You can’t put a price on peace

Wow, I can honestly say that I have no idea where this year has gone. Shortly after my last blog, I received an opportunity that I could not pass up. I accepted a full-time position as the Creative Account Manager for a product design company called UX Cabin. I am blessed to be working from home with an incredibly talented team that spans the globe. If you read my previous blog, you know that one of my Dad’s last wishes was that I would find happiness in my career path, and I am thrilled to say that I finally have! After 17 years of stumbling into roles, I never felt truly fit who I am; I finally feel like I am going in the right direction with a company I believe in and where I am excited to keep growing! 

I have learned so much in the last nine months. I have been challenged to grow into a direction I am grateful for. I learned how to launch and produce a podcast that already has well over 3,000 downloads and run social media across five total platforms (3 platforms that I had not done for Be True) that has been growing steadily month over month.  I have also learned how to use lots of software that can make life so much easier.

I also turned 40 this year shortly after my last blog post!?

How this has impacted Be True this year

Be True had to be set aside while I have been learning and growing in a new role and company. I only have so much brainpower, energy, and hours in the day to dedicate to my family, my work, and my health. Something needed to pause during this new transition. 

Be True was created to help people with anxiety. Still, it was also a way to grow and focus my energy after discovering that the company I had worked at for several years would no longer invest in my career growth. I knew it was time to take matters into my own hands and find a way to grow in the right direction. 

After years of being told that every company would be the same, I had started to believe it. I was too afraid to leave that company, so I took the idea that had been hanging out in the back of my mind, expanded upon it, and launched Be True in the spring of that year.

Doing the work when you recognize your mental health is at risk

The sense of accomplishment when our small business started to blossom changed my perspective and showed me that I could do hard things outside of my comfort zone. When I finally decided to leave the corporate world, as I mentioned in a previous blog, my health was in terrible shape, and I knew something needed to change. 

My mental health was at risk after years of gaslighting from my career and then the loss of my Dad. I decided it was time to find someone who could help me. I have started to call the mess that was 2020 the spaghetti bowl of traumas. With so many life-changing events happening in such a short time, my brain decided that everything was a trigger, and my responses were no longer typical for me. My anxiety and depression were at an all-time high, and I was not sure how to manage them any longer. 

My therapist has been an absolute gift this year. She has helped me start to heal the damage and helped me to realize that I do not have to feel responsible for everyone else all the time. Her support also helped me through another loss eight months and one day after I lost my Dad. I lost someone I have considered a second Father figure for 20 years. He was not only our Deacon who married us, Baptized our girls, led me through Women’s Renewal, and helped me say goodbye to my Dad.  He was also the one who checked in on me every month after my Dad passed, he was always Izzi’s Veteran on Veterans Day, and he was a cherished member of our family. Losing him was another massive loss for our family and brought up a lot of emotion from when I lost my Dad. It still breaks my heart that these two amazing men are no longer here with us, but having help to work through all of it is comforting. 

So aside from learning a new role and focusing on family, I have had a lot of work to do to untangle the traumas that have changed me forever and work on each separate thing to begin leading a healthy life for my mind, body, and soul. This work is draining and challenging, but I have seen improvements and know that it is all worth the investment of time and energy.

Our Deacon, our support, our family. ? Rest in Peace Deacon Joe.

What this new stage has taught me

This year of new growth has taught me so many things. 

