When you overthink your emotions—trying to figure them out, make them make sense, or stay composed—you’re likely disconnecting from what you actually feel. That can make it harder to connect with others, too. Real connection doesn’t come from analyzing emotions. It comes from experiencing them in real time. Try this instead: Notice what you’re feeling in your body Don’t rush to explain it Stay with the sensation, even briefly Speak from what’s real, not what sounds good If you’ve ever felt emotionally flat, shut down, or like you’re just going through the motions—this post is for you. (Keep reading for more insight, a personal story, and what to do differently.)  Have you ever left yourself behind? I was surprised by this experience a few years ago and it started me down a new path of groundedness and being present that I didn't even know existed. I was part of a workshop where we were exploring different kinds of attention: inward, outward, and something balanced in between. We started by finding Neutral. (Have you ever noticed that finding the middle can be harder than you think?) As I shifted my attention from Neutral, then backward to myself, then forward toward the others I had this strange sensation of someone behind me. Then I realized it was me. It was like I was in two places at once. It wasn't theoretical — it was physical. Weird, but very curious. The message was quiet and clear and helped me realize something I hadn't been aware of on this level before: Just because I think I'm present, or want to be, doesn't mean my emotions are actually with me. There's a big difference between showing up and truly being there. And when our emotional presence isn't part of it, something important gets lost. The Middle Ground We Keep Skipping We pay a lot of attention to our bodies — whether trying to look better and be healthier or get rid of pain, discomfort, or disease. However, in many cases, we're not actually listening . The multi-billion dollar health, medical and beauty industries are proof of our focus on optimizing our physical health. We spend time, money, and energy treating the body like a machine to be tuned and corrected. But something gets left out of that equation: our emotions. Pain, fatigue, tension, and illness are real — and they often have emotional roots we're not paying attention to. Our bodies might be trying to tell us something, but we're so focused on fixing the physical symptoms that we miss the emotional message underneath. Without tuning in to that layer, we only get part of the picture. It's like having an Oreo cookie with no creamy middle, or two buns and no burgeg. The part that connects everything together is missing. When emotions are left out and when we're functioning from head and physical body but ignoring the heart, we end up stuck. Not in a dramatic way, but in this subtle, persistent rigidity. We can't move fully into presence or connection, because we've left out the part that allows for movement: e-motion. That disconnection has consequences. Personally, when I'm operating from my head and body but not my heart, I might seem present. I can speak clearly, get things done, track what's happening. But I'm not fully with myself. Relationally, it's even more costly. I can listen. I can respond. I can do all the things that "look" like connection — but if I've left my emotional self behind, the connection between me and the other person feels more like empty calories than real nourishment. Presence without emotion is performance. And it's often what we've been trained to do. Cultural Pressure and the Shrinking Self Our society doesn't reward emotional presence. It rewards composure. Control. The appearance of regulation. We're taught to be polite, not expressive. To be pleasant, not honest. To "keep it together," even when we're falling apart inside. And when we do express emotion, we get told we're too much. Then we swing too far the other way and we shrink. We edit ourselves down. We learn to dial it down — to be just sensitive enough to seem intuitive, but not so expressive that we're inconvenient. Over time, "too much" becomes "not enough." We get caught in this exhausting loop of trying to be palatable, contained, acceptable. And we lose the full spectrum of who we are. Not only does that hurt us — it limits what others can connect to in us. The parts we hide are often the very parts that others need to see in order to feel less alone. The Compulsion to Solve One pattern I notice in myself is this tendency to want to define and fix hard things rather than feel them. It's a form of self-protection. My first instinct is often to move into solution mode. Find the reason. Make a plan. Solve the thing. But that problem-solving comes at a cost — especially when the real invitation is to feel something first. Something vulnerable. Something I'd rather not touch. One night when my daughter was about seven, I went in to kiss her goodnight and I could tell something was wrong. She told me that her friends had said something mean to her at school. I wanted to make her feel better — and the way I thought you were supposed to do that was to look at the situation from lots of different perspectives. I didn't want her to be in pain and I didn't want to feel helpless. Instead of staying with her sadness, and letting her know I was with her in it, I gave her all the ways she might see things differently. Maybe they didn't mean it the way she was taking it. Maybe it wasn't meant for her. That approach did not land well. She got more upset, not