Why Ambitious Women Still Hide: Visibility & Self-Trust with Caroline Brown

Why is it so hard to say what you mean, hit publish, set a boundary, or take up space in the room, even when you are deeply capable?

In this episode of Over This Should, Pamela Meadows talks with visibility and leadership expansion coach Caroline Brown about what sits underneath people-pleasing, perfectionism, over-explaining, and the fear of being seen.

Caroline shares how women can build self-trust and practice authentic visibility without turning their lives into another performance. Together, they unpack fear of success, the pressure to stay likable, why high-achieving women often dilute their voices, and how to take a brave next step without overwhelming yourself.

You will leave with a grounded visibility practice to try before your next hard conversation, presentation, post, boundary, or big ask.

This episode is for the woman who is done making herself easier to receive and ready to be seen without abandoning herself.

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about:

•  Why being “the capable one” can quietly become a cage 
•  The difference between authentic visibility and performing confidence 
•  Why fear of success can be just as powerful as fear of failure 
•  How people-pleasing and perfectionism can function as protection 
•  What it means to be visible beyond social media and public speaking 
•  Why leadership requires the willingness to be misunderstood 
•  How to stop diluting your voice to stay likable 
•  A practical tool for naming fear, building safety, and taking the next small step 

About Caroline Brown

Caroline Brown is a visibility and leadership expansion coach who helps women in business stop hiding, trust their voices, and grow without burning out. Her work blends coaching, business mentorship, and body-based practices to help high-capacity women become more visible, fully expressed, and fully supported in their work and lives.

Connect with Caroline

•  Website: Caroline Brown Coaching 
•  Instagram: @carolinebrowncoaching
•  TikTok: @CarolineBrownCoaching
•  Book an Unmasked Mini Session: HERE 

Episode disclaimer

This episode is intended for education and reflection. It is not medical, mental-health, or therapeutic advice. If you are navigating trauma, anxiety, or emotional distress, please seek support from an appropriately licensed professional.

Chapters

00:00 The Confidence Conundrum
02:48 Breaking Free from the Cage of Expectations
05:57 The Power of Visibility and Authenticity
08:56 Transformative Moments: Eulogies and Visibility
12:03 Confidence as Action: The Journey to Being Seen
15:11 The Cost of Success: Fear and Responsibility
17:54 Building Safety in the Face of Fear
21:07 Recognizing Self-Dilution and Authentic Expression
23:54 The Mind-Body Connection in Visibility
26:52 Perfectionism and People-Pleasing as Protection
28:57 Identity Overhaul: The Journey to Self-Discovery
31:04 Regulating Emotions: The Path to Visibility
34:09 Balancing Success and Presence: A Day in the Life
36:44 Navigating Visibility: The 'Shoulds' of Women
39:16 Contradictory Expectations: The Pressure on Women
41:47 Leadership Expansion: Embracing Self-Care
45:15 Whole Life Visibility: Impact on Relationships
49:28 Creating Safety: Tools for Overcoming Fear
54:26 Awareness vs. Action: Navigating Nervous System Responses
56:14 Small Steps to Visibility: Building Self-Trust

Love this conversation? Follow Over This Should and share the episode with a woman who is ready to get over the expectations keeping her stuck. Learn more about Pamela Meadows, coaching, speaking, and upcoming programs at https://www.pamelameadows.com/.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Over The Should Podcast. Today we're talking about something that looks like a confidence problem from the outside, but maybe something much deeper. Why do smart, capable, experienced women still letter down what they really want to say? Why do we rehearse, over-explain, over-deliver, second guess, and hover over the send button like it contains the nuclear codes? And what happens when the thing we're afraid of isn't failure, but the possibility that it might actually work? Well, to help answer these questions, we are fortunate to welcome Carolyn Brown. Carolyn is a visibility coach and a somatic practitioner who helps ambitious women stop hiding and become the leaders their next level requires. Through her signature glass box method, she helps women trust themselves deeply, use their whole voices boldly, and stop abandoning themselves in the name of being liked. She's on a mission to create a movement of women who pick up the mic, stop letting fear make the decisions, and become impossible to ignore. Welcome to the show, Carolyn. Thank you. I've done a lot of research on your website and on your programs. And what I found really interesting is you've said that for much of your life, you were the woman who could handle it all, the career, the family, the pressure. When did being the capable one stop feeling like a strength and start feeling like a cage?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, you know, I don't think that I knew it had become a cage. This is this is a great question because this is why I created the glass box method, because I could see where I wanted to be. Um, around 39, I got to this point in my life where I was lost. I felt resentful. I felt like I had created the exact life I was supposed to want, but I felt really lost in it. And I could see out to where I wanted to be. I could see like I knew I wanted more, even though I felt like I wasn't supposed to. And I couldn't take any steps towards it. And I don't think I realized it was a cage until I started my business. And all of the healing has to come up. All of the, all of the things have to happen where you're kind of molded to bring up the parts of you that have been keeping you small. I don't think I knew it was a cage or or even would look back and say that I saw it that way until I was deep in my healing of rewiring my nervous system and starting to show up in the world and starting to use my voice. So when did it start feeling like that? I mean, probably my entire life. And I just didn't realize that that was that there was anything holding me back. I was just taking the steps that I thought I was supposed to towards the life that I thought I was supposed to want.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, I that's so relatable. I call it a cage personally because that's when I had my quarter life breakdown. It was a little bit past quarter life. I I recognized that I had just created all of these shoulds and expectations around my life, and it felt like I was in a cage, a self-created cage, and it was really exhausting in the beginning of the unbecoming of what I was expected to be. I'm curious, in your situation, did the people around you recognize that you were struggling with this sense of identity of wanting more, but feeling like you should be grateful? Did anyone catch on to that? Of course not. Of course not.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

