by it, it made me lose a lot of weights, which in a way, was a positive thing, you know, who doesn’t want to you know, be a slim and effortless this slim, you know, but anyway, looking back at it that doesn’t even matter or anymore. Definitely made me have a very high palace, very fast heartbeats, which was very uncomfortable at times. It made me also have a shortness of breath, which I found to be the most uncomfortable. It made me also really have to slow down. And I was really not incapable of living my lifestyle the way I I was before. Let’s say I couldn’t even take the stairs because I was just so out of breath, walking up the stairs and needed to rest after it made me very tired.

So there were many things that I had to deal with when it comes to graves’ disease. And the peak of it was very challenging. Let me tell you, and at the same time, I was also doing a launch of Secrets of The Elite Woman, a volume two, meaning that it did the second part of the program. The previous part had been in July and, you know, I don’t do them very often, so I really wanted to launch it at the end o January. And that was really during my peak of my disease, which was very uncomfortable. And that’s when I also had to really make it public that I am currently having this issue. And the reason why I’m actually saying this is because there was somebody who asked me how come I’m talking about my diseases, because at some point I had mentioned that you, it’s not, you know, you shouldn’t be talking really or bring up your diseases in conversation.

It’s probably not the most elegant conversation topic. And I thought that was actually a very good point to point out because one of the things that I’ve noticed in my kind of, you know, communities that sometimes ladies do not really see that there is room and situations for everyone. Meaning that generally speaking, yes, you shouldn’t be talking about your diseases. Nobody wants to hear about, you know, the infection in your toe. However, sometimes you might have to share something like that with other people. In my circumstances, I didn’t share with the public for many months until it literally my illness was causing problems for me at my work, I was having difficulty working. I was trying to do live streams and I was so short of breath. I was trying to feel them. And it was just very, very difficult. So I had to share it with my audience so that they understood and knew what was going on because they started wondering why is she acting differently than before?

So it really all depends. Sometimes you just have to, to do something because it fits the situation. And that’s something that I want my dear elegant ladies to take into account that nothing is black and white and nothing is rigid. That’s why flexibility is important. And that’s, what’s so important to develop an understanding of when the, let’s say it’s appropriate to do this. And when it’s not appropriate to do something, yes. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t advise you to bring up, you know, the infection in your toe and things like that, but maybe it serves a purpose in a conversation or in the circumstances. So you have to have that flexibility to understand when that is you.

Anyway. that was a little note on that one, but just going back to my illness. So I have been talking about it a little bit here and there, and that’s why I also decided to bring it up in today’s podcast episode, because truly it has been a very big part of my life in the, well, I would say for the last six months. And that has primarily been the biggest uphill I have faced in a very long time, because when you get sick, honestly, nothing else matters when you are not capable of living your life, the way you used to or doing your work or doing this, doing that, then nothing else matters really. And it has been very challenging, but I went through it and luckily we were able to stabilize my hyperactive thyroid. I was on medication and now my actually thyroid has slowed down to the point that I started gaining weight. I became very tired. It went in the opposite direction instead. And that is very common by the way. So this happens that when you are regulating your, let’s say hyperactive thyroid, that would the medication. You can sometimes make it underactive for some time, but then you, you balance it out by adjusting the medication, et cetera, et cetera. So we are almost there now, ladies almost there, but what happened then in the February, March

A big site, let me tell you, I became vegetable Anna, the Anna who started taking two or three hour afternoon naps that never happens. I never nap in the afternoons. I, I was very tired. I couldn’t operate normally I after lunchtime, forget about any energy for the rest of the day. So I couldn’t even do my work. I would, I would really have to cram in the little work I could do in the mornings. And that’s it. That would be out for the rest of the day. So I had to really slow down with my work and that has caused a lot of obstacles for me and etc. So that has been a big challenge on his own, but it is what it is. And sometimes you have to reflect a little bit on it and see, where are the lessons in what I just went through.

