Episode 27: When Your Body Says “No More Bulldozing”

Catch this episode on Apple, Spotify, or Android. 

You push through the launch, the big meeting, the recital—and then comes the strange, heavy quiet. Instead of relief, your body serves up flatness, irritability, or a fog you can’t shake. Nothing’s wrong with you; that’s your nervous system landing. This episode names the “post-push crash,” explains why stillness can feel unsafe after a sprint, and gives you short, compassionate practices to help your system downshift without turning recovery into another performance metric. You’ll leave with a 3-minute re-entry plan you can use after any big effort.

What You'll Learn

• Why the “letdown effect” happens (and how to stop making it mean you’re failing)
• A two-minute body check-in that reduces spirals without fixing or numbing
• A 3-step “Name → Normalize → Nurture” script for fast, kind self-regulation
• How to design micro-rest that actually restores (presence over productivity)
• One practical swap this week to land softer after your next push

Episode Transcript

I used to be a productivity queen. Master of efficiency. Back in my consulting days, I prided myself on cranking through work like a machine.

Then I switched from a consulting firm to a nonprofit, and suddenly it was like I had landed on another planet. They exchanged emails like texts — constant pings in my inbox — and they took the first five minutes of every meeting to check in on how people were doing.

I found it jarring. My brain was screaming: “This is so inefficient. Can we get to the point?”

At the time, I couldn’t figure out why it made me so anxious. Later, I realized: I had built my identity around results. Tangible, measurable, visible outputs. Feelings? Feelings were not productive. Feelings were noise.

Does that sound familiar? Maybe you’ve had the same reaction — rolling your eyes at “how are you really doing?” check-ins, or pushing past your own emotions because you’ve got results to deliver. If you’ve ever treated feelings like distractions, you’re not alone.

Fast forward: now I’m a life coach. And my entire job is… talking about feelings. Naming them. Allowing them. Exploring them. Choosing them. What I once saw as a waste of time is now the not-so-secret secret to life.

But the truth is that I’m still VERY MUCH learning this skill. And right now, I’m learning it on a deeper level than ever before.

Because in the middle of big changes — moving states, relationship shifts, turning 40, hormones all over the place, new routines, leaving old identities behind — my feelings have gotten… big.

And maybe you’ve been there too. Times when your body just won’t let you push through anymore. For me, it shows up as tingling fingers, racing heart, brain fog. For you, maybe it’s snapping at your team, crying in the car, or staring at a blank screen when you should be writing.

Either way, the message is the same: you can’t outrun this.

So today, I want to talk about this skill — Feel Your Feelings — and what it actually looks like when your body and mind stop letting you bulldoze through, and instead invite you to pause, to notice, and to practice the very thing that changes everything.

WHY THIS FEELS SO HARD

So why is this skill — feeling your feelings — so hard? Especially for women like us who have built our lives and careers on getting things done?

First, we were never really taught how to feel. We were taught how to perform, how to achieve, how to take care of everyone else. But feelings? They were either “too much” or “a distraction.”

If you’re like me, you probably got rewarded for the times you pushed through — the all-nighters, the flawless presentations, the days you showed up polished even when you were crumbling inside. Our culture claps for output, not for presence. Nobody gave out gold stars for saying, “Actually, I’m anxious and I’m going to sit with that for a minute.”

So it makes sense that our nervous systems revolt when we slow down. Mine says: racing heart, buzzing fingertips, foggy brain. Yours might look like snapping at your team, over-preparing for a meeting until 2 a.m., or procrastinating on that tough conversation because the thought of it makes your stomach churn.

And here’s the science-y part: your brain loves novelty. Every Slack ping, every new email, every tiny task gives you a little dopamine hit. Stillness? No ping. Just silence. So your brain interprets that as danger. That’s why the second you sit down to write the strategy doc or prep for the investor call, you suddenly feel the urge to check your inbox, clear your calendar, or reorganize your kitchen drawers. Nothing’s wrong with you. That’s literally your wiring.

Add to that the identity piece. High-achieving women often build self-worth on outcomes. When results = worth, failure feels existential. No wonder we avoid the emotions that come with risk. No wonder our brains whisper: “Don’t feel that… just do something safe. Clean the inbox. Polish the slides. Schedule a meeting about the meeting.”

And then there’s this big myth: that once we “get there” — the new role, the next round, the bigger house, the perfect routine — we won’t have to feel this way anymore. That future-me will be calm, fearless, confident.

Spoiler: she won’t.

She’ll still feel fear before the launch, overwhelm in the middle of the quarter, disappointment when something underperforms. The emotions will travel. They’ll just change costumes. Which means the real work isn’t to engineer a life where you never feel them — the real work is to build the muscle to feel them here.

And here’s what I want you to hear most: when you avoid feelings, you pay twice. Once with the feeling itself, and again with the actions you take to avoid it. Anxiety costs you the prep you never did. Anger costs you the clarity you lost in the heat of snapping. Grief costs you the rest you skipped when you scrolled through it instead of letting it move through.

