Why You Resist Your Next Level (It’s Not Fear It’s Identity) | Somatic Check-In

If you’ve been feeling pulled toward your next step — your next level — but you notice resistance the moment you consider moving… this episode is for you.

In today’s solo, Anita offers a powerful reframe: the resistance isn’t because you’re afraid of the next step: it’s because the old version of you can’t take it anymore. What looks like “self-sabotage” is often your nervous system asking one simple question: Do we feel safe here?

We explore why most fear isn’t really about failure, visibility, or getting it wrong it’s about identity:

Who do I have to be to take this step?
What parts of me can’t be needed anymore?
Who might I disappoint if I choose myself?

You’ll learn how to honor the version of you that learned how to survive, succeed, and stay safe: the high achiever, the caretaker, the one who keeps the peace and why outgrowing her can bring both freedom and grief.

This episode includes a somatic decision-making check-in you can use anytime you’re facing a choice, boundary, conversation, or next move. You’ll practice a simple breath pattern (inhale 4, hold 2, exhale 6) and learn how to listen to your body’s signals of pressure vs. consent so you can take aligned action without overriding yourself.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why your nervous system isn’t afraid of effort it’s afraid of an unfamiliar identity.
• The difference between adrenaline-driven action and aligned action.
• A somatic tool to feel into “yes,” “not yet,” and “not like that”.
• Why growth can include grief when an old identity dissolves.
• How to rise with integrity instead of force.

If this episode met you in a tender place, share it with a woman who needs the reminder: you’re not behind, you’re not broken, and you’re not alone.

Connect with Anita: 

Website: www.arisewithanita.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arisewithanita/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anita.karadalian.7 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anita-karadalian-girgis-23362b335/

If this episode resonated, share it with a sister who needs the reminder: it’s okay to not be okay and you don’t have to do it alone.

If you felt something shift inside you today… hold that. Honor it.

This is how we rise — one choice, one voice, one brave breath at a time.

If you’re ready to go deeper, download your free ARISE Activation Workbook at www.arisewithanita.com

Email: Anita@arisewithanita.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arisewithanita/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anita.karadalian.7 

Linkldn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anita-karadalian-girgis-23362b335/f

And if this message landed in your soul, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a woman who’s done playing small.

Because we don’t just rise alone — we rise together.

I’ll see you in the next episode. 

Transcript

Welcome And Slowing Down With Intention

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I need a hot hand. I need to have I need a line. Oh my god. We body. So here makes a couple of episodes for me and interviews with school triple leaders, the best in their fields, who live what they teach and rise by example. Each conversation is a callus for your next breakthrough. You're not broken, you're breaking through. Let's go ahead and rise together.

