480: High-Functioning Burnout Exposed: When Sleep isn't Really the Solution

Why do so many high-achieving women do all the right things - get 8 hours of sleep, take the supplements, follow the routines - yet still wake up exhausted? In the first episode of this series, we unpacked the overwhelm loop. In Part 2 of our 5-part High-Functioning Burnout Exposed series with Awaken the Muse, Natalie, Alexi Panos and Emily Gallagher dive into energy, vitality and why sleep isn’t solving what’s actually nervous-system and emotional-load related. You’ll hear why healthy habits alone can’t create true vitality, how to reconnect with the signals your body is sending, and the exact reflection that reveals where your energy is leaking: What are you avoiding or pretending not to know? After listening to this episode, you will walk away with simple regulation tools, a new way to understand your body’s needs, and a gentler path to real, sustainable energy. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Doing all the things… and still running on empty 01:18 Vitality vs. cortisol: a new definition of energy 04:33 Burnout as initiation (when old tricks stop working) 08:03 Rebuilding self-trust: listening to your body first 12:16 Looks vs. feels: caring for your body from the inside 14:18 Feeling the unfelt (grief, numbness, stored emotions) 16:48 The diagnostic question: What are you avoiding/pretending not to know? 24:07 The true cost of not looking (energy, love, creativity) 29:14 A one-week practice to reveal what you’re avoiding RESOURCES + LINKS ⁠Click Here To Join Soft Success⁠: A Free Masterclass Experience To Guide You In Ending 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

  Welcome back to day two of our five part series, red flags every boss babe needs to know. If you haven't already listened to episode one, pause here and go back because we unpacked one of the most common and misunderstood patterns, living in a constant state of urgency and mistaking anxiety for productivity. Today, we're diving into a red flag that so many high achieving women write off as just being tired or busy, but it's so much deeper than that. This episode is for the woman who's doing everything right. The sleep, the supplements, the morning routine and still feels bone deep exhausted. This kind of exhaustion isn't about how many hours you slept last night. It is about how long your body has been running in overdrive. And when it finally stops, it doesn't feel like rest.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  It feels like collapse, numbness, freeze, like no amount of hustle hacks are working anymore. We are calling this episode tired to the bone when sleep isn't the solution because what you're feeling is not laziness. It is a body that has been in survival mode for too long and does not trust rest to be safe. This is the episode where we really start to unravel what burnout actually is and why it might be the gateway to a completely different relationship with success, energy and worth. So let's start the conversation.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  I'm excited about this episode specifically talking about energy. And the reason why, I mean, I can remember for myself, times where I have been doing all the things and I'm talking about all the things, listen, I'm an overachiever. So I'm like getting all the sleep, even with kids, I'm taking all the supplements, I'm doing extensive blood work, there's hydrogen in my water, I'm getting sunlight in my eyes, strength training, da da, da da, da, like I'm doing all the things and I've still done all of the things and felt like there is nothing in the tank. I remember specifically, it was a couple of years ago, Naomi was still really young and I just had this full moment of unraveling and sobbing to Stephen of there is nothing

• 1:58Speaker 00

  left in the tank, I have nothing left to give everyone. But on paper, all my routines and all my habits, they were the habits of a very high performing, high energy person. Yeah. And to contrast. That with, you know, how I feel now, which is quite pregnant, but waking up every single day feeling so alive.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  So energized, but not from a cortisol place. From this deep aliveness in my bones. And listen, it's not always that way.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  We go through seasons, but I feel like now I have a reference point of that vitality and I know how to get myself back here. I have that roadmap.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  And I know for you, Emily, you've talked a lot about your real burnout moment. Can we go there? Because I just think there are a lot of women listening who probably have or are doing all the things. They've got the red light. They're probably listening to this while I power walk and getting their steps in. And they're like, I still feel like I am running on empty and I need help.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's such a big piece. And I love that word vitality, right? Cause it's like how we're feeling that felt experience in our life that really only can kind of come from inside. And I think that's a big piece because so many of us are conditioned from trying to get there from the outside in. Like what supplements should I take? What are my routines that I should do? Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough? Like even that energetic is what keeps so many women outside of that experience of vitality because it's not attuned. It's like, what does this person tell me that I should do? What's the science? What's the expert, you know, telling me about how to get to that place? So that already is such a big piece. And for me was, was massive. I was always outside in like, what's the things I should be doing? How should I be moving my body? What are the, you know, what should my business look like?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  It was all this kind of externalized drive of how I should be living and what I should be creating. There was no real connection to that internal voice and that internal drive. And so, you know, naturally, because I spent years ignoring all of those little signs that we're sharing. I'd just come back from traveling, you know, overseas. We had been running an event in, in London and Australia. And I was planning launches and I was running my team and outside life looked amazing. I was planning my TED Talk. I was in the midst of TED Talk rehearsals. And I could knock it out of bed. It just hit me for more than three weeks where I was just, I've never had depression, but I had this moment of feeling like, I have a textual feeling for what that would feel like. Nothing felt like.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Like it mattered. I had absolutely zero drive, energy. I felt apathy. I mean, I just couldn't get out of bed. And I was writing in my journal, not even that bunch of a big journal, but I just recall it so viscerally writing. Once I get through the launch and the event and the this and the TED talk and it just hit me. I was like, oh, so like, once I get through my life, then I'll experience my life. Like, I was like, oh, I just saw it so black and white. The wiring that I was running through my life, it was always something else I had to get through. And it really landed for me. And of course, obviously, just really having bottom of the barrel, like not getting out of bed, nothing, just feeling like it mattered.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  It really took that for me to go, okay, so this isn't working. And this isn't also the way that I'm gonna keep moving forward. It was so sobering and again, so unavoidable. Like at that point, I couldn't argue with what was showing up. It was like, all right, I'm being invited to notice something here. Like, what am I gonna do differently moving forward?

