This is a good one from the archives - back in January 2023, when memories of the COVID-19 pandemic (and the trauma) was still fresh. Betsy interviewed Pilar Garrido, who was Minister for Economic Development in Costa Rica during the pandemic and went to work every day determined to 'lead from love.'

This is posted toward the end of 2025, a year in which many of us have witnessed leadership and counter reactions that come from fear or ego, not love. It's a particularly poignant, beautiful episode to remind us that it IS possible to lead from love, and that each of us can choose to lead - whatever our sphere of influence - from love.
--
A recap of the original episode:
In this episode of the Discomfort Practice, Betsy talks with political scientist and economist Pilar Garrido. They chat about her experience leading a sustainable economic development policy in Costa Rica for a green and inclusive economy, as well as designing projects to create public benefit.

Pilar has long been a key figure, using her previous role as a Government Minister to steer Costa Rica's ambition to be one of the five countries piloting the Sustainable Development Goals. SDG's were launched by the United Nations in 2015. Their aim is to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030, all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

So, buckle yourself in for this episode and be inspired by a politician who governs with both heart and strength. She has served as Chief of Staff, Deputy Minister, Minister of Planning and Policy, Technical Secretary of the Sustainable Development Goals in Costa Rica and as Costa Rica's co-ordinator of the Economic cabinet.

Pilar has since moved on to become Director of Development Cooperation for the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), based in Paris; it's a role that allows her to bring her style of leadership-with-heart to her work on a global level.

Key Points Discussed:

• The discomfort Pilar experienced whilst becoming a politician and minister at a young age, especially during the Pandemic, as she describes as being like on the front line (5:20)
• Choosing to work from a place of love (08:20)
• Making difficult choices and creating policies to protect people during the Pandemic (12:20)
• Pilar's journey from political scientist to advisor to politician (14:50)
• Costa Rica's initiatives to put humanity and sustainability first, before economics (23:40)
• How to have a big impact in politics: where your job is not forever (27:00)
• Part of Pilar's legacy: diversifying an economy that has previously heavily relied just on tourism, so that it is healthy and robust (31:00)
• The IDG framework (that Costa Rica are one of the first countries to pilot), which aims towards eradicating hunger, poverty, sustainability and ensuring human rights. The IDG's (Inner Development Goals) consists of five dimensions: Being (relationship to self); Thinking (using your brain); Relating (and caring about others in the world); Collaborating (social skills and society) and Acting (driving change) (36:40)
• How everyone can do something small, that will collectively make a big impact (46:00)
• Pilar's optimism for the future (51:10)
  
  

  If you want to get a front-row seat to Betsy's innermost thoughts as she evolves into a more embodied, sovereign human - her messiness, her breakthroughs, and her real-time reflections - subscribe to her Substack, Voice Notes from the Edge.

  It's where she shares the unfiltered pieces of her journey she can't share anywhere else.

  Links & Resources

  Subscribe to Voice Notes from the Edge on Substack
  For deeper access, weekly voice notes, behind-the-scenes sovereignty reflections, and a front-row seat to Betsy's inner world:
  thebetsyreed.substack.com

  Subscribe and follow The Discomfort Practice
  Wherever you listen to podcasts. Here's Apple and Spotify for easy access.

  Work with Betsy
  For coaching, consulting, speaking, embodied leadership sessions, upcoming community circles, and the People Like Us dinners across Europe:
  www.betsy-reed.com

  If you enjoyed this episode

  • Subscribe, rate, and leave a written review: it genuinely helps

  • Share it with someone navigating their own edge

  • Join Betsy inside Voice Notes from the Edge on Substack for deeper, more intimate exploration

In this very personal 20-minute solo, Betsy steps into the uncomfortable, liberating terrain of boundaries as a pleasure practice - a theme that emerged from her 2025 words of the year: alignment and precision. This episode is a transmission on sovereignty, somatic truth, and what it means to teach the choreography of your life through your energy, not your explanations.

