You Already Know: The Truth You Keep Trying to Talk Yourself Out Of

Sometimes the hardest truth to face…
 is the one your body has been trying to tell you all along.

In this episode of Shift Happens with Shay, we explore the quiet disconnection many high-achieving women experience after years of overthinking, overfunctioning, and self-abandonment.

This conversation is about the space between awareness and embodiment, the moment where you realize you already know what’s hurting you, what no longer aligns, or what your nervous system has been trying to protect you from.

But honoring that truth?
 That’s the uncomfortable part.

Inside this episode, we explore:

•  Why “confusion” is often fear in disguise 
•  How self-abandonment disconnects you from your intuition 
•  The relationship between nervous system healing and inner knowing 
•  What it looks like to stop overriding yourself in everyday life 
•  Gentle ways to rebuild trust with your own voice again 

This episode is part of the Awakening Phase of the podcast, where healing moves beyond identifying patterns and begins stepping into embodiment, self-trust, and aligned action.

✨ Affirmation from this episode:
I am allowed to honor what I know.

—

🎧 If this episode resonated, send it to someone who’s learning to stop talking themselves out of their truth.

Gather with me next month and reclaim joy at my virtual event, Coming Back to Joy, June 13th 2026, 11-12:30 PM EST

If something in today's episode landed for you, if you recognized yourself in the patterns we talked about, I made something for you.

She Left Herself to Be Loved is a free guide I created for the high-achieving woman who has been running on survival mode and quietly knows it. Seven signs, nervous system cues, somatic reflections, and journal prompts to help you start seeing what's actually been happening underneath all the strength.

No email required for the episode. But if you're ready to go a little deeper, it's yours, completely free.

→ Download the free guide: She Left Herself to Be Loved

And if you're ready to take it further, Coming Back to Self-Discovery is the 28-page guided workbook that picks up right where the guide leaves off.

→ Get the workbook: Coming Back to Self-Discovery

Continue the conversation with Shay on her Instagram, Facebook page, Youtube, website, and linkedIn! You can also email Shay at shay@shif...