So no, feelings aren’t the problem. Resisting them is.

And this is why it feels so hard: your brain thinks it’s protecting you. Your identity thinks your worth is on the line. And your culture told you feelings were wasted time.

But here’s the opportunity: the moment you start naming feelings, noticing where they land in your body, and allowing them to be there for just 90 seconds without scrambling to fix them? That’s when you shift everything.

Because every time you do that, you’re not just surviving an emotion. You’re building an emotional awareness muscle. And that muscle is what allows you to hold more. More leadership. More impact. More goals. More joy.

So if you’ve been feeling like your body is hijacking you, or your emotions are “too much,” or you’re procrastinating on the things that matter most, nothing’s wrong. You’re just being invited to practice the very skill that makes your life — and your leadership — lighter.

COACHING

Let’s make this practical. Because “feel your feelings” sounds lovely on Instagram, but what does it actually look like when you’re living it?

I’ll give you three snapshots — and as I walk through them, I want you to picture your own version.

Recently, when I was avoiding a hard conversation with someone I love, I knew exactly what I wanted to say and had rehearsed it in my head—yet there I was scrubbing the sink and reorganizing a junk drawer. The fact was simple: I needed to ask for what I needed. My thought was, “This is going to be hard,” and my body answered with a buzzing chest, tight jaw, fluttering stomach. I stopped trying to feel “ready.” I named it—anxiety—noticed where it lived, and gave it ninety seconds while I took the smallest honest step: I texted, “Can we talk tonight at 8? I want to share something that matters to me.” I told myself, “This will be uncomfortable and useful.” It was. I didn’t lose the evening to avoidance, and the conversation was calmer and closer than my brain predicted.

And here’s another one.

Back in my education-policy days, when a contractor sent something half-baked my first thought was, “Great—now I have more work to do.” Frustration hit fast: hot face, tight shoulders, and I’d usually jump in to fix it so we wouldn’t lose time—then resent the extra work I’d silently absorbed.

Here’s how I would handle that same moment now. I label it—frustration—notice the heat for a few breaths, and give it ninety seconds before I touch the work. Then I take the smallest clean step: a short note that says, “Here’s the gap against our standard: A, B, C. Please revise by tomorrow 3 p.m.; if it slips, we’ll push the publish date.” No rant, no rescue. The frustration does its real job—signal a standard—without turning into extra work I take on myself.

And then there are times in my current coaching business that I get to practice with my feelings, like the launch that didn’t hit the numbers I hoped for. My mind reached for, “I failed,” and the lump rose in my throat. I didn’t try to outrun it with scrolling or pantry raids. I put a hand on my chest, took three slow breaths, let the sting be there for ninety seconds, and then I wrote three short lines: what worked, what didn’t, what I’ll test next. The disappointment didn’t vanish, but it turned into data instead of drama—and I ended the night with a plan instead of a shame spiral.

That’s the whole practice you’re hearing underneath each story: Label → Locate → Let 90 while you take the smallest aligned step. It’s simple, repeatable, and it works. 

You may not call it anxiety, anger, or grief. You may call it “dreading the presentation,” “being frustrated at your team,” or “feeling let down by results.” But the process is the same.

And here’s the light part: naming your feelings is just… talking to yourself all day. You already do that. This is just doing it strategically. And every time you play the game — Label → Locate → Let 90 — you’re not just surviving a wave of emotion, you’re building the emotional awareness muscle that will carry you into bigger leadership, bolder goals, and calmer relationships.

GUIDED PRACTICE

Alright, your turn.

Think of one thing you’ve been avoiding. Maybe it’s a hard conversation like mine. Maybe it’s prepping for a presentation. Maybe it’s hitting “send” on something you’ve already rewritten three times.

Got it? Good. Let’s walk through it together.

Step 1 — Write the fact.
One boring sentence. “Board meeting Friday.” “Email drafted.” “Conversation not scheduled.”

Step 2 — Name the feeling.
Just one word. Anxiety. Anger. Grief. Disappointment. Say it out loud if you can.

Step 3 — Locate it.
Where in your body is it? Chest? Throat? Belly? How does it feel — buzzing, heavy, hot, tight? Describe it like you’d explain it to a 5-year-old.

Step 4 — Let 90.
Set a timer for 90 seconds. Don’t try to get rid of the feeling. Just let it be in your body. 

Step 5 — Scoreboard.
When the timer buzzes, notice: did your jaw or shoulders drop even 10%? That’s a win. That’s a rep. 

And bonus, maybe you have a little extra clarity to take a tiny action that is a little less from fear and frustration and a little more from confidence and calm. These little minutes of feeling your feelings can save you so much time in unnecessary, dramatic conversations with yourself and others.

And here’s the thing: every time you do this, you’re not just getting through one wave of anxiety or disappointment. You’re training your nervous system. You’re building the muscle that lets you hold more. Bigger goals, bigger teams, bigger risks — without collapsing or numbing out.

So this week, don’t overcomplicate it. Play the game. Label → Locate → Let 90. That’s it.