Your Body Will Force the Reset: Seizure Recovery, Burnout & Choosing Yourself Daily

A flashing light, a broken mug, and a hard truth: when your body whispers, listen before it screams. That’s where we start as Bettina opens up about a recent grand mal seizure, the foggy postictal hours, and the surprising sadness that trailed the medical drama. No hype, no hustle—just a real-time reset that turned “push through it” into “pause for it,” and a practical path to heal the nervous system without shame.

We unpack what choosing rest actually takes in a world obsessed with productivity. Bettina breaks down the small but brave steps that made the difference: canceling plans, working from the couch, letting emails wait, and letting love in when her partner’s fear made the stakes clear. From there we tackle holiday stress with divorced families, the guilt-and-gifts spiral, and why lowering the bar can reveal what matters most. Presence over pressure isn’t a slogan—it’s a health plan.

Then we tear up the “New Year, New Me” contract and replace it with something kinder and smarter: daily do-overs. You don’t need a date to start again; you need permission to be human. We share simple tools—walks, breath, silence, the power of no—that help protect your nervous system and rebuild your life from the inside out. Along the way you’ll hear what’s coming next: deeper conversations with experts in functional medicine, legal protection and boundaries, and creators willing to tell the truth you won’t find in highlight reels.

If you’re carrying fatigue, burnout, or grief, this is your reminder that rest is not quitting and slowing down is not failure. Tap play for grounded strategies, honest stories, and a community that believes in tiny wins that compound. If it helps, share it with someone who needs a do-over today, and don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and join us as we get fortified—one real step at a time.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Raw Season Nine Kickoff
• 1:04 The Seizure And EMT Wake-Up Call
• 4:33 Postictal Crash And Emotional Fallout
• 9:35 Surrendering To Rest And Reset
• 12:12 Caring For Self And Partner Impact
• 15:14 Holidays, Divorce, And Choosing Peace
• 20:00 Lowering The Bar And Real Gifts
• 22:44 Boundaries And Nervous System Care
• 26:00 Ditch New Year New Me

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You're listening to the Fortify Wellness Podcast. I'm Bettina Mahoney, founder, survivor, and honestly, your unlicensed emotional support friend. Season 9 is here, and we're not doing surface level conversation. This is for anyone who's ever ugly cried at 3 a.m., spiraled in their own head, questioned everything, and still got up the next day. We're diving into healing that actually slaps. Mind, body, and soul. No fake positivity, no just journal it out advice. We're talking raw stories that kind that make you go, oh wow. Yep. Same. An expert gem to actually help. And listen, we're leveling up. We've got conversations with voices. We're literally changing the game. Quick disclaimer: this isn't therapy or medical advice. It's real talk, lived experience and tools you can steal to rebuild your life. So buckle up. Season nine starts now. Subscribe, log in, and let's get fortified. Hey you guys, we have a lot to catch up on. Happy holidays, happy new year, and also friendly reminder: you do not have to wait until 2026 or Monday or January 1st or the next full moon to live your best life. Every single day is a do-over. And trust me, I learned that the hard way. Because a few days ago, I woke up on my couch to EMT staring at me. Yeah. That's how this episode starts. I don't remember the moment it happened. All I remember was one moment my partner Jay and I were sitting on the couch eating dinner, watching some TV, and I started to get really foggy and confused. And I have epilepsy. So that would not have been the first time I was diagnosed with epilepsy. They don't know the origins of the seizures at 14 when I was a baby. I had febrrol seizures, but I have a history of seizures. I hadn't had a grandma, like a shaking seizure, in about five years, if my memory recalls properly. And all I remember is like this foggy feeling. And you feel like you're losing control of yourself. So I just remember, or Jay had said to me, like, you just said, like, can you pass me some water? And he passes me some water, and all of a sudden I stand up, and next thing you know, I'm um, you know, Jay's helping me down to the floor. I am convulsing. And, you know, Jay and I, we can joke about it because you know, you have to joke, you have to laugh, or it's going to be depressing. But he kind of talks about it like it's the, you know, it's some horror movie, you know. And it really was for him and for me. It's not easy for the person experiencing it, and it's not easy, obviously, for the person experiencing it. So it's hard for the person helping and hard for the person experiencing. So I remember coming back into my body, bright lights, voices, someone asking me my name, someone asking me, like, do I remember the month in the year? And I did not, which is very scary. And Jay was standing there, and I look up, I'm laying on my couch, and the EMTs are out up there, and I'm like, oh my gosh, what happened? This is terrifying. And of course, I broke my favorite mug because you know what? Let's just make a matter worse. My favorite unicorn mug, I broke. So, you know, my body was in shock, absolutely in shock. And here's something people don't talk about after a seizure. The