Transcript

0:10

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to Shift Happens with Shay. I'm so excited you're here, but I'm always excited when you're here to join with me, have some fun with me, play with me. So you know we're in here. You saw the title and you're like, "Shay, what do you mean I already know? I feel you're calling me out again." Because you do know. You know the truth you've always been trying to talk yourself out of. And even as that title reads, you already have a bunch of examples of times that you've actually told yourself, "Nah, it's not this time, it's not gonna work." Come on. But here's a gentle truth. There are so many times you've already told yourself no when you should have told yourself yes. You know the relationship is draining you. You know you're exhausted. You know something's no longer aligned. And instead of listening to yourself, you start negotiating your truth. You overthink, you rationalize, and you wait for another sign. And today, I wanna talk about that space, the space between knowing and honoring what you know. For those of you that are new here, I am Shantanique Moore-King, fondly known as Shay, unless you're feeling spicy and you wanna call me by my full name, then I know what kind of day you're on. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and welcome to the shift. So let's dive in, y'all. So let's talk about our patterns, because we always will identify and call ourselves out lovingly, gently, because one-- there's one thing we good at as high-achieving women. It is pointing out our patterns. Insight. I mean, our most utilized coping skill is intellectualizing. Mm-hmm. That's already a pattern in itself, and you know we've been in this journey for a hot minute now, so you already know. And we're not confused. We're disconnected from ourselves. Because when we've spent years prioritizing other people's comforts, doubting our intuition, overriding our bodies, and performing instead of feeling, our inner voice gets quieter. You know those moments where you're just like, "I don't even know who I am. Who is the person I'm staring at in the mirror? What does my voice sound like? What are my thoughts?" And you realize and you, you think, "I've lost myself." But I want you to know your voice didn't disappear. It just got quieter because you stopped trusting it. So instead of asking yourself, "What do I know?" Which boo, you know a lot. Aah, you don't give yourself enough credit, but you know so much. Instead of asking yourself what you know, you started asking yourself, "What will upset the least amount of people? What's the safest option? What can I survive?" That's not intuition. That's self-protection. Shay, pause. What do you, what do you mean? If it's protecting me, that's wisdom. We've talked about wisdom in our body. But how is that wisdom in your body if you're going against what you know you need in order to benefit the needs of others? How? How is that intuition when you go against what you know you need for yourself to fulfill the needs of others? That's not intuition and that's not wisdom if it means neglecting yourself. There is no wisdom that says to neglect yourself for the betterment of yourself and your people. That's not how it works. You have to start with trusting yourself. We have to start with not always being concerned about what's gonna upset others, but what's gonna upset ourselves. Because at the end of the day, you go to sleep with you. You lay down with your thoughts. You lay down with your body. You lay down with your decisions. You lay down with you, no one else. So let's stop confusing protection for intuition. Remember, vulnerability and protection can't be in the same room. You can't be raw in yourself and allow the most sacred parts of yourself be exposed and think protection can be there They counteract each other. They cancel each other out. And I wanna say this compassionately. Sometimes we call it confusion when it's actually fear. Fear of disappointing people, fear of being misunderstood, fear of choosing differently, fear of what happens if we finally tell ourselves the truth, because truth creates responsibility. Once you acknowledge, "This relationship hurts me. This environment drains me. I don't want this anymore," you can't un-know it. And that can feel terrifying, especially if your nervous system, which I think many of us as high-achieving women have learned, peace must be earned, discomfort must be tolerated, self-abandonment keeps connection. So instead of moving, you stay negotiating with yourself. Negotiating pieces of yourself. Because if I don't leave me, how can I be loved? How can I be seen? How can I be praised? How can I be accepted? And accepting me means that I'm being selfish, and I'm not thinking about the needs of others, and I'm not a selfish person, pause. Or even telling me, "Shea, it's all I know." I know. But if you're here, a piece of you is tired. A piece of you is ready to let this go. We're tired of negotiating with ourselves for the comfort of others. We're tired of just being tolerated. We're gonna be us, so we're gonna shift forward. And what does moving differently even look like? It starts with radical honesty, and I'm gonna pause right there because some people like to think that means blunt. No, boo, blunt energy is mean girl energy disguised as nonchalant. Up in here at Shift Happens with Shea, we don't move nonchalantly with things that are gonna hurt others intentionally. We don't move with mean girl energy, though I love me a mean girl movie. No. Radical honesty is not harshness. Radical honesty is not shame. Radical honesty is exactly what it is, honesty. Such as, "This no longer feels good to me. I keep trying to force alignment. My body has been signaling this for a while." And then instead of immediately trying to solve everything, you pause. Yes, beautiful, you pause. You listen. You let yourself sit with what's true before rushing to make it comfortable. Because healing isn't just learning your patterns, it's honoring what your awareness is trying to show you. Why is healing so uncomfortable? Because you're dismantling beliefs, and patterns, and voices, and thoughts, and everything that's been poured into you by society, and caregivers, and loved ones, and everyone you've ever interacted with, and TVs, and any type of media, anything that has formed to you to kinda suppress yourself. It's uncomfortable because we're telling all of it no, and we're choosing differently. And choosing differently, unfortunately, has been and unfortunately, choosing yourself has been villainized. So you try to solve it as soon as that tinge of discomfort comes up. And we mistake that as, "Well, Shay, I'm listening to my body. Is that not wisdom?" No, that discomfort is a response that, "If I don't move now, I'm no longer going to belong. I'm concerned about the consequences of no longer being at the table more than I am about how being at the table makes me feel." There's a difference. Healing isn't just learning your patterns. You have to honor your awareness, and you have to honor what it's trying to show you. So as I mentioned, you know, in the real life what it might look like, because we're not gonna just talk about abstract concepts. It could look like you stop asking five people what you should do before checking in with yourself. Check in with you first before going to the council and trust- I am a big one about community. We've talked about it tons of times, friendships in adult life, you know, having your loved ones, and there's nothing wrong with you having a council. I don't want you to take that from here. But there is a problem where you never move because you need a yes from everybody in order to do what you believe is right for yourself, despite that you've done the research and analyzed the outcome. Or you realize every time you leave a certain environment, your body feels heavy, and instead of dismissing that heaviness, you start paying attention. Paying attention to your body telling you, "This is not for me." And maybe you've outgrown a version of yourself that survived through over-explaining, over-performing, and shrinking. And now your body is asking for something softer, something truer, and that's embodiment. A softer way doesn't mean avoiding truth. If anything, it means leaning on your truth even more. How can you get to