the bossbabe podcast - 404. It May Not Be Burnout: Functional Freeze + Your Nervous System

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Let’s talk burnout and the nervous system. Natalie + Lindsay went deep in today’s episode on the different types of nervous system responses we all experience - including being in a state of “functional freeze” which could actually be the thing contributing to you feeling anxious, exhausted, stuck, and overwhelmed. This conversation gets into so many topics from creating true calmness, embodiment, and being emotionally neutral to the simple daily practices they swear by for regulating the nervous system. If you’ve been feeling burned out and want to tap into the inner work that could change the game for you, press play and dive into this episode.  TIMESTAMPS 0:45 - Life Updates + Reflections From Our UK Retreat 11:15 - Nervous System Responses 20:48 - Calmness, Feeling Things + Embodiment  26:00 - Being Emotionally Neutral 30:05 - Simple Daily Practices 37:45 - Leveling Up In Business + Inner Work 40:30 - Closing Thoughts RESOURCES + LINKS Join The Société: Our Exclusive Membership To Help You Build A Freedom-Based Business. Get Our 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)  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Lindsay Roselle: @lindsayroselle

hello welcome back to the boss babe podcast oh my goodness lindsay it feels like forever since we've done an actual podcast together i know we talk like every minute of every day it's been ages since we've had like a proper deep dive I know and you were saying right when we got on you're like I haven't seen you in forever I was like I was literally just in the UK but it does seem because we're on opposite continents it's in time zones it seems like we're far away I know I feel like actually we probably are talking so much less than we normally would for sure I don't I don't love it so I don't hurry on back am I codependent is this codependency probably but I know that you're like loving the UK and I loved being there and it was so amazing and so

now I I can say here for all of our listeners that I've made so much fun of it and now I'm like okay I get it it's actually really stunning and very soothing to the nervous system and beautiful and green does rain a lot not my favorite but all in all I loved it I really did all week long it's been the most perfect weather actually maybe a little bit too hot it's been really amazing but I think that you missed the boat on that one everyone's like bring the sundresses it's gonna be so warm and sunny you're gonna love it you're just gonna want to be in a t-shirt I was was like, it's 60 and raining. It's not t-shirt weather. What are you talking about?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the first few days when you're here, but toward the end, it was getting quite chilly. I'll give you that. Yeah. But we're back in business. It's feeling good. Missed the boat. Okay.

Well, yeah, our UK retreat. We should talk about that because I well there's the the experience of being in the uk which is a funny experience and just all the little things that that you guys and our uk team talk about where now i understand so much more and the retreat itself um we have to talk about too how much candy i came home with because natalie and i were at the grocery store i don't know why we like we stopped there to get, I don't even remember what we were getting. And we're just walking around and I'm like piling piles of candy and like biscuits and all these treats in this basket I'm carrying around.

And she's like, what are you doing? And I was like, did you see the ingredients? Like this is real sugar and no food dyes. Like I'm taking these home. And she's like, you're going to bring that much candy home? And I was like, yeah, I'm going to like bring a year's worth of candy home to my kids and I did um and they they literally took like three bites and were like it's not sweet enough it tastes like no Sawyer literally goes it's a five out of ten oh my god because he just so prefers American yeah because why wouldn't

you if your palate has been trained on fake sugar and, you know, all these like super processed candies that have extra additives that make them like super flavorful. And then you get like bland UK candy that just has sugar in it. Just plain old sugar. So anyway, yeah, if you live in Colorado and you want some UK candy, I have quite a large stash. Oh my God, I can't believe that they weren't as into it like fruit pastels.

I thought that was going to be a hit. I thought you'd be saying you need to bring more of these with you. I thought so too. I've been eating them because I'm like, well, I like them and they're not overly sweet. But yeah, that's a whole other tangent. But it's like the food quality over there, highly noticeable. Like food tastes like it's supposed to taste obviously there's not poison ingredients and all the kids candy um I did love

the food experience quite a lot I mean we also for context were being cooked for by David Beckham's favorite personal chef the whole week so I will say I think you maybe did get an elevated version of british food i'm listen i'm a big fan of the uk but i maybe it was an elevated version like everything he did was next level yeah that was i mean the retreat yeah we need to talk about the retreat you guys we had this humongous beautiful countryside estate like as far as you could see the land the countryside was all ours there was no one else in there just us like and all of our retreat attendees it was just beautiful like rolling hills everywhere you walked fresh lavender and herbs and we had david beckham's favorite personal chef with us the whole week like breakfast lunches and dinners