I had it all together. I was the glue in all of my relationships. I was the strong one. My nervous system had been working so hard from the time I was probably itty-bitty, maybe three years old, is when I kind of pinpoint it to keep me safe. And for me, that meant being in overdrive all the time. That meant working really hard to make sure everybody else was okay and being really strong. Vulnerability was weakness. So I would have never shared where I was at with anyone. My husband saw that I was not happy, but he thought that was just being a mom. You know, we were probably seven to ten years into our marriage, and we had little kids at the time. And I think he just thought it was hard to be a stay-at-home mom at the time because I had left nursing and then I would go back to my nursing job. And then I would leave my nursing job again and then go back because I wanted something different. But I felt like I was supposed to be enjoying being home with my kids.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Oh my goodness, that's such a struggle for so many women that I know and myself included in this idea of society saying you should be one or the other. You should be a stay-at-home mom or you should be working. And it didn't matter which version of that I chose for myself. I felt guilty with each one. If I stayed at home, I felt like I wasn't contributing to the finances of our family or allowing myself personal growth. If I went to work, I felt like what am I missing out on for my kids' lives. So I think that what you just said is felt by so many women who are going through which identity should I adopt instead of what is the best for me personally, not what everybody else is telling me. Yeah. You spent years in nursing. You became a mother, as you said, you've started a business, and then you experienced a devastating loss of your best friend. And only as much as you feel comfortable sharing, how did standing up to speak at her funeral change your relationship with being seen?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

You know, it really shifted everything. And it it took a long time for this to become a part of my story that I was comfortable sharing because it felt wrong to have something that was such a horrible moment in her family's life, in my life. She had been my best friend since we were three years old, become kind of part of my mission and part of what brings my what is my business is based on. But when she passed away, her family asked me if I would give the eulogy at her funeral. And I immediately said no. I was like, absolutely not. I cannot stay in front of people. I failed speech class in college. I cry when people look at me. Even if I was in a small group of six women, I would just break down in tears. I would never do something like this. I would never come on a podcast. And I was like, I'll help write it. So I wrote it. And then the day before, or maybe even the morning up, I just felt like, you know what? She's giving me like a kick from the other side, and I need to just go for it and do it. And I did it, and I did not realize until after when everyone was coming up to me and being like, that was amazing. That was so beautiful, how much it shifted things for me. Because for the first time ever, I stood up, I used my voice, I did something that felt absolutely terrifying. And I realized I was okay on the other side. And a a big part of that too is she had kind of been my voice my entire life. She, I hid behind her, her mom will tell you, for the first six years that I knew them. I would, the only words I would say is whatever Lauren wants. I would never say what I wanted. I wouldn't use my voice in any way, shape, or form. I would just follow her around and be like the quiet shadow behind her. So I really feel like that was kind of a legacy that she left me in this moment of just being like, it's time to step up. It's time to shine your light. It's time to like step into the world and share your voice. And it was a pretty big, pretty big, huge step forward in my visibility journey.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