And during this time, especially during the months, when I really have to take time out from work, I really needed to slow down and prioritize my health. I had some really valuable reflections, and they actually grew a lot as a person mentally, spiritually, emotionally. During that time, I think that being a business owner to a brand new company, I started off as a solopreneur. Then I started hiring slowly, but surely. It definitely made me almost reach burnout. And this is very common when you are a business owner the first few years, I don’t think many business owners say that they weren’t close to burnout during the first few years. And even though I was very much aware about this issue, even I went into the trap, it’s just very difficult not to do so when you are kind of creating something from scratch yourself and you see the potential and you see the success that comes, and it’s very hard not to overwork yourself, surely I might also love my work to the point, but I forget to set boundaries sometimes and I just get carried away and all the fun things that I do, or even something things are not always fun to do, but you kind of still get on with it and do it.

You just love your little pet project so much, you know, and I mean, I think to some degree I reached some form of burnout, but I think my brain out manifested as well, a little bit in my, in my disease. I mean, surely I, I do believe that it was COVID that triggered my Graves’ disease because everything just really shows those two, it timestamps everything, you know, time-wise but I also do things that had I not been so incredibly overworked very busy and, you know, working really long days for such a long period of time. That, of course I put my body in the place where disease could easily flourish, if that makes sense. So when I had to slow down because of my work, it made me understand that, okay, how I was living my life prior with those 14 hour work days, 12 hour work days, this cannot continue.

Even if this business is my little baby that I care so much about and want the best for, I have to change things around. And I really need to also practice what I teach when it comes to setting boundaries with yourself, which is something that I feel that sometimes I don’t always follow through myself. So a positive thing that came out of having this horrible disease and this big uphill is that I just put my foot down one day with myself. And I said, you know what? I need to get a team where I’m covered in every single aspect of my business when it runs smoothly for me. When I don’t have to, you know, be the lawyer, the accountant and the IT guy, you know, at the same time, because unfortunately when you set up a business, that’s the reality in the beginning, you have to do many different types of jobs.

You have to carry many roles. You are the one who’s responsible that everything gets done. And if nobody’s covering that area, then you have to do it. I mean, I’m not saying I was actually the lawyer or the accountant, but I’m just using it as a metaphor. You are doing so many different things. And I was also doing a lot of things that I wasn’t really good at doing. So I started building my team a lot in the last six months, and now I have finally reached a point where my team has grown to the size that I need. I have a wonderful team. Shout out to all my team members. And yes, now I am in this, in this really good place where actually I can focus on doing the things in my job that I’m really good at. Specifically, I can now finally just focus on working with creative things, which is creating content, creating, you know, my course, all of those things when, before it was sometimes hard to deliver quality because I also had to sort out this and that and everything.

So for me, this has been a big milestone. So this is a little sneak peek to behind the scenes of Team Anna Bey, because I actually don’t often share with you anything about my business life. And trust me, I could give you so much information and maybe who knows in the future, I will, I have decided not to do so because I want to focus primarily my contents around personal upgrade and transformation and all of those things, instead of now going into like business talk. But I mean, I’m happy to share a few glimpses from here and there, but yes, ladies, I need to really tell you that I’m now celebrating what I call Anna Bey 2.0, basically, because that’s where I am right now. And I’m so happy about it. And well, anyway, I kind of wandered off now, but that’s what I meant when I started talking about that.

Right now, I’m in this trust and the rebirth phase, it’s a really, really big time for me, truly with my work with my personal life. I mean, as an example, end of January, I got married, big, big, you know, thing that happened, even though I got married during a pandemic, but you know, that’s also Anna 2.0, starting. So you see, there are many things then I had as well, of course, some some more personal things. You know, I always work with my personal growth. I always have my therapy session and that always brings me loads of new insights and things that I work on. As an example, I’m going to tell you a specific example that I finally sorted out. I have had a driving license since 2008. I took my driving license when I used to live in Malta. And to be honest with you, I am not sure, you know, I learned it the proper way in Malta because no offense, but there are no highways in Malta.