after. You know, the way that a doctor described it to me many, many years ago, it's kind of like frying an egg in a pan. That's what your brain does when you're having a seizure. So my nervous system's fried, you know. My brain is like, yeah, we're done, you know, and so of course I get taken to the hospital and they can't really do much. They just give you a liquid IV with a ton of salt in it, and then I go home. And the interesting part about this time I came home was just like the extreme fatigue I felt. I felt confused, I felt kind of depressed. There was like this emotional crash that I went through, and I was, you know, it's interesting. I've talked about this in other episodes, but I like refused to like spend the entire day in bed. I was like, I have to get up and I have to like at least go to the couch. You know, then I feel less of a weakling. I know how awful that sounds, but I pretty much parked myself the day after the seizure on the couch, and I was feeling very depressed, extremely fatigued, zero energy. Like I had plans to record this episode last week about the new year, like be ahead. Like, you know, we're usually filming these episodes weeks and weeks in advance. Like we have, you know, episodes ready for January that has not been, you know, pushed out and dropped yet. You know, these solo episodes we've been filming just to kind of test to see how you know our amazing audiences react to them. And so far, you guys love them, which is amazing. But these are more, you know, we just play more play to see, you know, what is resonating, right? So I planned to do this last week. Obviously, that didn't happen. And I just kind of had to surrender, you know. So the depression kind of comes out of nowhere, and it's called. I'm gonna really butcher this, but it's called post tick tall state. Totally messed that up. Posticktal state. Should I ask Siri how I pronounce it? Because I have no idea. Let me, you know what? Um, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not okay. Let's do this since I am unprepared. State. Okay, how do I ask Siri to pronounce it? Pronunciation. Great, let's do that. Okay, ready? Pistictal state. Pistic okay, pestictal state. Pistictal state. Okay, anyone that knows me just a side note, I can't pronounce anything like ever. Okay, so what she said, that's what I was experiencing, and it feels like your body unplugged itself from the wall, you know, and the next day I just I didn't feel okay. I was sad, like kind of like a heavy sad, and I really didn't have a lot of energy. And so, like before the seizure, I had a virus, so I was already sick, finally coming up from the virus, feeling great, feeling grand. And then the summit came back. So I really it was kind of like when you have the flu, when you have like no energy. That was kind of how I felt. I really didn't have a lot of energy to really go anywhere, and I didn't the day after. Um, and I was just like a very heavy sad, not like bad day sad, but like like being here right now feels deeply sad. And and knowing that I knew it was going to pass, I I knew it wasn't permanent, right? I didn't not want to be here anymore. It was just this feels heavy. And but but what made me feel really excited was knowing that I had learned the tools to to know in my head that it wasn't always going to feel this way, that it was going to pass. You know, but my body kind of said, you know, I hate this feeling, you know, because I'm a pusher, I'm a fixer, a get back up girl. But my body said, no, you don't get to bulldoze this right now. And it literally didn't. Like I you could have said, here's a mil a billion dollars, and my butt was gonna be on that couch, you know, and it wasn't even like I was like diving into a show. It really wasn't that it was just I needed to rest. So this was really my body telling me to slow the F down, and I had to listen, whether I liked it or not. I was going, going, going, and I had been really sick for a couple of weeks, about two weeks, about 12 days, with with not including like the whole seizure thing. And that first week, I was just going, going, going. And then the second week, I was like, I'm gonna crash if I don't stop. Like, this isn't good. I'm going to be sick, even sicker than I already am. I can't ignore this. This is not healthy. I need to there needs to be a pause button on my body somewhere. And I kind of had to be okay with being okay. And I am gonna celebrate that because in the past I probably wouldn't have paused. I probably would have just like, you know, run myself into the ground, you know, not bouncing back. There was none of that. There was like not performing resilience, like, but actually letting my system rest. And so being sick, that was a sign that I was ignoring, and then I couldn't ignore it anymore. And I had to take some time to even work from my couch and and work from home and really reset and set some boundaries and cancel some, you know, work obligations because I had to take care of myself. And then having the seizure was kind of like okay, there's some things that need to change here. And watching someone I love, like my partner Jay, be so scared, it like it really hit me hard that like I have another person I have to think about. It's not just me anymore, it's someone that had to watch something so terrifying, and I never want him to have to go through that. You know, Jay didn't need answers. He didn't need me to, you know, deliver a document at a particular time, you know, he just needed me to be well and breathing, you know, and that kind of shook me to