  1. It helped me learn to say no to things that no longer serve my family or myself. I no longer do things out of obligation but out of choice. 
  2. I learned that having someone to talk to and bring an unbiased perspective to any situation is an immense help. Finding a person to help you heal is a blessing and a gift. 
  3. It is ok not to know how to do everything; you can still get a job that you love and have the opportunity to learn and grow in the areas you need to develop. Having an entrepreneurial and humble spirit will give you an edge for the right company, and any company that does not value this spirit is not worth your time or energy.
  4. Setting something aside for the sake of your mental, physical and emotional health is not a sign of weakness, and it does not make you a quitter. It simply means that you know your limits and are unwilling to stretch yourself beyond your capacity. Take the time you need and give yourself grace, whether it is a week, a month, or years – it doesn’t matter because you can still be growing in the right direction while you take a pause.
  5. And most importantly, you can’t put a price on peace. In a world where so many people are primarily focused on their title, their paycheck, or what kind of car they drive, it is easy to sacrifice your peace to try to keep up. Take a side step out of the race and watch the others pass you. Think about what they are chasing. Do you even care about those things as long as you and your family are safe and well cared for? If not, do not jump back into that race! Stroll in a new direction that is focused on YOUR true peace and happiness instead. It is so much more enjoyable, trust me!
The ways I found my peace this year while I took a pause from Be True!

So what is next?

Now it is time to keep doing the work on my physical and mental health, continue being present for my family, and keep up my learning path and growing along my fresh new career journey. And if that is all that I can muster, I am ok with that, but I am finally starting to feel like I can begin to put a small focus on Be True again, so I want to take advantage of that extra energy. 

As we near the Holiday season, we have a show coming up that I am excited to attend as a vendor. It will be our first show in a year, and it will be a great one to check out if you live in the North East of Ohio! Keep an eye on our social channels to learn more about where we will be and when. I am excited to see old friends and meet new ones as well. 

In the meantime, I hope that you are all well and that if you are challenged this year with loss or trauma of any kind, I pray that you are willing to get the help you need to make positive change and heal. No one can do this for you; it must be a decision you make for yourself and then dive into the process of helping yourself to heal.

Signing off for now!

Sending love to you all, and thank you for reading this update! If we do not see you at the show, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday season. We hope you get to spend this special season with the people you love the most. Cherish the moments, make the memories, hug your loved ones and find your peace.     

Grounding in the New Year!

We are so excited to continue bringing new ideas for wearable grounding tools to our Be True community. The last 12 months have been quite the roller coaster. As we continue to hang on for the ride, we know that anxiety in our country is at an intense level. 

It was amazing to end the year with two in person shows that allowed us to finally share our Courage Cami and Shirt of Strength sets in person! It was absolutely wonderful to see old friends and make new ones!

You keep us inspired!

When we launched our Courage Cami and Shirt of Strength last fall, we were quickly asked what we may have to offer for wearable grounding tools for tweens, teens and adults. Goodness knows many of us are struggling in our lives personally and professionally. I quickly decided to turn our focus towards earrings for teens and adults. We had already had launched the minky button earrings for the littles and tweens, as well as the necklaces with the minky button on the back for all ages. 

Wearable Grounding Tools

In our research for the development and launching of the Courage Cami and Shirt of Strength, I learned something new! I learned that metal can also be used to help calm many people with anxiety or sensory processing concerns. This helped me to decide it was time to expand further beyond just minky items. During the Christmas season we launched several styles of lightweight leather earrings as well as metal hand-stamped earrings, as well as small cuff bracelets. Some of our earrings contain both a metal and a soft element to help those that would like the contrast as well.

Our beautiful earrings and bracelets are hand-made by me. It was so much fun to learn how to hand-stamp and hand-hammer with the necklaces in the spring. Now with the creation of the new designs I look forward to the other ideas that come from this new skill! In fact, our girls were very excited to give their teachers special gifts this year. I designed custom hand-stamped, hand-hammered pieces specifically for them. 

Thank you for your continued support – please subscribe to our newsletter!

As always, thank you all for your continued support. We ended last year with two shows! Those shows breathed new life back into our mission to help those with anxiety and sensory processing concerns. The conversations we had helped us so much. Please continue to follow along and spread the word about Be True and what we are trying to do. Word of mouth is what will continue to help us to grow and help others. 

If you have not already, please subscribe to our newsletter! You can do this from the bottom of the About page. I will be working on some special sales coming up in February to celebrate my 40th birthday. You won’t want to miss it!

Seasons of change

It has been awhile since I have blogged. When I decided to start the blog, I planned to publish every other month. At the time I was working full time in a corporate marketing position. I was also building Be True and helping to raise our girls with my husband. I understood that publishing frequently could add pressure, so I wanted to be realistic.

