The Hidden Emotional Drains That Quietly Shape Your Health and Choices

151 - Some of the biggest drains on your energy don’t come from being busy or lacking discipline. They come from emotional patterns you were never taught how to recognize or work with.

In this episode of the Feel Light Mind and Body podcast, Clarenda Price, former Registered Nurse and Certified Life & Weight Loss Coach, explores how emotions, expectations, and unexamined patterns quietly affect your energy, stress levels, eating habits, and ability to lose weight.

This conversation is especially relevant for busy, successful women over 40 who know what to do, yet still feel drained, overwhelmed, or stuck during challenging seasons of life. Clarenda shares real client examples and science-based insights to explain why willpower isn’t the problem, and why emotional awareness and nervous system regulation are essential for lasting change.

You’ll learn:

1. How emotional avoidance can drive overeating
2. Why motivation alone isn’t sustainable
3. How inspiration creates follow-through
4. And how managing expectations can restore peace, sleep, focus, and energy 

This episode goes beyond weight loss and speaks to the real-life challenges that shape health choices every day.

UPDATE:
Out of the Miserable Maybe Workshop turned out to be an incredible day of connection, learning, and honest conversation.

One woman shared, “This helped me get out of my indecision already.”
Another said, “I’ve got momentum again. Thank you for this.”

That’s exactly why this work matters.

Because these in-person workshops are intentionally limited to keep them personal and supportive, spots fill quickly. If this episode resonates and you’d like to experience this work yourself, there are two ways to stay connected:

• Join the waitlist to be the first to know when the next in-person workshop in New Brunswick is scheduled
• Be notified when a Zoom option becomes available for those who aren’t local

If you’re ready to move out of overthinking and into clearer, more confident decision-making, this may be the next step you’ve been looking for.

Register for the waitlist here:

https://www.clarendasempowerment.com/courses/out-of-the-miserable-maybe

Local or not, if you’re ready to address weight loss, energy, and emotional eating with a science-backed, supportive approach, you can also explore the Feel Light Mind and Body online program. 

Book a complimentary 20-minute consult so you can take the next step in a way that feels right for you.

https://www.clarendasempowerment.com/f/fl

Awareness is the first step.
And no, it’s not too late.

#EmotionalEating #WeightLossOver40 #StressAndHealth #MindBodyHealth

You can always find out more at:

