Ep. 24: The Pit Has A Pattern

Why do so many women feel like they’re either all in… or completely out?

One week you’re energized, committed, productive, consistent.
The next? You’re exhausted, disconnected, avoiding the very things you said mattered most.

And somewhere in that crash, shame creeps in:

“Why can’t I just stay consistent?”
“Why do I always do this?”
“What’s wrong with me?”

In this episode of The Low & Slow Podcast, Crystal and Laken dismantle one of the most misunderstood cycles in personal growth: the all-or-nothing pattern.

And here’s the truth:

This is not a discipline problem.
It is not a personality flaw.
And it is not proof that you’re broken.

It is a predictable nervous-system pattern with a shape.

A rhythm.

A sequence.

And once you can recognize the pattern, you stop personalizing the pit.

Because the pit is not random.
The pit has a pattern.

In This Episode We Explore:

• Why the all-or-nothing cycle is biologically patterned, not personal failure
• The 3 phases of the cycle: The In → The Crack → The Pit
• How your nervous system drives the rise and crash
• Why “the crash” is not your willpower failing
• The difference between your effort ceiling and your sustainable floor
• How to identify your personal warning signs before the crash happens
• Why awareness—not perfection—is the first foothold toward change

What You’ll Learn

Crystal and Laken guide listeners through the anatomy of the cycle so they can begin to recognize:

THE IN:

The overcommitted high-energy push where everything feels possible.

THE CRACK:

The subtle signals that your nervous system is overloaded.

THE PIT:

The withdrawal phase where shame, avoidance, and collapse set in.

The goal of this episode is not to “fix” your cycle overnight.

The goal is something more powerful:

To help you recognize yourself so clearly in this pattern that you stop believing it’s who you are.

Because when a pattern becomes visible, it becomes workable.

This Episode Is For You…

If you’ve ever:

• started strong and burned out fast,
• fallen off routines and judged yourself harshly,
• felt trapped between overdoing and shutting down—

This conversation will give language to what your body has been trying to tell you.

The pit is not proof you failed.

It is data.

And learning your pattern may be the most compassionate form of self-trust you ever build.

Breathe low.
We’ll meet you in the middle.

Follow along, tune in, and let’s get into your next mindset shift!

It means the world to us if you would rate, like, save, share, and most importantly hit that subscribe button! And if something you heard today hit home for you, share it with your world. There is plenty of room at our table.

She looks like she has it together.
But inside, she’s tired of being the strong one.

Peace. Play. Love. is for her.

A retreat where the armor comes off,
the nervous system softens,
and self-trust becomes the loudest voice in the room.

June 2026.
This is your pause and your pivot.

Check out our Women’s Retreat we are hosting —The Peace.Play.Love Retreat 

Deets: https://offers.thatgirlmagic.co/ppl-retreat

Request A Remix! If you’re stuck or in a situation you want a new lens on, submit your dilemma anonymously below for a mindset remix from us on a future podcast episode!