At the time of my last published blog, my world looked much different than it does today. I have had some major wins and one immense loss that has rocked me to my core. I honestly have not recovered from it and I never think I will completely heal. 

In August, I decided to resign from my full time corporate job to do a few things. 

1. Help my girls with 4 weeks of online learning in the fall, which was mandatory due to Covid. 

2. Help take care of my Dad who has been struggling with myotonic dystrophy among other health concerns for many years. This year he took a quick turn and his health was failing. 

3. Get my own health back on track. After an extended period of intense stress from my corporate career, along with a cancer scare this spring and surgery this summer, I sought additional help. I found out from my new natural doctor that I had a lot to work on to get healthy again. 

4. Spend some time focused on Be True to help bring back my joy, by doing something that I love!

Papaw and two of his girls!

An unimaginable loss. 

Resigning from my corporate job could not have come at a better time. I needed the ability to address all of these things. Unfortunately, one week into being a stay at home Mom, supporting the girls with their online learning, my Dad went into cardiac arrest. One week after that, we lost him. The week between his heart attack and his death was full of trips to the ICU. We were blessed to get snuck in for 10 minutes three separate times to see him. During these short visits, he was sedated and unable to communicate or even look at us. 

I am grateful that my Mom got to see him wide awake and smiling the day he passed. She took a great picture of him and all of the family was so hopeful he would pull through. I even had the opportunity to tell him how much I loved him over the phone. He could not audibly say it back because his throat was so irritated from being intubated for several days. My Mom told me he was saying it back though. I am also happy he was with my Mom and not alone when he passed. So many people have died alone this year. I am heart-broken that we were in the car on our way there when it happened, but I am not sure I could have witnessed it myself. I am guessing he knew that. 

There are no words to describe the feeling of losing a parent that you completely adored. Trust me I have tried. I have described it as a “loss of lightness”, “a weight being dropped onto me that he had always carried for me, but I was unaware of the weight until it fell to my shoulders”, and “a hole that won’t be filled again on this Earth”. Overall, it completely sucks and if you have experienced it, I am so very sorry for your loss. I have heard it doesn’t get easier, but you learn to live with the hole. 

To be honest, Be True was kind of set to the side while I helped prepare his funeral. I desperately needed to give myself some time to try to heal, even if it is only a small bit of healing. I am absolutely still moving through the stages of grief, in fact, I feel like I can move through all the stages in one day, or one week, and it just comes right back around to do again the next day or week. 

Me and my Daddo.

Our new world.

So here we are, just over three months since he passed. I could go on and on about the incredible God moments I have experienced since he has been gone. There have been songs that have come through random playlists on Spotify. There have been SO many rainbows – literally and figuratively that have popped up to grab my attention. In another blog, I may even share some of these incredible moments. Today I want to talk about something that happened several weeks ago. 

We had been blessed with a short lull in Be True, perfectly timed for me to focus on family when I needed to most. Then in early November, I was contacted to be a part of a small in-person Holiday event. It was being hosted by a local female entrepreneur who reached out. She asked if I would join her and a handful of other local women. We are all working to make a difference for our families and our communities with what we do. It was like a ray of sunshine when I received this request.

This invitation was followed by an amazing amount of quick orders that all came in within just a few days. I am beyond grateful for the support of our Be True Community – you all have given me somewhere to focus my energy as we navigate this first Holiday season without the man who made every holiday during the year so very special. Thank you!

So over the past few weekends I got to work, filling orders and upping our inventory for the event. I even signed up for another online event because after I was asked to join the in-person event, I was reinvigorated and reminded of my why. I really needed that boost to get me excited to move forward even while I am missing my Dad like crazy.

Hayride at Boyert’s Farm in the fall of 2019.

Words of Wisdom.