it was we when we were talking about this as a team we were like let's create the retreat experience we would want we're not gonna like we're not gonna think about the expense we're just gonna create something that we want like when people arrived they all got their own personal like massages or facials or whatever they wanted. We had sound. But I mean, we had every single detail. It was amazing. If any of you want to join the next one, by the way, DM me and I can send you the application

form because we're also doing it same time in the countryside next year. But oh, I could have been there for weeks. I left that retreat feeling so energized as well. It was spectacular. I think it was one of those, we were saying afterwards to our team internally that there's so many things when you're bringing it to life

that you don't know how it's gonna feel and you don't know how the timeline is gonna run and is this too much in one day? Is this too jarring? Should we switch up the order? And then sometimes you just have to surrender and be like, well, this is when polo was available. This is when skeet shooting was available. We're just gonna have to make it work. And my, there was some days where I was like this, this timing,

like, I'm not so sure. I think this timing's a little tight, but it ended up working out perfectly. And, and like, there's just this magic around a retreat, I feel like, and this happens with our CEO mama ones too, where exactly the right things need to happen for the people that are there. And even the things that you don't plan, like the, the mess ups or the little oops, forgotten things end up being like these little moments of, of humanity that stick with you. And I think that, um, we did so such a good job planning it and it was so much better than I could have even imagined you know um and we had we don't have that big of a team I think that's the other thing with retreats that people sometimes don't realize on the inside of how these things go like we

planned that entire retreat with basically one person running the full end-to-end experience and doing all the logistics and then our two gals who live locally near that place in the UK did a lot of support in terms of things being shipped to them and packaging and gift bags and like all of that. But really, we had like three people in total who planned that entire experience, which is just a testament, I think, to how amazing our team is and how even people who aren't necessarily forward facing in the business really know our customer well, and they care about the experience that our customers have with us. And I think, I don't

know about you, but I feel like our UK team was part of the magic. Like they, they knew because they're from there, like they have all the little touches. They, they cared so much about everybody's day-to-day experience. They wanted everybody to be okay. Like I, um, I don't know if I've been part of so many retreats and other businesses and my own businesses. And I always feel like they're such a cluster, you know, and ours, I was like, this is so well done and, and tightly, tightly knit team and no excess of anything but everything was so perfect and luxury it was awesome so shout out to our team who's probably listening you guys did such a great job yeah and I like want to call out all of the little surprise details we did but I don't because I don't want to ruin it for anyone coming but yeah it was phenomenal I feel like just generally at

Boss Babe we have such a standard of excellence whenever we deliver anything and especially being in person we're like we cannot drop the ball here this needs to be beyond everyone's wildest dreams and also the level of deep transformation that every single woman had that was just the best part for me like that that was yeah that the last ceremony that we had oh I could barely sleep afterwards because I was just so electrified by all of the transformation and just feeling like we did it that's exactly why they came we did it yeah that's the other thing I think it's good to give insight to on these retreats is it's really not that much business. Like, you know, we talked about business in total, maybe just a couple, few hours, and

not even everybody there wanted business advice. You know, a lot of the questions that they had when we were doing the masterminding circles were bigger questions around the why, you know, the bigger question of why they're doing something in their business or how are they're going to do this next phase of life, becoming a mother or whatever the next thing is not necessarily tactical business masterminding. And I think what, what you realize is people, what they need is the nervous system reset. And that's the whole purpose of the, of the retreat. And it's, it's one of those things we do it with CEO mama too, with our retreats where

it's hard to advertise, like you're going to be in this deep transformational ceremony for three hours and we're going to do all these things. And like, you can't really, you just, you don't tell those the secrets, you know, like those are things that you only know once you're in the room and we reserve till you're in the energy of the space. And so to see people just go all in and to embrace it and to show up and be vulnerable and like open to the nervous system reset, which result, which requires going through some discomfort. I mean, from where they start on day one to where they leave on day four is mega transformation and mega like vulnerability and openness and communication with each other. So I love that to see that as the kind of from the outside to go. It's funny to think people

come in thinking maybe they're going to get a bunch of business advice and they leave just totally opened up, cracked open into the answers that they really needed. And all we do is just facilitate their softening and their nervous system reboot, which is what most of us probably need more than a bunch more business advice, right? And I think most entrepreneurs will say their biggest up level came from mindset work, nervous system work. It's the deepest stuff. Like, yes, we can talk business. We can talk specific marketing strategies. Like we always get into like really detailed social media tactics and things like that, but that you're only going to take that to the next level. If you are rewiring

