You built the 6-figure business. So why do you now want out?

You did everything right. The credentials, the business, the team, the referrals. And now you're sitting in the parking lot before work, not tired, not late — just unable to make yourself go in.

In this solo episode, Julie tells the story of Marjorie — a composite of the clients she's walked alongside who hit this exact wall. PT, business owner, fully booked, deeply respected. And quietly falling apart on the inside.

What unfolds isn't a roadmap or a pep talk. It's an honest look at what it actually costs to keep following a map someone else designed for you — and what's really missing for the high-achieving women who can't seem to move from the life they've outgrown into the one that's pulling them. 

Spoiler: it's not a new certification. It's not better boundaries. And it's definitely not more progesterone.

00:01 — Meet Marjorie (why Julie tells composite stories — and who this one is really about)

02:21 — She Had It All and Still Sat in the Parking Lot (the voice that started quietly and got impossible to ignore)

06:22 — Everything She Tried to Make It Stop (supplements, sabbaticals, yoga, dog walks — and why none of it touched the voice)

08:17 — When Resentment Moves In (watching the clock, dreading sick calls, and the guilt that comes with both)

27:26 — What She Finally Said Out Loud (the Soul Story Mapping session, and the thing Julie didn't see coming)

34:40 — Surrounded by People and Completely Alone (the relational reckoning, and the co-regulatory nutrient nobody talks about)

51:34 — The Three Things Actually Keeping Her Stuck (co-regulation, financial safety, and learning to follow your own compass)

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Transcript

Julie Granger (00:01.176)
Hello friends, welcome to this episode of the Sink and Swim podcast, JustMeToday. I'm coming to you with a story that I am so proud to share. I love sharing stories of the journeys, the brave journeys that my clients move through. Sometimes I can tell you until I'm blue in the face why the work I do is so cool.

But sometimes it's just easier to tell you a story and let it land however it needs to land for you today. So without any further ado, I'm going to tell you a story. And one thing to note is, at least from now moving forward, when I share client stories, I'm sharing a composite story. So it's a story of...

lots of different clients put together into one mosaic just so that I'm not outing anyone or sharing sacred information because there's a lot of beautiful sacred information that is shared in our session sometimes that's told to me in confidence and I'm never going to reveal anyone's very specific information. So I always share pretty composite stories for that reason.

And I think that there's different ethics and different philosophies behind that, but I definitely, and I have practiced different philosophies as a business owner. Okay, I'm pre-embling way too much. I'm just going to dig into it. Hello everyone. Welcome to this episode of the Sink and Swim podcast. It's just me today and I'm so excited to be here today.

You know that moment when you're sitting in your car in the parking lot before work and you just sit there a little longer than you intended? You're not running late. You're not tired. You just can't quite make yourself go in. And this might not be you at work. It might be you going into the gym or you going into your house when you arrive home at the end of the day.

Julie Granger (02:21.014)
And sometimes those moments in the car are actually kind of nice, but in this particular one, this is something that happens with me and with clients a lot, especially when there's something that you just... I don't want to say you're kind of dreading going into, but you just kind of don't want to do it. And so if that's ever been you, this episode is for you today. I'm going to tell you about a client of mine. We'll call her Marjorie. It's actually a composite.

story of lots of different clients I've worked with. The cool thing about this work is when you've done it for so long and worked with so many people, you can start to merge and blend stories together unknowingly in your mind and the details get mixed up. But what's beautiful about that is it also lets me tell you stories about clients in a way that keeps their secrets and their specific personal details secret. And so for this...

version of a client story that I'll tell you we're going to call her Marjorie after one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs. All right. So Marjorie is a 40 something year old physical therapist. She is a business owner. She runs a multi-clinician team and that business has made multiple six figures for multiple years in a row.

Marjorie is extremely respected in her community. She has referrals pouring in, mostly word of mouth. She's fully booked at all times. And she's built this business from the ground up from a really beautiful place. She was once working in a hospital system for a really long time that paid her really good benefits and helped her build her reputation with local physicians and other physical therapists.

but she was never in charge of her schedule. She was never in charge of her income. And so at one point she made a really brave leap to leave the hospital and at first start a practice as a solo practitioner. And then she built it into an empire, so to speak. And it was actually really cool because I helped her on the front end of building that business. And she came back to me.

Julie Granger (04:41.454)
when something just wasn't sitting right when she'd sit in her car before she went into work. And what's really interesting is if you hear this part of the story, you'll probably agree with me that on paper Marjorie had done everything right.

But about a year ago, a voice started and she started feeling herself hesitating before she went into the office. That voice would sit there in her mind and it was quiet at first and then it was impossible for her to ignore. And she couldn't believe it when she first heard it.

In fact, she tried to ignore it when she first heard it. It said, I think I'm done with this.

And she felt so guilty when she first heard that voice. She was like, how could I even think that? My clients loved me. My team loves me. I've built this. I built this out of great service for not only my community, but to give myself an opportunity that was better for me and for my family. And it helped bring all this balance into my life. I should be really grateful for it.

