I didn’t plan for it to feel like an existential crisis.

But about a month ago, I stepped away from social media and podcasting entirely — no posting, no scrolling, no creating for an audience. Just... space. And what came out of that space surprised me in ways I’m still processing.

If you’ve ever felt the quiet pull to just stop — even when everything looks fine on the outside — this one’s for you.

Why I Stepped Away

Running a private practice while building a business means I’m constantly producing: content, sessions, ideas, energy. At some point, the output started to feel louder than the input. I wasn’t burned out in the dramatic sense. It was more subtle — a low-grade disconnection from why I was doing any of it.

So I stopped. Thirty days. No social. No podcast. Just reading, thinking, and letting things get quiet enough to hear myself again.

Here’s what came through.

1. Change Is Progress (Even When It Doesn’t Feel Like It)

One of the biggest mindset shifts that came out of this sabbatical was learning to stop treating change as a problem to solve.

In business — especially as a therapist-entrepreneur — we’re wired to interpret uncertainty as dysfunction. Something must be wrong if things are shifting. But what I came to see is that change is the work. Leaning into it rather than managing it is what actually moves you forward.

If something in your business is changing right now, that might not be a warning sign. It might be growth doing what growth does.

2. Generosity Is a Business Strategy

I picked up The Go-Giver during my time off, and it quietly rearranged some things for me.

The premise — that shifting your focus from getting to giving is what unlocks real success — isn’t just feel-good philosophy. It’s a framework. When I started asking how can I add value here? instead of what can I get from this? the energy around my work changed.

For those of us in helping professions building businesses, this one hits differently. Generosity isn’t the soft skill. It might be the whole thing.

3. Slowing Down Is Where the Ideas Live

I don’t think I fully believed this until I lived it.

When you’re in constant creation mode, you’re mostly recycling what’s already there. The genuinely new ideas — the ones that feel like they came from somewhere real — those showed up in the slow moments. The walks. The books. The mornings without a content calendar.

Slowing down isn’t falling behind. For creative entrepreneurs, it’s often the most productive thing you can do.

4. The 80-20 Rule Isn’t Just a Productivity Hack

I came back to the Pareto principle during this time with fresh eyes: 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

The sabbatical forced me to ask: what is actually working? Not what looks active, not what feels busy — what is genuinely moving the needle in my practice and my business?

The answers were uncomfortable and clarifying in equal measure. Some of what I’d been spending the most time on wasn’t in that 20%. Some things I’d been neglecting were.

This is the question worth sitting with: if you could only do 20% of what you’re currently doing, what would you keep?

5. Faith Has to Be Part of the Foundation

This is the one I almost didn’t include — because it feels personal. But it was too central to leave out.

Coming back to faith as an active part of my business decisions changed the texture of how I work. Not as a vague background comfort, but as a real orienting force. It helped me release outcomes I was gripping too tightly and trust the process more fully.

For me, that’s not separate from being a good clinician or a strategic entrepreneur. It’s woven into both.

What I’m Bringing Back (and What I’m Leaving Behind)

I came back to work with more clarity than I left with, which is the whole point of a sabbatical.

I’m being more intentional about where my energy goes. I’m asking better questions before I commit to new projects. And I’m building in more white space — not as a luxury, but as a deliberate part of how I operate.

If you’re a therapist building a practice, or an entrepreneur feeling the quiet pull to step back — I hope this gives you permission to listen to that.

The clarity is waiting. It just needs a little room.

If you’re a therapist looking for community and accountability as you build your practice, I’d love to have you in the Therapist Accountability Group — founding members lock in at $177/month forever.

Books mentioned: The Go-Giver, The Big Leap, Effortless

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it actually means to live a life of faith—not just believe, not just attend, not just consume content about it—but to embody it in the quiet, ordinary, unglamorous parts of the day.

And honestly? I didn’t get there on my own.

In a recent conversation, I sat down with author and pastor Jay Kim, whose work has deeply reshaped how I think about spiritual formation. With over two decades of preaching and pastoral experience, he carries a kind of grounded wisdom that doesn’t feel rushed or performative. It feels… lived-in.

This isn’t a recap. It’s a reflection—on what it means to listen, to wait, to forgive, and to move through life at what he calls the pace of peace.

The Tension Between Reflection and Criticism

We started with something deceptively simple: reflection.

But here’s the tension—reflection can easily become criticism. Especially for those of us wired to self-improve, optimize, and analyze everything.

Jay challenged this impulse gently. He reframed reflection not as a tool for self-correction, but as a practice of attention. Not “What’s wrong with me?” but “Where was God today?”

That shift changes everything.

Because suddenly, your life is no longer a problem to fix—it’s a story to notice.

The Lost Art of Listening

We live in a world where everything is loud. Opinions are instant. Reactions are expected. Silence feels like absence.

But Jay talked about cultivating what he calls a listening life—a posture of openness, especially toward God.

And here’s the hard truth: listening is uncomfortable.

It requires stillness. It exposes distraction. It reveals how often we fill space because we’re afraid of what we might hear if we didn’t.