your nervous system to the level of success that you want and that like we can teach business online that stuff is a lot harder to teach and I feel like has to be experienced and so I love when we reserve that for our in-person stuff it's like the see your mama retreats we have like the stuff we do it's reserved for being in person you can't communicate that over zoom and it just isn't the same energy and there's no end near the same transformation which speaking of wanted to segue into a conversation about nervous system because i posted a reel um last week and it did so well and i think the reason it did so well was it just landed so hard with our community and specifically where they are right now and whenever I'm putting these reels together I always think

about where was I at what was an insight I had that I feel unblocked me and helped me move to the next stage and one of them was identifying functional freeze like when we talk about nervous system responses you know you have fight flight freeze phone we have all of these nervous system responses but I remember discovering that actually I wasn't burned out I kept using the language I'm burned out I'm burned out. I kept using the language, I'm burned out, I'm burned out. And I remember discovering, I was actually through working with my therapist, I wasn't burned out. I was actually in functional freeze. And functional freeze is when you are in that freeze state, your nervous system is in that

freeze state. And we can talk about why it happens, but you're still very functional in it. So day to day, people might not know that's what you're experiencing but the way that I described as showing up is how it's showed up for me before is like I can be at work you know get the work day done go through all my to-dos but then come home have no energy for anyone anything turn on Netflix while I'm watching Netflix I'm literally mindlessly scrolling I feel like I have no energy at all or you know having dinner and then just eating so much chocolate and biscuits and like all this stuff just trying to I don't know raise my energy like craving that sugar or waking up in

a morning after having like eight nine nine hours sleep, still feeling exhausted, needing multiple cups of coffee to feel like I'm waking up and functioning. Another big one that showed up for me was, you know, getting loads of like getting texts from friends and family and actually just fully avoiding them. But then feeling that disconnection, knowing that I'm self-isolating and just not texting people back like ignoring things and things pile up and then getting in stories of oh my goodness I've left it too long I can't reply now like it's shown up in so many different ways and in the past I had labeled it as burnout but having my therapist reframe that for me I just felt like last week I wanted to share that

because I remember being in that state and feeling really burned out. And I've had a lot of women comment on my reels lately asking for burnout advice. And I just had this feeling like, you know what, I feel like a lot of them aren't in burnout. And actually, they're in functional freeze. And maybe like me have never heard the terminology before. Have you? Have you heard it? And have you been in it before? Yeah, I have heard it. It's definitely part of that access of like fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and the whole, you know, nervous system response. And a lot of us are familiar with those terms, at least now and understand the feeling when they're explained to us, we can recognize and understand, oh, when I've been in that the functional freeze, because I think we are so quick to label it as burnout or, or like, um, bed rot, you know, like I'm, I'm just going to go like lay in bed at night. Like, this is what I'm doing, Netflix and chill and all this stuff.

And it's like, is that intentional? Are you present? Or is this like an escape, an escapism thing? Um, and I was reading, I Googled it while you were talking. Cause I was like, I want to see what the what they say the functional freeze, the difference between it and burnout. And it's talking about how with, with functional freeze, you can't fight it, and you can't flee from it, you know, like fight or flight would be our normal natural primal tendency, when something is causing us discomfort or danger or pain, it's to run away or to fight it. And functional freeze in modern, it's very modern, obviously, means it's like your job or something where, like what we've been talking about, where you can't fight it. I guess you could go and really act against those things, but most of us can't identify exactly what the trigger

is. And you can't flee it because you still need to be functional. You still need to show up in your life. You need to make money. Like, so there's, you can't just run away from it. So those are the two ends of the spectrum. You end up somewhere here in the middle of like, okay, I'm kind of just stuck in it. And I think that's what, what feels different than burnout where burnout is like, I did everything I could and it's not working and I don't want to do it anymore. Like I adjust one away from it. And, and to me, burnout is something that's, I don't know, it feels more like hot in the body. Like you're more aware that that's really what's going on. Functional freeze feels like you're totally out of your body. Like you've left the room, you're not present. You're, you're kind of avoidant of

the truth of what's happening and you're, you're escaping to all these other things and it masks as I'm totally fine, you know? And what's interesting when I think I've had this the most was in early motherhood, you know, where it's like, you can't fight against motherhood. It's just a surrender and you can't run away from it, obviously, or it's dysfunctional. And so you end up in, in this freeze mode where you're, you're surviving and it feels like isolation. It feels like depression. It feels like you're kind of frozen in time because every day is the same and you don't necessarily have control over how, what triggers you and how energy moves in your life. And so I think it's interesting when we look at people in our, in our world, in our sphere,

who might really relate to it. It's like, wow, I wonder how many of us are in early stages of parenting where truly we are kind of frozen in time because our time is in our own. Like we, we don't have control over how it all flows. And then how many of us have labeled something as burnout and it's like, I just need to rest. I need this time on the couch. I need these treats. I need this like escapism. And that's what's gonna rejuvenate me.