less. Looking back, I know that what she needed wasn't perspective. She needed empathy, not a solution. And while offering a new perspective can sometimes be supportive, in that moment, it created distance instead of closeness. It made her sadness something to get over, rather than something I was willing to sit with. When we skip the step of feeling, we also skip the truth. We miss the part where we encounter ourselves — and each other. And that's where the transformation actually begins. The Illusion of Control Here's a question I've been carrying: What if labeling emotions is just a way to feel like we're in control of them? When we name something as anxiety, burnout, or emotional dysregulation, it can feel like progress. We've labeled the discomfort. We've placed it inside a framework. We've made it manageable. Certainly that can be clarifying and helpful. It can create space for understanding. But sometimes, we use those labels to avoid the raw experience underneath. We turn emotions into diagnoses — not to help ourselves feel them, but to avoid having to. Pathologizing gives us the illusion of control. It helps us keep things contained. Defined. Solvable. But emotions aren't puzzles. They aren't errors in the system. They're the system's way of speaking. Feeling Before Fixing Naming an emotion isn't inherently wrong. But the order matters. If we name before we feel, we risk skipping the part that brings us into contact with ourselves. If we feel first , and then name, the naming becomes an act of integration — not avoidance. It's the difference between saying "I'm sad" because I felt sadness moving through me... versus calling something "grief" as a way to make it neat and tidy before I've let it move through me. Thinking is helpful. So is naming. But not at the expense of experiencing. Because real connection — with ourselves or with others — depends on actually feeling what we feel. Reflections to Sit With These aren't prompts for your journal — they're invitations to feel into your lived experience. Let them guide you back to what's real, not just what's thinkable. Think back to a recent moment when something felt off — a conversation, a disappointment, a stuck feeling. Did you try to solve it before fully feeling it? Can you recall a time when you stayed with an uncomfortable feeling without trying to change it? What happened in your body, in your breath, in your connection to yourself? Remember a moment when you were told (directly or indirectly) that you were "too much." Where did you feel that in your body? What part of you got smaller? These are not questions to answer — they're experiences to return to. Let your body respond before your mind does. Final Thought We're not broken for wanting control, and we're not wrong for using thinking as a way to feel safe. Most of us were taught to rely on our minds to make sense of the world, and that makes complete sense. Still, thinking is not the same as feeling. Emotional presence isn't indulgent. It's what helps us stay human. It's what allows us to connect. We don't need to treat our feelings like problems to solve. Often, what they really need is our attention, not our fixing. When we allow ourselves to experience what we feel, without managing or analyzing it, something soft and real begins to happen. We come back to ourselves. From that place, we can meet each other more fully. And isn't that what we're here for after all?

She was in a parking lot, well-dressed down to her high heels, wrestling with a full sheet of plywood in the back of a borrowed Jeep. Her own car was in the shop, but she'd come prepared to haul lumber anyway. What she hadn't counted on was it not fitting — and having to muscle it in by herself. So there she was: pulling, adjusting, climbing around, even kicking off her heels to get better leverage. People watched as they drove by. Someone may have pulled out a phone. But no one offered to help. Eventually, she got it in. She climbed into the driver's seat — sweaty, flushed, but victorious. She did it. When she told me this story, her voice carried real pride — and there should have been. The grit, the problem-solving, the sheer determination were impressive. Pride, because she figured it out on her own. Sadness, because she felt like she had to. Why Didn’t She Ask for Help? That was the question that popped into my head. Not judgment — genuine curiosity. I probably would’ve done the same. But still, I wondered: Why didn’t she flag someone down? Make eye contact? Just say, “Hey, mind giving me a hand with this?” (Why wouldn’t I have?) I’ve been her more times than I can count — not always with plywood, but with life. And if I’m honest, it’s because somewhere deep down, I felt like I had something to prove. The Proving Game We’ve learned that being “capable” means doing it alone. That real strength is solitary. That the ideal woman isn’t just competent — she’s bulletproof. We think when we don’t need help, we’re winning. We’ve watched ourselves and other women be dismissed, underestimated, talked down to. So when we manage something solo, there’s a real sense of reclaiming something. But the constant proving? It’s exhausting. Have you ever noticed the quiet resentment building from hoisting and hauling and doing it all yourself? The Cost of Not Asking A lot of us don’t ask for help because at some point, it backfired: We were told, “You should be able to handle that yourself.” We were dismissed: “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re fine.” Or the help came with strings — and