The test that I did was really silly, you know, on my driving exam, as an example, I failed at parking. Yet she said, okay, don’t worry. You can still get your your driving license, you know. And the, the driving exam, the written one, I remember it was so easy. The weren’t many questions. And I even remember one of the questions was a stop sign and you had four choices of what that sign means. And I mean, it was so easy to get that driving license. So I think that somehow deep inside me, I felt a little bit worried about do I really know driving well, but I still, you know, was driving. And that was driving a lot in my first years of driving. And then I kind of stopped partly because my lifestyle made me stop. I was traveling a lot. I wasn’t somewhere settled where I would have a car and things like that.

And then I started developing these irrational fears around driving. And now, in retrospect, I know where these fears come from. One fear comes from that time when I was 12 years old and I was in the car accident. I was a passenger in the bus and that, and the car drove into the bus exactly where I was sitting because I was sitting in the front. I happen to sit in the front that day. And there was a drunk driver. He came from the opposite lane and he just crashed straight into where I was sitting. Now, it didn’t hurt me too badly. I only got a little injury on my foot, but that was it. I recovered quickly from it, but it definitely traumatized me a bit. And I’ve always been a bit of a bit afraid in traffic since then. So that has contributed me to be a little bit insecure and knowing somehow that, okay, my driving license, I got it so easily.

And then I kind of, you know, stopped driving and ended up developing fears that I didn’t deal with for many years, because I get the question quite often. And how come we don’t see your drive? Do you have a driving license? And that’s the reason to why you haven’t really seen me driving, but I changed that in recent months. I decided that I no longer want these fears to control me. In therapy I also understood where those fears came from and it really made it easy for me to rationalize them, to put a perspective to them to understand that, okay, what I’m thinking, it’s not reality. It’s an intrusive thought that just comes from this place. It’s an aftereffect from that. So that has given me loads of confidence. I also took a bit of driving lessons to, you know, get a bit accustomed to driving again.

And then I just started driving, even when I felt uncomfortable, I just thought about where my fears and then trusted thoughts are coming from, and I let go of them and I just do it. And Voila!, I started driving again and I feel amazing and I feel confident and I feel like I’m a great driver. I have, you know, learned loads about driving since, you know, in Malta, maybe they didn’t give me the best driving education, but I was able to through an instructor here in Switzerland to actually sort those things out. So that’s a good example of some of the things that I have worked on myself internally. Then of course I have some other more personal examples, but I’m not really going to go through those because they’re a little bit too personal. But what I’m trying to say is that if I think right now is a really good time to go through a transformation, to go through a rebirth and to make a comeback.

And I really feel that right now for me, it’s Anna 2.0 I’m really reaching a place in my life where I’m making a comeback. And I started thinking a little bit about, well, what does come back really mean to me? And I actually remembered that comeback means a lot to me. I thrive on a comeback. I love a good comeback. And I remembered that I used to make a comeback sometimes every Monday back in the, in my school days when I was a teenager, because I think I shared the story with you that I used to be a little bit bullied, teased not at all part of the popular kids. I were more, I was more the nerdy one. And so one day I decided to change that. So that was kinda my first trust mediation that I did my first personal upgrade and also a comeback.

But that didn’t happen overnight. Surely I came back from a summer school break. I made a comeback. I upgraded myself a bit, but sometimes I felt that in order to keep this transformation going and to reinforce this new me, yeah. I had to continuously keep making small comebacks. And I used to enjoy having Mondays for that because you know, you haven’t seen your classmates all weekend, maybe during the weekends, you bought something new for yourself or your mom took your shopping, or you discovered some new makeup, or I don’t know, in your hairstyle that you’re doing. And then on Monday, you’re doing this comeback when you’re showing everyone at school, how cool you are, you know, and I used to have many like that. And that’s how I used to reinforce my own transformation and the kind of the, Anna 2.0 back then. And I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that a comeback doesn’t have to be sometimes a big thing and it’s actually fairly healthier and the fun to do small comebacks.