So often we wait to feel composed or like we have it all together before we're willing to show up fully or allow ourselves to be witnessed. And it sounds like that's where you started that moving past that allowed you to really get that first hint of what does it feel like to be fully visible and still okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah. Well, and that's what I mean. I've had three client calls today where I can tell you the same thing has come up every every time where people think I need to have confidence before I'm ready to do this. And that's a complete lie because when you feel like you can't step into something, when I felt like I could not take the stage, it was because everything in me was like, that is not safe, and we need to stay where it's safe. But our nervous system is a show, not tell machine. So if I do nothing, nothing is going to change. Yes, stepping onto that stage that day, that was a really big step forward, which is why it kind of catapulted me forward. But typically we take much smaller steps into being visible and we learn that it's safe on the other side. We celebrate ourselves on the other side. My people would tell you, I am the most annoying celebration person ever because I'm like, nothing is a failure. If you launch a workshop and no one comes, that is a celebration because you were visible and you put it out there. Because if our nervous system learns, oh, that failed, I did bad, we never do it again. We keep going back to what feels safe, and that no longer feels safe. So we have to create enough safety to actually step into the things that we want to do.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

I love that. And a really powerful distinction is that confidence is an action. Confidence is an I can statement where we think it's intrinsic, it's internal. We have to feel it inside before we can do the next hard thing. That's opposite of the truth. It's I can do hard things, I can fall and get back up, and that is where we gain our confidence. Just getting your reps in and getting visible and not worrying about being as polished as you'd like, but getting the experience you can from it and recognizing that we're all going to fail, but failing is just learning, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah. And I want to add to that, people so often will be like, How come everyone else can just push through and do it? And you can always make things smaller. So for a lot of my clients, they want to be able to show up online, start their business, build whatever they're doing. And going and actually making a post feels too big and they feel like, why can't I just do it? I'm never gonna get there. You make that smaller. You write the post and you share it with one trusted person, right? Like people think that they need to go push through and do the big thing, but you don't need to do the big thing. It's usually a step that's a lot smaller first.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I love that. You know, when people hear visibility coach, I feel like I, for me at least, I immediately thought Instagram, public speaking, personal branding, but how do you define authentic visibility?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

So it's full life visibility. So it's walking into a party and being able to be yourself and stay in a conversation. I can tell you, I used to be the person that when I would go to a party and they were going around a circle, maybe, and everyone was gonna like, I knew the question was coming. What do you do? I was not listening to them because I was already rehearsing my answer in my head. So it's being able to stay present, stay in your body and be visible in moments like that. It's being able to, if you run a business when you are selling, that is a visible moment. If you're raising your prices, that is visibility. You're putting yourself out in front of people and holding your boundaries and saying and trusting that it's safe enough to hold your boundaries and not lose belonging.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

I think you started to answer this, but if you can go a little bit deeper on the difference between being visible and performing visibility.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

So it's funny. I feel like I've been having this conversation all day long. Performing visibility is like just go and post it. Like you see, so many coaches be like, just make the post, just show up every day, show up three times a day, or just make yourself go to the networking event and make yourself go give the speech, make yourself show up on the podcast, make yourself do it, right? Like force yourself to do it, and then you'll feel better on the other side. But what happens is if your whole body is saying, this is 10 out of 10 scary for me, I don't want to do it, and you make yourself go and do it, and you just pretend that everything's okay, you're telling your body I don't trust you. We're we're essentially like pushing down all of the fears and doubts. And what we do is we allow all of the fears and doubts. So instead of it standing in front of you and becoming the thing that blocks you from where you want to go, you can kind of hold its hand. And some of my clients are like, I don't want to hold its hand. I'm like, we're gonna get there. You can hold its hand and bring it along with you because when you show up and you're just performing and trying to act like you're confident, it's gonna be felt energetically on the other side, versus creating enough safety within yourself to actually build your confidence so that you're not performing and you're just letting yourself be seen. You're letting yourself be authentic, you're letting yourself be real.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Interesting. So less of the idea of fake it till you make it, make it just make it.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

I am very anti-fake it till you make it because it's literally telling your body, I don't trust you. I don't trust the fears coming up. And when we push them down, like I was saying, it they just get bigger. Fear is gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger until you listen to it. So if there is like a little girl version of you that showed up at the lunch table and everyone was laughing at you. And so when you go to put yourself out there, you feel like you're gonna lose connection and belonging. We have to let that little girl be heard and seen in order for you to actually show up and say things in a true way, in the way that you mean, so that your people can find you.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

That's powerful. I want to quote on a slightly different thread. I think one of the most interesting ideas in your work is that sometimes we're not afraid of being seen. We're afraid of what happens if it actually works. So, what in your business are you finding that women are imagining success is going to cost them?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