Follow us on IG: @thatgirlmagic.co - @i.am.crystal.clear - @coachlaken

www.thatgirlmagic.co 

Ways to work with us: Book With Crystal - Book With Laken 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Low and Slow Podcast. We're your girls, Crystal and Lakin. If you press play today, trust. You made the right decision. And know whenever you're listening to this, it's exactly the right time. We invite you to pull up a seat to the conversation, get curious about your current perspective, and lean in for the opportunity to see yourself in another woman's story. We created that girl magic because we've been where you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Here, the talk is real and the breath is steady. Let's get into your next mindset shift. Welcome back to the Low and Slow podcast. It's your girls, Crystal and Lakin, as always. And we've been doing a lot of yapping about the all or nothing mindset because it comes up so often and it's so prevalent. And you know that feeling like where things are feel like they're finally clicking, you're consistent, you're showing up, and you, you know, you got your routine on lock, and then somewhere in the back of your head, you know it's coming, you just you just don't know when it's like the uh yeah, that waiting for the other shoe to drop type shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Yes, right. Uh and then something happens, right? Or maybe nothing happens, or maybe it's like a random Tuesday and you're just in it. And somehow what felt once like so good, and like I'm getting back, you know, I'm getting to where I need to be. Now you're back in that pit or that spiral, and you're literally like looking around, like, wait, how did I get back here again? I worked so hard to get out of this. Like, wasn't I just I was just doing so good. What the fuck happened?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah. And so before we get into any of that, right? It's like the the pit is not proof that something is wrong with you or that you keep creating your own disarray or like you're putting yourself in this position. Like, it's it's not evidence that the work that you're doing isn't working. And I think that's what people cling on to a lot of like, oh, what I'm doing isn't working for me. It's a pattern, right? It's a pattern that you know has a shape and shapes can be learned. And that's a triangle. Yeah, it's important to see it for what it actually is.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah. And, you know, I I think it's just even what you said of like, um, it's not, it doesn't mean that it's not actually working. Like that's where like that disempowering language is like, well, that's the only reference point that we really have. But if anything, it it proves that it is because it's like it's going revisiting that pattern again to give you another opportunity to handle it different, right? And to um just be able to identify that this is actually the part that changes things. Like it's almost good that we're revisiting this because you can learn to see it coming and not in the way of like anticipating that it's going to come, but that okay, it comes. And when it does, I know what I need. Like I'm not trying to stop it from happening. I'm not, I'm not trying to not be ambushed by it. But when it does happen, it's like, I'm here, I know this. Let me give you what you need, girl, and let's get back on the let's get back on the train.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah. So that's what today is about. So let's actually describe the thing because I think most of us have a vague sense of the all or nothing cycle, but it doesn't necessarily help you keep it, you know, help you see it coming or help you keep it in a clear visual. So I want to get really specific. So phase one is where you're all in. You've got the plan, you've got the energy, the motivation feels really real. You're like, oh yes, I'm doing the thing, right? You're and you're not faking it. This is this is genuine. You feel really good. You are logging the wins, you're thinking, you know, this time is different.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah, you're putting it all on the table. Like you have nothing to lose. Like, come on, let's, let's, let's do it, right? And sometimes it's like it might be different in some ways, right? Um, because something had to shift in order for you to say, like, oh, okay, I'm doing something different here, right? But then and this is where it's like, well, the nervous system's on on board at first, right? It's like, well, this is what's creating momentum. This is what's allowing you to move, take action, as we've been saying.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah. And then phase two hits and something cracks, right? And it's not always like a big dramatic thing. Sometimes it's, you know, it can just be a really hard week, or sometimes it's a bad night's sleep can really throw you off. Sometimes it's just like you had one of those days where you you didn't do the thing that you said that you told yourself you were gonna do. And so we start to chip away at that self-trust, and something in your brain said, Well, that's over, it's not worth it anymore, right? Like everybody has the the burn it all down day. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Yeah. Um, and this is where that time where the burn it all down day happens, it gets sneaky because the nervous system reads that crack as confirmation, right? As um confirmation of something actually you already believed in or maybe had a fear around, right? Or was anticipating. And so when, you know, when people say all the time of like, I wish I was consistent, or like I'm struggling to be consistent, right? The consistency is never actually available to you.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, or is that like the story that you're telling yourself, right? They're like, oh, this is something that I struggle with or that I can't do. And it's it's not true. It feels true in those moments because we're logging all that evidence that supports it, and it feels true in a way that's almost like much more tangible because we want to see it.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Right. Right. It's like if we already believe this thing, and then like uh before we even did phase one, right? And then when phase two happens, it's like, well, wait, the very thing I was wanting was actually wasn't even available because it was already reacting from a previous believed, um, a previous belief, and that my nervous system is just responding to that. And that's where it's like debunking these things. This is why, with what we do, we take what's in your unconscious mind, bring it into their consciousness, and this is not a you thing. Like it's not a this is this is a thing that happens for everyone, but can we catch it? Like, can you can you catch it and decide to do something different with it?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah. So then phase three is the pit, right? So that's when you decide, I'm out, I'm I'm not logging my wins, right? I'm not gonna do the routine, I'm not doing shit. I I don't want to do any of it. And this is the part where I think most people, they obviously the problem is the most visible at this point, right? Because it's very clear that I'm not participating in my the my the habits of my own design. But I actually think the pit is where not where the cycle lives, but it is like the cycle lives in what happens in phase two, right? But the crack is where the pattern is, not the failing, but the initial like crack itself. Like the pit is like when we feel like we failed, the crack is like the disruption, right? Because the right, that's where the decision gets made. Usually without you, and phase two usually happens pretty fast. Like it happens in a moment, and most of us never actually slowed down enough to see it. We're only available for the part that feels like the failure, and that's the part that we commiserate in.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Right. And let let's go, let me touch back on the crack, right? In phase two, is like this is literally when we talk about the nervous system, it's physical, right? This is not a metaphor. The body is holding a story, it's keeping the score. This physical meat suit that we're in, the body or the story that's saying, Hey, this is the part where it all falls apart, right? The body starts to prepare for that. So it's like from phase one to phase two, you're already in prep mode, right? And then that's way before the brain has ever been able to make a decision. And then you get to phase three, and it's like, like Lincoln said, now it's the where we get to decide, right? And we decide to do something different. That decision is now more intentional because it's not um, it's not being decided for you before the brain does, if that makes sense. If you're saying like if you're hanging with me, basically, like now this is you deciding before it was already previously decided for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah, and you know, you might feel a little bit defensive around this. Like, I know this cycle, I've been in therapy, I've read all the books, like this isn't new. I've read the body keeps the score. I know it's true. And that's all great. And knowing the cycle and being able to see it in real time are two completely different things, right? Like there's a lot of things that we know about that we don't directly apply or integrate into our own lifestyles. And so if you've got the first part, that's awesome, that's not nothing, that's actually a lot. But the second skill is what we're gonna talk about building today, because that's where we can shift it.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