And so she was like, that just doesn't make sense. I'm in perimenopause. I'm probably just tired. My hormones are crazy. I'm losing my filter. My emotions are all over the place. I just probably need to like take a chill pill or something. And so she did everything she thought she needed to do to just like tend to herself in perimenopause. And I mean, she needed to do those things, obviously. So she set

Julie Granger (06:22.392)
better boundaries. She was already setting good ones, but she set more. She delegated more at work and just stopped handling things that people on her team were perfectly capable of handling, but she was still for some reason doing. She went into a perimenopause deep dive. She had taken all these courses and certifications and knew a lot already, but she kind of turned the lens on herself.

She would divide her 26 supplements into a pill sorter, just like her 76 year old mother. She carried it everywhere she traveled. She doubled down on focusing on her hobbies, on exercising in a way that was really kind to her body. She thought maybe she was kind of overdoing it and burning out. She doubled down on an ironclad morning ritual. She started going to yoga.

she, her kids had started driving. So she didn't have to like drive to school and sports and all that kind of stuff anymore. And so in the time that her kids, in the time that she didn't need to be driving anymore, she had kind of been sitting around aimlessly and scrolling her phone. And she decided instead to fill that with walking her dog. Her dog had been a little neglected and she found great

joy in bonding with her dog and walking every afternoon. And then of course she doubled down on quality time with her kids and with her husband.

And all of that, of course, helped bring peace and a lot more joy and more calm into her life and definitely lowered the stress levels in her nervous system.

Julie Granger (08:11.864)
But they didn't do anything for the voice.

Julie Granger (08:17.518)
She found herself in client sessions, deep in it with them. And she would find herself watching the clock, counting down the minutes until it was over. She just sat down with the client. And she'd look up at the clock and be like, OK, 55 minutes left. And she just unconsciously kept counting down. She kept that clock in the corner of her eye. And she felt so guilty. She was like, why do I want this to be over?

I'm so good at this. They love what I'm doing for them. I love them." And she's like, she's like, what is wrong with me? And then she found herself feeling extra resentful when one of her team members, one of her therapist would call in sick. Before she'd be like, no problem. Like you go take care of you. I'll take care of your patients.

She had built in margin in her schedule in case that ever happened. And so she would step in and take care of her team members clients for them. And she used to find great joy in that and loved kind of meeting new patients that she wasn't working with and getting to help them and maybe even show them a different perspective. But then she found herself starting to feel resentful when they called in sick.

And it's not like she had a million things she needed to fill her time with because she'd been setting boundaries and delegating. It was more that she just didn't want to do the work.

Julie Granger (09:52.364)
And these are things that had never happened to her before. When she built this thing that she, for all intents and purposes, thought was her dream. So imagine the dissonance she was feeling at this moment where she's like, what the hell, man? What is this voice stay here? And so this really bugged her because she...

Or at least she thought she couldn't quite come up with what it was she did want to do. And so she really thought this was just some type of weird, twisted, perimenopausal stress voice talking. And she did everything she could to take care of the stress. But that voice just would not go away. And the resentment was building. the sitting in her car and the dread that she felt to go inside was still there.

She even like, they did team building activities at work. She did things to make work seem more appealing to her. She took a couple new continuing education courses to find some inspiration. They did community service activities. She was like, maybe I just need to shift my perspective a little bit. That didn't work either. And so six months ago, she booked a soul story mapping session with me, which is my like first session you do with me.

And she knew me, we'd worked together before, so this wasn't like our first rodeo getting to know each other. And she came back not only because of the voice that said, I don't think it's this anymore. She came back because that voice had led to deeper, more unsettling questions inside of her that when she found herself waking up at three in the morning,

dreading having to go to work the next morning, the voice would be like even louder and it would say, I don't think it's this, but if it's not this, this thing that I built and is doing so well, then what the fuck am I supposed to be doing with my life? And how do I know what it's supposed to be? if even if I do figure it out,

Julie Granger (12:23.106)
How do I make sure I don't rush into that or move into that and regret it or this whole thing happens all over again? Like up until this point, she had known, you know, I mean, she thought that she, she never actually thought she'd be a business owner, but it was a pretty easy, I mean, let me take that back. It was not an easy pivot from doing a hospital job to growing a business, to growing a team. All of that took a lot of.

courage and grit and tenacity and sometimes wanting to quit and throw in the towel, of course. But this was different. This was the first time she actually in her entire career, career including elementary school and college and doing sports, didn't see the next stair step clearly in front of her. Shifting from being an employee to being a business owner is brave and it's something not a lot of people do in healthcare.

But it is a fairly logical next step when you get burned out as an employee. It is a great option that a lot of people do take advantage of. So she'd never been at this point where she just didn't have a clear picture of what was next. And so she would lay there at 3 in the morning and she'd be like, well, this is really unsettling. It was truly...

disorienting to her that she was feeling such a strong tug and almost like a certainty that her business or the physical therapy work or being a physical therapist, she couldn't figure it out, was all wrong for her. And she had started to kind of play with the idea, maybe I should do coaching, maybe I should sell my business, maybe I should just like...

only do owner responsibilities and stop working with patients. She'd played with all of that and tossed it around in her head too. And those were viable options, but she still, something inside of her said, I don't know. And so she booked the session with me because of the deeper worry around, I don't know, she wanted a compass.