So many different things. I feel like this it goes, it often surprises me what comes up for people. And I'll just share some of my own. You know, I had a point in my business where I all of a sudden started telling people, no, I can't take any more clients. Like, shut down my waste wait list, shut everything down. I was like, nope, I'm good, I can't do it. And I had a moment where all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, I'm afraid of being successful. Because for me, there was a part of it where if I was too successful, that might mean I was a bad mom. Being someone who was raised to put your kids first. And if you're too busy, if you're too career-oriented, then you're not a very good mom, right? That was playing in the background, and I didn't realize that was playing in the background. So I do hear that one a lot from women. Uh, the other one I hear is the responsibility of success, of having people under you, if you hire people to work under you, the responsibility of, okay, now I have to show up and deliver so much value. Like we put so much pressure on ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Can we pull on that a little bit further? So, when it was coming up for you, if I say yes to these extra clients and I let people sit on my wait list and I am successful. How did you change your thoughts from that makes me a bad mom to that's okay? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

So I'm all about building safety, like constantly. You, I mean, you might see me sitting here and like tapping my chest because this stimulates your vagus nerve. And we have to build more safety than fear. That's a huge part of somatics is building more safety in your body than the fear so that you can actually take steps forward. It's like a seesaw where like one side is fear and one side is safety. And like if the safety is like way down here, you're not gonna be able to move forward. You have to even it out and create more safety. So, I mean, one of the things that I did, I can tell you, I probably spent a month in front of my mirror tapping. It's safe to be wildly successful. It's safe to allow abundance in my life. It's safe to trust that I'm still a good mom, even if my business is really does really well and has a wait list and is full of clients, right? Bringing safety in is really, really big. And there's a couple different parts of safety that we look at when we look at building safety for someone. But for me, it was really just speaking it out loud to myself over and over and over again, and then feeling the discomfort of the expansion and then building more safety. It's literally like a cycle.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

We go around and around and around. That is so interesting. How can someone recognize when they are tempering or diluting themselves, even when she believes, okay, I'm showing up now? How does she know if she's still diluting herself?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

I think most of the time, people you know. You know, most of the time, the more tangible aspect, people come to me and say, Why is no one connecting with my content? But a lot of times people come to me and they say, I know I'm holding back a part of what I would really say. Like if you ask yourself, what would you say if you were not afraid of losing belonging, connection, of the business failing? What would you actually really show up and say? There's usually a part of you that knows you're holding back your voice, the disruptive things that would actually magnetize and pull people in who want to work with you. If you're not willing to say those, you know a part of you is holding back. It's really good.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

What are those for you? What are those disruptive, harder to say things because people might be turned turned away from?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Ooh. You know, I feel like my I write my disruptors all the time and then they change constantly. So I'm really big on being real with what's coming up for me in the moment. So I might have like a month where I'm like really disruptive and saying all sorts of things, and then a month where I'm not. I mean, one of them is that fake it till you make it isn't real. And then I have a lot of other things that I'll get feisty about, about who people work with and how it's making you feel. And you know, one that I talk about some that definitely gets disagreed with is that if the support that you have in your life is keeping you looping, where you know the problem, you're aware of the problem, but nothing is changing and you're showing up and talking about it over and over and over again, it's time to get new support.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

You talk a lot about visibility not being a mindset issue. So, can you walk me through what happens in the body when being seen, heard, evaluated, or disagreed with feels unsafe?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah. So we are 80% body up to brain. We're only 20% brain down to body, which means that so you have neuroreceptors in your brain, which are scanning the environment around you all the time and inside of you, and comparing whatever you're doing to everything that it knows previously from life, all of the outdated things that you've experienced in life. And if it okay, so I'm gonna put it this way if you walk into a room and you immediately get that feeling that something's off, that's your body scanning and you just knowing intuitively. And people will say that different ways, and then you'll have the thoughts that are like, I need to get out of here, right? So your body felt it first, your body recognized something was off. It sends the message to your brain, you need to get out of here. And then you're gonna have all of the things come up. So if we put this in terms of a business and someone posting online, I just feel like that's the uh that's the one that people can relate to the most often. And you go to post online and you have what you want to say, you know what you want to say, and then you go to show up. And in the past, if you were 12 years old and you went to stand up in front of your class and read your poem and everyone laughed at you, your body's gonna remember that was scary, that didn't feel good. I don't ever want to have that feeling again. So it sends the message to your brain, this is not safe. And then your brain creates the thoughts. I actually don't know what I'm talking about. Who am I to show up and say anything? Why would I do this? Everyone's gonna be judging me. I actually have nothing to say. And then you walk away and you don't do it, not because you don't want it, not because you don't know what you're saying, but because it feels so unsafe because your body is comparing it to everything that's ever happened in life previously, before this. So basically, we're all walking around functioning on outdated patterns.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

