NATALIE: Welcome to Episode 292 of the Flying Free Podcast. This is another episode where you get to listen in on a conversation I had with the women in my Flying Higher program. We get together every other Sunday morning, and one of our discussions recently was on the topic of coaching and how listening to other people get coached as well as getting coached yourself has moved the dial in their lives.
If you have ever wondered what coaching is like inside of the Flying Free or Flying Higher programs, today you’re going to get the skinny on it straight from the hearts and minds of women who have been changed because of weekly coaching. And I’m not talking about coaching that costs you $75 or $100 or $150 an hour. I’m talking about something very different and much more accessible. So let’s dive in.
NATALIE: We’re going to transition now into the part of this where we talk about coaching. And I was thinking about how much it costs last night because a lot of times I’ll get survivors that are interested in coming into Flying Free and they’ll say, “I really would like to join, but it costs so much money.”
And I agree. I was thinking about that and I thought, “$29 a month, that could be a lot of money for some people.” So I get it. But I got to thinking, how much money or how expensive something is really depends on what you’re buying. And let me explain.
I used to pay a counselor. She was called a “pastoral counselor.” I have no idea what that means. I found out later that she’s not licensed or anything, but I paid her $150 an hour. And I did the math and that comes down to $25 for every ten minutes of her time. And that means that I was paying $25 for someone else to listen to me tell her what new horrors I had experienced the week before, and then she would validate me and she would empathize with me and then I would go home.
So when we think about things that cost a lot of money, ten minutes of someone’s time to listen, which costs $25, that is expensive. $25 is a lot of money for that in my book. So what you get for your $25 is very little. And was it moving the dial in my life? Was it worth that $25 for those ten minutes that I was purchasing to change my life, to get me moving forward? Was I getting unstuck? Was I learning new things?
So after a year of seeing her for an hour every other week, because I couldn’t afford to go every single week, I had spent $3,600 and I was still in the same place that I had been a year before. The only difference is that I had $3,600 less in my bank account.
So what I want you guys to do is share with the audience what will they get for $29 if they join Flying Free. So we’ve got ten minutes of someone’s time listening for $25—I realize $29 is $4 more, but it’s about the same price—what will they get if they join Flying Free for $29 each month? Tell them. I want you guys to tell them, not me. They’re sick of hearing from me. I want you guys who have actually experienced it to tell them what you’ve gotten.
FH MEMBER: I’ll go ahead and share because I actually still go to counseling and my counseling is 100% covered by insurance. So for me, my counseling is free and I still feel like Flying Higher coaching helps me more than my counseling sessions do.
NATALIE: Why?
FH MEMBER: Number one, because you’ve been there exactly where I’m at and you understand far more in-depth what I’m going through than my counselor does. My counselor, as good as he is and things he’s picked up on, when I describe what’s happening in the church, it’s a foreign world for him. He is just not aware of it.
And so I feel the coaching is so valuable because sometimes we don’t even have to tell our whole story and you know exactly what’s going on in our homes. And so that alone, I think you give better advice because you have better insight, whether it’s you or Stacey or Barb, because I’ve had coaching from all three. And initially, I was a little leery because I didn’t really know Stacey and Barb the first times they coached me. And I was so familiar with you. I was like, “No, I want Natalie.” But to see their different styles and their different wisdom, now, anytime I need coaching, I’m like, “I wonder who’s going to be the coach today because I bet it’ll be a perfect fit.”
And so that is one reason. And I would say that’s probably the main one is that you’ve been there. And also just listening to other people being coached. I think I’ve gained as much, if not more, by listening to the coaching of other women, and that’s not something you get in counseling.