Whenever you need to just reinforce yourself with new energy or reinforce your personal brand to the other people or to your surroundings, a comeback is a really good tool to use in your own transformation. But I also want you to see how the power of the comeback can be also used as a tool to gather your strength, to gather your energy and to give you hope that it’s not game over. Because as you saw, I went through some hardships in the last, well, how long have I had this disease now? Yeah, almost six months. And I really waited for the light in the tunnel. And I decided for myself that I was going to make a comeback. As soon as the light was really there shining bright me. And I stuck to that promise to myself. I really worked my way through that because I could have just continued being a vegetable and fallen into a depression on top of it.

And to just kind of victimize myself and given up and stop fighting. Right. But no, I have been trying to do a small comebacks here and there, but of course it was a little bit challenging sometimes. And some of them were failed attempts because I just couldn’t. But I decided for myself that when the light shines bright enough, there is no going back. Then, then I’m making a comeback and I’m staying. I come back forever. I think many of us are going through difficult things right now. You know, that I’m very much astrologically in tune and without going into the kind of nitty gritty of astrology, but there has been a lot going on astrologically for many people, I’ve even seen it in my own circle. In my own family, everything, all kinds of big things happening. Negative things, challenges, obstacles, heavy things, very heavy things.

February, March have not been easy. Astrologically. Please do leave a comment to me on my Instagram account Anna Bey podcast under the latest image that symbolizes this episode, please share with me, can you relate to this? Have you noticed that there has been extra hardship going around during February and March, 2021? I’m really curious to know, because I have noticed that I’m telling you everything from acquaintances to family members, to friends to the list can go on where I have seen all kinds of things happening. And of course, myself, I also have through our hardship, but it was very interesting because my astrologists did tell me that there was going to be things going on planetary wise, which will contribute to these negative influences. And I certainly felt it. My astrologist also had unfortunately predicted that I was going to be drained until April 5th. She did tell me this many, many months ago.

I think she already told me and the last year, but I kind of didn’t want to believe her. And one thing, you also have to understand what the astrology that sometimes when you get a prediction, you never really know the full scale of it. If my astrologist tells me I will be tired then, well, maybe I will be a little bit tired for a week. I didn’t know that when she said I was going to be tired, I would literally have to stop working. I would literally not be operating. I would literally be laying like a vegetable on my sofa only have energy to watch series all day long, but that would be my new reality. And that’s a very different picture from who I am. I almost never watched TV or series. I don’t even like it to that degree that I would want to do it.

I’m also not a couch potato, but this illness made me turn into one. And no matter how hard I try to fight it, I really couldn’t. It just took over me to the point that I had to, to ride this wave out until I started seeing the light in the tunnel. And that’s the thing, ladies, sometimes it’s just a phase. Sometimes it’s just a cycle. Sometimes if you believe in astrology, it’s just astrological, a temporary planetary influence. And that’s also another thing that I, I was thinking a lot about during this, well, illness, I guess, is that life has this kind of wheel of fortune and the wheel of fortune, the spins. Sometimes we are at our peak doesn’t mean we’re going to be at our peak forever. After the peak, maybe we’ll come a downward spiral when we might be suffering or things might not be going so well for us.

And then we recover from it. And then we started go rising again to the peak. You see, it’s like the wheel of fortune. It goes around, up, down the middle, you see. And that’s how life is. You’re not always going to be on your own. You’re not always going to be in your misery. Life is going to give you changes. And it’s very important to think about that, especially when you’re going through hardship. The hardship is not there forever. The hardship certainly might be there for a while or not. It might be for a very short time. You don’t know, you don’t know what’s around the corner, but we have to embrace it. And we have to see what we can learn from it. And when we learn from it, when we grow from it, I find that that’s usually when the hardship comes to its full circle, when it comes to an end and when the light in the tunnel comes. And sometimes we just have to go through it.