In your experience, do you find that procrastination, perfectionism, endless preparation are forms of protection?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yes. Yes. I'll give you personal experience on that one. So I was, I considered myself a huge people pleaser, also a perfectionist, also just a very high-achieving gold star. A lot of my people love the gold stars. They love, they love getting all of the accolades. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think I saw you do a post about this actually, but the version of us that the world loves, the world loved the version of me that kept everybody happy, was easy, was responsible. No one had to worry about me. I was gonna get into the school I needed to get into, I was gonna get the grades I needed to get, I was gonna create the life I was supposed to want. And all of that was my system trying to keep me safe from disappointing anyone, from anyone misunderstanding me, from anyone judging me, from being vulnerable, from anyone seeing me as weak, right? Those are, I always tell people, people pleasing is a nervous system pattern. It is not a part of your personality. And so many people think it's a part of your personality, but it is definitely not.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Absolutely. It's for me, I'll speak in on my side, it's a it's a response to making sure that I was safe and likable and not disruptive in my home. So the best thing I could do was notice what everybody needed, pay attention to the temperature of the room, and respond accordingly. And I carry that with me through all of my relationships and into my career and into my marriage and as a mom until I started to deconstruct those things. And what's really challenging is that so many of those tendencies, the people pleasing, the perfectionism, are the things that also elevate you in society and in your career and get you that badge of honor of how does she do it all? What do you recommend for people who like those accolades have felt good? And that's part of how you identify yourself, but you have to break up with those things to become truly who you're meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yes. I recommend they jump into my six month group program. No, because the truth is you have to essentially bury an identity that has kept you safe your entire life. So it is really hard. And it does take a lot of work. Essentially, you have to, like you said, decompare. Construct, dig up those beliefs and those patterns that have been keeping you safe for so long, create new safety. And that includes checking with your body, what is the safety that I really need right now? And then tapping it in, moving it through yourself with meditation, with different exercises. I don't feel like there's an easy one size fits all, this is what you would do, because that really is such a process of figuring out who that identity is, figuring out what the safety is that you need in order to create, in order to move towards the identity that you want to hold now. So if I work with someone who has been a people pleaser their entire life, we have to start figuring out why did you people please? For some people, it might be for belonging. For another person, it's, you know, if I failed in my house, then I was told I wasn't enough, right? Whatever it was. If my house was chaotic, then I had to be the person who kept the peace. So it's safe to, it's safe to be myself. It's safe to have opinions, whatever it is for them, it really is so individual, person to person, in order to actually move towards the identity that you're ready to hold. But it's it's like a full identity overhaul.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Absolutely. And so as your clients are starting to make this shift, or anybody who's listening, and they're moving towards visibility. So say they've made the post, they've published, they've hit sin, they've had the conversation. When that step is over and the inevitable spiral begins, because now you've taken this step into visibility. What should they do?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Go regulate. Go regulate. I have a, it looks like a spiral that I show my clients for them to literally walk through this every single time because you take a step into the discomfort and then go regulate. And that just means anything that makes you feel happy, present, and good. That could be painting, it could be walking, it could be doing yoga. You know, people talk about nervous system work. I hear this a lot, and they think it's just breath work and meditation. And sometimes it is, but a lot of times it's movement, it's a dance party, it's bringing energy into your body. So anything that's gonna make you right now feel happy, present, and good, go lay in the grass. And then what is the safety that you need to move forward? Get feedback, and then you can go through the loop again.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

I love the idea of moving your body too. I've recently taken up watercolor painting, and I shared this with a friend who's an artist. It's the first thing I've done in in 43 years where I feel like I don't have to do it because it's going to turn into something that's either marketable or shareable. It's just something for me, and it's a place, the only place right now that I have where I'm allowed to be terrible at it and not worry because it's for my own enjoyment. And so finding things that are for you and you alone, that you don't have to turn into something productive or profitable has been a game changer for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

