Beyond Mindset: A Somatic Healing Reset for High-Functioners

Ever feel like you've mastered the art of looking like you have it all together while secretly feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, or like something's fundamentally "off"? You've done the mindset work, read the books, practiced the affirmations- yet that persistent gap between knowing what to do and actually feeling better remains.

In this episode, we dive into why conventional personal development, therapy, and coaching keeps us stuck in our heads when the real transformation happens in our bodies. I'll share why somatic healing isn't just another wellness trend—it's a return to ancient wisdom that recognizes we're not just brains with bodies, but bodies with brains.

You'll discover:

• Why that "duck experience" of looking calm while frantically paddling underneath is so exhausting
• How we've been taught to control our bodies instead of being in relationship with them
• Why overthinking is often a sign of underfeeling
• The difference between "shelfspiration" and embodied transformation that actually changes how life feels
• What somatic healing is and why it is so powerful especially for women with a solid foundation who are over functioning 

If you're a high-functioning person who's tired of going through the motions and ready to access the 80% of your intelligence that lives beyond conscious thought, this episode is your invitation to explore what's possible when we move beyond mindset into embodied wisdom.

Make sure to follow the podcast and subscribe- episode 2 in this series and the somatic healing workbook drop soon. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Somatic Healing
• 1:56 The Duck Experience: Looking Good Outside
• 3:34 What Somatics Actually Is
• 6:22 Disconnection From Body Wisdom
• 8:57 Learning To Feel Safely
• 12:41 Deep Integration vs Quick Strategies
• 14:04 Free Resources and Next Steps

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today is a solo episode. It's been a minute since I've done a solo episode and today we are going to talk about what somatic healing actually is and why it may just be the thing that you are craving in your life. So if you have been a part of my world, you know that somatics has been huge for me in the last few years, not just professionally, but honestly, even more than professionally. Personally, it has fundamentally shifted how I feel in my life. It has shifted the way that I eat, the way that I move. It has shifted the way that I mother, the way that I relate to my husband and especially conflict. It has changed the way that I meet my resistance, my self-sabotage. It has changed everything, and so today we're going to lay the foundation, and I'm really especially wanting to talk to you.

Speaker 1: 0:59

If you are one of those women who has done all of the mindset work, you have a really good foundation of therapy or personal growth work, like you've been on this healing journey for a while and you have a really good foundation of wellbeing, but you still often feel dysregulated, you feel disconnected, you feel overwhelmed, you feel like you are everywhere and nowhere and it's like you're handling everything, you're doing it, you're doing the damn thing and you have a life that, on paper, looks really good. You have the markers of success that you wanted, not just professionally but personally. Like you look around and you go, like I'm taking pretty good care of myself, I'm showing up to the things that matter, but ultimately it still feels like underneath something's wrong, something's off. This is where somatic work changed my life, because it wasn't just about what life looks like. It was about how it felt, and especially how it felt in my nervous system and that unconscious emotional level system and that unconscious emotional level because, honestly, the more mindset work I've done, the more coaching and therapy and books that I read and podcasts that I listened to, the better I get at bullshitting myself, the better I get at high functioning. And what I mean by high functioning is you have learned to make things look so good even when they aren't good. You have learned how to be in these nervous system responses that are functioning. So when you're in burnout, you're still showing up to everything, making it look good, but it has lost its joy, it's lost its magic. You've lost your creativity. It just doesn't feel good.

Speaker 1: 2:43

I call this the duck experience, the goose experience. Goose is funnier, but picture like a duck. It looks so good on the surface, but underneath there is this activation, this tension. It's like you have it all, you're carrying it all, you're doing it all, but it's still really heavy. So this is where somatic healing is so powerful, because you are not broken, but your body may not feel safe enough to land in your body.

Speaker 1: 3:14

And so many of us use our logical thinking, our mindset, we use strategies and systems and habit hacks and affirmations to use our bodies not to be in relationship to our bodies. So let's define what somatic healing actually is. So somatic is not new. First of all, it's nothing new and in fact, I like to say that somatics existed even before the foundational teachers and discoverers who gave these things language and names and practices, because, honestly, so much of somatics is getting back to being human.

