483: High-Functioning Burnout Exposed: When Life Feels Flat

Ever feel like life just feels… flat - even when, on paper, nothing is wrong? In the finale of our 5-part High-Functioning Burnout Exposed series with Awaken the Muse, Natalie, Alexi Panos and Emily Gallagher dig into numbness, stuckness, and the urge to burn it all down. You’ll discover why flatness is actually a signal of misalignment, how to tune into your inner GPS, and the small shifts that bring you back online without overhauling your entire life. You’ll learn a simple self-audit to spot what needs to shift, how to create breathing room when your to-do list never ends, and what it really looks like to design your days with more aliveness, joy, and ease. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 When numbness and avoidance take over 01:55 Stuckness as a signal: what your inner GPS is telling you 03:20 Numb isn’t nothing: why flatness is still information 05:27 Do you really need to blow up your life? 06:52 The self-audit: what to add in, what to let go of 08:34 Designing instead of reacting: subtle shifts that create energy 12:12 The 80/20 Reset: Creating space when your list never ends 15:24 The real reason change never sticks until you change you 17:10 Gentle discipline: 3–5 minute daily practices that nurture presence RESOURCES + LINKS Click Here To Join Soft Success: A Free Live Masterclass Experience Taking Place On September 24th To End High-Functioning Burnout And Redefine Success On Your Terms. Sign Up For Our Free Weekly Newsletter & Get Insights From Natalie Every Single Week On All Things Strategy, Motherhood, Business Growth + More. Drop Us A Review On The Podcast + Send Us A Screenshot & We’ll Send You Natalie’s 7-Figure Operating System Completely FREE (value $1,997).

• 0:00Speaker 00

  If you've made it to episode five, you already know this series wasn't built to entertain you. It was built to wake you up, to interrupt the performance, to say what many of us have been silently living through. So today, we're going to go somewhere most people avoid, the place where life feels, where you're not spiraling, but you're not inspired either, where you are doing all the things, but none of it actually moves you. You look around and think, I should be happy. But what you really feel is disconnected, numb, flat, like your spark has quietly gone missing. And let's be clear, numbness is not neutral. It's a red flag, a soul signal. It's your body telling you, this isn't it. This version of success,