Julie Granger (14:44.994)
She wanted to be able to sink in and have some direction. She'd always had it before, and now she didn't.

As I kind of mentioned before, she had been following a compass.

and a map that was pretty logical, even though she took it and made it her own and it was really unique to her. She followed a pretty linear career path all the way, like always being the straight A student in school, rising to the top, achieving at everything she did, making, know, magna cum laude in college.

being an athlete in college, graduating, going straight into physical therapy school, graduating near the top of her class, having really great clinical internships, getting great recommendations for her first job, getting a clinical specialist, an OCS, orthopedic certified specialist, getting all of the credentials, taking a coaching certification, bringing coaching skills into her work, starting the business, doing, you know, at first,

solo entrepreneurship and then growing a team. So she followed this very logical map and compass. And she got to this point, and we were talking about this, where she realized that wasn't what her compass wanted anymore. It made sense and it worked for her and she was very good at it. And she genuinely enjoyed it for the most part, but she'd gotten to this point where

Julie Granger (16:28.14)
It's not that she hated it, she just wasn't feeling the joy the way she had before.

And I think that a lot of physical therapists have a really hard time grappling with that because if you're anything like Marjorie or like me or anyone who's always kind of formed your identity around your achievements, it's really easy to confuse being good at something and therefore believing that you need to do it as your work and being good at something

and also liking it. You could be good at something and maybe not find joy in it. Like maybe you'll find joy in the outcomes or in the feedback you get from clients, but the actual process of doing it to you is kind of a drag. But what if, and what Marjorie kind of realized, and this is something I've been through many times is, yeah, getting the achievements fun, the outcomes are great, know, making the money is great.

Building a team is great. All these things, we're told, are measures of success. It does feel good. It does feel joyful to achieve those things. But it doesn't always feel joyful in the process. And we're also taught as a society, this is not just a high achiever thing or a physical therapy or a health care thing, that, it's not supposed to feel good, or it's not always going to feel good. And that's true to an extent.

But when you kind of zoom out 30,000 feet and you're like, actually, like the overarching feeling about this is not joy. It's, I feel joy at the end of the day, but I'm feeling dread going into it. That's a signal from your body saying that maybe you're following someone else's map and compass or sort of the societal map and compass on how it should look and how it should feel.

Julie Granger (18:28.712)
and maybe there's something else out there for you, or maybe there's a different way of doing what you're already doing. So it's not always a complete dismantling of your career and it's not always a burning it all down of your business or everything you've built. And I'll fill you in on what Marjorie ended up figuring out, but it is a call to recalibrate your orient or reorient towards your relationship with work.

your identity and all that kind of stuff. And I think that this happens for a lot of people in this midlife range, we'll say 35 to 55 year olds where your priorities shift, your body shifts, your energy shifts, your emotions shift, your capacity shifts. And you start to realize that things that you used to love or find joy in.

you don't want anymore or maybe when you kind of look back, you're like, I was good at it, but I didn't necessarily always just find the joy, you know? Anyway, so bringing it back to physical therapists, there's a very linear and logical map that we follow. You get your DPT, you get your specialty certification, you subspecialize, you might teach, you might be a clinical instructor.

You might do speaking events either in your community or on a big stage like at the APTA conferences. Eventually at some point, you stop being an employee, you build a practice, you grow a team, you scale. And it's more or less the same formula regardless of what specialty area you're in, unless you only work in acute care, hospital-based things, you stay in the hospital. But even with that, there's similar formulas to the profession.

And that's honestly a really similar formula for most of healthcare. And what they don't teach you in physical therapy school, when you're setting your expectations for how this is supposed to look and feel as you move forward, is that as you grow and evolve, your career is gonna grow and evolve as your life shifts. And we're taught...

Julie Granger (20:41.858)
that your life needs to revolve around your work and you shape shift your life to fit the career path that you're supposed to be fitting. And then you get to this point where there's this dissonance of, wait, actually, I'm really prioritizing all these things in my life and I'm feeling like this in my personal world and I'm setting all these goals for my health or for my family or whatever. I want to travel more. And my career doesn't fit that anymore. So.

You can have all these moments where you start to reevaluate what you're actually doing and what you're supposed to be doing. And sometimes it's even just the work. You don't want to do the work anymore. And for Marjorie, she had followed this to the letter and it had worked for her until she got to this point and she could not figure out, it the work? Was the way she was doing it the work? it elements of the work that needed to change? Was it the professional together? She just knew that something had.

to change that the way she was doing it now was not it.

And what's really hard when you are on this following someone else's map and compass journey is that your nervous system gets accustomed to it. It's not just something you do, it becomes your identity. And...

When your nervous system catches wind that you might possibly consider maybe thinking about shifting not just what you do, but the underlying identity behind it, it's going to fire like alert, alert code orange and say, okay, fine. Like sometimes it'll stop you and be like, don't, right? And that's what happened to Marjorie for so long. She just shut it down and was like, we're not listening to this voice that is like, hey, there's something else for you.