All right. So I want to talk about something that I think it's missed in most of these conversations about the all or nothing cycle. And it's this that all or nothing or that all in version of you that is um, you know, gung-ho about what you're deciding, it's genuinely hard to sustain. Not because you're weak, not because you can't, you're not consistent, but it's because of the way that the nervous system is actually wired.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

So let's break this down for all the ladies that are rolling their eyes in the back of the room. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's all about the nervous system. Let's look, like, go into that.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, fair. And I mean it's fair, right? Your bullshit meter's going off, as you say, right? And here's the thing like when you go all in, your cis your nervous system is operating at a high level of activation. There's urgency, there's drive, right? There's that feeling of momentum that's almost like electric coming out of your fingertips, like electricity, right? And your nervous system can hold that for a while. Right. Think about like when you're running, like you start running, you have that runner tie, and then eventually it's like mile 10, and you're like, oh my God, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

It's like with anything that's novel and sexy at first, it's like, ooh, exciting. And it's like, oh, for how long?

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Mm-hmm. Right. So it's it's not this resting state. It is a it requires effort to sustain that. And that effort state has a ceiling.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah. So when we when we experience that crash, the crash isn't your willpower failing you, right? It's it's just that's what your ceiling is.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah. Yeah. And if we can look at it in that way, it's a ceiling. It is not I'm um not good enough or anything like that, right? Like it's just a ceiling. It's not even a phrase, it's a um uh a measurement, right? Like um, the body has to come down from that level of activation. This is what we talk about, the highs and the lows, right? The ebbs and flows. Um, this is not optional. Like this is actually physiology. And the problem is when we interpret the come down as quitting, right? And quitting or failure, right, has stories attached to it, which is why we ask you, like, when's the first time you felt that way, right? Because like the come down is is the come down is the part that when that happens, a lot of times in the come down, there's no integration of what is being revealed in the come down.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah. And what is the story that's usually attached to it?

