The Discomfort Practice

Betsy Reed
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Biweekly

The Discomfort Practice explores the value of discomfort in shaping who we are, how we are in the world and how discomfort can be a catalyst for positive social evolution. Betsy speaks to leaders, activists, athletes, creatives and others about comfort zones, having a conscious 'discomfort practice,' and the superpowers that lie on the other side of discomfort. Come get uncomfortable with Betsy... You can follow Betsy on: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebetsyreed/ Substack https://www.substack.com/thebetsyreed LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebetsyreed/ Please note: I don't accept unsolicited guest pitches. I DO accept selective sponsorship enquiries: I partner with a small number of aligned brands and experiences.The Discomfort Practice is a curated platform and I partner with brands who align with my values and the themes discussed here.

  1. Jul 19

    Episode #138: Claire Carpenter on Leadership at the Edges: The Price of Being a Pioneer

    In this episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy is joined by Claire Carpenter - coach, social innovator, entrepreneur, and founder of Scotland's Centre for Social Innovation, The Melting Pot - for a conversation about what it really costs to build something before the world even has language for it. Claire founded The Melting Pot nearly twenty years ago, long before coworking became mainstream and before "social innovation" became a buzzword. Together, Betsy and Claire explore the loneliness, creativity, exhaustion, identity shifts, and deep purpose of being an early pioneer - particularly in the social impact world. They talk candidly about burnout, leadership, the hidden emotional cost of sustaining mission-driven work, and the uncomfortable reality that many nonprofit structures may inadvertently prevent the very change they exist to create. This is a conversation about building community, surviving systems that weren't designed for humans, and what happens when the people trying to make the world better forget they are human too. In This Episode What it feels like to create something before people understand why it matters The early days of coworking and social innovation in Scotland Why pioneering often means spending years swimming against the current The emotional and relational cost of building mission-driven work Leadership, burnout, and learning to care for yourself while caring for a vision How COVID changed Claire's perspective on charities and social impact structures The tension between purpose and exploitation in the nonprofit world Why having your ideas copied is often a sign you've succeeded The shift from building organisations to coaching the humans inside them What social innovators need beyond passion and resilience Final thought: Claire leaves listeners with a challenge she never imagined her younger self would say out loud: "Don't set up a charity." Thoughtful, honest, occasionally spicy, and full of hard-earned wisdom, this is a conversation between two women who have spent decades building things at the edges of leadership, culture, and social change. About Claire Carpenter Claire Carpenter is a coach, social innovator, and entrepreneur with more than thirty years' experience helping people and organisations navigate change. She is the founder and former CEO of The Melting Pot, Scotland's Centre for Social Innovation, and one of Europe's pioneering coworking communities. Today she works with leaders, entrepreneurs, and purpose-driven organisations to help them overcome challenges, lead more sustainably, and create meaningful impact without sacrificing themselves in the process. Find Claire Website: www.clairecarpentercoaching.com Connect With Betsy Subscribe to the podcast and leave a five-star written review wherever you listen to podcasts - it genuinely helps get The Discomfort Practice out into the world. Read and subscribe (don't just follow) Betsy's Substack: @thebetsyreed Work with Betsy - coaching, Embodied Leadership Lab membership, community circles, and People Like Us dinners across Europe: embodiedleadershiplab.com and betsy-reed.com

  2. Jul 5

    Episode #137: Betsy By Herself On Being the Homework

    What happens after the brave thing? Not six months later. Not when the results are in. Immediately after. In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy reflects on what happened in the hours after launching the very first Embodied Leadership monthly Members' Lab in July 2026. The session itself was deeply moving, but not long after the room closed and her nervous system finally let go of months of holding, an old pattern came rushing in: the urge to burn it all down, disappear, and hide before anyone could reject something deeply personal. Something that truly matters to her. Rather than trying to fix or fight the thoughts, Betsy did what she teaches others to do: she observed them. Because sometimes we're not just teaching the work. We ARE the homework. And, as Betsy has found, in her work teaching embodied leadership, she most often IS the homework for things she passes on to others. In this episode, Betsy explores: Why old narratives often surface immediately after moments of courage The gap between what the body is experiencing and the story the mind creates How exhaustion can muddy the truth Why self-sabotage often arrives disguised as "being realistic" What it means to witness your patterns without becoming them A simple practice for noticing the story that appears after you do something brave If you've ever launched something, had a vulnerable conversation, taken a risk, or finally put yourself out into the world, only to immediately want to retreat, this episode is for you. Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen to podcasts. Work with Betsy Betsy is the founder of Embodied Leadership Lab, where she works with leaders, teams and organisations to develop embodied leadership, nervous system intelligence and capacity and more personally sustainable ways of leading in complexity. Check out Embodied Leadership Lab membership on Patreon Find out more about the work at www.embodiedleadershiplab.com  Subscribe to Betsy's Substack: @thebetsyreed