So many women, they don't feel like they can take up the space in their life to just do something for fun for them that's not for anyone else. And it's a big part of what we do here because when you learn to regulate your nervous system while building and scaling a business, everything in our body and our system makes us feel like, and historically, for most women, makes you feel like you have to go so hard in order to be successful. And creating space to do things that regulate you. When you're regulated, you're creative. When you're regulated, you have more ideas. When you're regulated, you're curious. When when you're constantly in go, go, go hustle mode, you you can't be curious. You can't come up with those really amazing magical ideas that take you to the next level.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I love that. One of the reasons I was really drawn to having you on the podcast, and I'm so glad you're here, is I think your work speaks directly to the over the should audience, these ambitious women who've been told how they should show up and who they should be and the expectations on their life. We talk about that every single week here. I was hoping to get your perspective on the shoulds underneath visibility. What messages do you feel like women absorbed about how visible they're actually allowed to be?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Oh, that's a good question. Again, I feel like this is so different for everyone. A lot of women feel like they're doing something wrong if they're taking up too much space in a room, like they're stepping on other people's toes. And I think that tends to be a big part of what holds women back, especially when it comes to real life visibility. That might be even just visibility in your friend group, or visibility at a party, or visibility at a networking event. There is a limit that most people have to how much they can allow themselves to shine without feeling like everyone is going to judge them and they're doing something wrong. Like they are stepping on other people's toes, taking away the light that other people, I'm a big believer that there's plenty of light for all of us. Like shine brightly, be fully yourself, go after what you want, and someone else can go after what they want. Like someone else can come into my space who does exactly what I do, and I'm going to cheer them on so loud because their people are their people and my people are my people.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

When I look at it from a corporate perspective, which so many women who listen are in corporate and their kind of roles, it's the idea of you're allowed to be confident but not intimidating. You should be accomplished, but you still have to be approachable. Have an opinion, but don't make anybody uncomfortable with that opinion. Promote yourself, but don't seem like you're full of yourself. Be humble all the time. Also be grateful. Lead, but remain endlessly available and be successful, but you have to make it look effortless. Don't let us know how much you're actually running. Don't talk to us about that invisible labor stuff. That's how it seems to show up in my world.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah, it's, I mean, you basically just did the what is her America Ferrera? The speech from Barbie, right? Like it's it's literally that speech where it's uh be just enough, but not too much. And that's for so many people, there's an underlying already before coming into corporate, before coming into whatever boardrooms you're in, there's already an underlying don't be too much, don't be too sensitive, don't be too to anything. And I always tell people the things that you grew up thinking you're to whatever, too much, to whatever is usually where you're, it's usually your magic sauce. It's usually where your superpowers lie.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

And honestly, it depends on the room you're in, because in one room you're too much for somebody, but in another room you're you're too little or too small or too what have you. So it really depends on the room you're in. And I'm so curious from your perspective, how do those really contradictory expectations be successful but make it look effortless, be you know, lead but be available? How do those contradictory expectations train women to constantly monitor themselves? And how do they escape that self-monitoring?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah, they're constantly filtering themselves to see who they should be in the room. You know, I was on a call earlier this week with someone. She is an expert at reading a room, and I think this goes for so many of my people, being an expert at reading a room and knowing before you open your mouth how you're going to be perceived. So again, I feel like a broken record. It comes back to the same thing: building enough safety to be okay with not everyone liking you, with not everyone liking everything that comes out of your mouth. And I hate saying you have to build your capacity because I feel like that's such a coachy word. But literally, you have to expand your ability to hold the discomfort of not everyone liking you.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

It's hard, but it's so important. So you talk a lot about leadership expansion. But many high capacity women hear the word more leadership. And what we imagine is, okay, now I've got more people, more pressure, more things I have to carry. How can women expand her influence without expanding her self-abandonment?

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Yeah. By doing the opposite of self-abandonment, by coming back to yourself and becoming someone who doesn't need the validation. And we do that through creating more safety. It's coming back to your core, letting yourself have the fears, letting yourself have the doubts, letting yourself show up fully as yourself, be uncomfortable, and create more safety to become someone who can lead and not have to answer every phone call right away. Who can lead? And if someone pings you on Saturday at 10 p.m., you don't answer it till Monday at 9 a.m. And you're allowed to do that. And it's really uncomfortable to grow in those ways. And it's completely possible to rewire your system where that no longer feels unsafe. I can tell you, and I am allowed to share this story. She has shared this story live with me on Instagram. One of my clients increased her how much she makes, I believe it was at least two times in one year. Like she doubled what she made. And in that process, she slowed down so much, took care of herself, looked her kids in the eyes, became someone who didn't answer the calls all weekend and after a certain time in the evening. And she did that because she rewired how safe it was, what slowing down looked like, what that felt like in her body, who she was allowed to be, and create enough safety to be okay if they weren't happy that they had to wait.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

I love that. Do you feel like receiving support is also a part of visibility?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yes, a hundred percent. Good question. Yeah, because you have to let yourself be seen. You have to say, I would like support. I would like to take up space. That's really hard for people.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

What do you think leadership starts to look like when women stop proving their value through exhaustion?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

I think it starts to look a whole lot more like leadership. When you are leading from exhaustion, energy is felt. Your energy is going to be felt in a room. It's going to be felt by the people that you're leading. And when you are pushing from go, go, go, there's going to be a level of like exhausting energy, right? When you are really want to be a leader who people want to be around and are magnetized to, you really do that by coming back to yourself, by slowing down, by trusting yourself enough to say what you really mean, to be in the room, to hold your boundaries. And leadership requires being misunderstood. It requires you to be uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Leadership requires for you to be misunderstood, is a quote that I'm going to take away from this session. That was a really good one. Yeah. So when a woman begins to trust her voice in one area of her life, what tends to change in the other areas of her life?