NATALIE: Let’s talk about that a little bit because I think there are a lot of questions for people who have never experienced that or have no idea what that even means. If we’ve never experienced it, it can be very confusing. Like, “What’s group coaching?” And I’ve had people, this is very rare, but once in a while we’ll get someone who will join and they’ll be like, “Okay, let’s set up my weekly coaching call,” and they’ll think that’s what group coaching is. And then I have to explain to them.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could all for $29 get coached every week? That’d be so amazing. Obviously we can’t, but you are getting coached every week. It’s just that it’s not you in the hot seat. So tell them what that experience is like and why it’s just as valid as if you’re in the hot seat.
FH MEMBER: Well, I have to say that you have all the coaching calls from the past, all of that wisdom in women who have gone through similar situations as we are going through. So it’s just so important to hear other people get coached, to know that you’re not alone. The golden nugget of that experience is beyond words, because when you’re going through this, as women of faith, we a lot of times lose a lot of our church, we lose our families, and all this other stuff. And this has been my home, my girls, my group.
And just listening to somebody else get coached, I’ve been brought to tears listening to them and listening to you and all the other coaches within the program take them through that journey. A lot of times I’m like, “Score, I’m going through the same thing.” So I can listen to that individual get coached and be right alongside of her being coached because that’s what’s happening in my universe at that time or has happened. Or I’m going through it and I can go, “Oh, Natalie coached or the other coaches coached on that before. I’m going to go back and listen to that,” and then you have that at your fingertips whenever you want.
When you’re paying somebody to coach you, you’re paying for the hour, and life coaches can cost anywhere from $100 to $200 per hour. So you have all those back coaching sessions when you’re part of Flying Higher, Flying Free, to listen in on continually. So if you just need to binge-listen to coaching the entire month for $29, you’re going to get hours of coaching, whether it’s you personally or not, which is amazing.
NATALIE: Tell them how they can listen. How do they get to listen to hours and hours of coaching if they want to?
FH MEMBER: It’s in the Flying Free and Flying Higher programs. Within all of that you’ve offered in there, along with the coursework, stories of people’s transformations from going through hell, for the lack of better terms, to flying free, it’s just beautiful, and all these coaching calls are right there. All you have to do is click. And I just put my earbuds in and I go and do laundry or whatever, and I’m listening to coaching.
Sometimes they stop me and I just cry along with these women, and I’ve made friendships through here. I couldn’t have had friendships like this anywhere else, because the women in this program get what we’re going through, they see us, we see each other, we have this connection, this bond that we can’t have with anybody else. And that’s why this support group is so amazing. If nothing else, I mean, the coaching is wonderful, but the friendships you get within here are just beautiful. And I’ve flown across the United States to be with some of these beautiful ladies and just fellowshipped, and it’s beyond words.
NATALIE: So do you like to listen to coaching on the private podcast or do you usually use the membership site? Different people do different things. I’m just curious.
FH MEMBER: I use the private podcast just because I’m usually doing it in my car. I travel a lot and it’s just easier on my phone to click on the podcast through my iPhone and just have my earbuds in while I am doing the stuff through the house and it’s just easier than on my computer. So most of the time I’m listening, I’m not seeing faces or anything else. But I’m like, “Oh, I recognize that voice.” So then I’ll go sometimes on the site and click on that episode. “Oh, I know her.”
FH MEMBER: When we were talking about an earlier coursework thing that was talking about how our brains want to stay on a superhighway of our old thoughts and our old patterns of beliefs, I feel like the more we sit and listen to other women it reconfirms all of those new neural pathways that my brain is starting to make. So it’s reinforcing it every week instead of waiting once a month to go to counseling. And I also listen on the private podcast because I travel too for work. But that’s what I wanted to say. The superhighway of old thoughts is slowly being replaced by a new, lovely path of beautiful new ways of thinking.
NATALIE: Yeah, that’s a really, really good point because our brain tends to go back to the old ways of thinking. But if we are constantly being updated on a regular basis… Which can be another difference between this kind of coaching or this kind of program and therapy. This is more updating and changing and moving forward. Therapy is more examining things in the past that are holding you back. Whereas this is you’re literally changing those neural synapses that are happening in your brain. And the more that you expose yourself to those new ideas, the more those new neural pathways will start to develop.