I didn’t know this before he passed, but when I received the invite to participate in the in person show, Mark was so excited to see me so happy. He shared with me one of the last conversations my Dad had with him before he passed. It was in regards to my career and what I was doing. I tried not to talk about work too much with my Dad, but he had picked up on my general frustration. We also didn’t talk much about Be True. I imagine he looked at it more like a hobby for me. 

You see, he had worked at Ford Motors for over 35 years. My Dad told Mark that he always looked at it as a job. He didn’t need anything more from it than his paycheck and his benefits. He could see I needed more than that. My Dad recognized my deep need to make a difference by helping others and a desire to get enjoyment and fulfillment out of the hours I pour into something other than my family. He told Mark, he just wanted me to find something that made me happy.

My Dad was the hardest working man I know. I inherited his deep commitment to working hard and doing great work. After taking this time to focus on family, I am certain he would want me to get busy doing the things that make me happy – and Be True is a HUGE source of happiness for me.

So now we move forward. We have been preparing for the exciting Holiday season and what happens when the dust settles after the start of the new year. We get back to working on important things that allow us to support others. We focus on family and friends and bringing good things into this world to make it a brighter place. We bring his memory along with us as we evolve into something greater than we had previously imagined. 

Took his new wheels for a spin! He loved getting a new car and sharing with the ones he loved.

Moment of Gratitude….for my Daddo.

Thank you for all the incredible memories Daddo. I am grateful for your love, support and your adoring smile. Thank you for taking the time to talk to Mark that day, so he could share the conversation with me. I needed to hear the words you spoke that day, and I needed to hear that the words came from you. Thank you for giving me the permission to free myself from the idea that my title and paycheck defines my worth, and instead, allowing me to focus on finding what makes me happy by using the gifts I have been given.

I will bring you with me in my heart, along this journey, and I will no longer settle for anything that doesn’t bring us happiness. I love you so much and I know in my heart that this change in my focus is making you smile. The smile that makes your cheeks lift and your dimples pop and the smile that filled so many other hearts with the love you spread while you were still here with us. I miss you every single day. I love you.

The Father and daughter dance at my wedding in 2013.

Leading everything you do with love!

Over the last several years I have spent hours thinking through how I could help Mama’s who struggle with anxiety. Many of us living with anxiety are also raising kiddos with anxiety. I have found when my girls are struggling, it increases the nerves I have felt during those times. I began to believe that if I could find ways to assist in managing their anxiety, it would also reduce mine. As I revisited this idea, time after time, it worked. This also works in reverse, when we find ways to decrease our own anxiety. Our kiddos can pick up on our energy and it can spiral from there.

How my love for my girls inspired me to create a solution of love and support.

We have always told our girls that we will do everything in our power to keep them safe and comforted. Being a full time working Mama has tested that promise more than once in the last decade, since I can’t always be there with them to give them the support and comfort that they may need. We have been blessed to have incredible teachers and care givers for our girls. Even with this amazing support, I often struggled while we were at work. I always wished I could do more.

Several year ago I had made the connection that my girls, like so many children, adored their blankets. They would roll them up and take them in their backpacks to preschool each day. Some mornings, they would even snuggle with them at the breakfast table to help ease into their day. As they got bigger, I realized that they would not be able to always take their blankets into class. This made me take a step back and determine new ways that they could experience the comfort of their blankets without actually having them.

My constant inspiration comes from these beautiful smiles and the love I have for my girls!

What is new for Be True!

The new idea came to me almost 5 years ago. I did not take action until a year ago. In the last year, I took time to learn to sew. I also taught myself so many new things to aid in the process of launching this new idea. All of our pieces are designed to support kiddos with anxiety as they become too big to take even the Squeeze sized blanket around with them. Finding new ways to offer comfort and safety for children with anxiety and sensory processing concerns has become a driving force behind what Be True is meaning to do in our world.

Courage Cami and Shirt of Strength!