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's so big. And I think that's the piece about burnout that, you know, we hear burnout culture. We hear that women are impacted by burnout in the crazy numbers these days. And in some ways, we're like racing against the clock to try to avoid it with all these bio hacks and all this stuff. But really, like, burnout is this deep invitation from our body to go, stop, just stop. It's not working. And what a gift, right? Because oftentimes, we hear those signs of, hey, maybe slow down a little bit, maybe take a break, maybe go for a walk and get some sun on your face. Or whatever it is, we hear these little signs and we're like, not right now. I gotta finish this thing or I gotta get through this launch or I gotta get through the TED talk or whatever it is. And we ignore and we stuff and we suppress. But burnout is when our body literally goes, hey, babe, that's not working anymore.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  And so it's a gift because all of our old tricks that we are so well-conditioned to use to get us through the next thing, they're not gonna hold up in this season. And so when burnout hits, or if you're close, hopefully you hear this and you're like, you catch it before. It's literally your body going, okay, we're inviting you into a new season of life where you're gonna do life completely different. And you're gonna have to, because there's no other option.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so big. I mean, I Remember, because again, you know, how we do anything is how we do everything. So the way we're running our business is the way we're running our bodies is the way we're running all of it. And I remember being in L A dragging. I was so tired. My body was so fatigued. And I was obviously in L A trying to do the meetings and running my business. But I was also planning a training for this hell on the hill race at Jesse Ipsos House. Oh, I remember that. You know, oh, who will I meet there? And like, there was such this, like, that's the place to be, you know? And I just remember that I had already done my training run that day. But again, my mind was, okay, I've got to do, this is how I live, again, externally. Like, you have to work out every day. This is how you have to eat. Like, it was all very outside and there was no attunement to my actual body.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I just remember hauling myself to this circuit training class, like in L A, Venice Beach circuit training class. Like, you can imagine how psycho that class is, right? And it was just like, because this is what I've got to do. And it was, again, that same mentality that I was approaching everywhere in life. And I think when you're a high achiever in one place, you're a high achiever in a lot of other places. But again, like this invitation with burnout is such an initiation into firstly, really getting into our bodies, which is wild how much of a journey. I mean, they say that, right? The longest journey you'll take is from your head into your heart, like into your body. And really cultivating, and this is such a big piece about this whole journey, this ability to have such a deep trust within ourself as women.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Again, as women, we're so conditioned outside to trust what's, what's people say or who we should be. What should I do? And this, this is such a big piece of that initiation to really go, oh, like, what is being asked of me? Not of you, not of you, not this other person's journey. And to really have such a reverential sense of trust for like, all right, like, I'm on my friggin' journey. And what is being asked of me, of my body right now? And I'm going to cultivate the capacity to really listen to that. That's such a big invitation of this journey. And that's why, like you said before, like your level of alignment, like your level of just capacity now, because you're so attuned to yourself, but actually being able to build that muscle. Like, the burnout is a big piece of that, because it's like, all right,