Julie Granger (22:36.232)
or your nervous system is going to fire alert, alert, code orange, code orange or code red. And it will be like, all right, well, we need to find the next thing. We need to answer the question. We need to handle the uncertainty and pick something. And so for Marjorie, one thing she had thought, as I told you, was I'll pivot into doing coaching. It makes sense. She had done a coaching certification. She had a clinical background. She worked with clients already. She had this whole...

referral stream, transferable skills. And she remembered from when she did her coaching certification that the people on the phone when she first even signed up for the coaching certification were like, yeah, and we'll help you build your coaching business. should be no problem. We'll even mentor you. And so she actually reached back out to that coaching certification at one point and was like, okay, I'll do your business coaching program.

This is one thing she had tried when her nervous system was firing and going alert, alert, figure it out. When she was, before she even signed up for this soul mapping with me, this was in like the three years of hearing this voice in her head. And this was in like the year of hearing this voice in her head. And she was like, I don't know. I don't know what to do with this voice. I can't burn it all down. I'm just going to try and pivot. And so she followed the business coaching framework. She,

had a website going. She started her own little private Instagram that was separate from her business's Instagram and was trying to put her work out there. She was kind of dabbling with it. She had a hunch that maybe this is where she wanted to go. It would mean she could see people virtually. She didn't have to work from the office. So she had been trying to...

listen to that call from her nervous system to find something more certain. But she didn't get anywhere with it. And that just added to the pile of the resentment and the frustration when she's looking at her office sitting in the parking lot in the morning before she was to go in and see clients because she was like, well, actually, I think I want to do coaching, but now I'm doing physical therapy and I don't want to do physical therapy anymore.

Julie Granger (25:00.716)
I've dropped all this money and all this time into doing coaching. And so she felt duped, honestly, by the people in the coaching program, by the business coach she worked with, because they were like, hey, no problem. You should have no problem building a business. You could probably do it right now. Follow our framework. We'll help you. Do these things for marketing. And so just added to her growing pile of it.

That was another map and another compass she was following that made sense, but someone else had designed it. And it's the part that no one tells you is that it's completely normal for your nervous system to be firing alert, alert code orange, stop. What are you doing? Find something certain right now. That's normal. That shouldn't stop. That's a normal part of your protective system. But

She felt duped. And the part no one tells you is that continuing to follow someone else's map and compass doesn't just cost you time and money and energy that then makes you feel resentful and incredulous. It's also going to cost you your ability to trust yourself. So it's not just that she was kind of incredulous about the business coaches. They did their best. Their job was to help you grow a coaching business. And it didn't work for her in the time frame she thought it would.

So now she's like, maybe I'm not supposed to do that either. And so she came to the Soul Story mapping session and eventually, and what we got clear on, she knew it really deep down, somewhere in there. She was like this close, right? She actually kind of had it figured out, but she...

wasn't ready to say it out loud. She actually hadn't said it to anyone. So we're in the Soul Story mapping session. And there's a way I frame it sometimes, especially when people just are feeling stuck and like, they might have an idea of what they're supposed to be doing next, but they're not quite there. And we very gently and kind of playfully experiment with ideas of what could be next.

Julie Granger (27:26.899)
And I just remember her almost blurting out, I want to sell my practice.

And was like, I didn't honestly see that coming. Like I was like, I was expecting her to take a very pragmatic, very like...

Julie Granger (27:49.682)
safe decision, which was I'm going to step back and only do owner responsibilities. I'm just not going to do the clinical work anymore. And that way I can focus on building the coaching business. Because one thing she got clear on was she did want to move into coaching, but part of the problem with trying to grow it while she was doing all the things in her business, she just didn't have the bandwidth. Her attention was split on 50,000 different things.

And so as we sat there in the Soul Story mapping session, I really, not that I ever know what people are going to say, people surprise me all the time, but because I'd worked with her before, because I knew her temperament, I really expected her to pick a very sort of middle ground, stable route, which was I'm going to still make money off my business as an owner and I'll grow the coaching business sort of as my own thing.

which would be very financially stable, would be financially smart. But the thing she just kind of blurted out was, I'm going to sell this practice. Which also would give her some financial stability. And she was like, and I honestly kind of want to take a sabbatical. I want to take some space. And yes, I do want to build the coaching, but I think the thing I want so bad is to like be fully present with my kids while they're in high school. And

you know, we have just a couple years left that they live under my roof. And I want to have the financial security to do that. And I want to eventually move into coaching, but that's going to take me some time to build as I've now learned. And I don't want to have the distraction of running a business and running a team and being a leader and having meetings and having to step in when people are sick. just, she's, she really knew when she had permission to just say it.

And she knew that I wasn't going to rush her into anything. She knew it wasn't just running a business. It wasn't just doing physical therapy. It wasn't the way she was doing it. It was all of it. She's like, I want none of it. She truly wanted to burn it down. And so that's not the first client that that's happened with me. I I have done that. So no surprise that those type of people would come work with me.