now we owe them. We got used to grinning and bearing it. Now, even when support is available, we miss it. We’d rather strain and sweat than risk the vulnerability of asking. It’s self-protection, yes. But it’s also self-denial. Strong Women, Tired Souls The women I work with are strong. That’s never been in question. But by midlife, many of them are tired — not of doing, but of doing it all in the way they were told they had to. They still want to contribute, build, grow. But they want: Effort that feels aligned Work that’s sustainable Success that feels alive — not driven by grind How can I feel powerful without having to prove it constantly — even to myself? A Different Kind of Strength At a retreat I hosted, one of the participants stood quietly under a tree. My horse Isaac wandered over, rested his forehead gently against her chest… and just stayed. No asking. No fixing. Just presence. Something in her softened — like an exhale she didn’t know she’d been holding. Sometimes we don’t need to hold it all. Sometimes, we are meant to be held. I submit that we must be. ❤️ Strength with Softness That image stayed with me. Not because it was dramatic — but because it was the opposite. Quiet Grounded Simple It reminded me: Being held isn’t weakness Receiving is sacred We can soften and still be strong We don’t need to prove anything. We're allowed to be helped. Maybe this is the version of strength we’re actually hungry for. What Keeps Us From Asking? The barriers are often invisible but powerful: Cultural conditioning — asking = weakness Wounds — being shut down, dismissed, guilted Power dynamics — help can feel disempowering Identity — we like seeing ourselves as capable, resourceful, independent And we are all those things. But when that identity becomes too rigid, it cuts us off from ease, softness, and connection — even from ourselves. What If Asking is the Strength? Let me offer a quiet reframe. What if strength isn’t doing everything yourself — but being secure enough to ask? What if: The strongest thing you can do is let someone help — without shame? Vulnerability is a leadership skill? Receiving is what actually makes the next step possible? What if the “power over” story we grew up with isn’t the only option? A Personal Story When I brought my horse Bentley home, I hoped his intro to the herd would go smoothly. It didn’t. Isaac went after him immediately — teeth bared, full-on aggression. I was alone in the pasture, trying to separate them, heart pounding. Eventually, I got Bentley into a separate space. Safe, for now, but I was shaking (and so was he). As someone with decades of horse experience, I felt a wave of shame for pushing my agenda.. I should’ve known better. And worse, I told myself: “I should be able to fix this on my own. Finally, I called my totally non-horsey husband to help me think. That call was the turning point. Not because he solved it — but because I let myself receive support. I wasn’t calm yet, but I wasn’t alone. That changed everything. Asking wasn’t failure. It was leadership. It’s how we stay grounded, resourced, and able to move forward. An Invitation If this stirred something in you, just sit with it for a moment. No fixing. No solving. Just presence. Ask yourself: Where am I still trying to prove I can do it alone? When was the last time I asked for help — without apology? What would ease look like in this season? There’s no right answer. Just honest ones. Give Yourself Permission You’re allowed to ask and to soften. You’re allowed to be strong and still want to be held. Yes, asking can feel vulnerable. It might make you feel exposed, unsure, and seen. Ask anyway. Vulnerability doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re human. It means you’re living with your heart open. Let that be true. Let that be enough. And if you need someone to remind you of this-- I’m here. Kathy Taylor read my Bio

You’ve achieved a lot, held things together for so long, and... can you feel that quiet longing for something to shift? To finally stop pushing so hard. To live and give from a place that feels more whole. It often starts with a bold decision—a New Year’s resolution, a vow after a hard week, or a moment of clarity that says, "I want something different." You start out strong, but then it doesn't stick. And you wonder why. It's not because you didn't want it badly enough, or because you're lazy, or lacking in willpower. It's in the body. The body doesn’t like being commanded. It wants to be understood. To be met with gentleness and curiosity. Big goals aren’t the problem. It’s how we pursue them. Ambition can be a beautiful thing when it moves in partnership with the body, not in opposition to it. (But that's now how we're trained.) When the nervous system is overwhelmed with too much to do or too many requests, it can’t integrate what’s happening, so it resists. This can look like procrastination, anxiety, a sense of hopelessness, perfectionism-- even "forgetting." It's not that our system doesn't want healing, it's that it needs safety first. That’s where the minimum effective dose comes in. Or as I call it: baby steps. Gentle nudges. Starting small doesn’t mean staying small. It means creating the safety your body needs to go big. ​ So maybe today, you ask: What would feel like a gentle next step toward my goal or desire? How can I honor my body’s rhythm? This isn’t about doing less because you’re incapable. It’s about doing less because your body is wise. And it wants to heal—so you can thrive. One small, safe step at a time.