• 8:33Speaker 01

  you're likely listening to this knowing that there's all these things you should do. And there's the strategies and there's all these pieces that. The result of all of this is becoming so connected to your own truth, so connected to your own body. And that's when, again, opportunities come to you. Like, you're magnetic. You're like, all of these outcomes of how we can still create a big life, but from a different way. They require really connecting and building this capacity, which burnout is the door for, unless you listen sooner.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, which we're hoping you hear this. And you're like, oh, my gosh, I may be headed towards burnout.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Take heed from our story.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. But something you said that I think requires talking about, because I don't know about you, but a lot of the women we work with, they're like, what does that mean to go into my body? And like, we used to think that. Like, what does that actually mean? And we live in a society that has largely conditioned all of us, no matter your gender, to focus on the intellect. The intellect is our gateway to all of life. And if we can understand the mind, we can understand life. If we can hack the mind, we can hack success. We can hack life. And what we've forgotten is ultimately, we're all animals, and we're mammals. And our mammalian body actually has so much wisdom, has its own intellect, has its own powers. But we are disconnected from that because we're not actually attuning to it. In fact, as you said, we're ignoring it. We're suppressing the signs. We're pushing it down.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  We're working over our body's capacity instead of working with our body's capacity. So when we say, like, moving from our head into our bodies, we're really talking about, number one, attuning to the body's signals. It is a learned art because we didn't grow up in households, most of us, that taught us how to listen to our bodies. In fact, we went to school. And whenever we felt like even the urge to pee, we were told, sit and wait until the break. So we're taught to actually ignore our bodies for the sake of productivity. And so relearning your body's signals and cues is an art and a practice. That's number one. Number two, your body actually stores emotional trauma. And trauma isn't always like a big capital T trauma, big thing. Sometimes it's little things. But we don't live in a society that really welcomes feeling much.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  And so we've got to feel the unfelt. We've got to open that pathway so that our body has reprieve, so that it can actually go. Okay, now that I'm not holding and thinking we're still stuck in this survival state from this little trauma that happened, or this big trauma that happened, now I can actually be present. And once we're present in our bodies, this is when we turn on our superpowers, especially as women. Intuition gets amplified. Our life force, like you said, I feel lit up from my cells, like in my bones. We can feel that sense of aliveness because the channel is fully open. When we're in that sense of aliveness, imagine energy, because we're all energetic beings, just moving and radiating from us, creating a field of energy that is a magnetic force field. Now, we are like the most attractive being that walks into

• 11:19Speaker 02

  any room, because people can feel us. And we've all been in a room where you feel that person walk in and you're like, who is that? I don't know what they're doing. I haven't even talked to them, but oh my gosh, it's palpable. And then we also have felt the person that knows a lot.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Says all the right things.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  But it's like talking to a dead fish, right? It's energy, right? We are energetic beings and we're attracted to that. So I just wanted to ground that because I think a lot of women, self included, for a long time, I'm like, what does that even mean to get into our body? Like, am I just supposed to dance? Or I work out? I'm in my body all the time.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's

• 11:50Speaker 02

  It's a different thing.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  That piece is key, because I mean, all of us in this room, like, take care of our bodies. I was obsessed with my body the entire life, but I wasn't in it. And that distinction is really key, because, oh yeah, working out or taking care of your body, again, I know for me, it was always how it looks. Like, I'm taking care of my body because it needs to look a certain way. Like, how should I look? How do I feed my body for how it will look? How do I move my body for how it will look? It was never about how it feels. And so it is important to make that distinction, because again, when we say, high achieving in one place, you're probably high achieving somewhere else. If you are, you know, moving your body and taking care of it, like you said, you were doing everything. But again, kind of outside in, what are the things to do so that I'll be healthy versus like really actually being in our felt experience of our body. And also,

• 12:34Speaker 01

  like, just also reiterating, like, it all makes sense. Like, it makes sense we're not in our bodies. It makes sense that we, because also, once we do get in there, that those stored traumas, that emotion, that energy, like, that is in there. There's a reason why we're whooped up as a society, right? Porn, food, overworking,

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Dabing.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Like, shopping, all of these coping mechanisms that keep us out. Because it's a lot. I mean, when I finally got initiated basically into into my body, I didn't grieve my dad until ten years after he died, eight or nine, ten years after he died. So I just did not have the system. I didn't have the tools. I didn't, I wasn't in my body at all. So there was just like a numbness and not even cognizantly aware of it. Like, it wasn't like, oh, I haven't grieved my dad. It was just, didn't sort of come up. And again, it's like when we, when we slowly build this practice of like actually being in the practice of like, you know, and I I joke all the time about, you know, when people say, where do you feel that in your body? It's like, I would, I would want to literally punch someone in the face because I was like, fuck, what are you talking about?