https://www.clarendasempowerment.com/

Transcript

0:00

Some of the biggest energy drains in your life aren't obvious. They don't show up as busyness or lack of discipline. They show up as emotions that we were never taught how to understand or how to work with them. Would you describe yourself as someone who cries easily? Maybe something shows up in your feed, an image or a video, and you notice the tears coming. Maybe you cry when you make love or when someone surprises you or you feel connected and understood. Or maybe you're someone who feels things deeply, but the tears don't show up. You may feel warmth, appreciation, gratitude, or other emotions inwardly, but there's no expression outwardly. Neither of these is good or bad. Neither of these are more or less emotional. What matters is understanding how you process emotion, because that plays a much bigger role in your health, your energy and habits than most people realize. And before we go any further, I want to quickly share who I am and why this matters so much to me. I'm Clarenda Price, a former Registered Nurse, who over the years, worked in clinical settings as well as teaching nursing students at the university level. I'm also a Certified Life and Weight Loss Coach. I work primarily with busy, successful women over 40 who are doing well in many areas of life, yet feel drained, exhausted, or discouraged in areas like their health, energy, and weight. What I see again and again is that it's rarely not about what to do. Most women I work with are intelligent, capable, and informed. What's missing is support and understanding what's really driving their stressors, their habits, and their stress, especially during the really challenging times in life. This is where this work comes in. Welcome to episode 151, The Hidden Emotional Drains that Quietly Shape Your Health and Choices. Our emotional responses are shaped by many influences. Our genetic makeup, what was modeled for us growing up, social conditioning about what was acceptable to express, past experiences that taught us what was safe and what wasn't, and even subconscious habits that we developed without realizing it. Many of these patterns were formed before we had the awareness or the language to understand them. In the Feel Light Mind and Body program, Module 5, the focus is on feelings and urges. One client told me last week that this was a real eye-opener for her, not because it necessarily told her what to do, but because it gave her the awareness for her to consider, "oh, maybe that's why I do what I'm doing." For the first time, she was starting to lean in to being able to look at past experiences with compassion and understanding rather than judgment. She could see that the earlier versions of her were just doing the best that they could with the tools that they had. That acknowledgement and shift alone is powerful. We all have learned behaviors and most of them are a result of past circumstances that had a big impact on us. At one point, they helped us cope, survive, or get through something hard. The issue isn't that these patterns exist. It's that when they go unexamined, they can quietly start working against our health. There are strategies and tools that allows you to govern these behaviors in a way that supports your wellbeing, not drains it. One of the guide sheets in the program starts with the simple but powerful and revealing question. On a daily basis, what are your three most common feelings? And it ends with what would you like your top three feelings to be? That question alone creates an awareness that many people have not fully known before. A new one-on-one client recently had a powerful realization. She had been describing herself as anxious and on the surface that made sense. But as she slowed down and checked in, she started to notice when and why she was eating. That's when something deeper surfaced. She realized that there was an underlying sense of dread. It wasn't constant or overwhelming, but it was there and it felt uncomfortable for her. She didn't like the feeling. She wasn't used to it and she didn't want to sit with it, mostly because she didn't know how to sit with it, and that was creating anxiety. She began noticing that while doom scrolling or even partway through scrolling, she was reaching for some chips or crackers, a muffin, whatever she had on hand. She realized she was looking for anything and everything to help her feel better. Now intellectually, she knew it wouldn't last. She knew it wasn't solving anything but in the moment, it felt worth it. It was distraction, temporary relief and a sense of pleasure. Her scenario wasn't about lack of discipline or not knowing what to eat. Situations like that are about avoiding a feeling or not understanding how to process it, what to do with it. So let me ask you this, think back to last week and what were your three most common emotions? And do you know what the thoughts were that were creating those feelings? So you'll hear me say feelings, emotions, I'm just using them interchangeably. If your answer is, "I don't really know," or "I just felt overwhelmed." Please don't be hard on yourself. That is incredibly common. One of the benefits of working with an experienced life coach is learning how to recognize what your brain is offering you - the thoughts that are both true and not true - and how these thoughts are currently creating your life experience. That same client was also surprised to hear that thoughts are optional. Maybe you need to hear that as well today. Just because you think something doesn't mean it's true or that you have to follow through on what you're thinking. That is, if it's not going to help you move forward in a healthy way. The good news is that the results that we create come from our thoughts, our feelings, the things that we do and don't do on a daily basis. Now, that takes practice and guidance, but it's totally worth it. The weight loss journey can also feel very isolating, especially when you're surrounded with people who seem to be able to eat anything and not gain weight. Or maybe there are friends and colleagues who are in a similar situation, but they're just choosing right now to ignore it. That's where being part of a private community of a group of women who get it, and then every week they come and they share their wins, their struggles, their