We are excited to share the big ideas behind Be True – our Courage Cami and Shirt of Strength! These unique comfort pieces are designed to allow small children to wear a small piece of their blanket. The small piece of blanket is called a Smooch (because it matches their Snuggle & Squeeze baby blanket set that they have adored from birth). All of our products are named after things that remind us of our girls. First, we love to snuggle up at home and watch movies all together. Second, when we say goodbye at drop off, we always request a Smooch and a Squeeze from our girls. I am certain teachers from our preschool have definitely heard us do this hundreds of times.

The Smooch is easily snapped on to the hip of the Courage Cami or Shirt of Strength. You can choose a cami or a shirt based on their preference. The Smooch snaps snuggly into the side and lays flat so that the child can easily wear their daily shirts over the undershirt. During their day, if they begin to experience anxiety, they can discreetly touch the small piece of blanket on their hip to remind them of the Smooch they got from Mom or Dad when they were dropped off.

The Courage Cami is intended to wear as an undershirt which allows your child to have a small piece of their blanket with them at all times! This can increase their confidence and provides comfort and support when they need it.
The Smooch lays snuggly against the kiddo’s hip as to not add extra bulk under their shirts!

Minky Button Earrings and Necklaces!

As kiddos get too big to wear our Courage Cami or Shirt of Strength, to aid in further transitions, we created minky button earrings and hand-stamped pendant necklaces that have a minky button attached to the back so that the minky is close to their heart.

The intention is to offer a small piece of minky that the child, teen or even adult can wear as a reminder of the comfort of their blanket. During the day, if nerves start to elevate or your child feels the need for something soft to touch, they can discreetly touch their earring or necklace to help ground them again. This will aid in their comfort and confidence when they are struggling during the day.

Our Be True Minky Button earrings allow older kiddos to still have a discreet comfort item to wear and bring them a piece of their blanket when they are away from home!
They are available in many colors and prints as well!
Our Be True hand-stamped necklaces come with a minky button attached to the back. They are perfect for those who do not have pierced ears. The necklaces still provide the ability to keep a tiny piece of their minky blanket close to their heart. This shows the front of the hammered pendant along with what the back would look like as well.
The Be True hand-stamped pendant along with the back to show you what is hidden behind the pendant to bring additional comfort!

Our mission and purpose.

Our mission is to bring items to help people of all ages comfort from anxiety and sensory processing concerns. We will continue to use our experience to bring new ideas to support this mission.

Bringing this mission to life has given us a bigger purpose. We are so blessed to have built such a loving and supportive community on Facebook and Instagram. The love and support we receive each day from our community fuels and drives us. Our excitement for everything coming in the future for Be True is overwhelming. We look forward to continuing to work with our incredible community.

Our kiddos need this extra level of support, now more than ever. We are here to help and support you with solutions to help ease their anxiety.

Sign up for our email list to stay on top of any updates that we share. Reach out if you would like more information or to order our new items! You can choose from the Courage Cami, Shirt of Strength, minky button earrings or our hand-stamped pendant necklaces with the minky button!

A little bit about me

My name is Beth Morrison and I’m the creator, owner and operator of Be True Llc. About one year ago I decided to step outside my comfort zone. I finally launched the business that I had been dreaming of for over three years.

Through this blog, I will be digging deeper into the Be True story. I will share where my ideas came from, what happened in my life to lead to the ultimate decision to step out in faith and finally follow my dream, and how I believe you can reduce the impact of anxiety for both yourself and your child.

I have struggled with anxiety since I was a child. Currently, I am raising children who both struggle with anxiety in different ways than I do. As the Mom of two incredible daughters, I believe there are ways to help them through their biggest challenges. This is where anxiety flares the most, and Be True is my way of putting ideas out into the world.

No, I am not a doctor. I am a Mom who has lead a life full of anxiety since I was very young. It is still something I am dealing with on a daily basis. I have been blessed with two amazing daughters, one who has had anxiety from a very young age. The other has just started to show signs in the last year. My intention is that my experiences will be able to help you in one way or another. I also hope Be True can help by giving new ideas to help you and your child through different transitions in your lives that may cause you both to have anxiety.

Have you or your child ever dealt with anxiety? If so, what situations trigger it?