It’s good to immerse yourself in reading books like that, listening to other podcasts like that, but then also listening to people just like you getting coached on the exact… We’re talking about really visceral, practical things that are going on in your lives that other people are like, “That’s exactly what’s going on in my life. I need a new way of thinking about that because I’m just looping, looping, looping.” You can hear someone else get unstuck and then it helps your brain go, “Oh, well, maybe I could think differently about that too.”
FH MEMBER: I am a podcast junkie. I like listening to podcasts. I listen to lots of podcasts and the coaching podcast that shows up once a week is one of my favorite things. I’m aware of when coaching is, and it usually pops up in the private podcast app, sometimes just a few hours later. It’s like, “Oh, I missed that today. Today was the day, and here it is,” and it’s in my private podcast app.
And it really is a foundational part of my week, and in fact, a couple of weeks ago, the rarest thing of all happened and nobody signed up for coaching. And I had to send an email to support and say, “What’s wrong with my podcast app? There was no coaching this week,” and apparently nobody signed up. So that’s a once-in-a-blue-moon thing because a lot of times there are ten people who sign up and only three or whatever… We only get an hour and a half. But we get an hour and a half of coaching each week that we get to listen to.
And the other thing I wanted to add is that I also feel like there’s almost 24-hour-a-day coaching available on the forum because the private forum that we have is Flying Free and Flying Higher members are always there, and there’s a special section on there called “Ask a Coach.”
And occasionally, even though I’ve been divorced for a few years, I still have relationship issues. And of course because I’m still making those new neural pathways and learning things and getting stuck sometimes in the same thing. So I find it very comforting that there’s a coach there and I can post something in the morning California time. And almost always a few hours later, one of the coaches will have answered and will have something encouraging or thought-provoking and mostly just empathetic.
And also just a note about counseling. I finally found a counselor who was with my insurance and I had to fire her. And that was really hard because she was lovely, but I felt like we were talking a lot about her. It was just the strangest thing. So anyway, no, that’s not really relevant here, but I’ve gotten a lot more from coaching and continue to and look forward to it every week than my failed attempt at trying to find a counselor.
NATALIE: I’m sorry that that happened with your counselor. I will say, I’ve heard people say that sometimes it takes three and four and five times trying out new counselors before you find one that really is a good fit for you. So unfortunately that’s the case.
But also I’m really glad that you brought up the forum coaching because if people come in there and ask questions, we will always answer. Either other people will answer your questions… There is so much collective wisdom in that forum. I cannot believe it. And I feel like it grows every year, but there is a special spot where you can ask a coach a question and those coaches are very invested in being involved with you guys.
I know for me, when I answer a question in the “Ask a Coach” spot, which you can ask questions 24/7, as long as you remember, I want to keep going. I’ll usually give them some ideas and then ask them another question. And those who will participate with me and will go back and forth with me, we can have a very, very long thread if they want to. I will keep going with you usually until the member, they say something that sort of seems like it’s a closure kind of a thing, and I can tell they’re done, then we’ll be done. But we are there to be persistently helping you to get unsnagged from the things that are keeping you stuck.
So you’re right. I’m glad you brought that resource up because there is more than one way of getting coaching other than just the once-a-week volunteer. In fact, I will say, if someone comes in as a new member and you volunteer for coaching and you get coached, I’ll coach you again, but only if the following weeks there’s nobody else that’s brand new that’s asking for coaching.
But I always try to first coach people who are newer, or maybe they’re not new, but they’ve never asked for coaching before, and we keep track of all that in a spreadsheet, and I’ll coach those people first, and then I’ll get to people who’ve already been coached if we have some time. So what happened a few weeks ago with nobody asking for coaching, that really was a very strange anomaly. And since then, now we’ve had lots of people ask for coaching. I think it got people going, “Oh, I guess there is room for me to ask for coaching. Maybe I could actually get coached if I asked.” So that was good.