Julie Granger (30:12.782)
But I do want you to know that not every client comes to that conclusion. A lot of times the shift they're sensing is just a small shift. They keep doing their work, they keep doing their business. There's maybe something smaller that needs to shift or maybe the way they do the shifts or maybe they actually need to hire people or maybe they do choose to kind of step back and quote unquote, just be the owner. Not that that's really a just, but step back from client care. So there's all sorts of things that

not to call them small because each and every one of those decisions for people can feel really, really emotional and hard to extricate yourself from. you can feel afraid of letting people down and all that kind of stuff. So I work with people through all those kinds of pivots and decisions. Sometimes it's like people getting a job after being a stay at home mom for a while. Sometimes it's choosing to be a stay at home mom, of like Marjorie wanted to do. So yeah.

That's what she ended up choosing to do and she didn't actually start pursuing it right that day. And that's the other thing that really ambitious women have a hard time with. A lot of times you actually don't take action and you stay in that stuck place between it's not this and I think that I made for something else or different because you're afraid as soon as you say the thing out loud that you do want,

that your ambition is going to like sit behind the wheel of the car and go zero to 60 in three seconds and rush you to the next thing because that's how you've always operated. As soon as you know, you're like, boom, let's go. Right? And Marjorie knew that, well, she's built this thing. This is going to impact the lives of lots of people. It's going to be a financial risk for her family, even though she would make money off of the sale of her practice. That's a whole process that's overwhelming and emotional.

involves lawyers and contracts and all kinds of things. And she knew that this wasn't just a like willy nilly, let's rush into it and get it done tomorrow decision. Even though her nervous system was like alert, alert code at this point code red, like what are you doing? She also was like, well, I want to do this in a way that my nervous system doesn't feel like I'm jumping off a cliff because I've done so much to care for my nervous system. And I don't want to add

Julie Granger (32:40.938)
going to be a stressful process, but I don't want to make it more stressful than it needs to be." And so she ended up deciding to work with me on an ongoing private client basis. And I work with six to seven private clients on an ongoing basis a year beyond the SoulStory mapping session. And that is what she wanted because she didn't want to walk across this threshold alone. Even though she was sure where she wanted to go and she knew the shape and form of it for the most part, this was a big

big, big decision and a big transition. And as she looked back, she realized every time she'd crossed thresholds before, not just in her work, but in every part of her life, there was always someone there with her. She had a doulo and she was giving birth to her children. She had mentors when she was graduating from PT school and starting her first job. And these really, really scary, big thresholds

we as humans are designed to have people walking us across them. And so she knew that this was going to be a slow roll and that it wasn't just going to be a jump across the threshold situation. And so she wanted someone walking with her. And so she signed on to work with me and a few months into our work together,

She let something slip that I also didn't see coming. She said, she had started to sort of dismantle her practice, which looked like the first thing I thought she was going to do, which is like step back and only do owner duties. So she started handing off her patients to all of her clinicians and or discharging the ones that probably needed to be discharged in the first place.

This also gave her more time in her life to spend with her kids. So she got sort of a taste of that. And as she really started to lean into this version of her that...

Julie Granger (34:40.878)
was giving herself unapologetic permission to listen to what she wants, she noticed that she was surrounded by people who didn't do that or who would push back and question.

Let me say that again. She noticed she was surrounded by people who didn't do that for themselves. And they would push back in question when she did it for herself. It was her friends, most of whom were clinicians of some sort, physical therapists. They weren't burning their businesses down to take a sabbatical. And so...

while they're over there still defining their entire identity by their work and the things they're good at and the achievements they get with their clients, even though under their breaths, they kind of bitch and moan about the rigors of being in healthcare, she didn't do that anymore. And it was creating a rift. And she would even tell them where it is she wanted to go. And they would be like, well, that's like really gutsy. You're just going to shut it down after all you've built?

Or they'd be like, how are going to finance this? Don't you have a mortgage to pay? Don't you have college to pay for your kids coming up? And then of course they'd be like, it must be nice to be able to dream up what's next. I still have student loans. like, mean, listen, women are hard on each other sometimes, but that's the last thing you need when you're making this huge, brave decision for yourself. And so she'd look around and be like,

surrounded by people and I feel so lonely." And she also like stopped sharing with them. She was like, I'm just going to hold my cards close to my heart because I don't want the pushback. And it was unbearable to keep feeling so misunderstood from these people who she thought understood her. She thought, of course, the people who are in it would get it, but they didn't.

Julie Granger (36:52.342)
And so I've been there. I get that. You know, I've made career pivots. I've moved out of clinical work completely and people have thought I was out of my mind. You invested six figures into a doctorate degree and you're not even doing that anymore? Like, what language are you speaking right now? You I get it. I get it. That's not everyone's path. And it's jarring for people who

they see themselves as their credential, as their degree, it's become a full identity. When they see someone breaking out of that compass and that map and that identity and the sort of drawn out logical career path, that can feel threatening. And I think that the thing that it's easy to be like, that's about them. It's not about you. It is. That's true. But it still sucks.

when our colleagues and our friends miss-a-tune us or don't get it because we are designed to feel seen and held and heard and understood. That's why I really value the work I do as someone who's been through it and felt that and had my own people walking me through. I love that I've been through it, that I get it, that it's healthcare, that I get the identity shifts that come with it and the relational rifts.

that come with it too. And I get how important it is to have one person, at least one person who gets it and walks with you through it. And I'm so grateful to have been able to do this for Marjorie. And so I want you to know that even if you're not burning your business down and taking a sabbatical, if you heard yourself in any part of Marjorie's story, that you're not doing anything wrong, especially if you're breaking from that.

already defined healthcare map and compass route that's logical and makes sense to the vast majority of people in the profession that you're in.