Speaker 1: 3:58

It's how people in tribes and villages, tons and tons of years ago, used to treat each other and their bodies. They were connected to a deeper sense of self. They were connected not just to quote, unquote mental health that's. You know, it's all in your head, it's all in your hormones versus. No, this is, this is in your emotional, energetic body, this is in your soul, this is in your environment, this is in your relationships. And Soma is your body yourself, experientially so, your animal, unconscious body. That is happening even underneath the surface. That often we haven't even had language for yet. So this goes even deeper sometimes than emotional, to understanding your biology, understanding fight, flight, freeze, fawn, not just as quote, unquote trauma responses, like psychology has made them to be, but these are biological responses to stress, to activation, to perceived threat. It's not always just trauma. What does happen with trauma is that we get stuck in these responses because our current culture has no ways of us being human. Honestly, we don't even know how to be human anymore.

Speaker 1: 5:20

A perfect example of this is I was on oh my gosh. I was on TikTok and there was a news article that was talking about a new trend of people laying on the floor. Laying on the floor and I was like, oh my gosh, we think that walking is a new trend and we're shocked to find out that we feel better when we're in sunshine and moving our bodies. What the actual heck. We are not just brains with bodies, we are bodies with a brain. Your body has so much wisdom. And when you are disconnected from your body, from your emotional, energetic, spiritual, experiential body, you are disconnected from 80% of yourself. You are essentially cut off from 80 to 90% of your wisdom, your intelligence, your power, your presence. Think about this you can be in the room Christmas morning, but if you're not there, if you're just making the magic happen but you can't feel it in your body, that's what somatics brings. If you are showing up and doing the thing, but it doesn't quite feel right, it's something happening in your body. And listen, I love mindset, I'm a mindset girly, and here's what I will say. I love mindset, I'm a mindset girly, and here's what I will say.

Speaker 1: 6:43

People have been so focused on thoughts and stories and beliefs and, oh, we need to just change this and create an affirmation. But this isn't just happening in your head, it's happening in your body, which is why you still feel so stuck when you know what to do but you can't seem to do it. Or you do it but it feels terrible. That's not in your head, it's a literal, natural thing happening in your body and I want to teach you how to work with that. The problem is for so many of us in current culture. Isn't that we feel too much? It isn't that we're so emotionally sensitive or emotionally numb. Isn't that we feel too much? It isn't that we're so emotionally sensitive or emotionally numb. It's that we were never taught how to feel safely. We were never taught how to relate to our emotions, to our spirit, to our intelligence. That's not just in our heads, but in our bodies and our intuition.

Speaker 1: 7:34

I think of intuition a lot, because so many people, especially in motherhood, but in so many other areas, they're like just listen to your intuition. And it's like women were never taught how to listen to their intuition because guess what? That's usually associated with your gut, with that area right between your stomach and your pelvis, and most women can't feel that part of their body they're numb to it, we're dissociated from it can't feel that part of their body. They're numb to it, we're dissociated from it. We are burnt out in perfectionism and we have this emotional reactivity or this numbness. It's like we're either feeling too much or not enough and we're overthinking, which is often when we're under thinking. Sorry, when we're overthinking, it's often because we are under feeling.

Speaker 1: 8:17

We don't know how to process this information with discernment. We have more information, more data, more strategies coming at us than ever before, and we have never known less and I'm talking about that knowing in your bones, knowing it in your muscles, having it actually impact your life. I am never my goal with my business and my content and what I do with women. I don't want to create more shelfspiration. I don't want to give you information that you know in your head that never changes how your Monday afternoon goes. I don't want to teach you a strategy that you can't implement because you're too dysregulated to not yell at your kid, because you never actually got to the root of why you were yelling at your kid. So many parenting experts they focus on what to do, but they never talk about the person doing it and how that looks.

