There's Nothing to Figure Out, And Yet...

There's Nothing to Figure Out
What Therapy Taught Me About Midlife, Identity, and Letting Go of the Doing

This episode is a little different for me, more of an exploration than a teaching. I open up about starting therapy this year, not for one big crisis, but with the intention to finally do things differently after a season that reshaped my family and my work.

I get honest about being a doer, a starter, someone who has let "figuring it out" define my worth for most of my life, and what it's been like to sit with my therapist's simplest, hardest instruction: there's nothing to figure out.

If you've ever felt addicted to the doing, unsure who you are without your work, or curious why women seem to burn out differently than men, this one's for you.

I get into:

• Why the female nervous system is wired for connection, not constant achievement, and what happens when we override that for years
• What it really looks like to redefine your identity in midlife when your career, your kids, and your sense of self are all shifting at once
• The simple mantra from therapy that's changing how I relate to ambition, rest, and self-worth

I'd genuinely love to hear what landed for you. DM me on Instagram, send me an email, or tap the little blue heart in the show notes on Apple Podcasts, and let's keep the conversation going. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Earlier this year, I started working with a therapist. And it's the first time I've really worked. I worked with a therapist one other time in my life, and it was a very short, very specific intention for that, and that was to heal from the birth trauma from when my son was born. I'm definitely not going to get into that today. If you want to know more about that, DM me and I'll be happy to record a separate podcast about that. One of the things that I went in with into this particular therapist is the intention to do things differently. It wasn't just turning 50, and it was several things that have happened that I've talked about on the podcast before that shifted our the reality of my family. One was we lost a very close family member to suicide, and it really rocked my world in a lot of ways, as it will. I also lost um a friend and a mentor to cancer that she was way too young, and that rocked my world as well. Then my husband ended up retiring early, much earlier than expected, due to a situation that I will not get into here today. That's just our private family stuff. So um, and I pivoted in my work career back in 2000. I or 2001-ish, I closed my self-care coaching business after after 13 years. I closed my membership after seven years. I um paused my podcast for a year. I what else did I do? A lot of stuff. I basically knew I I knew and felt that there was a shift coming in my business. And so I ended up getting certified as a copywriter and filled that business pretty quickly because I'd been in the digital space since 2000, gosh, 2010 as a coach. Even before that, I was a I started my first coaching business when I was 25, just about 26. And so I've been doing a lot of stuff. I've I've shifted in my career many times. I've done so many things. I've sold copiers, I was a corporate trainer, which I loved. I taught classes on how to build websites with Dreamweaver. I was in sales as a as a recruiter. I did so many things that have built so many incredible skill sets within my life. And the one thing I I, even though I was a self-care teacher, and you know, they say we teach what we need to learn, I definitely needed to learn how to take care of my mind, body, and soul on deeper, deeper levels. Um, because I'm a doer, I'm an I'm an action taker, I'm a creator, I'm a starter, not always a finisher. A lot of times I am though. Um, but I'm I'm very used to the sensation in my body of starting new things. I'm very used to the sensation in my body of having something to work on, something to figure out, something to move forward, something to stress over. And I wouldn't call myself an ambitious woman in that I don't hustle. It's not my, it's not in my DNA. But when I really step back far away and look at it, like I pull out, you know, a couple of degrees, I am definitely someone who loves work, but also on the shadow side of that, have let it has let work define my self-worth, my beingness, like what would I do without it? I started working and making money when I was like 12, 13, 14 years old. Um, even when my son was born, I worked pretty much up until he was born. And then when he was six months old, I started my first online business, which was an organic baby store online. And I built that whole thing. Um and so when I look at my life as I was like looking at it as if I was someone else, like what is this woman all about? I'm about doing things and figuring things out and being the organizer and being the host and being the creator and being the like just I'm very like interested in learning new things and evolving. I'm very deeply committed to spiritual growth and evolution. And I take on sort of responsibility, I love helping other people, and all of that put together means that I'm someone who's like addicted to the the doing, right? And so when I went to this therapist, I sort of laid that all on her. And I'm like, I just feel