Julie Granger (38:57.678)
You're also not doing anything wrong if you've felt these tugs and these pulls and this...

Julie Granger (39:07.598)
question of should I stay or should I go or should I do something different and all the stress that builds up in your body and your nervous system around that and you've turned your attention towards like taking care of your body instead of listening to the question inside, right? It's okay if you've doubled down on taking supplements in your morning routine and setting boundaries and going to therapy and doing a perimenopause deep dive like Marjorie did. It's okay if you've

Put your energy in places to feel more calm and grounded and balanced as you're in this place of questioning what you're doing and questioning who you are and honestly questioning who your friends are. That's all actually really important stuff. It's foundational stuff to resource you and your body and your system for when and if you do decide to make a shift. So it's honestly a really good foundational step and it's good that Marjorie did that.

So don't think it's wrong. I think the problem is that even when you're doing all of those things, it's to try and keep following a map and a compass that someone else handed you but isn't yours. And that's ultimately what Marjorie saw when we got into the soul story mapping session and we were like mapping out what her soul was telling her, right?

And she realized her own compass was pointing her in a very different direction. And she didn't have a place where she felt fully safe, seen, heard, validated, held, and supported to say it out loud, what her soul was pointing her towards. And like she hadn't even told her husband, you know, because he's a finance guy. And was like, God, you know, when she finally told him, it was, it was a whole thing we had prepared for it, but it was a whole thing.

And she kind of had to like suit up, you know, and be prepared for it so that she would feel his support as best as he could for her, you know.

Julie Granger (41:14.766)
And I think it's interesting when I think of Marjorie's story and all the clients' stories that actually have contributed to this composite story of Marjorie is going back to that threshold crossing piece, going back to doing the brave thing that is not on the standard issued societal or professional map and compass you've been issued.

when you do the thing that's outside of that.

Julie Granger (41:49.024)
It's not a knowledge issue if you're having trouble stepping outside and following your own compass. It's not a skill issue. It's not a lack of expertise that's keeping you from doing the next thing. It's not a lack of business training and knowing how to build a business. Marjorie knew how to do that. And yet she did that business coaching program and it didn't get her anywhere. So she saw that. It's usually not a lack of progesterone.

or cortisol calming supplements, although those do help.

The thing that most people are missing that keeps them stuck between, we'll just say their old life and their new life, is having someone, at least one person there, who is going to give you full permission to say it all out loud without rushing you, without judging you, without expecting you to follow their path. Dear God, that's so important.

Julie Granger (42:55.33)
without making you feel like you're crazy or wrong or losing your mind. It's the last thing, you already feel that way if you're in this stage of life because of what your hormones are doing. It's the last thing you need is something that gets added to that pile, right? And I like to think of it as that relational co-regulatory nutrient. I like to think of it as a relational co-regulatory nutrient deficiency. When you break from

the path or the contract you didn't even know you agreed upon socially and professionally that everyone else agrees with, it's sort of the map and compass everyone else is following, you're going to get pushed back socially, relationally. It's just going to happen. It's not smooth for every single person. And you need people who have either walked the path, made that kind of transition, have been in their profession.

are there for you unconditionally and also get it and are going to be that relational nutrient for you. We think and we've been taught we need to self-regulate and that's all the Marjorie was doing. She was absolutely, I mean, is still self-regulating like a freaking champ. Her system, her body, all of it. But

she was lacking that co-regulatory nutrient. And that's why several months into working together, she looked at me and was like, Julie, I'm surrounded by people and I feel so lonely. And I think this is something that women have such a hard time admitting out loud, whether you're going through a transition in your life of some sort, or you're just living your life, is saying it because there's also so much shame behind that. Because one, you might blame yourself. I remember Marjorie being like,

Am I a bad friend? Do I have a problem with friendship? Is it something I'm doing? No, it wasn't. She's outgrowing, you know, the container where her friends feel safe and secure. And there's nothing wrong with her friends for that either. It's now just a mismatch. She needs people who are able to hold her in the growth and be with her as she moves into the expanded version of herself.

Julie Granger (45:14.71)
And so it's very natural to start to feel lonely as you go through these transitions. And that is why we stay stuck. Because we are wired primarily as humans to belong. It's our number one human need. And well, it's our number one human emotional need. And when belonging is threatened, we'll do whatever it takes to try and retain that.

And that may mean staying in the thing that works and is meeting all of your physical and financial needs, but it's not filling you emotionally in that co-regulatory way. And so you feel lonely.