Resistance As Identity, Not Failure

Honoring The Old Self With Gratitude

Somatic Check-In: Breath And Sensing

Reading Sensations And Simple Tools

Aligned Action Vs. Adrenaline

Growth Includes Grief And Release

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Welcome back to the Rise with Anita podcast, or welcome if you're new here. If you've been listening to the last few episodes, you may notice that we've been slowing down. Not to stop your momentum, especially as we headed into the new year, but it's actually to rebuild it in a way that doesn't cost you yourself. So today's episode is for the woman who feels a pull toward her next step, towards her next level, but notices resistance when the moment she considers taking it. And here's the reframe I want to go ahead and offer right here, right now. The resistance you're facing isn't because you're afraid of the next step. It's because the old version of you can't take it anymore. So before we dive in, I'm going to invite you to take a breath with me. Hand on your chest, the other hand on your belly, and let your body arrive before your mind tries to solve anything. So when you're ready, inhale through your nails, hold for four, and exhale for six. And just remind yourself, here in this moment, you are safe, you are loved, and you are actually ready. And here is the thing. Most women believe that fear is about failure or visibility or getting it wrong because we've been conditioned to be afraid of the next step, of the next move. What if I take a new action or try to get my next level and I fail or what happens if I try and it doesn't pan out? And people see that. But what I see time and time again is this there's actually a fear around our identity. Who do I have to be to take this step? What parts of me can no longer be needed? Who may I disappoint as I reach a new level? As I decide to take action for myself. Especially with women, because we are such communal beings. So that could look like either your friend group. What if I take a new action towards a new life? And my old friends don't want to come along. Or what will my spouse think? What will my boyfriend think? Or family? What will people sit? There's this chatter around having to please those around us and feel like we have to mold like a chameleon in order to pease everyone else. But here is the thing: your nervous system isn't afraid of the effort, but it is afraid of an unfamiliar identity. It is afraid of stepping into the unknown. And you have to remember our nervous system works much like our subconscious brain in that it is doing what it needs to in order to keep you safe. So I keep coming back to this premise that excuse me. I keep coming back to the premise that when you don't feel safe, when your body is not on board, you will not reach your next level because you will find a way to self-sabotage it. I don't care how great of a framework, I don't care how much you try to do the affirmations, if your body does not feel safe in this new identity, it will find a way to sabotage. You can only push and push forward for so long before it breaks. So you have to remember the identity you've been living in, whether that's you see yourself as the strong one, the capable one, the one who holds it all together, the one that keeps the peace, that version of you has kept you safe. So when a step, when a new action requires becoming someone new, your body takes a pause. And the pause isn't necessarily self-sabotage in this case. It's intelligence. It's telling you, hey, are you sure this is right for us? Is this really where you want to go? So I want to take a moment and just remind you, it's all about honoring the identity that has kept you safe. We always come back to an awareness that we as humans have been in a system, in a nervous system that has kept us safe and has guided us so far. So honor her because she did the best with what she had, and now it's time to let that patterning go. So honor the version of you that learned how to survive, how to succeed, or how to be needed. And whether you were the high achiever, the caretaker, the one who didn't need help, the one who stayed composed when life felt like it was falling apart. These identities and these versions of yourself aren't wrong, but they were adaptive. And they may no longer fit the season that you're currently in now. So ask yourself, who have I been in order to be safe? And as you sit here and you think about this question, I'm going to urge you to do it from a place of awareness, not with judgment, but with gratitude. Because again, when we are working with our nervous system, we are looking at the realization that it was doing its best to keep us safe, to keep us protected. It doesn't always know that by safe you're staying small, or by safe you're actually limiting yourself. So give yourself the grace and the gratitude that it's gotten you this far. You are at a certain level because your nervous system operated in a way that was keeping you in alignment with what you needed to be doing at that point. So after you journal that journal on that, the question was, who have I been in order to be safe? I want to go ahead and offer you a simple way to check in with your body right now, before you start to decide whether or not it's right to take a next step. And the beautiful thing is you can take this and use it anytime, whether that's a conversation, a boundary, a choice, or your next move. And because we are all about the semantics here, it's going to come back to the body. So you can practice this as you listen to it right now, or you can come back later. But I want you to go ahead and firstly bring one hand to your chest, the other hand to your belly, and take a slow inhale through your nose. Hold for two. And I want to invite you to take a longer exhale through your mouth. The count I typically have started to use is 4-6. So four while you inhale, hold for two, exhale for six. And I want you to now imagine the next specific step that you're considering. You don't have to have the whole plan figured out, just a single next step. And if you can take