• 0:42Speaker 00

  this way of living, this watered down version of you, it is not the truth. So in this final episode, we're not holding back. We're talking about disillusionment, about the cost of ignoring your aliveness, about the ache that you feel when the life you've built doesn't reflect the woman that you're becoming. This is your call back to full spectrum living, to feeling it all, to wanting more, not in your achievements, but in your experience of being you. I also want to be clear, this isn't about blowing it all up. This is about coming back to the part of you that's been whispering, there is more. So let's get into it.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  I'm really glad that we're now wrapping it up with the numbness piece. I would say it's such a pattern I have to work on is the numbness and avoidance of like, when I am not regularly doing nervous system work, when I'm regularly not taking care of myself and things start building up versus dealing with it head on, I really have to check myself to not put it to the side and numb out. I'll deal with it later. It's not productive right now. I'm not bringing that energy through the day, whatever the excuse is. And so I just love that we're talking about this because I also know when I get into that place is when I feel the most stuck, the most indecisive. I want to burn my business down. I need newness in every area of my life. And it's never the answer.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Never the answer. I mean, I just even had, just recently, I mean, I came back from this big intense training and then I kind of got like a A little bit sick, but I got caught back in this loop. I mean, again, we say this is lifelong work and you just start to be able to catch it. But I totally got in that loop of just like, I want to put my head in the sand, like, nothing's working. I just, I'm not going to feel better until I go back to my house in Portugal. Cause all of this and this routine and it's so easy to get into that place when you're not regulated, when you're not practicing. But really just recognizing again, I think with so much of this, it's recognizing it's not all those stories that we're telling ourselves. We don't need all of those things to change, but it is a symptom that, you know, okay, we're a little bit off and we can, we can invite more, like really more of ourselves online to change our experience.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny, anytime that we work with women, whether it be ourselves or one of our clients and they're like, I feel so stuck and I feel something feels off and I just can't name it. Maybe it's my business, maybe it's the relationship, maybe it's this. It's like, if you're feeling off, it's your soul. We, we think your soul, your higher self, your spirit, whatever you want to call it, going, hey, something's out of alignment. Something is out of alignment. Sometimes it's the tiniest little thing.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  It may just be how you're viewing something.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  It might be your perspective, it might be your diet, it might be like who you hung out with in the last few weeks. It might be a TV show you're watching or your social media use. It might be that you're building a business out of scarcity and your body's like, no, this is not the answer. And so we really say that you gotta treat the, the stuckness, the numbness as a symptom of being out of internal alignment. That really is the thing. And, you know, you can think about it almost like a GPS. We all have this internal GPS inside that knows our true north. And when we're tuned into that and like really moving from that place, everything feels like flow state. We're like, oh my gosh, this feels so good. Life is so easy. Everything's like, yes, oh my gosh, how do we get so blessed? And when you're off, you're like, why does this feel weird? Everything feels off.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  And it may not be that anything in your circumstances has to change, but just how you're relating to it, how you're orienting to it. And so really getting that it's just a symptom from your GPS, like, hey babe, you're off track, check in. And it really does require that check in.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think that one thing we're going to be here is consistent, right? All of this requires the practice, the consistency, the checking in, really being in that continual practice. And again, I think when we realize we don't just get there and then arrive because that's truly part of the mentality we're trying to break, that there's some place we're trying to get to. All of this is just a deeper invitation, always, even for us. Again, it comes up, okay, what do I need to do to chicken? What am I like numbing out from? What am I feeling stuck around? And sometimes it may just be that there is something we don't want to quite know yet, or something we don't want to kind of shift yet. And actually, again, when we start to realize, because I think sometimes numbness feels like it's kind of something that happens over there. That's not like it's it's not a feeling or it's not something, but it actually is.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Like numbness is still information, even when you're connecting to your body. It's like, oh, if you check in and you feel numb or you feel nothing, that's still information. So still just again, with all of these pieces, realizing, all right, that's there is it is a signal. It is something and the more again, the more that we're in this practice, because there's such a deconditioning of just constantly trying to fix. So again, not kind of coming at this of like, oh, I've got to fix something, but also like, okay, this is information. All right, I'm feeling a little stuck. I'm feeling frustrated. I feel like what the F like, again, so many women come to us from that place of just, okay. You know, when we first started this business, we started it with aliveness and sensuality and pleasure, because that was so a part of what we created from this journey. And we realized quickly that really what started women on this journey is this feeling numbness,

• 5:37Speaker 01

  disappointment, frustration, disillusion, feeling stuck. Because that's really like, again, that's the entry way to just deeper, deeper alignment, deeper connection to self, more fulfillment. But when we see it as that versus it being a problem.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  That I think that's the piece because I think so many women look at like, oh, my gosh, something's off. And like, it's a problem.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Because it can feel like a problem, obviously, it's not the experience we want.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  And then you're trying to fix it because you're like, where's the leak? Like, there's a leak in my life. I need to find the leak so I don't drown. But if we look at it like, oh, there's a leak and it's an opportunity to build a stronger foundation, that really shifts. Like, I remember there's a point in my life, right before, right before we got into this work and started this work, where I was like, I cannot keep doing what I'm doing, how I'm doing it. And I just felt like I wanted to blow everything up. Something had to change. And of course, of course, it was at the same time as my relationship kind of going through this whole. Thing as well because I was out of alignment. Something within me is like, hey, we're, we're graduating. We're graduating. The woman you've been has been awesome and has gotten you to this point. But that woman is no longer here. You, a new woman is being birthed right now.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  And as you're being birthed, we are going to go through some contractions. And when life starts to contract a little bit and you're like, oh, I'm feeling the squeeze. This doesn't feel as easy as it used to. It's because something new is being birthed. The contractions are a part of the birthing process. And we forget, we think it's just supposed to be this orgasmic, fully open birthing process. And it's not. Contractions are a biological part of transition. And so I think that the symptoms of numbness, of disillusionment, of I feel checked out. I want to blow it up. It's a symptom and a sign that a big transition is coming. That you're being birthed into a new woman, into a new version of yourself. And it's a really exciting place to be in because it might be scary. We don't necessarily know what's coming, but the newer version of you is coming. And one day you're going to look back and be like, oh, that's why.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  That's why everything felt off because it was off. I can't believe I stayed on that path for as long as I did. But then I listened and then I made the shifts. And so really with this, we tell our woman addition, subtraction. What needs to be added in to get more into alignment with what your soul, your spirit, your higher self, your muse is calling you into? Subtraction, what needs to be removed that's no longer working. At one point, another version of this years ago, Preston and I removed all TVs from our house. Because we're like, we love entertainment. We love documentaries. We love all the things. We found ourselves watching it a lot and we just started to feel a little off. And then we said, let's just take that, let's remove TVs. Let's remove alcohol. Let's remove the, and we just removed a bunch of stuff. And our life felt so dramatically different in like a week. Why?