  3. Jun 21

    Episode #136: Betsy By Herself On Life As Craft

    In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy answers a comment a friend once made — "You never talk about having hobbies" — by unpacking why that's true, and what it reveals about how she actually relates to her own life. The answer isn't that she's hobby-less. It's that she doesn't experience her life as something to escape to something better. She experiences it as a craft — a container she's devoted to, refines, and is shaped by in return. And lately, that craft has had to make room for something she didn't choose: chemotherapy. This episode is about what happens when rest, receiving and doing less become the most demanding practice you've ever undertaken — and why a culture obsessed with visible effort has no real language for the mastery that looks like slowing down. In this episode, Betsy explores: Why she doesn't have 'hobbies' and what that has revealed to her about her relationship to her own life. The difference between a 'hobby' and 'craft' - and why it's not about doing more. How chemotherapy, rest and receiving have become part of her 'craft' of living, not interruptions to it. Why visible effort gets rewarded and invisible work, like healing, integrating and surrender, doesn't. Defining 'letting life carry you' as a different kind of strength. Plus a closing mantra / question to sit with: where are you treating something as an interruption when it can actually be part of making your life a 'craft'? The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, embodiment and systems change intersect. Follow Betsy for more reflections on reinvention, craft, uncertainty and building a life that feels vividly alive. Follow Betsy on Instagram: @thebetsyreed Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen — and a five-star review always helps Join her on Substack, Voice Notes from the Edge: substack.com/@thebetsyreed Work with Betsy — coaching, the Embodied Leadership Lab membership, community circles, and People Like Us dinners across Europe: www.embodiedleadershiplab.com

  4. Jun 7

    Episode #135: Katherine Wela Bogen On Disruption As Liberation and Not Letting The Internet Take Your Humanity

    In this episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy is joined by Katherine Wela Bogen - scholar, activist, storyteller, and self-described "joyful little freak" - for a conversation that refuses to stay in its lane (in the best possible way). Katie, as she's known to her friends, is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology researching the intersections of bisexual identity, sexual trauma, sexual functioning, and kink. She has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, hosts the political podcast Superhumanizer, and has just released her debut novel Queering Him -  the first in the Avra and Kiran trilogy. They talk about the particular loneliness of being a multi-hyphenate; the tension of being a storyteller who is also a rigorous scientist and a justice activist; growing up queer and Jewish in rural Connecticut; the grassroots, intergenerational nature of rural queer organizing; purity culture in activist spaces (yes, that purity culture); and why the internet may be doing something genuinely sick to our capacity for human connection. Oh, and they coin a new term: queer-narc. You're welcome. This is a rich, wide-ranging, deeply honest conversation about sovereignty, disruption, and what it means to hold a fully realized identity in a world that keeps trying to flatten you. In This Episode The tension of being a scholar-activist-storyteller,  and why each community will always think you're betraying the others How the skills we sharpen to keep ourselves safe become our superpowers Signing a "closeting contract" at boarding school, and what that taught Katie about using intellectual excellence as a shield Growing up queer and Jewish in a majority-Christian rural Connecticut town, and the casual antisemitism that surrounded her Holocaust-survivor grandfather How rural queer activism works - whisper networks, safe parents, rainbow sidewalks painted in the dark, and the teachers whose doors you know are open Activist perfectionism and online purity culture: "Why are you being such a cop?" Impact vs intent,  and why a well-meaning neighbour is not your enemy Katie's debut novel Queering Him: two flawed, bisexual adolescents asking the hard questions about desire, kink, fetishization, and queerness,  and why readers who want to cancel fictional teenagers might want to look inward What the kink community models about accountability, community repair, and anti-carceral approaches to harm COVID, the digital age, and what we've lost by moving so much of human life onto a screen Final thought: Don't let the internet take your humanity from you. About Katherine Wela Bogen Katherine Wela Bogen (she/her) is a bisexual, Jewish scholar-activist and storyteller whose work sits at the intersections of consent, kink, pleasure politics, and self-advocacy. She is currently completing her doctoral degree in clinical psychology (NIH-funded research on bisexual identity, sexual trauma, sexual functioning, and kink). She has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers and hosts the political podcast Superhumanizer. Her public-facing platform is k.w.bogen, where she reaches over 500,000 followers with millions of monthly views. Her debut novel Queering Him - the first in the Avra and Kiran trilogy - is out now. Books two and three follow in January 2027 and January 2028 respectively, with two spin-off novels to follow. Find Katie: Instagram / social: @k.w.bogen Podcast: Superhumanizer Novel: Queering Him (Avra and Kiran trilogy, Book 1) -  available wherever books are sold   Links Mentioned Queering Him by Katherine Wela Bogen (Avra and Kiran trilogy, Book 1) Podcast: Superhumanizer Katie mentioned sharing academic articles on queer rurality in shownotes; check her social platforms for those links   Connect With Betsy Follow Betsy on Instagram: @thebetsyreed Subscribe to the podcast and leave a five-star written review - it genuinely helps get The Discomfort Practice out into the world. Read Betsy's Substack, Voice Notes from the Edge: substack.com/@thebetsyreed Work with Betsy - coaching, the Embodied Leadership Lab membership, community circles, and People Like Us dinners across Europe: embodiedleadershiplab.com