In the last post , we explored how perfectionism and people-pleasing keeps your system in a state of low-level threat. Many of you wrote back sharing how deeply you resonated with that feeling of guilt when finally allowing yourself to rest. Today I want to share some specific practices for increasing your capacity for rest that allow you to be creative and take meaningful action. Not through pushing or forcing, but rather through a dance of awareness and practice. I hope it will be especially useful to you around the holidays. Fear of Stopping There have been many days in the past when I had lots to do and I was on a roll. I could feel the tired coming on, but I was determined to finish without stopping. I knew if I did stop, it would take a LOT of energy to get going again. This cycle of over-functioning and collapse isn’t healthy or sustainable. I’ve been there. Starting Where You Are The most crucial step is to accept your current capacity not where you think you should be. Be honest with yourself. How much capacity do you have in this moment? (It’s OK if it’s not very much.) Can you notice and take a break when you’re at 80% rather than waiting for complete exhaustion? Celebrate those small shifts in awareness and treat your resistance to acceptance with curiosity rather than judgment. A little ​self-compassion​ goes a long way. The goal isn’t to eliminate stress or stay permanently relaxed - that’s neither possible nor desirable. Instead, it’s about developing flexibility to move between these states naturally, expanding what we call your “window of tolerance. Small Moments Matter Rather than waiting for long periods of rest, scatter micro-moments of regulation throughout your day. Here are some small steps to practice. Take 3 conscious breaths before checking email or scrolling (2-second inhale, 8-second exhale) Feel your feet on the ground between meetings—and even during them! Look around the space you’re in and notice 5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you can touch or feel (inside or outside your body), Next notice 2 things your can smell and one thing you can taste. Share your wins AND your challenges - both build connection and resilience Practice receiving support in small ways (accepting help, taking in compliments) One Step at a Time Don’t try these all at once. That’s too big a bite. Instead, choose ONE practice to focus on for a week. See how you feel. Remember, every time you notice tension and choose to pause, every time you honor a need for rest, you’re rewiring your nervous system. This is neuroplasticity in action - your brain and body learning that it’s safe to operate differently and support you in sustainable success. What would become possible if you had just 10% more capacity? Where would you feel that first in your body?

I’ve been so energized by the concept of Honoring your Capacity -and it certainly resonated with you. As a follow up I wanted to explore how perfectionism and people-pleasing affect us and how reconnecting with ourselves is the way to increase our emotional and mental capacity. Have you ever noticed how your body feels when you’re caught in the loop of getting something “just right” or anticipating everyone else’s needs? Or before you make a decision, as you consider everyone’s response before your own? How does that feel in your body? That tension in your shoulders, shallow breathing, racing thoughts – these aren’t just random stress responses. They’re your nervous system’s way of signaling that you’ve stepped out of your natural capacity and into a fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode. ​ The Origins of Our Patterns Perfectionism and people-pleasing are two sides of the same coin. They are brilliant adaptations we developed to feel love, safety, and belonging. Whether we learned that our worth depended on achievement, or that our safety required constant attention to others’ needs, these patterns live in our body, embedded in our nervous system. The result? Our bodies stay in a constant low level of stress, scanning for potential mistakes or disapproval. This perpetual state of readiness has exhaustive consequences on many levels. Our nervous system remains in survival mode, depleting our natural resilience (adrenal fatigue, anyone?) We lose access to our creativity and intuition Our ability to rest deeply becomes compromised We disconnect from our own needs and authentic impulses ​ A Return to Self In my work with clients (and personal experience), I’ve noticed a common compelling thread. When given permission to rest and turn their attention inward, many find a place of deep peace and comfort in their bodies. “It’s so quiet and relaxing here. I don’t want to leave,” they often say, sinking into a supported, nurturing posture. Yet almost invariably, guilt creeps in – that familiar pressure that they “should” be doing more. That pull to return to “doing” is different from an inner impulse to move. One feels like dread and obligation–which might even feel comfortably familiar; the other emerges naturally from a place of groundedness and inspiration–which might feel “selfish.” What I’ve found is the intensity of their desire to stay in that peaceful state directly reflects how much they’ve been living “out there” – in service of perfection and others’ needs, disconnected from their own center. (Ask me how I know.) ​ The Path Forward “Pushing through” or “toughening up” can backfire and leave you depleted. These approaches further dysregulate your nervous system, making sustainable success even harder to achieve. I’m not suggesting you never stretch yourself, just that it’s important to be aware of the kind of energy you’re operating from. Try this simple practice: Next time you notice yourself striving for perfection or scanning for others’ needs, pause and notice: The sensations in your body Where your attention is focused The story your mind is telling about what “must” happen This awareness is the first step toward working with your nervous system rather than against it. Next time, I’ll share ways you can build genuine, sustainable capacity. Until then, remember – those moments when you long to stay in peaceful connection with yourself aren’t lazy or selfish. They’re your system’s wisdom speaking.