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Because we were out of alignment and something new had to be birthed. And we needed a more space for that newness to be birthed. So that's just something that you can do is start to go, okay, if I was really in my highest self, what would I shift? Like what's off? And waving the flag of like, hey, you're heading in the wrong direction. What direction are you feeling like you're being called to right now? And like, what a beautiful question to say.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  And what about the woman listening who's like, I know that I feel stuck, but I really don't want to blow my life up. Is, is there a way around blowing my life up and still getting to the destination?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Great question. Yeah. And I mean, one of the biggest things that we say in news is really like, this whole journey is not prescriptive. So what looks like what your journey is, is going to look different to hers, is going to look different to mine. And so, and, and so much of it also is about becoming so connected again to your own truth that you know the answer. And so this will be an answer only the person listening will know. But it's going to take the honest reflection of doing kind of all the things we've shared about in this whole series, right? Of really getting attuned to herself, getting attuned to her body, getting attuned to the practice, becoming the woman who is that woman in her life. And then through that process, that's going to illuminate what stays, what doesn't, what needs to shift.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  But also it's going to, you know, it's even like we talked about in the relational podcast, the more and more that we do that and become so full and become so sovereign and become in the practice of being that woman. Life also starts to shift around us. So it's not that we have to kind of make these, you know, maybe, but I know when my life shifted, it shifted on itself. I didn't have to blow anything up. It kind of like,

• 9:44Speaker 02

  It was erupting.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. What was, what like life kind of did a lot of that heavy lifting. And so sure, things may change that you're attached to, or things may look different, like your life totally melted down. And but you look, sit here now saying it was the best thing that ever happened to you. So I think it's, it's not feeling, you're not going to have to do something you're not ready to do or, you know, blow up everything. But it's, you're in this process of becoming closer and closer to your truth, closer and closer to the life that you want. So how that's going to look for everybody is going to be different.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think for the woman that also is like, yeah, okay, I hear that, but Natalie, your life blew up and your life blew up. And Lexi, your life blew up. It's, it's, as you said, our lives were already erupting under the surface.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  And we were just trying, we were trying to like cover the holes of the explosion. And the energy that that takes is exhausting, which is what this whole series is about. The reason why we're burnt out is often because we're over functioning over our body's response to say, hey, something's got to shift. And so the invitation here is start small. Start with subtle shifts, like bringing you into deeper alignment. Maybe you're out of your spiritual practice. Maybe you need to eat better, like small subtle shifts. And the more you start to gain your energy back by closing up some of those holes that are erupting that you've been trying to like. The more you just say, okay, I'm gonna let that burst because that's no longer working. Okay, great. I'm gonna take my hand off of this. Okay, great. And then you start to free up energy to have more clarity, to go, okay,

• 11:07Speaker 02

  now that I've got a little more space and I feel more clear and aligned and I'm on the right path, where do I want to go? And that's where we can start designing instead of reacting. And that's a really key piece. Like our woman, life can look a lot different, but sometimes it looks so subtly different. But who she is, is different in the face of it. Because she's showing up with this designed outlook on life, this designed range. I want to be a woman who enters every day with joy. Or I want to be a woman who's in touch with her pleasure and sensuality. Okay, great. That woman is gonna work differently. She's gonna send emails differently. She's gonna parent differently. She's gonna do all these things differently. But she's more in alignment with what's calling her forward. And that's why Em said it does look different for every woman.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  But you've got to ask the question, like, what type of woman do I want to be? And how is my life living out of alignment with that vision? How do I get it closer to who she is?