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Like, like, I just had no awareness of being able to actually feel the sensations in my body, which is really common for a lot of the women that we work with. And so again, it makes sense because we don't have the skills or the capacity to actually be with that felt experience until we do. And our bodies are so smart, they only give us what we can actually hold. And so it's just trusting, like, the more and more we build that practice, that our body just slowly titrates us on, hey, it's time to feel this. Hey, it's time. And that's why even just a part of this conversation, it's trusting this innate wisdom of also just life presenting you the situations that are actually initiating you into your expansion. And then also your body, like your body is this beacon of wisdom. It's like, wow, why am I so tired?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Okay, baby, maybe we need to look at something. Actually really cultivating that trust versus like, something's wrong. I've got to fix something. It's like, oh, there's a message here. Even that approach as well, you can feel how much softer it is, how much less energy it takes than fighting and pushing against it, right? And that's part of what this cultivates us into.

• 14:36Speaker 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 one hundred thousand unique brands worldwide.

• 15:08Speaker 00

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• 15:50Speaker 00

  You can sign up today and get fifty percent off your first wholesale order, up to a hundred dollars at F A I R E dot com slash boss babe. That's F A I R E dot com slash boss babe. Terms may apply. I think the same. I think if someone had said to me a few years ago, maybe you're exhausted because of the emotional load in your body, I would have said, you have no idea. It's my mitochondria, like, right? I just wouldn't have even accepted that as a thing. Yeah. And I think for me, I just grew up not trusting my body. And there were so many reasons that I didn't trust my body at all. And that only really came to light in my late twenties.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  But I think, you know, from having so many health issues, you know, from a young age, we had black mold. We had so many health issues to then going into really severe hormone issues, being told by four doctors, you'll never get pregnant naturally. Wow. To, I think, just created this real disconnect between me and my body. And there was a lot of stored trauma there, generational trauma that has showed up. And we have had to look at, but I just had this very untrusting relationship with my body. As my body lets me down, my body isn't functioning, my body isn't doing what it should do. But what's really interesting was repairing that trust. My body does function the way it's supposed to function now. And my biomarkers look better than ever.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  And it's not that I'm doing more, I'm probably doing less now than I ever have, just because of the season that I'm in. And so. It's really fascinating. And I know one of the things we were gonna say on this episode was for women that are relating to this and are looking for, okay, well, what's the step? One of the questions being, well, what are you avoiding?

• 17:29Speaker 02

  That.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  And I'm very curious for both of you, when this started coming up, what was your answer to that question for you guys?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  I mean, for me, I mean, a lot of things. I think, I mean, for sure, the grief, actually creating enough time and space to actually feel, to actually cultivate the experience of becoming a woman who has capacity to feel. There was just no capacity there. And so much of that too was because of my really dysfunctional relationship with my body. We were enemies ultimately, you know? Like, it was like, you're wrong. Like, you're not doing what you should be doing just because of how it looked and my dysfunctional relationship there. So there was so much of an adversarial experience, which kept me out of my body. So really, this journey for me has been a massive initiation into feeling, into becoming whole.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Like, I was like, I wasn't living as a whole woman. And that's also created this really beautiful healing connection, like with my body. Like, was avoiding, I think, even realizing how out of my body I was, how out of my life I was. And really being initiated into what actually, like, how do you want a woman? How do you want to live your life? How does it get to feel? And that's been something that's, you know, unfolded over time. But I think really the big piece was was actually realizing how just not in my body and therefore like really not in my life I was. I was, my life was constantly over there, somewhere over there.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  So, so crazy. Yeah, mine, mine's slightly different, but similar through line. I was avoiding, well, first of all, I'll say this, my burnout was in my relationship. Like, I felt so exhausted in my relationship where it's like, I'm doing all the things, I'm, we've got the therapy, we have all the tools, we're having the conversations, we're da, da, da, da. And I just felt so exhausted. I'm like, This, I can't keep doing this. And so what I was avoiding was the fact that even in the trying to fix things and make things better, I was people pleasing, I was self abandoning, I was self betraying. I wasn't using my voice and asking for what I needed. I didn't even know what I needed because I was so practiced in thinking about him and the family and what does he need and what do they need? What do I need? How do I want to feel as a woman? I just kept putting myself on the shelf for later.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  I'll get to you later, Lex. I'll get to you later, Lex. And that's why I was so exhausted because the over functioning of trying to make sure he was good and the kids were good and the house was good and the businesses were good was exhausting me. Because the true self that I was was going like, hey, I'm here. Can we do this thing called life? And so for me, the invitation was, I was avoiding myself. I was avoiding my needs. I was avoiding even asking what I needed. I was avoiding my own experience of my life as a woman because I was so outwardly focused on everybody else, including my clients, including my clients. It was always like their needs come first and you'll be on the shelf for later, Lex, once their needs are handled. But I never got to the shelf. I never got to the shelf until I did, until I was forced to go, okay, I'm going to take you