my core. So if your body is whispering to you fatigue, anxiety, burnout, please don't wait until it screams. Your health is not a luxury, it's the foundation for everything. And you know, even within that, there are things like, for example, feeling depressed, knowing that's not going to last forever, listening, even though it took a week, listening. I wouldn't have done that five years ago. Listening to my body, going, you know what? I gotta, I gotta cut some things down here. I've noticed the strides that I've made over my life. And sometimes they're little and sometimes they're bigger, right? And so I think even in the midst of hardship, it's really good to celebrate the wins because life is hard enough. Celebrate your wins, celebrate your growth, big or small to someone else, it can feel really big to you, and so that leads me, and then you know, because life has a sense of humor, it is the holidays, okay? And if your parents are divorced, you already know it's a struggle. We're on the struggle bus. Holidays feel like a logistical nightmare wrapped in guilt. Who am I going to disappoint this year? Last year was the first time I finally said, you know what, mom? I'm going to your house on Christmas Eve and dad's on Christmas Day. And let me tell you, it feels great. Choosing peace still feels rebellious, though, having said all that. But here's the thing: like, it doesn't make sense hopping from house to house. Just like have a day, enjoy it, be present, and then you get to see the other side of your family the next day. It's okay. The stress around gifts, by the way, is insane. We've turned holidays into performance reviews. Did I spend enough? Did I show up enough? Am I enough? And this was my second Christmas with Jay, and this year really, really felt different. We went shopping together slowly. It was like no rush. And after everything I went through, and honestly, everything he went through, he just lifted my spirits. He gave me this really so Jay, he calls it, I guess within the fragrant obsessed community, it's called frag, frag hag, hag, frag head. I don't know. He's obsessed with fragrances. Okay. He loves a good fragrance, and so do I. Like he has all the fancy bottles. And he got me this really cute engraved dolce and gabbana. It's called the one perfume, and it has my name on it, and it smells amazing. It smells divine. I couldn't tell you the notes that are in it, like in a really true fragrant, obsessed person can. And I mean no disrespect by that, by the way. Like I can't tell you it has vanilla notes and da-da-da. All I can tell you is it just smells divine. It's this like flowery vanilla, just heaven. It's amazing. And it feels it feels like a big hug from Jay, and I love it. You know, it just it felt really nice to feel seen. It felt just nice, you know, and I'm very blessed because I I'm not a gift girl. Like growing up when you're young, you're all about you know, Santa Claus and the gifts, and the, you know, and now it's just about being around people that you love, at least for me. And, you know, if the holidays wreck you, here are some things that I swear by, okay. Number one, decide once, stop renegotiating your boundaries in your head. Okay, like with where you're spending the holidays. Like, make a decision that works for you and your sanity and your health. Okay, it comes first. There's nothing more important than your health. And I learned that again, quite literally last week. Lower the bar. Perfect holidays are a myth. Okay. I had this like Pinterest board for what I was gonna get my cousins for Christmas. You know, I had my TikTok shop ready to go, tart, like, and then you know what? Life was like lol. You're gonna like not have time to do any of that, you know. And I ended up going last minute and I got some incredible gifts, and it like it never mattered, and it's never about the gift. And I think capitalism has enforced this like obsessed of like, I have to get the item and da-da-da. It's like, no, you're gonna get something that comes from the heart, and they're gonna love it because it comes from you, and it doesn't matter if it's Dolcing Gabbana or like a cute monk from Target. Like at the end of the day, it's about just being with family and or it should be about that. And if you're face-minded around going to church, whatever, whatever it is, it doesn't matter if you believe in unicorns. I don't care. But it really is about being around people that you love. That is at the end of the day, the most important thing in this world. It's about we need people, right? From Funny Girl, we learned that from Fanny from Funny Girl. It's like people need people, right? Like we need each other, and you know, human beings need that social interaction, and we need that camaraderie. And so lower the bar, like cut yourself some slack. It's okay. The other part, part three, is protect your nervous system, walks, breath, silence, say no. I said no today. Well, I almost said no. Someone said, Hey, can you like hop on a call real quick? It was a it was a word call. And at first I said no, or I said a polite no, and then I called. So it was almost there. