The RISE Experience
It’s not always about becoming someone different.
Sometimes it’s about realizing you’ve been disconnected from yourself for longer than you thought.
The RISE Experience is a podcast for the woman who can handle everything — except herself. The one who shows up, gets things done, keeps things together… but quietly feels like something isn’t landing the way it should.
Shannon Denniston is a behavior change coach and the founder of RISE. What she talks about here isn’t behavior on the surface. It’s what sits underneath it — patterns, beliefs, and identity-level disconnects that make consistency feel harder than it should.
A lot of what gets called “starting over” isn’t starting over at all. It’s noticing what’s been running in the background for a long time, and learning how to move differently from there.
Not forced. Not rushed. No reinvention, no reset, just more aware, more honest with where things actually are, and returning to yourself in a way that holds.
The RISE Experience
Why Leaders Struggle to Create Emotional Safety?
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Leaders often face tension, anxiety, and constant people-pleasing, and it can feel impossible to create trust. When emotional and relational safety is missing, teams hold back, creativity stalls, and stress takes over.
Welcome to The RISE Experience, a podcast for women who are rebuilding trust with themselves — in health, leadership, faith, and everyday life. This is a space to slow down when everything feels loud, to lead from steadiness instead of urgency, and to listen again. Here, identity, faith, the body, and quiet inner wisdom matter. A place to pause, reflect, and rise from clarity instead of pressure.
Episode Highlights
In today’s episode, emotional and relational safety in leadership takes center stage, showing how it creates space for honesty, creativity, and trust while unsafe environments lead to tension and people-pleasing. Steadiness, self-awareness, and a supportive internal voice shape leadership that allows people to stay, engage, and grow. Leadership isn’t about avoiding hard conversations but about fostering environments where everyone feels valued and supported.
Episode Outline
- Introduction to emotional and relational safety and its impact on conversations and relationships
- Physical and emotional cues of feeling safe versus unsafe
- How the nervous system scans for safety and affects behavior
- Safety in leadership: going beyond physical security to emotional and relational support
- Consequences of unsafe leadership: people-pleasing, risk avoidance, tension
- Benefits of safe leadership: honesty, questions, mistakes without fear of judgment
- Building steadiness: maintaining calm, grounded leadership, and reducing reactive behavior
- Faith and steadiness: examples of how faith anchors leaders during challenges
- Internal voice and self-leadership: fostering a supportive inner dialogue
- Practical tips for steadiness: self-reflection, calming techniques, creating safe spaces
Episode Chapters
00:00 Welcome to The Rise Experience
00:36 What Real Safety Feels Like
02:10 Your Nervous System’s Safety Radar
03:40 Safety vs. Unsafe Leadership
06:55 Control, Steadiness, and Regulation
09:10 Faith as a Refuge and Model for Leadership
10:40 Leading Yourself with a Safe Inner Voice
12:20 Reflection Questions for Growing as a Leader
13:35 Prayer for Steady, Safe Leadership
15:05 Safety Changes Everything – Keep Rising
Action Taken
- Create a reflection guide with prompts to identify where safety exists and where tension arises
- Develop and share a practice list of regulation exercises (pause techniques, grounding, internal voice prompts)
- Provide content for leaders to adopt a safer inner voice, including sample self-statements and reframing questions
Conclusion
Emotional and relational safety is the foundation for leadership that fosters honesty, trust, and creativity. Leaders who cultivate steadiness and a supportive internal voice create environments where people can thrive, engage fully, and grow without fear.
CTA
Listen, follow, and share this episode to encourage safer leadership practices.
Visit the links provided to stay connected.
- Instagram: @risewithshannon
- Facebook: Rise Experience
- LinkedIn: Shannon Denniston
- Business: https://msha.ke/shande
- Coaching: https://msha.ke/risewithshannon
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