FH MEMBER: So when I joined in November of ‘22, I was still married. We were in the process of moving across the country, and the only thing that I did for the first couple of months was listen to the private member podcast of the coaching recordings because it was on my phone, I could take it with me, it was something where it was easy to do and easy to listen to if I was on a walk or in the car or someplace like that.
And so before even getting into any of the content, just being able to have that and to hear how one, I wasn’t alone, that there were a lot of other women in the same position and in the same boat, was really helpful and really encouraging to see that it wasn’t just me and it wasn’t just my marriage.
So it was really encouraging to know that there was hope, but also it was just less shameful and there were just less internal issues that I had because of that. And so it was a really easy way to get started in the program. And then I also noticed that there were things that might get coached on that didn’t seem necessarily applicable to me at the time but then were going to happen eventually.
And so one of the common themes that comes up I see with coaching and within the forum is kind of this concept of “My ex-husband now wants to reconcile. We’ve been divorced for six months or a year, or maybe we’re separated, and now he claims to have changed, and he’s saying all the things that I’ve wanted him to say. It’s what I’ve wanted, it’s what I’ve dreamed of for months if not years, and how do I know if this is real? How do I know if this is true?” And every week almost it seems like there’s one of us who is saying that.
And so at the time, I didn’t realize that that had already happened to me. But then after getting divorced, six, seven months later, my ex came back to me and was like, “Is there any chance that you would consider reconciling with me?” And it caught me off guard, and my first gut instinct was “No.” And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, “Oh, yeah, these are just the same patterns playing out with these guys,” where, I think part of what makes coaching so special within this group is we are often going through such similar journeys, and there might be slight differences, but the path and how we typically respond and how we internalize things, it’s often the same. Just like with the men, they’re often showing up in a similar way, they’re often responding in a similar way.
And so to also know that “Oh, no, no, no—I’ve heard way too many stories,” and even hearing of women who have maybe even left Flying Free and tried to reconcile, tried to go back or thought like this was the real deal, end up coming back later and they’re like, “Nope, it was all for show. He did a really good job of wearing that mask.” So I think even being able to kind of see what might be ahead or what might come up later, even if it’s not totally something I’m conscious of, it’s kind of in the back of my mind now. It’s like in that subconscious part where I can pull from it later.
NATALIE: Yeah, that is such a good point. I remember when my ex-husband would do those tactics. It’s like the cycle kept going even after we were separated and I would still get pulled in. If I had watched other people go through it, that wouldn’t have thrown me for so much of a loop. I would have been more prepared mentally and emotionally for that to happen, and I think it would have saved me so much time and emotional agony of just wondering, “Maybe I am the problem. Maybe I’m not being forgiving. I’m just constantly introspecting on my own, maybe blocking any potential getting together again.” I would have not gone there in my brain.
And you would not believe how many people leave Flying Free and then come back again. It’s crazy. I feel bad. I want to say. “Oh, don’t go. You’re just going to come back again later.” But you have to let people be on their own journey, and for most of us, we really have to see it for ourselves. We can’t take other people’s word for it. It’s good to see those patterns, but then also we have to kind of have that experientially happen with us too a few times before we go, “Okay, now I know for sure.” Then we can make a decision to be done. You know, “I’ve really given this everything that I could possibly give and I can’t look away from this massive amount of evidence anymore.”
FH MEMBER: Right. And you kind of stop hoping, “Well, maybe my husband’s the one who’s going to be one of the 1% or one of the 2% that does change,” right? I think there’s so much hope that has to die before we can really get out of denial and accept the reality of what’s happening.
NATALIE: Yeah. I just want to say something about that word “hope,” too. Because hope is a powerful, powerful tool. And I think it should be a tool in all of our toolboxes, but we have to use it on the right thing. It’s kind of like using a screwdriver to try to knock a nail into the wood. That’s not going to work, but the screwdriver is really effective at screwing things into the wood.