What I want you to know and what I want you to hear is you're not doing anything wrong if you feel lonely. A lot of times it means you're doing something incredibly right for yourself, but you might be missing that nutrient. It's kind of like an athlete who trains every single day and keeps hitting a wall. Not because she's doing anything wrong, she's doing everything right in her training, but because she's training on low iron stores and not enough carbs.

she's missing the right nutrients. And unlike an athlete who can get those nutrients from supplementing and eating alone in a room, when it comes to co-regulation, you cannot get that from yourself. You can't really get it from listening to a meditation on the Calm app. Even though you're listening to another person, you're not really getting the neurochemicals that help you feel co-regulated.

the nutrient has to come from other people. And that is what makes the lift, the move from the old you to the new you, the old job to the new job, whatever it is, much more fluid when you have that co-regulatory nutrient in place, or nutrients, plural, at least one person, though. And so...

Julie Granger (47:30.306)
What I see for people that they're missing when they are trying to make this shift, that's the big thing, is an honest read on who your people are, who is going to come with you, who might need to be let go, which can bring with it so much grief and of course loneliness, as I already mentioned.

And as another reason we will stay stuck in the old because damn that grief sucks if you've been through that. If you've let people go intentionally or unintentionally or if you've been let go that grief. it's hard.

And it can be really, really challenging because a lot of time it's the very, the people who are the very closest people to us who have the hardest time with us making these types of changes, spouses, kids, parents, sisters, brothers, and of course friends and colleagues. And so before you even decide to make the shift or if you're going, why is it so hard? Why can't I move myself from one thing to the other?

probably because you've strong-armed your way through things alone for a really long time. So you've actually been surviving without this co-regulatory nutrient for a long time, and it's worked for you, especially if you kind of follow the pre-agreed-upon career path. But when you really are stepping out into your own, if you so desire to do that, co-regulation is so important. And so...

It's really important to get an honest read on your people and you do not have to burn down all your relationships and you do not have to burn them all down overnight. Sometimes they're just going to change shape. Sometimes they're going to change orientation. Sometimes they're going to play a smaller role in your life. Some people are going to play a bigger role in your life. This is normal too, as we grow and evolve, our relationships should grow and evolve. And this is honestly, having done so many soul mapping sessions with people now,

Julie Granger (49:37.782)
about 80 % of the problem of why people have a hard time moving from point A to point B, whatever it is, is they haven't gotten an honest read on their people or they have and they're so scared or ashamed to admit it out loud that they're lonely, that they don't have their people with them or that they think they're doing something wrong, like that we do a lot of work around recalibrating and reorienting towards their relationships first.

before it's like, hey, let's make the plan of where you're going, right? Because you gotta have people. And I'm obviously one of those people for these people, which I'm so honored to be. And ideally there's at least a couple people in their network that are there with them as they make the move. Someone they can go to when they're having a hard day, someone who's gonna get it, not try and fix it for them, not try and pull them back into the old thing, because that's the safe decision. And so this is the big one.

This is the big one. It's the big one. We know there's a loneliness epidemic going on. We know that the global pandemic made us all more distanced. We know that friendship is hard in your 40s. It's all a big soup that makes this really, really challenging when you're also at this inflection point in life where you want to shift how you do things or where you do things and you look around and you just don't have the people support or you do have the people support, but they don't get it.

or they're not professional peers. Maybe they're neighborhood peers, friends and that kind of thing or family, but they don't necessarily understand your work. So you need both. You need the professional peers and you need the friendship as well. The thing people also need, there's two other things people really need that I don't wanna leave out. And I mentioned this a little bit in Marjorie's story is a financial compass. And so most of the women I work with haven't...

oversized read on what they actually need to be making financially. That's not everyone, but a lot of the times women overestimate the amount they need to be contributing to their family, to their retirement, to their savings, all the things. And they are really afraid to let go of the thing that's giving them income now. And they can't see another way to generate income instantly.

Julie Granger (52:02.872)
that's going to give them the same amount. So they stay frozen between the two. And a lot of times when we actually, we literally look at the numbers and it's like, well, how much do you actually need to be making? I can't tell you how many women freeze when I ask them that question. They have no idea. That tells us sometimes a lot of things that need to happen relationally between she and a partner or whoever she lives with.

because they may not be having conversations about it explicitly. Like there may be money that's going into bank accounts and it's happening and it's there and we don't really talk about it until it's tax season. Maybe we talk about it sometimes. There may be like really strict conversations around money and strict budgeting. And so that can lead to all kinds of relationships with not only money, but also your relationship to your relationship and how in your relationships you talk about money. And so we go into that a lot because

Financial safety, relational safety is number one, financial safety is number two, that your nervous system needs to know you have. And having someone to walk that terrain with you, again, I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to be like, hey, my God, like, look at your finances, you're a mess. my God, you and your husband don't talk about finances? Wow, like what's wrong with you? No, this is so natural and it happens all the time. It's happened in my marriage. And so I think it's just something to normalize.

is that not only having relational safety, but having financial safety is huge when you're going to make a decision like this. And for Marjorie, again, it wasn't like a, I'm selling my business in the next week. She did it. There was this slow extrication that happened. She was able to, like, we set up this whole sort of financial savings plan. She evaluated her business. She did all kinds of things.

So she could create a projection not only for like what she would make in the sale, but set herself up so that when she went on this sabbatical, she wasn't going to be like a starving artist feeling stressed out and feeling like she had to rush with urgency and scarcity to the next thing. Remember the nervous system wants to know where you're going. And it wants to get there as soon as possible when you don't give it the nutrients it needs.