When in reality, you've completely dissociated from it or escaped from it. And now it's very hard to come back in and go, what are the actual problems here? And I think back to the retreat, I feel like that's kind of what, what those ceremonies get at. And what we're so intentional about is like, what's the truth of, of what you're really feeling? Because we can label it as burnout, or you can label it as team problems. You can label it as customer, you know, sales, all these things, and then say, I've, I've done everything I possibly can. I'm just so burned

out on sales. I'm so burned out on leading can. I'm just so burned out on sales. I'm so burned out on leading a team. I'm so burned out on whatever XYZ problem is. But the truth is you don't, you're not actually present in the problem. And once you get present in the problem in your body and you really identify what's going on, you're like, oh, it's not my team at all. It's that I want, you know, I want to be living in a different place and I feel like I can't move because of this, or it's my team at all. It's that I want, you know, I want to be living in a different place. And I feel like I can't move because of this, or it's not sales at all. It's that I'm trying to sell a program that I don't actually even want to do anymore. And I need to let this go and, and, and embrace where I've grown into and want to do this new program,

you know, and I think those are the nervous system moments where your body, your whole physical, emotional, spiritual consciousness goes, thank you. There's the truth. That's the truth. Now we can get out of this frozen state and go back in and engage back into our life. And burnout isn't even on the table because it's not, you haven't really depleted yourself. You just needed the truth to come out. So yeah, I think this is amazing. And I think it's such an insight and such an unlock for high performing women, especially of, you know, if you're truly depleted, truly, truly depleted, because you have put everything into something,

maybe you are burned out. If you are making excuses about how you need all these like escapism things to refuel you because your day you feel like these frozen feelings during the day then i you're probably in functional freeze and what you need is the nervous system nervous system unlock and and that that understanding of what the truth is so that you get the relaxation in the nervous system, the reset of the nervous system, and then you can come back into business, life, relationship, motherhood, whatever the thing is, and operate from presence, operate from aligned nervous system, like regulated nervous system. I just feel like that, even talking about it, I'm like, oh my God, I feel so much more powerful to think of freeze as you just like your computer's frozen you literally need

to do control alt delete like you need to just reboot yeah i totally agree and i feel like with burnout too like you're saying you can feel it more in the body it's like you can generally with burnout take a couple weeks vacation make sure you're eating right working out doing all the things taking your supplements you know your adrenals are probably fried and you can generally come back online and I think that's the difference with functional freeze or freeze generally it's not going to be as easy as just taking a vacation because you're going to continue being frozen and disassociating and it's kind of like you said delaying the coming back online and what I've also

noticed the more research I do into it and I've definitely noticed this in myself too is I'm generally a pretty calm person like you know you see me with work like very little actually rattles me um and I don't often have big reactions to things, what I have to be aware of for myself, and I think for everyone it's probably different, but what I have to be aware of is checking in with that calmness and ask, is this actual genuine calmness or am I disassociating? And that's also been really interesting because sometimes, I feel like with a lot of the times with business stuff I'm very calm around it because I've just seen it so many times and there's no my nervous system isn't shaking because there's no fear and uncertainty it's like I've seen this so many times I don't have any fear around it I'm very certain of what the outcome is going to be or

I'm at peace with the outcome because I've been in this situation so many times but I just I have to keep note of that and just checking in is this calmness real okay cool if it is cool let's keep going but if it's not what are you blocking what are you feeling and a big part of you know moving through freeze like you were talking about is up. It's getting back in our body and getting back into safety within our body to feel. And we are meant to feel things. We are not meant to be calm and level-headed 24-7. We are meant to feel things. Emotions generally only need to be fully felt for 90 seconds till they're over. It's not something that we need to be afraid of. And so often I'll check in and just make sure that I'm not bypassing the feeling and if I need to feel it feeling it but I do feel like the best way of moving through this

state is getting back in your body anything embodiment related you know breath work and if you can have this as a regular practice but breath work dropping into your body like you say drop into the root dance anything that gets you in your body and out of your mind and makes you feel safe I think is an absolute game changer for pulling you out of that state but having this emotional and nervous system hygiene as a regular practice I think is absolutely essential because and I'm speaking from experience if you you're not doing that, you can end up in this state. Whereas if you are having regular nervous system hygiene, you're going to catch it before it happens. And it doesn't need to go that far.