So hoping that rainbow elephants, that we can see them floating through our yards and turn them into cotton candy, that is a waste of time. Hoping that we can internally do transformational work and change the course of our lives or hoping that God has an amazing plan that’s so much bigger than our life on earth and so much bigger than us and that we get to be part of it, that kind of hope that the Bible talks about, that’s the hope that we want to have. And all of us, we are so good at hope, you guys. We’re so good at it already. We know how to use that screwdriver. We just need to use it on the right thing, and then everything changes.
FH MEMBER: I had been divorced once from my abusive spouse. We were married four years and I didn’t know what it was. And there was no program like this, Natalie. How you figured it out is a total beautiful miracle in and of itself. Because I did go to the church, I was shamed back in, and after four years, I did remarry my abuser and thought, “This was my lot in life,” and that’s when I found you. So this has been pivotal in helping me understand what is going on.
But I was just saying about the forum, coaching within the forum itself, if you can’t get live coaching, you have coached me through so much. And when I go into the forum, if I’m still struggling with that, because you know, we’re in that circle, sometimes they come back up, I can literally put in my search and find that thread and go back and read what you coached me on and go, “There it is. There’s that pearl, I just needed to read that again,” because then it’s personal, it’s about me, it’s about my specific situation, so that’s another plus about this program. You have all those resources on the forum itself too, and all these beautiful ladies that we just can all talk and help one another.
NATALIE: Yeah, I will add to that, that search bar for your own history is really good. Also, we do have a coaching directory now, so people can go into the forum and there’s a special place where you can search for topics that have been coached on in the past, and you can search back through the years and you can actually find a topic that you’re dealing with and get a direct link to that particular coaching session and listen to coaching on that topic if you want to. So you didn’t have to wade through a million coaching calls or binge-listen to them, although some people enjoy doing that. You could just go directly to issues that you’re dealing with. And that’s something that we just implemented about a year ago that I think has been helpful for people.
FH MEMBER: One thing I think about hope is that when we’re in our situations, we are spending all of our energy trying to help someone else grow, trying to help someone else believe us when we know exactly what’s going on. So I feel like hope kind of grows in this program because we finally realize that our journey in life is actually about ourselves. That’s not in a selfish way. It’s just that we are here on this earth to actually use our life to the best we can to keep growing, to keep bettering ourselves. And as we do that, we can actually be a light for our children and others to grow. But I think counseling, it was always dredging up the history and the unfixables.
So the one thing I want to say about listening to coaching, I do it a lot. I work from home and literally I cry with people. Sometimes I’m like, “Oh, shut up,” then I just turn it off because I’m like, “I can’t handle that. I’m triggered right now.” The one thing I want to say is that when you start feeling all these feelings and you have to deal with the entirety of what is going on inside you, it is overwhelming, but it’s like peeling the layers of an onion where you measure it in months or years where you go, “Oh, I am not where I was. That doesn’t trigger me anymore. I actually am doing that now.”
And to get ready for this, I rewatched my coaching calls. I dug through and found them and it was surprising to find where I’ve grown and where I’m still stuck, what I still loop on. I mean, that’s just my personality or my anxiety or whatever. I just think it’s really good, but it’s about our growth. And I think the church was always about fixing a marriage that wasn’t… I can say I was married for thirty-three years. I was never covenanted to. I was never given a promise of love and faithfulness. So they were trying to fix it by making me do things that were against what was inside. And so just to hear for the first time in your program the word “cognitive dissonance,” that this doesn’t match up. It was like, “Oh my goodness, that brought such peace.”
NATALIE: This is good. I think this gives people a good idea of what coaching is and how it’s impacted your life. Does anyone want to say anything about $29?