like whatever I do next, whatever I commit to next, what is the intention here? Like, do I just want to keep going in this next chapter and keep like creating in that same rhythm that I'm always working on something in my brain? And like, you know, I'm constantly defined by what I'm doing. That really is kind of the crux of it, being defined by what you're doing. And so I sort of started letting go layer by layer. And as I was working with her, one of the really beautiful things she gave me in that first few weeks of working together was just there's nothing to figure out. Just there's nothing to figure out. Like that was my mantra. There's nothing to figure out. As I stepped back from work, I was still doing some content creation because it was fun, it made some money, and like I just couldn't quite let go all the way, which I realize is counter to what I was doing with my therapist. Um, but I, you know, there was no rule here. There wasn't like I have to go back down to zero in order to re-like adjust my entire life. That wasn't, I wasn't following anyone else's rules. I was just sort of going with what felt good. And as the months went by, and I'm still working with her now, it's July of 2026. Um, I I sort of wasn't allowing myself to fully take a set amount of time off. Like, let's just take six months fully off and see how that goes. Like it was so uncomfortable for me to do that, that I wasn't really able to fully, fully do that. In fact, I was even working with um two other women to create workshops and we went to California and hosted one there. And I think it was back in December, we hosted one here in Bellingham as well. And so, like, as you can see, there's always something going on. I never stopped this podcast, kept going almost as a way to process things for myself too, but also to teach what I really, really love, which is intuition and somatic intuition specifically as it relates to the intuition that is spoken as a language by your body. Because weightlifting and dancing, and it's it's just a huge part of my life. And it's such a powerful transformational like experience and portal. If you choose, it doesn't have to be dance, it doesn't have to be weightlifting, it could be whatever it is for you. So I want to lay that on the table for you as a gift. If you are listening to this and you are someone who's in the middle of transition or redefinition or redefining your work or pivoting in your business or trying to figure out just like what's next. Maybe, like me, like my son has graduated his college and he's now working full-time, which that was definitely more emotional than I expected it to be. Like I just had this, and maybe it's because I'm redefining like my life and work and how it feels, like to watch him step into this full-time role. I had a lot of feelings about that, which you know, we're not gonna get into here. It's not really necessarily relevant to this topic, but let's just say it was a um, it was like a pause and reflect on, you know, my thoughts about full-time work and his life and trajectory, of course, which is his to navigate. So again, I'm laying on the table. If you're someone who is used to, addicted to, defined by, um unable to picture your life without the thing you're doing or doing something that makes money or trying to figure out how to make money, I'm suggesting that there is a way that we can start changing our perspective on what it is that we define ourselves by and how we make meaning in our life, and how we as women specifically are wired to create, are wired to make meaning in a very specific way that's very different from men. And it's really time we reclaim that. I just heard this thing the other day and it made so much sense. It was this whole like teaching on the nervous system and how so much of the nervous system research has been based on men's nervous systems. And like our central nervous system is wired very differently from the male physiology. Our nervous system thrives on oxytocin, which is a connection hormone. It's the hormone that thrives in when we are in co-regulation with others, when we are in conversation deeply with others, when we are in community with others, either in the community, creating the community, hosting like all the things that feel good to us as women. Where the male nervous system thrives on dopamine, which is the doing, doing, doing, doing, getting shit done, accomplishing hormone, which is really fascinating because I think so many women now are used to the dopamine, and just like any other chemical and hormone, we we get sort of addicted to that, but it's not that great for us in large amounts. And so what I'm learning now, and maybe this is hitting home for you too, is I'm learning how to rebalance that and how to be in connection with myself, with those around me as a priority. Enjoying the moments when there's nothing to figure out, and leaning even even more into what I really, really believe and want to teach in this next season, which is intuition, being guided, allowing ourselves to go slower, being in my no-rush era, as I'm as I recorded way back then. That was also part of this, like, you know, therapy work that I was doing, being in my no-rush era, like literally when I say things like, I'm just gonna go run and get actually, I'm not