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Right. And well, the story is is that I always do this. See, this is another, this is all I'm collecting the bad evidence, right? I'm not a consistent person. The story is I I knew it. Um, it was too good to be true. It's too good to last, right? It was just like, I know this before, right? And and the second story that activates the nervous system goes, Well, right, we're just in the familiar place, like we've been here before, and it starts organizing things around that, like it starts to function from that place.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so you're not just like tired, right? Because so many people will say, I'm I just feel tired all the time, or this feels overwhelming. Like you're operating from a different story than the one that you were in three days ago. Facts. Facts, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:38

And you know, this is where logic, like logic is not reaching your body, the place where it needs to go. Like Melissa said something last week that really stuck out to me of like we are constantly trying to solve feeling problems with thinking solutions. And this is exactly that, right? Um, intellectually, the one that you that one missed day that you miss doesn't erase everything. But if the nervous system has already organized this idea around this, that like, hey, this is where it falls apart, then the knowledge doesn't land actually where it needs to, because it's the nervous system is already decided for you. Your body has spoken, and nine times out of ten, you don't like what it's saying.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah, and so this creates a really specific kind of frustration because you know, you're not delusional, you can say the right thing out loud. You you just you can't convince yourself of it, you can't make yourself believe it.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Yeah, yeah, and it's like rationally, I know, but there's just this part of me, right? This part of me is that's the part that we're talking to right now because we get it, like, yeah, we we've all experienced this too. Like, can we validate that for a moment? That it's like this is this is this is a part of everyone, and you know, everyone has a choice to deal with this certain part, right? The all inversion of you is not sustainable. Not because you're weak, not because effort, um not not because your efforts don't matter, but because your effort states have a ceiling, and the ceilings, the measurements of like what is the high and the low, kind of like an EKG, like it they're not character flaws, they're not an attack on your identity, they're they don't mean anything about you. Okay, so this here's what I want to offer. They don't mean anything about you. And I want to say this carefully and lovingly and intentionally because I don't want this to land as an excuse. It's not about an excuse here. The nervous system is coming down from a high. And, you know, even as we're talking about this, it's not to bring up drugs, but it's like you're there's a peak, right? And then there's something that drops here. It's like in anything or any level of excitement, right? Excitement is kind of like a drug, right? Or like a sugar high, right? Um, the nervous system's coming down from that high activation state, and that is not the same thing as giving up, right? This is a signal, and that signal is asking to be read. Like, can it be read?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah. And this this brings us back to like the pattern having a shape. So learning how to read your own warning signals is really, really important. Here's where we get into the part that a lot of people want to avoid because it's the actual work. So aka your feelings. Yeah, I don't want to just describe the cycle itself. I want to give you something that you can ideally use and apply in real time. And what I want to give you is this your pattern has a specific warning sign, and they are yours and they are not generic. It is specific to you.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, and this is so important because most of us, um, if we've done like any personal development work, we know the general signs of burnout, right? The general signs of a crash. Um, but these generic signs are easy also to rationalize away.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yeah, you can tell yourself that, you know, it's not that bad. We override this stuff all the time. You can tell yourself that you're just tired or that you, you know, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Just because my period, or just, you know, I had a lot going on last week, or you know, busy season. It's not gonna be like this forever. And but the thing is, is like in being able to say that, right, is like, is that your specific sign? Like, what's your measurement, right? And I think it's like even when we're co-regulating or coexisting with others, where it's like, you know, you and I experience this, where it's like we have very different um measures of what is our signal, right? And it's like sometimes it's like, can you understand yours first? And then when you understand yours, even just being around someone who has a different one than you, you're are you still measuring from what yours is, right? And that's like your specific sign. That's what's normally harder to argue with.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah. So something to actually sit with and and reflect on is you know, what is the specific thing that happens right before you go into the pit? Now it's important to emphasize before, right? Not the thing that looks like the cause that we want to point our finger at, but the thing that in retrospect was always there first as that signal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