that next step daily, you will find yourself slowly building momentum. But as you hold your image of that next step, I want you to pay attention. Notice your body. Notice what's coming up for you. Is it that you feel there's more space in your chest? Do you feel a tightness? More breath? Are you holding your breath? Is there anxiety? And ask your body this question. If I take my next step as I am right now, what happened inside of me? And just observe. Come to the awareness of what is it that's gonna come through? And if the answer feels, oh, I need to brace for this, or I need to get on this, it's urgent, or there's a pressure that's associated with it. It's not a no, but it is information that you need to look at. And if the answer feels more neutral or a curiosity, perhaps you get an intuitive, quiet yes. Then that's the direction, that's the consent that you're on the right track. Your body speaks with its sensations, not with words. A lot of times when we are looking at somatics, I think common practice that has come about that's a little more popularized, is asking yourself a question and seeing if your body sways forward or backwards. Forward would be yes, backwards is a no. There's little tools that you could be using on your day-to-day that are very simple, but highly effective in guiding you for your next moment, guiding you to the next level, guiding you to what it is that feels safe. Because here's the thing I've come to realize your body will always know when something is off. If you feel anxiety in certain environments, it may not be for you. I'm not always saying that's the case, though. Sometimes you feel a little bit of anxiety or a little bit of butterflies because you recognize that's something that's going to expand you. It's going to make you grow. And it's important to really sit and look at the tuning of what the sensation feels like. Remember to let yourself receive the answer without always trying to override it. You don't have to push through, but you do have to be aware. And this can look like being aware of your sensation, aware of the consciousness that's going on through your head, noticing thought patterns, noticing the sensations that come with those thought patterns. There's a lot of work we could be doing here that is actually going to help you reach that next level. So I'm going to invite you to take one more breath here because I've been speaking for quite some time, and this is a lot of great information. So just take a breath. I invite you to go ahead and close your eyes, re-center yourself, and hold for four, release for six, and just center and remind yourself it's okay. And if you've had moments where your jaw has been clenching or your shoulders are up, lower them, unclench the jaw. Just get back to your center. And here's the thing. Here's the shift I want you to make. Aligned action doesn't usually always feel like adrenaline. It does, however, feel like you have permission and you're not looking for permission from external. You're looking for the permission from yourself, from your higher self, your guidance. Perhaps you're looking for the permission from a higher power to connect with what is actually in alignment for you. An aligned action doesn't demand that you become harder or smaller. It allows you to stay present, stay within the moment. And you have to remember if action is requiring you to overfunction, or you have to self-abandon to make it happen, or you have to armor up, then it's not the right time to make that action or take that next step. But it doesn't mean it's going to be no forever. It does mean not in that way, not in that capacity. And here is one thing I rarely ever hear anyone talk about. Growth often includes a form of grief. Because when an identity is dissolving, so are the expectations that are attached to that. If you think about it, in order to step into the new, you need to release the old. Let me repeat this. You don't owe any consistency to a version of you that has kept you safe. I'm gonna run that one back. You don't owe consistency to a version of you that just kept you safe. You're allowed to evolve into the next level. You're allowed to choose differently. You're allowed to move forward without becoming who you used to be. And the consistency from here would be looking at this next version of me, the version of myself that is already doing the things that I want, is living a life that I'm passionate about. What does she choose? How does she show up? So I just want to point out rising in the season doesn't always look like force. In fact, it's going to look more like integrity showing up as the version of you that is in alignment with what you're building. And it looks like one on a step, taking one boundary choice, taking a stand in one conversation. A decision that lets you stay within your body. So if you're standing at the edge of your next step, remember, your next step doesn't require your old identity, but it does require a presence. So before we go, I'm going to invite you to take one final breath with me. Place a hand on your heart, the other on your belly. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Hold for four. Hit it. Exhale for six. And before you go, if this episode met you in a tender place, I invite you to share it with a woman who might need some rem of this reminder. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is to let someone know they're not behind, they're not broken, and they're not alone in this current season. So thank you for being here with me, for listening with your presence, and for honoring yourself in the process. And I'll see you in the next episode.

Choose As Your Future Self

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SPEAKER_00 19:22

Thank you for rising with me today. If this episode moved you, share it, tag me at Arise with Anita, and make sure to subscribe so you never miss a future activation. And if you feel cold, leave a quick review. It helps more women find the space and rise into their power. Your next level is already waiting. Now go clean it. I'll see you in the next episode.