Speaker 1: 9:19

To integrate, to take action. I see this a ton with entrepreneurs and business owners as well, where you're constantly seeking out a new strategy, a new plan, something to do, when what you really need is deep integration or intuition or spirit or creativity or life coming coming from you, your emotions, your energy, your body. They hold your aliveness. So, again, the problem isn't that we feel too much or not enough, but that we've never been able to. We've never been taught how to move emotion, how to metabolize it, how to integrate all of this information, all of our messy humanity, the good parts and the bad parts, and I'm going to do a couple series of this podcast where I introduce you to some of the foundations of somatics I love.

Speaker 1: 10:28

My favorite thing in my business is the deep somatic work that I get to do with my clients. I have watched women come back to life. I have watched women do the most incredible and profound things and you know what? The other day it was so cool I was on Instagram and this gal messaged me and she said I know your work because I have two friends who coach with you. And she said I can see and feel a difference in them. And that was probably one of the coolest like client testimonies, if you will, that I've ever received is that someone who knows them said that they see and feel a change in them and they know they work with me and they know that it's had such a big impact on their lives, not just because they've talked about it, but because they like see it and feel it in that person. That's my goal and I love doing that and honestly, I at least for right now. I want that to be the heart of the work that I do Long-term one-on-one work with women where we aren't just getting you quick wins and results because those are great, but ultimately I work with women who, yeah, sometimes they need a quick win in result, but what they really want is a foundational skill.

Speaker 1: 11:43

They want to build leadership skill. They want to be able to take this one thing and then have it pushed in on and pulled out on. They want this deeply rooted foundation of health and wellbeing that can withstand different seasons. And the reality is that, like, sometimes that takes a longer relationship, that takes a longer time to build in these layers of nuance and to build a skill. This isn't just me telling you what to do. It's you taking that and making it your own and figuring out what that feels like and creating this new relationship of self-trust and truly building up these leadership skills of discernment and communication and conflict and this mastery of your nervous system and emotions. That, honestly, it impacts every area of your life, every area business, motherhood, your relationship with your family, your relationship to work and rest and play, and sex, the relationship to your body, the relationship to food. It impacts everything.

Speaker 1: 12:53

So I love that deep one-on-one work and also I've been craving a way to teach and bring this somatic healing to more people, because you know one-on-one work. And also I've been craving a way to teach and bring this somatic healing to more people because you know one-on-one. It's a bigger time investment. It's a bigger financial investment. Not everyone knows the benefits or who it's for.

Speaker 1: 13:12

And also I just wanted to be able to create a course for people who were interested in somatics, who wanted to be able to understand and experience somatics in a very accessible, easy way. So I decided to kind of do this free mini podcast course, if you will, this mini podcast series. I also have a really cool workbook for you, because sometimes we just need the visual, we need the tactile, tangible tools. Sometimes we just need the visual, we need the tactile, tangible tools and I'm going to teach you some practices. I'm also making a super fun quiz, because your girl loves a quiz and I'm so excited to bring it to you. It's not quite ready yet, but hopefully in the next episode or two I'll have it ready and it'll be in the show notes. So if you loved this and you want to know more, if you want to explore this with me. Make sure you are following the podcast. That way, when the new episodes hit, you will get them up in your podcast app. The workbook again will be. It won't come out until the next episode because I'm still finishing and tweaking a couple little things on it, but that will be in the show notes for the next episode.

Speaker 1: 14:21

And also, if you loved this episode, if you are loving this podcast, will you just take a quick two minutes and leave a review? What do you love about this podcast? How is it different from maybe other podcasts that you listened to or share this podcast with a friend and you and the friend go through this together and have like a podcast book club moment where you listen and then you talk about it and you share questions. And also, if you're listening to this, I love feedback. I love responding. I am the best teacher and coach when it is responsive and there's relationship. And it's not just me in my office with a podcast microphone. So I would love to hear from you. Send me a DM with your questions, with your aha moments, if you have a certain example. I just I would love to hear from you. I would love to connect with you. So thank you so much for being here today and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode, and I'll see you next time.