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Um it's very hard for me to say no, right? And I think, especially around the holidays, everyone's kind of slowing down, anyways, that you kind of have an easy out to practice the no, right? Now until after New Year's Day, there's not gonna be a lot of work happening. Like you can get ahead and all the things, but this is your time, folks, to practice the no, you know, and to disengage, turn on the out of office, you know, Google notification on your email and practice that. What will happen if you don't answer the email? If you wait until January 2nd, if you say no to that third lunch in a day that you can't fit in. Because remember, we have 24 hours in a day. What happens if you tell your family member you're leaving the day after Christmas to go home instead of the 30th or whatever? Like, what will happen? Probably not much, nothing, right? As long as you're not hurting people, it's okay to protect your nervous system and to set boundaries. Number four, choose presence over pressure. You don't need to earn rest. It's not something that you need to bargain for. You deserve it. And in fact, you need it in order to show up in every part of your life in your professional life, personal family, and to show up for yourself. And can we please going into 2026? Can we please cancel for those of us that want cancel culture? Can we cancel New Year and New Me? Because honestly, the mindset sets us up to hate ourselves by February. Do you know that the highest percentage of gym memberships begin in January? We think New Year and New Me, we're gonna be healthy. We have to wait till the clock starts, like strikes 12 at midnight on January 1st. I don't believe in becoming a new person. I believe in deciding every morning who I want to be. Some days that's strong, some days that's soft, some days that's just surviving, like I did the day after my seizure, and I was sitting on the couch and I was feeling exhausted. I was feeling fatigued. After my seizure, I had to start over, not in a glamorous vision board way, but in a can I get through today way? Can I go for a walk around the block? And I was leaning into that and hearing me very, very clearly. I am not letting this season defeat me. Not ever. It might be a bad day or a bad hour, but it's not a bad life. You are allowed to start over as many times as it takes. There's no rules to this thing. Rest is not quitting. Leaving the email. I don't care how many emails you have in your inbox right now. Leaving your email could be over 200 emails, leaving to January 2nd. It's gonna you're gonna survive. Okay. Rest. I'm gonna say this again. Rest is not quitting. Slowing down is not failure. Listening to your body is strength. And in my case, it's could have saved my life, it can save my life, especially as an epileptic. And this is not mental health, you know, this is not medical mental health or medical advice, but quite literally as an epileptic, you can save my life. So yeah, I'm coming to you live from Massachusetts, visiting my family at 2 07 a.m. I could not sleep. I had a little bit too much caffeine. Why not? I was being a little bit of a rubble. It's Christmas time. Why not? It felt right. And you know what? I'm tipping my coffee to you. Whatever this season looks like for you, grief, healing, joy, confusion, I believe in you. You have the power to make this an incredible year. Not perfect, but real. Remember if by January 5th you weren't going to the gym, or you're unhappy with your life, or you want to look differently or feel differently about yourself, you don't have to wait until January 1st, 2027, to do so. Every day is a chance for a do-over. And I said this a few episodes ago, but I'm gonna say it again. I really do believe this because this is when life shifted for me when I decided to go and to say to myself, I love you, Bettina. I love you, Bettina. When I decided to choose me and to love me, I showed up differently. And even, you know, leaning into the feelings of sadness after I had a seizure and loving myself and leaning into that, that was me showing love to myself and what I needed. I didn't push and lean into the lean into what my body was rejecting, which was work. And I leaned into something that was uncomfortable for me, but was necessary to heal. So if you're ready to heal, your mind, your body, your soul, come join us here at Fortify. We're your community and we're your family, and I'm cheering you on. And this isn't about fixing you. I don't believe that people need like quote unquote fixing and the way that social media tries to portray it. We're here to support you. So subscribe to the podcast, follow us on social media at Fortify Wellness, A T Fortify Wellness, and let's get fortified together. Let's lock in. Yes, for 2026, but every single day. And if you fall short, then guess what? Tomorrow we get to start over again. And I believe in you. Let's get fortified together. And before you go, and before I go, I need to say this. Next season is about to be really, really special. We have some incredible guests coming. We're diving into functional medicine. Okay. The stuff that no one explains but everyone needs. We're talking to lawyers about real life protection, boundaries, and power, not the important stuff, but the important stuff. We've got influencers, founders, creators, people you think you know. But you don't know this side of that. We're having the conversations I wish I'd had years ago. This next season is deeper, smarter, more honest, and quite honestly, like a lot more educational because I feel like we need this takeaway, this advice, this like community-based advice that you would get from a friend or from a companion or someone that you really, really trust in your inner circle. And honestly, we're just getting started. So if you're listening right now, stay with us. Join us on the Rywood Fortify. This isn't just a podcast, it's a healing journey. So subscribe, lock in, and let's get fortified.