going to run and get anything. I'm going to walk slowly, intentionally, to where I'm going. Like even at the gym, I'm just, I'm just noticing going from thing to thing, or in my life, or when I'm cooking or when I'm multitasking, because I'm so good at that, just like we all are. Um, where I'm trying not to rush, where I'm reminding myself to use my senses, to be in the moment, to be in conversation, to not focus on what's happening tomorrow or an hour from now or dinner if I'm at breakfast, right? Like it's just this daily practice to go slower, to breathe, and to not have anything to figure out in this moment. So I just invite you into that reflection for yourself. Like, are you someone who has been thriving in a very specific way on dopamine? And that maybe is not feeling so great for you anymore. Maybe your adrenals have felt the result of that, where you're feeling that just like, oh, is this how it's always gonna be? Now, this isn't to say that we don't want to create beautiful, big, wonderful, adventurous, glamorous, you know, big, expansive lives. All I'm suggesting here is that it doesn't have to be at the expense of your nervous system, your adrenals, your your luminosity, your joy, your presence. Right? I cannot even tell you how many women I've watched over the last two decades in the professional space, in the online space, who have succeeded bigly and also have burned out their adrenals and have functional doctors now helping them to rebalance their hormones and to rebalance their functional way of being in the world, whether it's diet or hormone replacement therapy or whether it's just like a re-haul of their whole entire lives. Um, also divorce and you know, just like lots of things. I'm not gonna go down the rabbit hole of divorce, but that was definitely a thing I was seeing for a while where these really ambitious, amazing women were separating from their partners. And to me, like, listen, we never ever know what's going on in someone's lives. And this isn't to say I know anything about why any of these women have gotten divorced at all, at all, at all. Um, but another version of that is burning down their entire business and starting over, going into a whole different thing. And and like I did, it's like it was just time. But what I'm suggesting is that we have been functioning under wrong assumptions that that ambitious dopamine hit life is fine for whoever chooses it. Like I'm really not here to judge anyone or anyone's choices. What I'm just reflecting on is for me, I have found quite a bit of healing for myself in playing with and embracing the idea that there's nothing to figure out in this moment and that I get to go slowly. And that doesn't mean I'm less ambitious or I'm less um, you know, wanting to succeed, but it does mean that I'm redefining what that looks like for me, both in this new sort of world paradigm that we're entering into, also in the phase of life that I'm in, the phase of life my family's in. And now that I can look back on decades of my life and look at the discernment and the decision making and the choices that I made and the results that happened and what that means or what that meant for me back then, and how I want to continue doing that or change that now. And in order to do that, we just need to start thinking new thoughts, right? Because we are the thinker, thinker of our thoughts. We get to choose the thoughts we think, we get to choose our focus. And so I, as someone who's super committed to personal evolution and living a life by my divine intuition and divine guidance, that's where I am right now. And so again, I'm just laying it on the table. Just start noticing yourself. Are you constantly in the mode of figuring something out, constantly and doing, constantly and creating, instead of allowing those moments of like self-expression and creation and slowness and just doing things for their pure joy to be something that leads your life instead of the numbers and the spreadsheets and the goals that are maybe outdated and need to be decluttered and reassessed for something new, for a way of being in the world, for a way of connecting to your beautiful, joyful life that we are here and gifted to experience. So I think I'm gonna end it right there. It was more of like an exploration, and I'd love to hear your feedback on what I'm talking about today. Simply DM me on Instagram, send me an email, click on the little blue heart in the show notes on Apple Podcasts, and yeah, let's continue this conversation. I think you're really gonna enjoy next week's interview because I spoke with a woman who closed her spa business down and is now recalibrating her whole life. And her name is Jessica Evans. We had a really beautiful conversation about just this topic. Like, what does it mean to re-invent yourself and how do you do it in a way that, you know, you get to be in the middle of the mess, but still creating. And I think you'll really enjoy that conversation. So if you're not following, make sure you follow along, follow the podcast, and check out the next week's interview. I have some really incredible interviews coming in the next several weeks. And uh yeah, thanks so much for being here. Can't wait to hear what you thought about this, and I will see you on the next episode of An Intuitive Life.