I always look at hardship as well. You know, I’m not a big fan of flying, certainly not when we hit turbulence. And I started to only see life a little bit, a bit, a little bit like flying. Sometimes you hit turbulence. You don’t know how long the turbulence is going to last for, or how intense it’s going to be, or if it’s going to intensify or if it’s just going to smooth out in the next 30 seconds, but you still need to fasten your seatbelt and just relax and the ride it out. And that’s what I personally have to work with a lot because I tend to get very fearful during turbulence. And sometimes I can even panic a bit, but I’m focusing on the relaxing when turbulence starts, because that’s the best way of going through it to embrace it, to ride it out, to try and focus your mind somehow on something more productive than making the turbulence worse.

Instead of focusing on thoughts like, oh, we’re crashing, we’re crashing, we’re crashing. You know, you focus on some positive things, maybe a good memory that you have, maybe you rationalize with yourself and think proactively about the situation rather than going into panic and thinking that life is now over. Do you see what I mean? When I’m using the turbulence as a metaphor, that’s hardship in life. That’s how I see hardship in life comes. And loving that you all of you really have to know and really tell yourself whenever you go through these times is that there will be an end to this. Not meaning it will be an end when your life ends. No, there will be an end to this cycle. It’s just a cycle. It’s just a phase and phases end. Everything always ends. Your job is to reach that end healthy, alive, and as strong as you possibly can, but we all can do it.

And we all do it. Human beings are incredibly strong mentally. We can actually conquer absolutely any challenge I’ve noticed. We adapt nd if we don’t panic during that turbulence, we can go through any, any obstacles, any, any trauma, any horrible things that cross our path. So I wanted to share that with you, who knows what kind of comeback you need to do. Maybe you need to come back after a pandemic and everything that pandemic gave you, maybe all the lemons that pandemic gave you. Maybe you need to make a comeback after a bad relationship or after a crisis or after a trauma, but you can do it and use this energy that’s currently going on right now in life with the rebirth with the transmission, really utilize this energy because this energy is incredibly powerful. I’m feeling it so much myself. And I’m sure you can feel it too. If you just look around.

So I wanted to take a big breath house because taking that big breath out symbolizes for me, leaving the old, behind, and starting the new chapter, which I am officially doing right now for myself, spiritually, emotionally as well. I have now new energy and I’m very happy to be back. There is so much I have in the pipeline for you ladies. I’m so, so, so excited because fun times are coming now. I think that I’m going upwards now on the wheel of fortune, after having been dragged on the bottom now for a long time with my Graves’ disease, but here I am, I have loads of energy. Now I’m so happy to be back and I want to, you know, share whatever I can share with you because it means the world to me. And I enjoy this process so much. So I hope that this podcast episode has given you some new ideas.

Maybe it has planted some seeds in you, and maybe it has given you some energy to do a rebirth, to do a comeback and to keep on going. Even though times have been tough. I think for majority of us before I am this podcast, I do want to do a little promo for my new quiz. So ladies, I have actually worked on this new networking quiz where we define your networking type. So this is really interesting because one of the things that I’ve noticed that socializing and networking is key for whatever type of success you want in life. I’ve always spoken about how your network is your net worth, right? However, if we’re going to improve our social skills, we first need to understand what are our issues. And actually that can be often, easily understood when we categorize our socializing style in different groups.

And that’s exactly what this networking quiz is going to help you identify, what is your networking type and how can you improve it? So visit networkingtype.com to do this quiz. It’s absolutely free, and I hope you will enjoy it because it’s a really good one. And also a little last note. So I have changed username on Instagram. So before I went under at school of affluence, now I go under at AnnaBey. So it’s very simple, very easy to find me. My podcast username is @AnnaBeyPodcast on Instagram and that’s the official discussion board for after each episode. So I do welcome you there after this episode to chat. And maybe you can share your opinions about what you heard in today’s episode. I definitely want to hear back from you because you ladies make my work meaningful and you also add so much value to the community. So please head over there. And ladies, again, a big welcome back to Season 2. And from now on, there will be an episode every week. So stay tuned for next Wednesday. When the new episode will be out, I will talk to you then. Bye for now.

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