Spiritual practices like silence, solitude, and prayer aren’t aesthetic add-ons. They’re resistance. They push back against a culture that equates noise with meaning.

Feeling Behind (and Why That Might Be the Point)

At one point, we talked about something I think so many of us carry quietly: the feeling of being behind.

Behind in life.
Behind in purpose.
Behind in healing.

Jay didn’t rush to fix that feeling. Instead, he honored it.

He spoke about waiting—not as wasted time, but as formation. That seasons of delay are often where the deepest work happens. Not visible work. Not impressive work. But necessary work.

And I hated that answer a little. (Because who wants to wait?)

But I also knew it was true.

Daily Rituals That Actually Change You

We got practical too.

Because it’s one thing to talk about faith philosophically—it’s another to live it at 7:30am when you’re tired and your phone is already buzzing.

Jay shared about simple, daily rituals:

• Prayer as presence, not performance

• Creating moments of quiet before reacting

• Practicing awareness of God throughout the day

One practice that stood out was the Prayer of Examen—a reflective rhythm of looking back on your day to notice where God was present, where you felt distant, and what you’re carrying forward.

It’s not about getting it “right.” It’s about becoming aware.

Parenting, Patience, and Becoming Who You Needed

One of the most powerful parts of our conversation was when we shifted into parenting and family.

Jay spoke candidly about fatherhood—not as a role he’s mastered, but as a space that continues to shape him.

Parenting, he said, exposes you.

It reveals your impatience. Your triggers. Your wounds.

But it also offers something rare: the chance to become the kind of presence you may not have experienced yourself.

That doesn’t mean perfection. It means intention.

And honestly, that feels more hopeful.

Family, Trauma, and the Long Road of Forgiveness

We didn’t avoid the hard stuff.

Family dynamics. Generational pain. The kind of wounds that don’t resolve quickly or cleanly.

Jay spoke about forgiveness in a way that felt grounded—not forced, not rushed, not overly simplified.

Forgiveness, he said, is a journey of understanding.

Not excusing harm. Not bypassing pain. But slowly, over time, releasing the grip that those experiences have on your identity.

And sometimes, that journey takes years.

Maybe longer.

Writing as a Spiritual Practice

We also talked about his writing process, which—unsurprisingly—is deeply tied to his spiritual life.

He doesn’t write from urgency. He writes from attentiveness.

From noticing patterns.
From sitting with questions.
From resisting the pressure to produce something just to stay relevant.

And I think that’s why his work resonates. It doesn’t feel extracted—it feels cultivated.

Living at the Pace of Peace

If there’s one idea that stayed with me, it’s this:

You can live your entire life at a pace that slowly disconnects you from your soul.

Or—you can choose a different rhythm.

Jay calls it the pace of peace.

Not laziness. Not disengagement. But a deliberate refusal to let urgency dictate your life.

Because not everything that feels urgent is actually important.

And not everything important moves quickly.

Final Thoughts

This conversation didn’t give me a five-step plan.

It gave me something better: a new lens.

A way of approaching faith that feels less like striving and more like noticing.
Less like performing and more like being present.

And maybe that’s the invitation for all of us—

To listen a little longer.
To rush a little less.
To trust that even in the waiting, something sacred is happening.

—

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or just spiritually tired, maybe start small.

A quiet moment.
A simple prayer.
A willingness to pay attention.

You might be surprised by what you hear.

Resources

Listen, Listen, Speak by Jay Kim - https://a.co/d/04tsI1ss

Analog Christian by Jay Kim - https://a.co/d/0fUjBWxE

Analog Church by Jay Kim - https://a.co/d/0hoUwnsk

Ignatian Spirituality and Prayer of Examine - https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/prayer/prayer-styles/the-examen/

Jay Kim's Website - https://jaykim.com

this episode felt like a deep exhale. like the kind you don’t realize you’ve been holding for years.

today, I sat down with Dr. Niloufer Merchant and Gina Kiem…we’re talking nervous systems. healing. grief. community. the stuff that lives in your body long before it finds words.

and honestly? this wasn’t one of those “fix yourself in 5 steps” conversations.

this was slower. softer. realer. here are my notes from our conversation -

your nervous system is telling a story

not everything you feel is “in your head.”

some of it is in your chest when it tightens
your stomach when it drops
your shoulders when they stay braced for no clear reason

that’s your nervous system doing its job.

polyvagal theory (don’t worry, we’re keeping it cute + simple) reminds us that your body is constantly scanning for safety or threat—often without you realizing it.

so when you feel:

• anxious for “no reason”

• shut down instead of productive

• overwhelmed in relationships

it’s not dysfunction.

it’s protection.

and healing starts when you stop asking
“what’s wrong with me?”
and start asking
“what happened to me—and what does my body need now?”

healing isn’t a solo journey (even if we’ve been taught it is)

we love a self-help era. journaling. solo walks. doing “the work.”

but here’s the truth that hit hardest:

you don’t heal in isolation.

you heal in:

• safe conversations

• shared laughter

• being witnessed without needing to perform

co-regulation > self-regulation, always.