You can notice I'm starting to dissociate over these kinds of things. I'm starting to notice these things happening for me. Let me take a pause and get back into my body let me actually explore make sure my nervous system knows it's safe to then be able to move through it versus being stuck in it for months yeah do you feel like that's been cyclical for you like when I hear you talking I'm like this is so interesting because I feel like I've gone I've just shortened all the work I've done on myself has shortened those cycles, right? So like I can go from calm to excitement, back to calm, calm to excitement, back to

calm in a much faster cycle than maybe 10 years ago where it was like pretty calm about stuff. Something that happened like huge excitement cycle, drama, you know, like rumination, obsession, anxiety, physical symptoms as a result of all of that. And then like weeks for it to all kind of calm back down. And, you know, when relationship or work stuff or, you know, the big triggers in our lives. And now I'm like, like you're talking like, yeah, okay, like I can have like a trigger come through in the day or a text message or something, you know, we get an email in the business and I'm like, oh, got to deal with this, you know, and it's like a little exciting and or it might spike a

big excitement, but it's like, okay, and like, I can soothe it so much faster. And it's not that it's because necessarily stuff isn't as big of a deal as it used to be. Although I do, I will say like, there's this point you get to in your life where you just don't give as many fucks, you know, and you're just like, I don't really care. I really like stuff or like, you know, kids, stuff happening with your kids or you're in your relationship or, yeah, you know, client conflict, things, natural triggers that feel like danger to us. I do think it's not that those things are any less threatening, you know, now than years ago of doing this work, but it's that you recognize that in that heightened state, you're not powerful. You are not making your best decisions. You are reactive. You are maybe going to say things and do things that a calmer you is going to regret. And so it's not so much that, um, that you don't feel the same heightened excitement. You just have the resilience and the maturity to

go, okay, take a couple of breaths. Like this feels big right now, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to like go into my reactive pattern. I'm going to use my tools and I'm going to calm myself back down at least to a state where I know I make good decisions. And then I, you know, I can get my body back to feeling like it's a good vessel to support me through the next steps I have to take for this thing that I have to deal with now. And I, I, I've said this to you, I think before around like something I've noticed about myself as I've done more of this work is like, I feel more emotionally neutral.

And it's, it's like, not that I sometimes I say that I'm like, am I a sociopath? Like, no, I it's not that I don't have emotions or nothing spikes my emotions. It's that I can kind of play things out in my mind, like something happens that has an emotional edge to it. And I'm like, okay, let's play out if I have this emotional reaction to it. Okay, like, what does that feel alive for me? Like, yeah, aspects of this do, but some of that's just reactivity or someone that's just ego or someone that's just like me caring about what other people think, not truly what I feel. It's like, okay, what if I have this emotional response to this happening? Like, okay, that, that, that actually

feels more like me. And that response is maybe not what people expect or whatever it is. And I, so I really try to, to find that feeling anytime these things happen where I'm like, okay, am I telling myself a story? Am I too focused on what other people think of me right now? Is the truth, is there truth in this that I need to look at? Or is there truth missing from this that I need to tell to give context, you know? And it, and all of that is to say, basically it helps in those moments where you, you, my old tendency, or maybe, you know, the functional freeze would occur because now I, now I've got all these things that just feel so overwhelming. I'm like, Oh, I just want

to just kind of disconnect. Now I'm like, Ooh, okay. Come back into calmness, make a good decision. Keep moving forward, keep moving forward, keep moving forward, you know, presence, presence, presence, not disconnection. And I think that's the piece that's really, really hard for people is to be present and come back into presence as you get these triggers, as these things happen, because being present with these feelings is super uncomfortable. And so the functional freeze, I think, is just that kind of natural, like, dysregulated nervous system response. And maybe for people who haven't done as much self-discovery in this realm, where that's

kind of the natural physiological response to not wanting to be uncomfortable in the moment and face these things. It's so you freeze and you keep functioning because you have to, but you don't go and address what needs addressed. And I, I think it's so important to find that emotional resilience and emotional neutrality and go, which of these feelings that I'm feeling right now is true. Okay. And which of these is just super uncomfortable stuff. That's a story I'm telling. And how do I move forward? Yeah, I definitely see that. I mean, for me, I remember, what are we, 2024? I think for me, this was at its highest, probably 2020 to 2021, when I brought awareness

to it. I mean, I did it forever, but I brought awareness to it around that time, where I had two big patterns when I would feel really triggered. was was rumination like if I got a certain text or an email before I went to bed like I couldn't sleep because I would just ruminate over and I play it was just a loop in my head and I had no idea how to stop the loop or another one would be catastrophizing I'd get a text or an email and I would just catastrophize in my mind all of the different things that could happen and ways that this could play out. And I'd be so far in the future that, I mean, things just, it was so blown up.