Julie Granger (54:24.704)
One of those new transits co-regulation, one of them is not necessarily the actual dollars, but like a financial plan and map, sort of a financial compass, so to speak. The third thing though that is missing for most people is a compass, your compass, your relationship to your compass, something that orients you to where you are.

what you're letting go, how much of it you're letting go, what's pulling you forward, what pace you want to go, what pace you can go, sometimes you want to go faster than you actually can, and letting your compass lead. And when you've spent your entire career following a compass that you didn't write or design, that can be really disorienting.

in our soul story mapping session, it can be so disarming to be given permission to just say and tap into your compass and like say the thing out loud that your body and your soul know are where you want to go, that you've never admitted to anyone. And that might sound really big and ominous and scary and my God, like I'm going to say the thing. Sometimes people don't say the thing out loud. Not because I haven't

created save space for it because they're just not ready and there's no rush. But sometimes they get a sense of the direction they want to go and a sense of the direction they want to move away from. That's also what compasses do. Compasses point you towards true north, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to go to the North Pole and have that discrete explicit destination, but it might mean we're moving in that direction.

And sometimes soul story mapping is simply about which direction are we moving in general? And what people then realize is they need to just start taking the next step in that direction. And when they take the next step and feel into it and recalibrate their compass to that point, then they realize, I know what the next step is. And sometimes you got to just start taking the steps in the right direction for the actual endpoint to either reveal itself if you truly don't know what it is or for your system to start to feel safe.

Julie Granger (56:54.382)
putting words and breath behind it if you do know what it is, but it doesn't feel safe to say it out loud. This whole thing is about creating safety. And most of the coaching world out there is about follow this framework, do this, go faster. Let's see how fast you can get there. And there's nothing wrong with going fast as someone who's very good at that and has spent a life achieving things quickly. Quick is not always the answer. Sustainable is the answer.

in a way that's safe to your system in a way that you're not going to regret later, in a way where you don't repeat things, where you tried to rush to certainty because your nervous system was screaming. We take care of your nervous system so you don't have to rush, so that you can enjoy the process and not just be focused on the

So Marjorie is still in the messy middle, or the version of Marjorie's story I'm telling you about. For her...

It's terrifying and invigorating at the same time.

And she went from saying, I don't think it's this anymore to it's not this and I need to get out completely. And I think I even know what's next. And I think I want to pursue that. And now I have a plan that feels safe, that I don't have to rush. And I have someone walking with me who gets it. And that person's also helping me figure out how to gather other people to walk with me who get it.

Julie Granger (58:32.333)
I'm recalibrating not only to my work, but also to my relationships. That's something she said to me. That's something all the Marjories who have made up this story have said to me. And it's such an honor. It's so... I don't really have the words. I know how much I cherish the mentors who have walked with me across the thresholds that are really brave.

They're really...

embodied in my authentic wants, especially in this phase of life. And to know that I'm that person for someone else, it's just, I'm tearing up just thinking about it. Just, we need our people. We need people to walk us across the thresholds. And It's a time that can feel so tender and so lonely and so exhilarating at the same time. And you also need someone who's going to squeal and jump up and down and

twirl in circles when you have breakthroughs and ahas. And there's, I say this to clients all the time, It's really scary to walk across scary moments without anyone. It's arguably worse to have a breakthrough or a big win or achieve something that you didn't think you could and not have anyone to share the joy in that way. Joy is meant to be shared too.

The hardship is meant to be shared and held in co-regulation, and so is joy. And I don't honestly know that there's much lonelier than people who don't understand your wins and your joy.

Julie Granger (01:00:20.664)
So Marjorie's story is not finished and neither is yours, but we do have pretty good sense on where she's going next. And so if something in you stirred while listening to this, it's not a coincidence. That's your compass talking. It's your own voice trying to get a word in. If you want to take the first step,

Soul Story Mapping is where we start. You can go to the link in the show notes to explore that. If you're like, I don't really know about that yet, Julie. I also host a monthly free meditation gathering. The whole point being getting in touch with your compass. Maybe you just kind of want to warm up to that voice a little bit and see how it feels to...

do it when you're in a place of co-regulatory nutrients. So I'll put information about that in the show notes too. It's called Just Be with Julie. Sometimes I can't promise magic's going to happen, but I'm not not saying it's going to happen because the whole point is to get in touch with your own inner wisdom and compass in those free sessions. And sometimes clarity comes.

really fun to hear what people tell me afterward. And if you're a woman who is hunching that she wants to have someone not only help her find the compass in the Soul Story mapping session, which is a one-time session, after Soul Story mapping, we move forward in what's called Soul Story alchemy coaching, which is the ongoing coaching to actually take the map and the compass and make it move towards the next thing.

and that's usually 14 months of ongoing coaching together. It's deep work, it's intimate, it's tender, it's joyful, it's all the things. And that's where the magic actually comes to life. So that's also available. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening to this story. I'd love to hear your takeaways. I would love to hear what landed with you. I would love to hear where you are in your own process, especially if you've

Julie Granger (01:02:40.94)
walked across the threshold before and done the brave thing. I'd love to hear how your experience was. All right. See you in the next episode.