  5. May 24

    Episode #134: Betsy By Herself on Crushing, Cancer & Lessons on Aliveness

    In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy reflects on the deeply inconvenient timing of becoming wildly, viscerally alive in the middle of grappling with mortality. A few months after a cancer diagnosis and before chemotherapy has even begun, she finds herself blindsided by something she genuinely did not expect: a crush. Not a sensible attraction. A full nervous-system hijack. The kind that turns a self-aware adult woman into a fluttery teenage disaster because someone walks into a room. But beneath the humour is something deeper. This episode explores what happens when the body you've suddenly begun relating to through fear, uncertainty and medical language unexpectedly remembers desire, curiosity, embodiment and aliveness. It's about eros as life force. About mortality sharpening beauty. About the absurdity and sacredness of still being emotionally movable in the middle of the unknown. It's definitely existential, ya'll. In this episode, Betsy explores: Why a crush feels strangely healing during a cancer diagnosis Mortality, identity and the fear of becoming untethered from yourself Erotic aliveness as animating life force The nervous system's refusal to become purely practical Why being deeply affected is sometimes evidence of being deeply alive The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, embodiment and systems change intersect. Follow Betsy for more reflections on reinvention, eros, uncertainty and building a life that feels vividly alive. Follow Betsy on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebetsyreed Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen to podcasts Join her on Substack at The Betsy Reed: substack.com/thebetsyreed Work with Betsy: www.embodiedleadershiplab.com

  6. May 10

    Episode #133: Betsy By Herself on Internalised Myths & Timelines

    In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy reflects on what happens when life blows apart the illusion of linearity, and why that rupture may be the beginning of something far more honest. A few weeks after unexpectedly being diagnosed with cancer and undergoing surgery, Betsy finds herself in a strange in-between space: giving keynote speeches and being invited into rooms of influence, while simultaneously asking for financial grace, facing chemotherapy and confronting the uncomfortable realities of building an unconventional life. This is an episode about the collision between external accomplishment and internal uncertainty. About the shame that emerges when you compare your real life to an imaginary timeline. And about what becomes possible when you stop treating your life like it's late. Betsy explores the myth of the "correct" life path - marriage, stability, financial security, certainty - and what it means to consciously choose freedom, creativity, reinvention, and impact instead. She speaks candidly about the sharper edges of that choice: ageing alone, financial precarity, mortality, identity and the fear that maybe none of it adds up the way you thought it would. But she also asks a different question: What if life is not a ladder, but a series of eras, chapters, and initiations? What if this moment is not failure, but intermission before the next becoming? In this episode, Betsy explores: Why cancer shattered the illusion of "later" The shame that comes from comparing human lives to linear timelines The difference between external achievement and internal alignment Choosing freedom over safety and the costs and gifts of that path What ageing, uncertainty, and mortality reveal about what actually matters Why this chapter may be less about proving herself and more about becoming fully herself Embodied Leadership Lab as work born from lived experience, not polished theory How to stop treating your life as though it's somehow behind schedule The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, culture, and systems change intersect. If this episode landed for you, follow Betsy for more reflections on embodiment, reinvention, and building a life that is fully your own. Follow Betsy on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebetsyreed Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen to podcasts - and leave a five-star review (it genuinely helps) Join her on Substack at The Betsy Reed for (Voice) Notes from the Edge: substack.com/thebetsyreed Work with Betsy - coaching, consulting, speaking, embodied leadership sessions, and Embodied Leadership Lab: www.betsy-reed.com