And the more nervous system work I have done, I did a lot of work, but I feel like I didn't do a lot of deep nervous system work until I had Noemi where I feel like you know I actually was in a very not even a functional I was in a free state and I had to really get support working through that and coming out of that um but I think being going from that state and having to do that really deep nervous system work and working through trauma gave me such a powerful toolkit to now move through things that are nowhere near as big and that's been really helpful and just for anyone listening who maybe is relating a lot to what we're saying um just a few things and again we are not medical doctors I always just like to put that forward but just a few things if you want to add things not medical doctors. I always just like to put that forward. But just a few things,

if you want to add things into your toolkit and you're feeling like, you know what? Listening, I think I am in a functional freeze and maybe I've been in this for a really long time. There are very simple things you can do. The nervous system toolkit is so broad. And I think at some point, you and I should do something around this

and open this work up to more women. But a few things you can do, you know, when you wake up, how can you stop yourself from going into that numbing distraction cycle where you maybe start scrolling like crazy? app your email every social platform you've got work not doing as much of the cycling and actually get into your body like early in the in the day get into your body whether that's getting outside working out no podcast no social media no external stuff maybe breath work uh maybe dancing like putting on music and like moving through feelings and then throughout the day if you're noticing certain things come up where you get really annoyed and you just you know want to grab your phone and start scrolling to distract yourself from the feeling just feel it like you were saying put the phone down and just feel it oh my god i'm feeling so

angry and frustrated right now. Cool, feel it. And if you're someone that struggles with emotion, there's so many, like a little hack I have. When we were at the retreat, I shared my rage song with everyone. I was like, do you wanna know the song that I play when I need to rage?

And I will not shy away from that feeling. If I'm really angry, I'm going to feel that anger and a past me used to feel a lot of shame around that whereas this version of me there's no shame around feeling rage as long as it's in a you know a way that's not harming anyone so I put my headphones on I put my rage song on so loud and I just like bash a pillow or like dance it out stamp it out whatever I need to do to let it out and it moves I'm like oh my god I'm gonna need to listen to this song 10 times on repeat like this is so big like and then I move through it and it's fast and it's done and then I'm like oh bit of breath go outside get some fresh air get my feet in the grass. Bob's your uncle. Bob's your uncle. Oh my God. I love that

phrase. No, but I wonder, I feel like this is one of those things where the answer is right in front of us, you know? And I think these are the moments that we have in life and in retreats and stuff where, and I mentioned this on a previous episode, I did like my solo around this where I'm like, sometimes all you need in a four day retreat is like a five minute download that you get that like the whole entire trip boils down to this five minutes where this one thing that you just needed to know about yourself or you knew was true and you just needed somebody else to reflect it back to you. You just needed to be in that moment and have somebody else mirror it for you.

And I think a lot of times it's that we make things so big and we make everything mean so much. And we live in a world where there's a lot of voices telling us what we should do and who we should follow and what we should think about everything. And God forbid, like we share our opinion or our circumstances and our story and get stories and feedback back

that we weren't expecting, you know, and stuff gets even bigger. And so I think when you're talking about, you know, it's one song, it's one practice in the day, it's one regulating thing that you can do. And not to discredit that that's all it could take for you. It doesn't have to be this huge work, you know. And I think as you were talking, I'm thinking like, I wonder if you have to hit rock bottom in your life for this work to become important to you. And I think my answer would be like,

for many of us, that's the story, right? It's either we hit rock bottom or we became mothers. Same, same. In some cases, you know, where it's like, something has to shake you so deeply to your core that you wake up to what's happening in your body. You wake up to this disconnection between mind and body and you wake up to feeling not like yourself. And you're like, this doesn't, I don't like how this feels. What is this? And it begs the question of what's going

on in your nervous system. What are you, where is this stuff living? Where are you holding it? The energy that needs out. And when you look at, you know, I grew up with horses. I'm always, I relate all this stuff back to horses and you look at prey animals and horses and herd animals where they get spooked and it's, it is a 90 second cycle, you know, like they get spooked. It's this big response.

They get really big in their body. They snort, they're loud. They're kind of scary. You know, you're like, whoa. And then within 90 seconds, as long as they can identify the source of what scared them, they breathe it out. You know, they snort it out. They lick. They're like snorting it out. Their whole body relaxes. You can literally see like they'll sigh. They'll kind of like let it all out. And then they go back to grazing. And you're like, Oh, so physiologically

you can go from thinking you're about to die to like no big deal back to eating food in 90 seconds. If you can have the physical release and let it out, identify what it is and let it out. And, you know, and I think that that sometimes you need to have someone show you, here's the thing, like, just let it out. And you're like, oh, and it literally connects all the dots. And then sometimes I think you do have to hit rock bottom and you have to kind of be stuck in this state for a while and go, man, this is really uncomfortable. I feel like there's something that needs out of me. Like, what is this that needs out? And you have to go through this inner work and the nervous system work and all these practices to finally get to the root of what the thing is.