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Well, definitely her relationships. I always, you know, I made a reel as a joke earlier this year, apologizing to all the husbands of my clients because they know how to use their voice in their relationships. They know how to ask for what they need. And sometimes that's really welcomed and sometimes it's not. And your friendships tend to change. I think in the best way, the people who walked all over you or did not appreciate boundaries tend to just kind of naturally leave your space. And sometimes that can be really hard, and sometimes it can be really freeing. So relationships are a huge thing that shifts and changes. I think that's probably the biggest one. Your relationship with yourself has to change. I think that one's maybe it's obvious, maybe it's not. But when you are go, go, go and doing everything for everyone else, you don't tend to do things like take a watercolor class, right? Like you don't tend to make the space for the things that you just desire to do. So your relationship with yourself absolutely has to change.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I talk a lot about this because when I was going through a learning and unlearning in my own personal life, my marriage was impacted by it. Because when people get used to how you show up, especially when you're the overperformer, it's a big adjustment for them when you start saying, I need your help, or actually you can do this, or I don't need to make a grocery list for you. You can also open the fridge in the cabinet and see what's emptied. And so when that happens, I heard in so many women I work with here, you've changed. And when I first began to hear that, it stopped me in my tracks because I did actually want to still be likable and reliable and the gold star girl. That's how I grew up. But I also had to recognize in that moment that no longer serves me or where I'm trying to go. And honestly, it doesn't serve the sustainability of the relationships I want to be in because being resentful constantly doesn't make a happy marriage.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

You know, we think that people pleasing helps us connect with people. Trying to keep everyone around us happy helps us connect with the people. But at the end of the day, it really breaks your connection and your marriage and your friendships, all of the places, because they're not getting to see the real you. They're not being given the opportunities to support the real you. They're not, you're not ever, I will say I was, I like I shared, I was such a people pleaser. And I truly did not know who I was. I took a personality test once and I got nine, I took it nine times because every time I was like, that answer is not correct. And every time I got a different answer. And that was so frustrating to me. Actually, if I went back to your first question you asked me when I came on here, that was probably one of those moments that was my first moment where I was like, I do not know myself and I'm 39 years old.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

How are we here? That is a funny story. And I always think about the movie Runaway Bride, where she doesn't really know what kind of eggs she likes because she just adapts to whatever the person in her life likes.

unknown 36:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yeah. If you can take a moment, I know you started to talk about a process, but I want to go a little bit deeper because I am a process nerd. Walk us through a real life moment. If if one of your clients has written a post uh or they're preparing to give a speech or set a boundary, they know what they want to say in the meeting. And when that time comes, her chest tightens and she really wants to retreat. What should she do in the next couple seconds to minutes?

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah. So there's a couple things we need when we talk about creating safety in the moment. We need context, context, connection, and choice. So it's really usually I prep my people for this before you're going into said meeting or whatever. So say they're going into a networking event and they're gonna do the introduction in front of everybody, right? And they know that their heart's gonna start beating, they're gonna hear it in their ears, and it's gonna feel like they can't even think straight. So, first it's one, you have the choice to be in that room, reminding yourself before you walk in, or even when you're just sitting there, I chose to be here, I get to choose to be in this room, I get to choose to speak. You also have the choice, there's a lot of power in naming something of saying, this is really hard for me, and that's really hard for high-achieving women to do, and it's a huge growth curve. This is really hard for me to introduce myself right now. This is a really hard thing for me to do. Naming it can be really hard to do, and also it really helps calm down your system because your body's like, okay, you're vocalizing that we are uncomfortable right now. The next one is connection. I always tell people it's not just one being connected to yourself, but also who do you know in the room that you feel safe with. Just creating a little extra connection for yourself. Sometimes that's who do you know in the room. Sometimes it's reminding yourself that you don't care what anyone in that room thinks of you because the connections that matter to you are not actually the ones in that room. Usually they're your family, they're your kids, they're your spouse. So it's okay to show up and just be where you're at. And then the last one is context. Our brain fills in the holes of what we don't understand. So if you're going into something and you know that your brain is gonna fill in all those holes with, oh my gosh, everyone's gonna judge me, everyone's gonna misunderstand me, everyone's gonna think that I don't know enough or I don't know what I'm talking about. Let's fill in those holes in advance with truths of where you're at, right? Like most of the women I work with are really, really good at what they do. They know a lot, they know what they're doing, and yet they walk into the room and suddenly their entire body's like, I don't know what I'm doing. I shouldn't be here, I don't belong. And that's not true. So let's fill the context of where your brain is going to try to fill in the I don't belong in this room with the truths. And then in the moment, literally, you guys, I you people might think I'm crazy, but tapping on your chest and speaking some safety to yourself. It's safe to be fully myself in this room. It's safe to show up and say what I really think. It's safe to be the expert at what I do, whatever that looks like for you. And then if it really feels big, I always tell people you get the choice to remove yourself. You get the choice to go to the bathroom and do some deep breaths and calm yourself down.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