• 11:59Speaker 00

  And what about for the woman who's like, I hear you, but life right now feels like a never-ending magical to-do list. It's just like I tick one thing off and 10 things are added and I'm exhausted. I can't fathom adding more to my plate.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Great. You want to take it?

• 12:15Speaker 00

  You can, if you're alive.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Okay, I just, real quick, I just want to speak to that. That was me. I was like, do not give me another thing to do. I cannot do it. But that is the invitation. What would be in the highest alignment is space. If you're genuinely feeling overwhelmed, space. Your higher self is going, space, breathe, rest, take care, nourish. And we're going, no, tick, tick, tick, I gotta keep ticking. So for that woman, ask yourself, what is the 20%, 80/20 rule? What's the 20% that is absolutely necessary to keep this train running? 80%, delegate it or delete it. And just focus on the essentials and give yourself some space because that's what your body probably needs.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  And and it's really also like everything that we've been sharing in this podcast, right? Even that feeling of there's just so much, there's literally no space for me. Like, there's no space for me to even think about this. That is a symptom even in and of itself that this is the initiation that's happening, right? Because being a woman, like, this has been a big piece of work for Lex, like, to be a woman who can hold space. Because she is, like, her pattern is production and proving.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Constantly fill the space, make space, fill the space.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, same. Yeah, exactly. So like even that, knowing, you know, I think we've addressed that a lot in this podcast, of the fact that you're not going to get to the bottom of the list. We're in here, like, it's, our lives are busy forever and always, but it's how, what's the context that we want to show up to that? Because the, it's, the solution isn't going to be life magically changing so that you can have this experience. This is part of the whole point, right? We have to prioritize this, how I am in my life is the experience of my life. So if there's literally no space to do that, you will forever have the experience of not having space.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  That's right, because the to-do list never ends.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have to prioritize. And again, this is the more and more we do this work and the more and more we feel our life shifting, because it does, the easier it is to make this space. So in a way, it's kind of like a trust pull at the beginning, like, trust us, this is going to help you. It's really important.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  But it's like you said, you need the evidence. Sometimes you have to try it out and go, oh, okay, my life isn't going to fully fall apart. And it might actually get better.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it may be your nervous system's strategy to never have space, because space is threatening. Because when we think about what lies in the space, it's probably, for most of us, all the stuff we haven't felt, all the stuff we're trying to avoid, all the stuff we're perpetually putting in the space to not feel, to stay numb, to stay stuck. So a lot of that is also a symptom of energy we haven't felt, emotion we haven't felt as well. So again, everything in our life makes sense, the way that we're approaching life and our systems and our strategies, that it makes sense for what we're currently experiencing. So if we want to experience something different, then we have to prioritize becoming the woman that can experience something different.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Every December, I tell myself I'll be organized. And every December, I end up in this very specific little shop down the road, grabbing last-minute gifts for friends and family. The whole store is full of really small, unique, perfect things that I feel like I've never seen anywhere else. I didn't, but the store owner did. Probably back in October, probably on FAIR. So FAIR is a wholesale marketplace connecting independent retailers with more than 100,000 unique brands worldwide. Home, apparel, beauty, food and more. Over 700,000 retailers already stock their shelves there. And if you are the one stocking those shelves, the timing is on your side.