FH MEMBER: I know I might be one of the most financially strapped people in here. I have really, really struggled. I have a full-time job and it’s still not enough. And every year that membership comes around and I know there’s not a price I can put on my sanity. And so that money gets set aside and I will forgo buying other things for that. Like I said, I do the yearly, I don’t do the monthly, but if I had to do the monthly, it would still probably be the best thing that I could buy that month. I think I’m two or three years in the program and every time I get in a financial struggle and I look at my finances and what I can cut, this program is never on that list of what can be cut.
NATALIE: To that point, I just want to say that’s why I don’t raise the cost. I’ve had business managers and people in the business world tell me that my business model is not good, it’s not sustainable, “You’re selling yourself short,” blah, blah, blah. I don’t care. First of all, I think my business model is fine. I don’t think I’m selling myself short at all, and this is working. But secondly, $29 a month or $290 a year is enough money that people who have a lot of money, it’s not really going to make a dent in their wallet, but it’s something that will at least tell them, “Okay, I’ve spent something on this so I need to do something with it. Even if it’s just listening to the coaching once a week on the private podcast, when it pops up all by itself in my private podcast app.” That is the easiest way to just access it.
But also for people who are strapped, because there are a lot of people where it is a sacrifice to actually be here, but hopefully, and I think you just said that it was, it’s worth it. It’s not where you get to the end of your year and go, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I threw my money away on that. I did not get what I paid for.” I hope that every person that comes in feels like they got what they paid for and a million times more than that.
You’re not paying for a program—you’re paying for your future self. You’re paying so that your future self, five years from now, ten years from now, can look back and say, “That experience and those people that I rubbed shoulders with during that time period changed my life, and I will never be the same because of that.” That’s what we’re talking about here.
FH MEMBER: Yeah, I just wanted to say that the price is so fair with what you get compared to any other program out there. And I think the spirit behind the program is also so different because I like to listen to other coaching podcasts occasionally, and it feels like some of the ways that they try to get you to sign up is by saying, “It’s only $200 a month—look at all you get or everything that you get,” and it’s like almost like a guilt thing. “You’re not going to get to where you need to go unless you’re willing to invest in yourself,” and I feel like the spirit of this is just the opposite thing, that you’ve tried so hard to keep it accessible as much as you can possibly can.
And I think even that you have a way that people can try to get help from other people secretly or something. There’s something in there about if someone can pay for you if you’re worried about your credit card or your bad husband trying to see what’s going on. So I just think that you could charge $200 a month for this. There are people out there who do that. But the fact that you don’t just shows, I think, the spirit of your heart and how important this community is.
NATALIE: Thank you. I’ll just address what you just brought up just in case anyone’s listening and needs that extra help. The demographic that’s in this group, it’s very different from someone who’s selling a coaching program to business owners or something like that. People need to be safe.
And so if the reason that you haven’t joined is because you’re afraid your credit card will show up, which it will—the payment will show up on your credit card—or if you just don’t have the money for it, we do have a way where someone else can purchase… It’s only for the annual, but someone else can purchase a code for you. What they do is they literally purchase a code and then you take the code and then you’re the one who registers. So it’s all in your name, but you’re registering with a code. And then your membership is free.
Now, you can pay that other person under the table, the person who’s buying a code with their credit card, by paying them with cash or however you are paying them with babysitting or however you want to pay them. And maybe they just want to buy it for you. Maybe they want to sponsor you for a year. Just have them reach out to us at communitysupport@flyingfreenow.com. And we can help them out with that. Or natalie@flyingfreenow.com—-either email will work.
The only caveat to that is because I have had people come back and say, “Well, I do have to enter my credit card when I’m registering even though I can use a code and get it free.” So nothing will be charged on your credit card, but you do have to enter it only because the system wants to see that there’s that… I don’t know why they want to see a credit card, but what we do is we go in and we remove that card. Once you’ve registered, we go in and remove the card from your file so that it’s not on there so that you can’t accidentally be charged a year later on your card.