your softness if it's hidden behind protection? Again, vulnerability and protection. Them two babes don't belong together. You can't have her. Vivian and Paula can't be in the same room. Vivian Vulnerability, she needs to get herself out. She needs to be seen and heard, and despite, or I will say regardless of the possibility that she will be hurt, she's gonna live herself. But she can't do that if Paula is up in here telling, "Uh-uh, nope, don't do that because remember this time when we did that, da-da-da-da-da?" No, mm-mm-mm, we belong our-- we, mm-mm-mm. If we live in our truth, what will they think about us? We have to protect ourselves from that rejection. We cannot do that. Side note, if you're a Paula watching this, you are so loved and beautiful. Girl, you're the bomb dot com. Y'all just know I like to externalize here, and I need to give things the names because remember in our past episode, if you can name it, you can tame it. So yes, Vivian and Paula in this concept cannot be together because a softer way means approaching yourself with compassion while facing it. You don't need to bully yourself into change. You just need to stop abandoning what you already know. Start being soft with yourself. Healing is hard. Healing is uncomfortable. But healing isn't meant to break you down completely and build you back up because you still need a foundation to grow from. We're not here to destroy you as a person. We're here to rebuild you up, exchanging the materials of your foundation with something stronger, something that aligns with you more. A coating that fills you with joy, a structure that has you standing tall and strong for yourself. You know? Let's take a deep breath here. And I want you to ask yourself, because you know if you're a returning person, you know I love me some what? Journal prompts. I want you to ask yourself, what truth have I been trying to talk myself out of? Second, I want you to then ask, where do I keep overriding my inner knowing? And then, what would change if I trusted myself a little more? Sit with those beautiful prompts. Just sit with them. No pressure, just honesty. That's what coming back to yourself looks like. And you know we're all about coming back to ourselves here. So I'll answer this with you guys. So what truth have I been trying to talk myself out of? I'd say for the longest time, I have been avoiding the purpose and calling to entrepreneurship, to creating something of my own. I've been avoiding that and talking myself out of it that- Yeah, well, I could be a leader in a group practice. I could be a leader at other companies. I've done that. It's comfortable. It's okay. I can, I can do that. I can lead in a different way. I don't have to own my own. And it mostly was just a fear of failure because as a high-achieving woman, I definitely am the overachiever archetype with a tinge of perfectionism. And the overachiever says, "I fear being invisible, so I do more in order to be seen. And if I go into entrepreneurship, how can I be seen if I'm on my own doing this? Uh, how can people cheer me on if they're not there to see me do it? And honestly, why would I want to expose myself to others seeing my downfall if it doesn't go well? I can't do that. I'm not well-versed enough." And how am I not? I've been a supervisor for a twenty-four seven crisis center. I've created standard operation procedures that have better relationships between departments. I've sat in and done consultant work to find out procedures of how I can make life better and cultivate a more seamless process for my employees and others. And even in my personal time, I've advocated for sexual assault right-- sexual assault rights for sexual assault survivors, even in my own sorority, and created a program where people have to own themselves and hold themselves accountable. And what does accountability look like? And how do we protect our sisters, our members? I facilitated multiple workshops. How am I not ready to lead when all I've done and all I've been built to do is lead? It'll be more like, how dare I talk myself out of being myself. I kinda answered all three of those prompts in that, didn't I? Because I can't keep overriding my inner knowing when there are too many examples, or I like to say in therapy, data, that tells me otherwise. If anything, now I should be asking myself, like I said, how dare I not walk in my truth, walk in my inner knowing, walk in who I am? And same thing for you, beautiful. How dare you not? Yeah, just let that sit in, because how dare you? And honestly, if you're here on YouTube, go ahead, drop that in the comments if this is sitting with you. How dare I? And if you're comfortable, share. Share that truth you've been talking yourself out of. Share what, what, and where you've been overriding your inner knowing, and talk about what would change if you trusted yourself a little bit more. 'Cause I know when I trust myself a little bit more, I flourish, and the environme- and the environment around me flourishes. People around me flourish. We all come up. When I start trusting myself, things fall into place, boo. And I know if you look back, you'll see the same too. So let's seal that in with a beautiful affirmation. And repeat this after me: I trust what my body has been trying to tell me. I do not need to abandon myself to stay connected. I am allowed to honor what I know. Beautiful, you don't need another sign. You don't need perfect certainty. And you don't need to force yourself into clarity that's already been quietly living inside you. Your inner voice was never gone. You just learned not to listen to it. But you could come back now, gently, honestly, one truth at a time. And I wanna let you know, because you know I love to give these offerings, and if you're ready to go deeper into the work, I have multiple ways here. For those of you who are new on this journey with me and you wanna learn more about the different signs of what it means to run in survival mode, check out in the show notes, in the YouTube description, my free guide, She Left Herself to Be Loved: Seven Signs You've Been Running in Survival Mode. And it's just a gentle guide that's gonna help you look at seven signs of how your nervous system reacts. How do you know you're living into it? I provide that information in there. I give you examples of how your body reacts- I gave you somatic cues to think about, and then I also gave you a journal prompt so that you can develop more of that insight and understanding of yourself. And if you're ready to dive a bit deeper after that, and you're ready to say yes to yourself a little more, I also have a digital workbook called Coming Back to Self Discovery: A Soft Return to Who You've Always Been. You can check that out on my website, and I'll have the link in the show notes in the description. And if you're ready to go a little bit deeper, a little bit further, even on there, on top of that, and you wanna be around a group of women who are tired of performing and who are ready to reclaim joy, reclaim what that feels like in their body, knowing what that means, knowing what that looks like, reclaiming who we are, then join us to Coming Back to Joy on June 13th, 2026. It's a Saturday. It's gonna be from 11:00 AM till 12:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, for my girlies on the West Coast listening to this or if you're anywhere in the other global listenings. But yeah, I would love to guide you. I'm happy to do so. Remember, coming back to you is gentle sometimes. It's honest, and it's one truth at a time, so don't rush your journey. Pick a place. I have something for everybody, and I just thank you for always allowing me a chance to be here and speak to you. Thank you so much for it. And I'd appreciate if you like, comment or subscribe. Definitely so you can, you know, put a notification bell too, so that you know when another one of my episodes is up and when you're needing some clarity and some, some loving up in here, and you just wanna hear from your favorite marriage and family therapist about what is going on, girl. And you never know, there might be a hidden gem for you here. So go ahead and get your gems. All right, I adore you all. Reach out to me, IG, YouTube. Email me at info@shifthappenswithshay.com. I am listening. I'm here. So have a beautiful day. I adore you all. Continue to be great. Mwah.