  7. Apr 26

    Episode #132: Betsy By Herself - Launching Embodied Leadership Lab

    In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy shares the origin story of Embodied Leadership Lab, why the launch didn't go to plan and what it is. It was supposed to happen on April 7th. Instead, Betsy was in surgery. And she's here to tell you: that was the launch. Because here's the thing at the centre of everything she's building: Leadership is not what you say in the room. It's the state you are in when you enter the room. When you're in the room.  What happens when the body overrides the timeline you 'should' follow? When life says "not that way" - and you actually listen? When the plan falls apart and you're left with a choice: hustle through it, or live what you teach? Betsy chose to live it. To embody leadership 'in the wild.' Drawing on the ancient Sumerian myth of Inanna/Ishtar, queen of heaven and earth who descends into the underworld, stripped of everything at every gate, Betsy maps what it means to go down into the hard thing, rather than push past it. And why that descent is exactly where leadership capacity gets built. Not on the way up. On the way down. This episode is both origin story of Embodied Leadership Lab and embodiment in real time. It's what her work is actually about: the leadership development that most spaces skip entirely; the moment when the nervous system is telling you something strategy can't see or embody. In this episode, Betsy explores: Why leadership is not a cognitive skill; it's the state you bring into the room What a hard health diagnosis strips away, and what it leaves behind The myth of Inanna, and why descent is not failure; it's initiation A three-day post-surgery ritual for honouring the threshold between who she was and who she's becoming Why you don't build leadership capacity on the way up; you build it on the way down What it actually means to embody your work, in the most inconvenient and unscripted way possible The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, culture, and systems change intersect. If this episode landed for you, follow Betsy for more reflections on integrity, embodiment, and the quiet courage it takes to lead from somewhere real: Follow Betsy on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thebetsyreed Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen to podcasts - and leave a five-star review (it truly helps) Join her on Substack at The Betsy Reed for (Voice) Notes from the Edge - some public, some subscriber-only: substack.com/thebetsyreed Work with Betsy - coaching, consulting, speaking, embodied leadership sessions, and the newly launched Embodied Leadership Lab: www.betsy-reed.com

  8. Apr 19

    Episode #131: Betsy By Herself on How To Write Blasphemy (When It Serves)

    In this solo episode of The Discomfort Practice, Betsy explores a slightly amusing and powerful idea: What if blasphemy is exactly what we need right now? Drawing from the line "Every great idea starts out as a blasphemy," Betsy looks at the beliefs, systems, and assumptions we treat as sacred… and asks a simple but disruptive question: Does this actually serve? From workplace norms to wellness culture, politics to personal identity, many of the stories we defend most fiercely are simply habits we stopped questioning. When something becomes sacred, curiosity disappears… and systems can get stuck. This episode is an invitation to bring curiosity back. Not through rage or rebellion, but through a small, playful practice Betsy calls "writing blasphemy": noticing the things everyone treats as untouchable and daring to question them. Blasphemy, in this sense, isn't about disrespect. It's about interrupting the spell of stories that no longer serve - whether that looks like questioning a belief, leaving a job, redefining a relationship, or simply pausing long enough to reconsider something you once took for granted. In this episode, Betsy explores: Why sacred beliefs can quietly become barriers to change How certainty replaces curiosity in cultures, organisations, and identities The surprising power of writing "the sentence you're not supposed to write" Why questioning the sacred is often the first step in systemic or personal transformation A simple practice for spotting your own sacred cows The experiment for this week is simple: Notice something you treat as sacred - a belief, habit, identity, or system - and pause long enough to ask: Does this serve… or is it just sacred? If the answer surprises you, you may have just written your first line of blasphemy. And every great idea starts there. The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, culture, and systems change intersect. If this episode landed for you, follow Betsy for more reflections on integrity, discomfort, and the quiet courage it takes to question what everyone else takes for granted: Follow Betsy on Instagram @thebetsyreed Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a five-star review (it truly helps) Join her on Substack at The Betsy Reed for (Voice) Notes from the Edge - some public, some subscriber-only: substack.com/thebetsyreed Work with Betsy: coaching, consulting, speaking, embodied leadership sessions, upcoming community circles, and People Like Us dinners across Europe: www.betsy-reed.com

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About

The Discomfort Practice explores the value of discomfort in shaping who we are, how we are in the world and how discomfort can be a catalyst for positive social evolution. Betsy speaks to leaders, activists, athletes, creatives and others about comfort zones, having a conscious 'discomfort practice,' and the superpowers that lie on the other side of discomfort. Come get uncomfortable with Betsy... You can follow Betsy on: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebetsyreed/ Substack https://www.substack.com/thebetsyreed LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebetsyreed/ Please note: I don't accept unsolicited guest pitches. I DO accept selective sponsorship enquiries: I partner with a small number of aligned brands and experiences.The Discomfort Practice is a curated platform and I partner with brands who align with my values and the themes discussed here.

Information

  • Creator
    Betsy Reed
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    143
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    Copyright © 2026 Betsy Reed
  • Show Website
    The Discomfort Practice