I get is really powerful language shift for so many people. So I heard you say, name it, create connection in that room, whether that's the connection is actually outside of the room, or there's somebody, a familiar face that you can look at when you're speaking and then give it context. Don't leave the sentence with, I don't belong here. I feel like I don't belong here, but I'm in this room anyway. So let's make the best of it. Basically, round out that sentence, don't leave it with an incomplete negative thought.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah. Well, I will say even more than that, tell yourself why that thought doesn't get to run the show, right? Like if the thought is I don't belong in this room, you can you can literally have this conversation with yourself. Okay, I get that that's my fear speaking, that it's telling me I don't belong in this room, that I'm gonna be judged. And also what's true is that I do belong in the room. I know enough. I I'm I get to be right where I'm at today. It's not we're not telling your body that it's wrong. We're acknowledging what's there and then speaking some truth.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

What is one small visibility practice a listener could try this week that's going to help them build their self-trust without overwhelming herself?

SPEAKER_01 40:56

I think the the biggest and most simple thing you can do is ask yourself whatever you're stepping into right now, what is the fear coming up? What am I afraid of? Name it. Name the fear. Am I afraid of judgment? Am I afraid of being misunderstood? Name the fear, and then ask your body, what is the safety that I need? And then literally say the safety thing that comes up for you. I mean, I used to run an in-person workshop for this, and I got so many from it's safe to shine, it's safe to take up space, it's safe to boldly speak up, let it land in your body and feel it. Notice the shifts. Usually, if you just do that, you take a deep breath, tap your chest, and repeat the safety affirmation to yourself three times and feel it in your body and feel what shifts in your body. And then you can go take a step forward. Typically, that takes people from like an eight out of 10. I can't move towards this of fear, down to like a five or six out of 10. And then you can make a step towards it. Because we want to be in the four to six range. When we talk about taking steps forward, you don't want to move towards something if you're an eight out of 10 terrified. We want to bring it down and increase the safety first. So that would be like my really short practice. Name the fear, ask your body what's the safety that you need, repeat the safety to yourself three times while doing something that taps it in and feel the difference.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

That's extremely helpful. Can you complete this sentence? So when a woman finally feels safe enough to be fully seen, she gets to be fully herself. Yeah, and what a beautiful thing because that's exactly why this podcast exists as making yourself comfortable, safe enough to be who you are and not who you think you're supposed to be or should be. Okay, this show is called Over the Should. We've talked about that. So I like to ask every guest some version of this question. What should are you personally over? Who should am I personally over?

SPEAKER_01 43:06

The sh I think the should be should be nice one. I don't know. We should be nice, we should be good, we should have it all together. I think we should just be a hot mess and be where you're at and be wildly ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I love that. And one of the things I've started to really come to full terms with is no matter what stage of your life, it's always the messy middle because you're hopefully leveling up to the next thing. And while you're leveling up, you're right in the middle of a new mess and being okay with that because you're right, you don't always have to be on spot on and good and perfect and performing. The messy middle is where most of us live. Yes, so good. I love the messy middle. Will you please tell listeners how to connect with you, where to find you?

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram at Caroline Brown Coaching. Uh, you can also find me on TikTok at Caroline Brown Coaching. Kind of a new dabbling. But you can also find my website, Caroline Brown Coaching.com. I'm pretty basic. I kept it the same across the board. And I have unmasked mini sessions. I really like to connect with people in person. I have 45-minute unmasked mini sessions. Book a call and I'll show up and be there with you and point you in the direction that feels best for you.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

I love that. And of course, we will tag all of that in the show notes for the listeners. And Carolyn, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you for sharing more about tapping and being safe within your body and how to name things that are coming up for you, whether that's fear or a challenge or an expectation or should we place on our lives. We love you being here. Thanks for having me. This was so fun.