FH MEMBER: So my initial thought was, “This is so inexpensive,” when I see the price, and I’ve been a part of memberships that were anywhere from $70 to $300 a month. I don’t think I knew the price when I first had put my application in. So when I saw that it was $29 a month, that was my thought was, “Oh my gosh, this is so affordable. I can 100% do that.”
NATALIE: Did it ever cross your mind, like, “Is this some kind of hokey whatever because it’s only $29?” Did that cross your mind or did you still think it would be valuable?
FH MEMBER: No, it didn’t. I was just thinking like, “What a steal. This is amazing. I get all of this for $29?” Because I was also doing private therapy sessions with a counselor and she was part of my insurance, but it was still a $30 copay. And so it’s like, I could have a whole month’s worth of help and support, or I would have a one-hour session that really didn’t do a whole lot in my opinion. It was me just kind of sharing, explaining what was going on, but not really getting the support that I was really looking for.
But the way I like to think about it is trade-offs. So if this is something where $29 a month does feel like a stretch, then I’d be thinking about, “Okay, what can I cut back on?” Because two Audible credits is going to be about $30. Going to Starbucks three times, there’s $30. Going out to eat—even if my son and I go out to eat at a relatively inexpensive place, almost $30. Or even fast food, I don’t know why, but we’ll do Chick-fil-A and for whatever reason, it’s at least $20.
So just starting to think about, “Okay, what are those sacrifices I’m willing to make?” I started thinking about, “What am I buying at Target? Can I swap out and go for the generic brand?” And I guarantee if you start looking for little places where you can find $3 here, $3 there, a couple dollars over there, then it all will add up.
And it’s just that intentional, like, this is important, this is worth it because ultimately, it’s going to save you so much time, money, energy, and bandwidth, your health. It has such a huge impact on your whole life. It’s one of those things of like, you can’t afford not to do this. You can’t afford not to join. If you are in this place where you are feeling confused or uncertain or like you don’t know what to do next, this is the exact next place because you will know 100%—I think you say give it a year—I think within three to six months you will know 100% what you need to do, even if you’re not ready to take action on it yet. You’ll have that confirmation.
NATALIE: Yeah, I agree. I get a lot of feedback even just one month out where people will come back and be like, “I can’t believe how differently I’m thinking even just after being in this thing for a month.” Those are some good ideas, and I’m sure that’s how you’re doing it. Just like little bits and pieces here and there, pulling it together.
FH MEMBER: When you were talking about the business model, I almost feel like when you started this, it wasn’t for the purpose of, down the road, having a huge business, and it never felt like that.
NATALIE: It wasn’t.
FH MEMBER: I just never felt like that was what your purpose was in this, and yes, talking to people about this model and is it sustainable—if the purpose is not for this to be sustainable, then it’s okay, it’ll be fine because it will keep doing the ministry that it’s supposed to do.
And so I know that I got divorced at the perfect time because I found you, and I don’t know that I would have been able to get through it. I was doing counseling for $140 a month and I quit because getting on the forum and listening to all of the coaching and the folks who know what they’re talking about and just talking with each other, that was so helpful because we know where we fit, and she had no clue. She had to read books about narcissism. And she’s a great lady. She just hadn’t lived it. So it’s okay. I think if the Lord wants this to continue, then it will. Who cares about business models, you know?
NATALIE: Yeah. I had to give my counselor books too because she didn’t really know anything that I was going through either. So when I started this—just a tiny little history—when I started this, I was actually doing a soap business. That was how I was bringing in income, and that’s the only way that I was able to get divorced with nine kids behind me. I knew that I could financially make it on my soap business, but it was going to be barely.
Well, then I met Tom during the course of my divorce, and then that kind of changed everything. And actually marrying him enabled me… I’d started this thing, but it was generating enough money to pay for the apps and all the things that I was using to actually deliver the program, but not enough money to actually do anything, to give me any money at all. So I married Tom, I sold the business, and we floated on that money, and I kept my fingers crossed and hoped that more people would join Flying Free so that by the time I was done floating on the money that I got from the sale of my business, that this business would provide an income.