But I think across the spectrum, it's understanding that inside our bodies is this whole alive world that's giving us information subliminally all the time. And a lot of our world around us is conditioning us not to listen to that. And so it's the invitation back in to go, what am I feeling and what does that mean? And maybe it is a song. I read something recently, like I'm not much of a dancer, obviously, but I read something recently that dancing on the top of like, or it's at the top of the list of things you can do that regulate serotonin and dopamine. Dancing is at the very top of the list. And it was like three times more effective than every other thing like breathwork, yoga, walking, sex, like all these things were on that list. And dancing was the top of the list and like 3x better. I was like, this is crazy, you know, just to turn on a song and move your body and and scream, sing the lyrics and like, let it out, you know? So yeah, I'm in this thought pattern of like, do you have to hit rock bottom? And a lot of us do. And that is our awakening, you know, but for those of us that haven't hit rock bottom, I don't want to hit rock bottom again, but still feel like something's off. What are the environments you can get into? Or what are

these practices you can do to start to release some of this stuff and to start give your, giving yourself these insights and these opportunities for insights to get yourself into a regulated state so that you can shorten the cycle on these excitement cycles where it's like calmness, excitement, back to calmness, decision, calmness, excitement, back to calmness decision. Um, which I, yeah, I feel like you and I are good examples of that, but like we've been through shit and we've done a lot of work, you know, like it's not like we just knew how to do it. We had to learn it. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi.

You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible.

I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash boss babe. Totally and it's still such a learning curve. You know, you'll have weeks where you feel like you're crushing it and you'll have other weeks where you're like, oh this is clearly where I get to continue working this is clearly something that's still active and that's the thing I think this work is never done but you can shorten like you say the cycles of it and it doesn't need to be as big I love this and I really

love that we're talking about I know this is a business podcast but I do really fundamentally believe these shifts are most powerful and they are reflected in your business. Your inner world is always reflected in your outer world. And if you are looking to get to the next level in your business, sometimes it's not about the next strategy, tactic, you know, marketing channel. It's a lot of that inner work. So love that we had this conversation, voting that we do more of these.

Same. Yeah, I think we do more of these. Same. Yeah, I think it's such an unlock. And it's, you know, we spend time in a lot of rooms with people who have been through huge growth in their businesses. And this is the work that they're coming back to even now. You know, these are people with four or five million dollar businesses, personal brands, like names we'd all recognize. And they're still coming back to this work because it's, it's, it, this is the key to the next level, no matter what level you're at,

where you never really, I don't know. I think it's important to say you never overcome the need to do this work. Like you and I are more practiced in it. We know how to get back into our practice more quickly and, and more intently when stuff happens. And we feel ourselves like, Ooh, we've let it go a little bit. We got to get back in, but it's not like, at least personally, I don't feel like I'm ever going to get to a point where I'm like, I don't need any more inner work. I'm, I'm perfect. Like it just doesn't happen. And I think every level you get to calls you up to a new level of, of understanding of self and, and you ha you're exposed to new things and, you know, people around you grow and that introduces a whole new context, you know? And so I think it's important to hear that strategy, yeah,

business strategy is ubiquitous, right? And like, we love talking about it and we'll give you a strategy for everything because we've also learned so much about that. And we're also tweaking and perfecting that all the time too. And you'll never hear us ever say apply this strategy in a vacuum and it'll work because if we don't know you and and we don't know what else is going on in your head or in your life like it probably won't work because that's how important the nervous system stuff is and that's how important your inner regulation is and your ability to be resilient when something doesn't work and figure it out and not you know not go into these kind of states of disconnection um disconnection from your business to me is always

a symptom of not not a strategy symptom it is a nervous system symptom so yes this work is so important and i freaking love it amen should we end all podcasts with amen yeah is that offensive don't get me started on the the church of chris kardashian you i mean you've heard me talk about this the kardashians have a church that i guess her last name chris jenner chris jenner she has a church and i'm i'm like does she get up at the at the end of service and say amen? Like, is this the church of Kris Jenner? Anyway, yeah, I took a right turn. But saying amen, unless you're Kris Jenner and you have an actual church, maybe we shouldn't.