stories, and you can relate to them, it normalizes the experience. You realize you're not the only one that struggles. It also provides a space that feels safe, and you could come with those struggles, but you can also share your wins, both big and small because they get it. They understand the significance and the celebration when, you know, the zipper that was two to four inches gap, you can zip those jeans up and feel proud of them, and you can share there because you know it's encouraging them and you know they're gonna be cheering you on. Another major emotional drain that I see quite often is unmanaged expectations. I worked with two private clients this morning. One was struggling with the belief that her husband should agree with her. The other was deeply attached to the belief that something had to happen in a certain way for her to feel okay. We can usually justify these beliefs. We think they seem reasonable and logical. But staying attached to them was creating emotional chaos and keeping them in a fight or flight response. That impacts joy, your relationships, sleep, peace of mind, health, your productivity, focus, and more. We work through a short process, each a little bit different, because it depends on their circumstance, but both of them left feeling more grounded, peaceful, relieved, and with smiles on their faces. Learning how to manage expectations of others and our circumstances is one of the most beneficial things that we can do for our physical and mental health. What if instead of thinking, "this is how it's supposed to be," you just allowed it to be what it is. Trusting that you can work through it and also allowing others to be who they are. That doesn't come naturally. Left to our own devices, we will revert, we will default to the amygdala, the lower part of our brain. That's where we'll be operating from. But with guidance and then practice, you'll see a major transformation. The transformation will be greater the longer you choose to live this way. With the work that we can do together, you'll learn how to use logic for decision-making rather than making emotional decisions that you may regret later. Then you can use emotions as feedback. Identifying and acknowledging when you're sad, happy, peaceful, scared, or anxious is valuable. You'll also begin to realize where these emotions show up in your body. All awareness is helpful. What we do with that awareness can be empowering or disempowering depending on the choices that we make. It's become mainstream to use emotions for motivation, but they're not dependable or sustainable. We want to be inspired, not just motivated. In the zone of inspiration, you're not chasing happiness or avoiding difficulty. You're simply living inspired. You keep moving towards what aligns with your values, knowing that you're going to have both support and challenge'cause they're both part of life. If National Quitters Day for resolutions has already passed and you're feeling discouraged, don't let that stop you. Don't let yourself go into judgment. If you made it past that day, congratulations. And if you didn't or you didn't even start, don't beat yourself up. Let that be an indication that you need a different approach. One that comes from inspired action, not relying on willpower and motivation. Motivation is dependent on the external, whereas inspiration is within your control. It's internal. If you're tuning in the week this airs and you're local, you live in New Brunswick, Canada, listen up because you're not going to wanna miss out on this in-person opportunity. This Saturday, January 24th, I'm hosting a small intimate workshop in Fredericton, New Brunswick called Out of the Miserable Maybe. This workshop is for women who are tired of overthinking and are ready to follow through. And they want to do this without pressure. They just want clarity. It isn't about fixing yourself. This isn't about pushing harder and holding yourself up to some crazy unattainable standard. It is about learning how to make decisions from clarity and not fear. It is about learning how to follow through in a way that feels grounded and supported. Every woman in the room will probably come in with their own challenge. Some may be thinking about their weight and health. Others may have decisions they want to make about relationships. Some it might be about career decisions or retirement decisions, and others are just coming because they're just tired of being emotionally drained and living in that indecision."I should." "I need to." What all of them will really want is to feel grounded, to feel certain, to feel peaceful, knowing what they're going to do and how they're going to do it. During this workshop, you'll learn how to recognize where indecision is costing you energy. You'll learn how your nervous system is influencing your choices, and you'll learn how to move forward without forcing or second-guessing yourself. This isn't group therapy and it's not a lecture. It is guided practical work in a safe environment where you're going to feel seen, heard, and respected as an individual. I've intentionally limited this workshop to 10 women because I want to have that extra connection that we've all been craving lately, as well as a time and a place for you to be able to get questions answered and do the work right here, rather than thinking I'll do this later. I already have two women driving from Moncton, New Brunswick, so that's like a 2-hour drive, because they know the value they're going to receive and it's worth their time and energy to do so. If something in this episode resonated with you, I invite you to check out the link in the comments and just see, is this the experience that I want to have? Are these the results that I want to invest in and have and enjoy in my life? And if you have a friend or a colleague that you think might be interested, feel free to share this or get them in touch with me, that's not a problem. Maybe you're not local or maybe you are local, but you're like, "but what about that Feel Light Mind and Body program you do?" I'll also include the link for the consult so you can get started on that as well. If nothing else, I hope what you've heard and learned today will help you because awareness is your very first step. Until next time, let's make this month count. It's not too late. You still have time.