And for some people, maybe it's a thought, right? Was this all for nothing? Right. Um, like that pondering question that just won't leave your mind, like, or maybe it's like a statement of like, I should have never done this, right? That's the signal. It's not the answer, it's the question, or it's the repeating statement.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

For some people, it's a behavior, like they they stop, you know, tracking or stop logging, or you know, they go quiet in spaces where they used to be loud, like they kind of shut down a little bit. Like the silence can be a warning sign too.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And for some people, it's physical, right? Their sleep changes, uh, their food choices change, right? Um, there's a kind of like flatness and like dullness that happens and it like settles in right before the crash.

unknown 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

And the reason it's important to find your specific sign, not the category, the specific sign, is because you cannot intervene on something that you haven't named or that you haven't identified for yourself. So the pattern has to be visible before you can interrupt it.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah. And meeting it doesn't mean also stopping it, right? Like that's what we want to be clear about. Like meaning it does not mean like embracing um for impact to like avoid it. It's sometimes you're gonna see the warning sign and still go into that pit. That's that's actually going to happen. And the win isn't avoiding the pit, right? The win is actually being conscious of it. It's actually using your rear view mirror and your side mirrors and saying, like, oh, okay, I know that's coming, right? Instead of being blindsided by it. And it's like, God, if I could just start to celebrate myself all the times where maybe I was back in a pit and my new measurement is like, I'm starting, I'm starting to catch them earlier, right? I'm starting to uh I'm sitting with myself through them and they're uncomfortable, or maybe the next time I was in one, I'm asking for support, right? It's like the win gets to be consciously dealing with the pit rather than being blindsided.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah, and there is an in-between, and that's important. And I think it gets a bad reputation. It's, you know, people will call it a plateau, or it's a thing that feels like stagnation, or it's a part of the cycle between the all in and then the pit where nothing, nothing really dramatic is happening. So that's why it feels that way. And our brains are really bad at assigning value to that. We we discard it.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah, like in being steady, like in in probably the boring shit and probably the you know, in the actual consistency that you're wanting, right? Yeah, because we're wired for peaks, you know, like the high activation feels like it's evidence of progress. Can I, even when we talk about selling, celebrating the wins, right? There's the wins, like a win and a challenge. I know we ask our clients that all the time. Um, if we are only focused on like, oh, okay, all of these highs are going to be the measurements of I'm actually doing the thing, I'm actually progressing, then the low activation feels like, well, nothing's happening. But no, it's in the steadiness, it's in the momentum, it's in the, you know, maybe the boring shit that it's like that is also evidence too.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, and that's what we see over and over again is that the the in-between is not nothing. The in-between is actually should be the destination because the version of you that can live there between burned out and having to start over again, that's the version of you that's actually consistent. That's the version of you that's generating the evidence that you're looking for that aligns with the story that you want for yourself, that's aligned with the identity that you're looking to embody.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

That's the place that your nervous system is in a regulated state, right? It's not flat, it's not born, like it's it's regulated. And there's a difference with that. Like regulation doesn't mean that nothing's happening, it means that you're not running on a threat or you're not reactive, right? You have you have someone left in the in the tank, in the chamber. Um, you have a floor, yeah. It's like if you have a ceiling, you gotta have the floor too.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, and the floor is the version of you on your worst day, right? And what does your floor look like right now? Like, not your ceiling, not the best version. We're always aspiring to like the best version of ourselves, but we don't take the time to identify okay, what does the floor look like? What am I? What can I do any day, even if it's the worst day, the thing that you will actually do, even in spite of the days where everything feels hard?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