Wait, I thought they just had the church for tax reasons. I didn't think she was giving sermons and saying amen. It is just for tax reasons. My skeptical mind wants to believe, but I think in the state of California, in order for it to actually qualify, they have to actually have church services. So I don't think that Kris Jenner is giving church services, but I do think she hired a guy that runs an actual church. And oh yeah, I'll dig up the receipts on this, Natalie, because I, because i yes yes i believe that the

jenner started a church and this is a tax shelter for them but also perhaps where they do some education i don't know this podcast just took a turn in all the right ways for me i'm oh wow now i'm literally just imagining chris on a stage just preaching and then giving an amen i feel like i would go to church with chris jenner I mean talk about someone who knows how to manage things that would be a master class no question I would 1000% do that yeah I feel like she just takes no shit does she she can't I mean look at what she lives in and and like the the number of success stories that she has in form of her children like she doesn't have a single one of them. Well, I guess there's one.

But like five out of six that are super, super successful billionaires, right? Like, yeah, those are pretty good odds I'd like to learn from her. Oh, my God. I mean, Rob, I love you, man. I don't even watch the kardashians i used to in the old days but i i feel like how could you possibly be the only boy in that whole family and like not end up like rob you know like she's like the machine created the kardashians and the machine created the jenner girls and then there's rob so bless him feel bad i love i love watching the show i am a devout you watch it now?

Currently? Every single week. You know where I get my updates on the Kardashians now? I forget what her name is. She's on Instagram and she's brilliant. She does like impersonation reels and she'll play all of the characters. I forget what her name is. I know who it is.

Yeah. I don't know her name, but yes. Yeah. Like the Kardashians follow her and comment on the reels. They're so good. And she uses the sticky notes as her fingernails for Khloe. Okay. Yeah, DM me if you want to know who this girl is, because her reels are hysterical. But I think she's acting out actual scenes from the show. So I'm like, Oh, is she? I think so. Is that? Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's it's what's her name? Courtney being pregnant, being a vegan and like you know

all these things yeah I love the show I'm always just so curious like what does life behind the scenes like really look like do you think it's as crazy as it looks watch the show that it's amazing it's it's not the same kind of show that it used to be it's different it's produced differently now watch it it's really good like if you really want a master class in the hustle this is that like i look i me and steven were watching he watched it too i mean steven watching it the other day and we were watching like a day in the life of kim and i just said to him i'm never going to be that successful because i'm not willing to work that hard like i just simply am not the, yeah, watch it

and we can chat about it. Also, I do work, but not that hard. Not that hard. No way near that hard. No, I think that's what people don't understand. They see these like super, super successful, uber rich people and they're like, they never work. I'm like, do you see how much they work?

And they travel so much and they have people around them all the time. You and I were talking about this with Wesley going to kindergarten where I was like, I'm going to have three days a week where there's no one in my house because both kids will be at school. There won't be a nanny here. Like I will for the first time in however many years, seven years, I will have part of my work week where I work from home and there is not another human in my house.

Like that's insane. Now imagine being the Kardashians and like you have so much support staff, you have film production crew, you have like hair people, makeup people, clothing people, business people, your mom, your sisters, they probably never get any alone time. I mean, I feel bad for them. I mean, you know, not, they're obviously really successful and have lots of money. But like, yeah, is that the life that we really want? Like, and is that worth the level of success? And then all of us out here being like, they're just so rich. They can have anything they want. Can they have alone time?

I don't know. Yeah. And it's not for me. That level of hustle is not for me. It was also amazing when we got to talk to their previous assistant and just hearing the level of detail that i mean that we should do another episode on that also just before we go your hair looks amazing is this from the the overnight kill situation um i did touch these up with a with a um wand this morning but yes i

have mastered the overnight curl and you put up that you shared that reel the other day that was like the the girl with like the hair wrap the the heatless curl wrap, the red light mask on like the white whitening strips, like a face mask. I am that girl. And, um, our T's travel, he travels a lot this time of year. So from like August through December, he travels a ton for his business. And I freaking love it. Cause like it's so nice he's not home like which weird thing can I do tonight um so yeah the heat the heatless curls I'm a I'm a big fan um I'm a fan of the like the front like the halo not the unicorn the unicorn goes down the back of your head like a french braid but I'm uh I'm a back sleeper and so that like I can't get my head to

feel comfortable there but if I do it as like, I can't get my head to feel comfortable there. But if I do it as like the front little halo around my face, it works perfectly. I'm going to get it. You've influenced me. I'm going to get in on this. You should. I think you'd love it. And then in the morning, you just pull it right out and then you have beautiful curls. I'm going to try. Okay. I worked out this morning and didn't shower. So I touched them up as a way of covering for not having a shower that I've done. Looks great.

Yeah. Looks great. Well, it was a pleasure. Let's do this again soon. Bye, everyone. Bye. 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 a 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? All you have to do is

leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it, and then head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven-figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to bossbabe.com slash 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.