• 20:19Speaker 02

  off the shelf, Lex, and we're going to start asking the hard questions. What do you actually want in your life? What is not working for you in the relationship? Stop trying to fix what's not working for him. What's not working for you? What's not working in your business? What needs to change? Who do you need to bring in? And I had to ask all these really hard questions that the over functioner and the one who just has high capacity and could just do it all, never even thought to ask. And that was for me, it was like the linchpin. You pulled it, I pulled it, and it was like, oh, oh, the amount of self betrayal around my entire life is massive. And of course, I'm exhausted because I am trying to over function and create safety and control and relationship with all these people without being in a relationship to myself. So of course I'm tired.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Oh, of course. And I had so much compassion, but also, whoa, I got a lot of work to do. And that, I mean, it shifted everything for me.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  I love that. Thank you both for sharing. I think it's always so helpful to hear, especially for the women listening who have been avoiding things for so long.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  And I mean, for me, I feel like any time I am feeling like I'm jumping back into performative patterns or fight or flight or taking on way too much, I normally have to look at what I'm avoiding. And it even hit me recently. I mean, this is never one and done.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  Like I can, I can think about my big moment, but even recently, I noticed myself jumping into all of that over-functioning. I noticed myself being in fight or flight. And when I really slowed down, I realized in the first trimester of this pregnancy, I was really sick. And I stopped doing the work. I stopped looking at myself and giving myself what I needed because I was so sick. I was just trying to function, you know, get up with my toddler, like make sure she's taken care of. Don't be too hormonal with my husband. Execute the launch that I committed to. There was these things that I felt I had to push through. And so the good way of saying it, I was putting myself on a shelf. And when I came out of that sickness, I realized there was a lot to look at. I wasn't feeling good, even though I wasn't feeling sick anymore.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  And what I really started to realize was, for me, what's been really interesting is watching Noemi grow up has been like watching my inner child grow up.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  And the age that she turned a few months ago was the age I had one of my like big early traumas. And that was coinciding with the sickness of my pregnancy. And I avoided all of it.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  And I just spent a week going there and looking at it and naming it and bringing it up to Stephen. And on the other side, like I remember going into that week thinking, oh, here we go again. Am I gonna burn everything down? And I remember coming out of that week feeling light and energetic and ready to prioritize myself again. Cause I just realized I was avoiding that. Like it had been sitting there and I think I knew, there was a part of me that knew. But being sick was a really great way to hide it and avoid it. And like, no, Stephen, I'm being a bitch because I'm hormonal. Like, no, I'm like rejecting. You cause I'm because I'm this and like I'm pouring all my energy into everyone else. I don't have to look at myself.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  And it was an excuse and that's my pattern. And so it's just like, it's never one and done.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Always gonna come up, but for me, the win was, oh, a week.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Right, yes.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  That's a win.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  To do the work.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  That's a win.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yes, I wanna just underline that because I think it could be easy to discount having time to do all of this. But I think it's really important to know for anybody listening, it's already there.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  So there's already an impact of not doing it. It's not really like, yes, it's a choice. You can choose when you wanna take this on. It is going to come for you and it's also currently present in your life.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  And it's already costing you.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It's already costing you, already paying a price. So it's not even like, oh, do I have time to do it? It's like, oh, it's just kind of shifting a resource is actually going to create, like you said, more space, more life and is actually looking at it. So it's not that whether or not it's currently in your life. It's actually just when do you wanna sort of start to make enough space to look at it? Because yeah, there's already a price we're paying for not kind of being proactive about it. So this is just giving us the option of go, all right, well, let me just allocate the resources to actually looking at it. Because I'm currently allocating the resources to not looking at it, right?