And yes, God just brought women in, sadly. Part of me was like, “Well, I’m glad that people are joining because I can help them, but also it’s honestly tragic that there are so many people that need a program like this.” So I’m hoping that one day, probably not ‘till I’m long gone, that something like this won’t even be necessary because it’ll just have permeated our world that we just don’t treat women like this. And that if you do, you don’t get to stay married to them, because women just don’t want to be around people who are mistreating them like that.
FH MEMBER: Hey, so I wanted to say a couple of things. One is that although our experience is very universal to us, it’s also kind of rare in the outside world, so we’ve had a very niche experience among us. And that’s a big reason why I have kept my membership for numerous years just because this is a safe place where I’m kind of grounded and I can have a kind of a reality check.
Another thing I wanted to point out was with the coaching, when we’re going through these things, we’re kind of reacting all the time—we’re just like a ping pong ball being bounced from this event to that event. And then through the coaching, you really kind of slow it down and stop and say, “Actually, there is more than one way you can react to this.”
There’s always that moment when I’m in the coaching and the person’s like, “Ahh!” and you’re like, “But why is that a problem?” or something that they’re totally not expecting to hear. And it just kind of stops them in their tracks and they’re like… I love the one about “Why shouldn’t he act like that? He’s a duck. He’s always been a duck.”
It kind of makes you stop and start to look at the fact that… I mean, you feel like you don’t have any options. You feel like you don’t have any choices when you’re going through this and then it’s like, “Well, wait, actually, no, I do. I mean, they may be horrible choices, but there are choices,” and just kind of opening that up. So it is a big deal to do that, and I’ll probably keep my membership forever because I think it’s valuable for me to be here, so I just wanted to mention those things.
NATALIE: I will just say too, because I don’t think we really said this at the beginning, but the people that we’re talking to in this particular interview are all people who are divorced. All these women are divorced. So most of them have been through Flying Free. A lot of you guys walked through your divorce with us. And then we have kind of built up a community of women where we know each other by our first names. We get together once a year. Well, now this year it’s going to be virtual, but we have gotten together in person, which has been fun.
And we’re meeting on Sunday morning. This is Sunday morning where we’re having this discussion. A lot of us have either been excommunicated or our churches have really marginalized us and mistreated us and so we don’t really go to church anymore. And this is kind of our time to have Christian fellowship with people who are thinking about the same things and learning new things and excited about exploring new ideas, even if they feel scary at first.
It’s not like we all buy into the same ideas. I feel like all of us can have different ideas about stuff, and we’re all okay with that. We all feel safe to express ourselves here and not feel like we’re going to be shamed or told that we’re wrong if we think that way.
And I wish that the whole world could be like that. I wish that churches could be like that, because wouldn’t it be great if we could go to a church that was offering this? I think that would be beautiful. And there probably are churches out there like that. I’m sure there are listeners going, “Oh, my church is exactly like that.” Then be so grateful that your church is like that. You have found a gem. And I hope that more churches will transition and be more like that.
But anyway, I appreciate you sharing that. And just so that everyone knows that people here are already divorced. They’re not dealing… Well, you are dealing with your exes, some of you, but for the most part, you’re flying free now and flying higher. And that’s why we call our group Flying Higher. So if you’re listening and you are already divorced and you’d want to join us for these Sunday morning discussions as well as Tuesday evening discussions and coaching and all of that, you can join Flying Higher or just learn more about it by going to joinflyinghigher.com.
But if you’re not divorced yet, then I recommend Flying…. Well, we can’t let you be in Flying Higher unless you’re divorced. Then you would want to go to joinflyingfree.com to get more information about that. And there is an application process for both programs so that we can vet everyone who comes in. That’s just to keep everyone safe.