She reflects on a year of deep pruning of relationships, dynamics, and energetic leaks, and how that pruning has become sensual, sovereign, and delicious. She shares what it has meant to listen to her body's YES and NO, to shed old versions of herself, and to step into a more coherent, embodied expression of leadership.

And, unexpectedly, she reveals how a Mastín-Labrador mix named Casper became her clearest mentor in embodied leadership, clean energetic signaling, and learning that access is a currency.

This episode is for anyone feeling the pull toward deeper clarity, deeper alignment, and deeper sovereignty in how they give (and withhold) access to their life.

In this episode, Betsy explores:

• Why "alignment" and "precision" became her seeds for 2025

• How somatic intelligence (and a feeling of full-body NO) has driven a year of pruning

• Why boundaries aren't protection, punishment, or games, but pleasure, rhythm and choreography

• What her dog Casper has taught her about leadership, energy, and clean signals

• Why access is a currency and why sovereign humans manage access, not people

• The archetypes she released this year, from spiritual narcissists to emotional toddlers

• The ancestral roots of fawning and the embodied roots of sovereignty

• How boundaries create intimacy, not distance

• An invitation to treat your next boundary as a pleasure practice

And this episode comes with an invitation:
If you want to get a front-row seat to Betsy's innermost thoughts as she evolves into a more embodied, sovereign human - her messiness, her breakthroughs, and her real-time reflections - subscribe to her Substack, Voice Notes from the Edge.

It's where she shares the unfiltered pieces of her journey she can't share anywhere else.

Subscribe to Voice Notes from the Edge on Substack
For deeper access, weekly voice notes, behind-the-scenes sovereignty reflections, and a front-row seat to Betsy's inner world:
thebetsyreed.substack.com

Subscribe and follow The Discomfort Practice
Wherever you listen to podcasts. Here's Apple and Spotify for easy access.

Work with Betsy
For coaching, consulting, speaking, embodied leadership sessions, upcoming community circles, and the People Like Us dinners across Europe:
www.betsy-reed.com

• Subscribe, rate, and leave a written review: it genuinely helps

• Share it with someone navigating their own edge

• Join Betsy inside Voice Notes from the Edge for deeper, more intimate exploration

In this very personal 20-minute solo episode, Betsy steps into her own edge. She announces the launch of a new offering: Voice Notes from the Edge, her Substack home for the people who want deeper access to her world, her thoughts, her voice.

This episode is a transmission - an intimate reflection on sovereignty, devotion, and the kind of people who choose to walk with you not because they "follow" you, but because they recognise themselves in your voice and work.

She shares why she's creating a paid sanctuary, because she's ready to be witnessed more deeply in order to help others feel ready to be witnessed themselves, and what it means to build a community of companions.

She invites you, if you feel the pull, to step inside and join her in her living room.

In this episode, Betsy explores:

• Why she's launching Voice Notes from the Edge - and why now

• The real purpose of creating a paid sanctuary (and why it's not about money)

• How The Discomfort Practice has evolved into a more intimate ecosystem where she can share her inner world

• What it means to create a gang, a council, a gathering of people committed to their own sovereignty

• Her own edge in being more visible, more vulnerable, and more herself

• An invitation into her sanctuary, as equals choosing dept

Links & Resources:

Subscribe to Voice Notes from the Edge on Substack
For bonus episodes of The Discomfort Practice + raw, behind-the-scenes sovereignty reflections
thebetsyreed.substack.com

Subscribe and like The Discomfort Practice podcast home wherever you listen to podcasts - here's Apple and Spotify

Work with Betsy
for coaching, consulting, speaking, upcoming community circles and People Like Us dinners in various European cities, check out her website www.betsy-reed.com

If you enjoyed this episode:

• Subscribe, rate, and leave a written review

• Share it with someone who is navigating their own edge

• Join Betsy inside Voice Notes from the Edge for deeper, more intimate explorations