I'm like, I'm having a deal, an idea right now in this moment. And I'm like, if you're listening to this, like, can you identify just today the high and the low? Like, what's what's your ceiling? What's your floor? And like, we need to make an activity out of this. I'm gonna do that. This is just a note for me for later, but that's I love that, I love that, right? If we are gonna give ourselves a ceiling, we have to have the floor because that's what's sustainable, right? Not the all-in version, not the worst, not even the worst version, right? You don't have to operate in one or the other. Um, and it's that embarrassingly small rep or action step that you will actually do when you're fucking exhausted on a Wednesday and you don't care about anything else. It's like it's that, it's that right there.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yeah, and it might not be where you want to be, and that's okay because it's what's available to you right now, and that's what really counts. It counts in the way that the all-or all or nothing version of you like never will, right? Because it you can build on it, it is accessible to you and it feels real and tangible and um not something that's like aspirational.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

Yeah, yeah. The all the all in version of you is the ceiling that you can visit. The floor is somewhere that you can actually live.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, and if you've spent years in this cycle, in the you know, the in-between is going to feel really wrong at first. It's gonna feel like, you know, it reminds me of there's all the there's all these um, I don't know, like informational or you know, uh inspirational content around relationships. And it's like, oh, if you've spent so many times in relationships where you have correlated excitement with love, right? Because essentially your nervous system is just jacked up and that's what you're looking for, right? Because that's all you've known. And then when you get into a relationship where your nervous system actually feels calm and stable, and you're like, this is boring. I don't want to stay here, right? It's like that that that discomfort is not a signal to go harder. It's like it's a signal that your nervous system hasn't learned yet that this is what's safe, this is what's sustainable, and you can actually thrive here.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Yeah. Gosh, that's so good. T, T, T, T, T, T. Gosh. And the thing is about the nervous system is that that little thing is smart. Okay. The one main job it has is to protect us. And if it can learn to protect us, it can also learn slowly a new way of doing things, but we have to teach it, right? And that's the whole name of the game is like teaching our nervous system what it looks like for the ceiling, what it looks like for the low, teaching our nervous system what we need, right? And allowing it to have the mic for a second. Because if we've just been disregarding our nervous system, yeah, it is going to run the show until we decide I'm running the show.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah. Yeah. The floor is the version of you on your worst day, but you can build from there, right? You can't build from a ceiling because you're already at the top, and that's not sustainable to do it long term. So here's what we want you to take away from today the all or nothing cycle is not something that is irrational or not normal or something that is, you know, a flaw. It's a pattern. It has a shape, and you've just started learning that shape, and that's okay, right? That's actually the beginning of something that is really good that you can build upon.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Yeah. And I want to add, if you're listening to this right now and you're listening from the pit, that's okay. We have all been there. We are all going to be there, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. And you don't have to be in it to get some, you don't have to not be in the pit to get something from this conversation, right? We're speaking to both. And being in it is being aware uh of the pattern at the same time. And that's a different experience than being in it without knowing, right? Like if you're in it and you know that you're in it, that matters.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so this week, take a beat, name your warning sign, the one that's specific to you. Don't try to stop it, don't try to outsmart the cycle, right? Just name the thing that shows up right before the landslide. Write it down somewhere, and the next time you see it, notice it again, right? So we're building pattern recognition here, which is huge for being able to make a shift.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Right. That's the rep. Then embarrassingly small rep is going to be the thing that actually changes the thing. And you have to name it first in order to then know what that rep is.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yes. So if this resonated, please share it with someone that you feel like it would be valuable for. Please, as always, rate and review the podcast. We really, really appreciate it. It's the best way to support us. And anything else for today, see?

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Nope, that is all. The pit has a pattern, okay? We use the alliteration so something sticks with you here. Please be sure to like, share, subscribe. If you're in a ceiling or you're in a pit, this conversation is for you. And we'll see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

See you next time.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Bye.