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Which is an energetic cost.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  It's a massive energetic cost.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  For me personally, it was bigger. The energetic cost was bigger. What it was costing me was bigger. It was costing me connection in my relationship. It was costing me connection to myself. It was costing me energy that I could be pouring into my parenting or my work or my friendships.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  So it was costing me.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Regardless.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Some way.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  And it was just, yeah, it's, and I think that's the beautiful thing about learning these tools is you can shorten how long it takes. You know, it doesn't always take a week. Maybe you need a day. Maybe you need a therapy session. Maybe you need to, to, like, it doesn't always take like a long time. And you can keep shortening that window when you stop resisting it and diving in. So is the thing we really, because I know we're showing up, we've got so many more, we've got more coming tomorrow. Is the thing we really wanna leave them with today is like, what is that thing for them that they're avoiding? Cause I bet it's so freaking heavy.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's either what are you pretending not to know? What are you avoiding? What have you been avoiding feeling, right? If you had like M, you had your father pass away. It was years prior, but she hadn't really ever grieved that. And grief is such a dense emotion, but it's such a human emotion. And it's beautiful when we fully allow ourselves to experience that grief. It actually allows us to feel like how much we loved, how much we held for that person. And so, again, energetically, emotionally, relationally, business-wise, what are you pretending not to know or pretending isn't there? Like, what is under the rug that you've just been sweeping and going, I'll get to it later?

• 25:51Speaker 00

  That question is sobering. It's so, so great.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Because, and I also think too, and I've been so guilty of this my whole life, is outsourcing my power, right?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Hands up if you relate at home. Yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  They know better than me. They're better at this. Like, I need help to do X, Y, Z. And, you know, I mean, I even remember the first ever business that I started. I co-founded a supplement company with my boyfriend at the time. And it was a terrible decision. The only reason I did it was because I thought I needed him to help me do it.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Or there's been so many moments in my life where like I've avoided looking at something because I thought I needed someone to guide me through it. But that question, what are you pretending not to know? I think will highlight for women listening how powerful they are.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Because they already know the answer.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  Maybe they need to actually stop and go on a walk or like, you know, take a minute. But I hope that highlights to them how much they know already.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  It's so true. And there's so many women that, should I stay? Should I go? What's the next thing? And if you truly get still and listen, you already know the answer.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  You do. But often, again, we're trained to think we don't.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the more space that we make to actually cultivate that connection of listening, of attuning to self, of being in the practice of actually like going within first instead of without. And again, it all makes sense. We've been conditioned this way. There's a lot of really important reasons from a whole lineage and generation down of why we do that and why we've actually had to for a lot of women. So it is a practice and it is a muscle that gets stronger and stronger. So even if anyone's sitting out there right now going, no, but I don't know. Even that can be just a conditioned pattern that we're so conditioned in that way, that just being in the practice of like, okay, but if I did know.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  If I could trust myself.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Okay, but if I could listen and knowing that the more and more and more that we do that and we go here first, and then we kind of act on the little nudges. Oh, okay, look, even like, I know I need two hours off. All right, took two hours off, business was fine, people were fine, everyone was fine. So all the fear that we have around actually trusting that voice, we get the reassurance that we can trust it. And then over time, we can learn to trust that with even bigger and bigger pieces. So it's still a muscle and a practice to actually cultivate that knowing of that voice too within.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, and if anyone is listening and saying, man, I I'm so far from knowing. Just sit with a question almost as a thought and spend a week with that thought kind of just over your life in your awareness. And you'll start to see, you'll start to see.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Life will show you.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you truly, if you truly bring some consciousness and intention to that thought every single day. Okay, today I'm available to see what I'm pretending not to know. Okay, today I'm available to see what I've been avoiding. You'll see it.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like friction points, friction points in your life are really great insight, right? All of these, we came to a lot of this from friction points, like, oh, I'm really,

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  I feel so frustrated with my body, like this amount of body image stuff that I had. That was a friction point, that was an entry place, that was the thing, a place I was not knowing that I was outsourcing my worth and value, right? The the friction points in your life are going to leave clues as to where there's maybe something you're trying not to know. Yeah, or could be invited into.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  If this episode really made you feel seen, if you're in that place where your body is tired, your mind is tired, and even the things that used to work just don't anymore, then I really want to invite you to join us inside of Soft Success. It is a 60 minute masterclass we're hosting at bossbib.com/softsuccess. And it is designed for high achieving women who are done with burnout, done with overriding their needs, and really ready to redefine what success looks like from the inside out. We are going really deep into the exact frameworks that have helped us recover from that bone deep fatigue, not through doing more, but by really healing what was underneath it. So if your body is asking you for something different, this is the sign to listen.

• 29:39Speaker 00

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