• 15:27Speaker 00

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• 16:10Speaker 00

  Hmm. And as we're wrapping up the series too, Alexi, one thing you said on our last podcast together, which I just think sums a lot of this up is wherever I go, there I am. Uh huh. And it's almost like we cannot sit here and think that when we tick off these things, or when we're in a new relationship, or when we burn the business down and start a new one, when we do all the things, we'll show up differently.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Because we're taking the same person to the new party.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and, and we're, it's a little different because the newness, the novelty gives us that dopamine hit and that rush. So we're like, oh, yes, it is different. Oh my gosh, I feel so different. Oh, then I'm not. And then like you, you get the sobering reality of like, oh, here I am again. And it's so true. I've had that uncomfortable and unfortunate moment of going, damn it. It didn't work. The strategy, the change, the novelty, the high lasts for a second. But to actually do the work of working the fundamentals of who we are, working the patterns, working the. Working the nervous system, working safety and trust, working enoughness and worthiness. When we work that, yes, it's hard at first, but that is an investment.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  You want to talk about investment that pays dividends for a lifetime? That investment, there is no other investment like that. Because I take that person into every deal I make, every house I buy, every relationship I have, every moment with my kids and my husband.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Every moment of your day.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  That woman lives a life completely different every day and is not waiting for some magical moment to show up for me to then have permission to feel different. I feel different because I've done the work to actually land in safety in my body so big.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Because the also like the tough love piece on this is like, we do have to take responsibility for that. Life will never just create that perfect situation. And I say this to my students and clients all the time, like we have to be disciplined about this work. If we want to actually experience something different, then it's fine if you don't. But also understand that that's what your situation of life will look like. If you do want to experience something different, there is this pathway. There is so much hope, there is so much possibility, there's so much expansion. And it will still also require you to choose that. It will require you to say, this matters, my experience of my life matters, the experience of my woman matters. And I'm going to do, it could be five minutes a day. Like, I mean, I, you know, and if you don't have five minutes a day, then you have bigger questions to ask, right? And so this allows us the pathway into what we're wanting.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  But we also have to take responsibility for the fact that, you know, am I, am I going to find the reasons why I cannot? Or am I committed to actually knowing that I can move towards this? Because we do have to have discipline about it.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  And I just have to say, as a mama of four with a very busy life, with like end to end, my schedule, my life is so full, bursting at the seams sometimes. I made that a priority and I'm so grateful that I finally did. And literally, it was five minutes a day. It was three minutes a day when I started because I was like, I just got to give myself a small win. Like, I can find three minutes. I was doing practices in the shower, I was doing practices when I was driving to work. There is space, you just have to choose yourself and put yourself first in those moments. Because I know for me, I was the person that's like, there is no space, I don't have time. And I found so much evidence for it, but I was keeping myself. The victim of why my life wasn't working. And in order to change, I had to, I had to create it. I had to create time. I had to become unreasonable. I get bigger than my circumstances to know that I actually mattered.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  My life matters and every person that my life touches matters too. And if I actually believe that, I gotta take care of the source first.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the most liberating questions you can ask yourself is how am I the source of this? And like, actually, it's, it feels like a lot of responsibility to do that and step out of, it's all because of my life and all of these pieces, but it actually gives you choice and power. But okay, so if I'm the source of this, then I can also create something different. And I think it's the most liberating.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  It's the best.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Liberating thing ever.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's it. That's a big reason I wanted to bring this series to my community. Because it is the best investment. Like you said, you are the one that's going to all of these deals. You are the one that's showing up in negotiations. You are the one in your marriage. You are the one who's parenting. You are the one who's going and dating. You are the one.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Who's making the funnel work, who's creating the offer.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Who's managing the team. You are the one.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  So what if instead of investing in all the other things, the things outside of us, we just stepped back and looked at the one that is actually doing all the things?

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  That's where the investment is. That's where the return on the investment is. I mean, I love this so, so much. If this series stirred something in you, if you felt seen, called forward, or cracked open in a way you didn't expect, good. That's the part of you that's still alive. That's the part of you that refuses to settle for surface level success. This isn't the end of the conversation. It is the beginning of a completely different way of doing life, leadership and success. And we are going to go much deeper inside our masterclass soft success. Soft success isn't just a training, it is a recalibration. We are walking you through the exact frameworks we have used to rebuild our businesses, our relationships and our inner world from the inside out.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Not through hustling harder, but by unlearning the performance and coming home to what is true. Because you don't need more strategy right now. You need space to feel. Tools to regulate and the permission to build success that feels like you. Go to bossweb.com/softsuccess and get yourself registered. This is your line in the sand moment, not because everything is broken, but because deep down, you know, this is not the fullest expression of you. Come join us. You've done the high achieving. Now it is time for that deep receiving and we would love to see you inside.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Wait, wait, wait, before you go, I would love to send you my seven figure CEO operating system, completely free as a gift. All you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show. This is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom based daily, weekly and monthly schedule looks like as an eight figure CEO, mama and high performer. And I'll walk you through step by step, how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug and play spreadsheet to literally create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997, but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild, right?

• 22:48Speaker 00

  All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it and then head over to bossweb.com/review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to bossweb.com/review to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported you.