that means your nervous system learns safety through other people’s presence.

through someone saying:
“you’re okay. i’m here.”

and actually meaning it.

especially for women of color, healing is layered—personal, cultural, ancestral. community isn’t extra. it’s essential.

grief doesn’t go away (and that’s not failure)

we’ve been sold this idea that grief is something you “move on” from.

you don’t.

you move with it.

grief lives in the body:

• in the silence after loss

• in the random waves that hit mid-day

• in the way your nervous system reacts to reminders

but here’s the reframe:

you can stay connected to what you’ve lost without being consumed by it.

grief and love exist in the same space.

always have.

your ancestors are part of your healing too

this part? powerful. Trust me, I was a little skeptical at first, but when we talk about “ancestors”, we talk about the importance of understanding “your family story” across 3 generations. We try to understand how your generational experiences from your grandparents, parents, and yourself are interconnected.

healing isn’t just about looking forward. it’s also about looking back.

your ancestors:

• what they survived

• what they carried

• what they never got to process

it lives in you.

but so does their resilience.

so when you slow down, when you listen to your body, when you choose to heal—

you’re not just doing it for yourself.

you’re interrupting patterns.
you’re honoring stories.
you’re creating something new.

therapy isn’t about “fixing” you

let’s clear this up:

therapy is not a repair shop.

you are not broken.

therapy is about:

• understanding your patterns

• building safety in your body

• learning your own nervous system language

it’s less “how do i stop feeling this?”
and more “how do i stay with myself when i do?”

and the relationship matters.

trust. safety. pacing.

because your nervous system doesn’t heal through pressure.

it heals through consistency.

slow healing is still healing

i know. we want progress we can measure. track. optimize.

but healing doesn’t work like that.

there are no quick fixes. no clean timelines.

just:

• small moments of awareness

• slightly softer reactions

• longer pauses before old patterns kick in

and one day you realize:

you’re responding instead of reacting
you’re resting without guilt
you’re feeling without shutting down

that’s it.

that’s the work.

final thought: learn your rhythm

your nervous system has a rhythm.

what calms you
what activates you
what helps you come back to yourself

learn that.

protect that.

because healing isn’t becoming someone new.

it’s becoming someone who feels safe being themselves.

🔑Links/Books Mentioned:

• Dr. Stephen Porges: https://www.stephenporges.com/

• Deb Dana Website: https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/about

• Dr. Niloufer Merchant: https://www.nmmerchant.com/

• Gina Kiem: https://ginakiem-goldcounsel.com/

• Helen Bass Website: https://www.sincerepractice.com/

• Meaning of Your Life Book: https://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Your-Life-Finding-Emptiness/dp/0593545427

stay soft. stay curious. stay connected 🤍 see you next week!

In this episode, I had the absolute honor of sitting down with Gina Kiem and Dr. Niloufer Merchant for a conversation that felt equal parts grounding, eye-opening, and deeply affirming. We explored something that doesn’t get talked about enough: how body-based healing—especially through the lens of polyvagal theory—can actually honor our cultural identities instead of ignoring them.

Because let’s be real… healing isn’t one-size-fits-all.

🌿 So… what is body-based healing anyway?

We kicked things off by breaking down polyvagal theory in a way that actually makes sense in real life. At its core, it’s about understanding your nervous system—how your body responds to stress, safety, and connection.

But here’s where it gets deeper:
Your sense of safety isn’t just biological—it’s cultural, relational, and lived.

For women of color especially, “feeling safe” can shift depending on the space you’re in, who you’re with, and what you’ve experienced.

💭 When your body remembers what your mind tries to navigate

Both Gina and Dr. Niloufer shared personal experiences of how their cultural backgrounds shaped their nervous systems. We talked about the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways our environments teach us when to soften… and when to stay guarded.

And honestly? It hit.

Because so many of us have learned to override our bodies just to function in spaces that weren’t built with us in mind.

🔄 Code-switching, exhaustion, and your nervous system

One of the most powerful parts of this conversation was around code-switching.

We all know what it is—but we don’t always talk about what it does to us.

Constantly adjusting how you speak, act, or show up to feel accepted or safe? That’s not just “social awareness.” That’s your nervous system working overtime.

We dove into the idea of allostatic load—basically the wear and tear on your body from chronic stress—and how code-switching contributes to it in ways that are often invisible but deeply felt.

🤝 Co-regulation isn’t the same for everyone

Something I loved about this episode is how we challenged the idea that healing practices are universal.

Co-regulation—feeling safe through connection with others—looks different across cultures. For some, it’s community. For others, it’s spirituality. For others, it’s simply being seen without having to explain yourself.

And therapy that doesn’t take that into account? It can miss the mark completely.

🧠 Cultural safety > surface-level inclusivity

We got real about power dynamics in therapy spaces too.

It’s not enough for a space to say it’s inclusive. Your body knows if it’s actually safe.

Cultural safety means:

• Not having to translate your experience

• Not being pathologized for your identity

• Being understood in context—not in isolation

And that kind of safety? It allows your nervous system to finally exhale.

✨ Simple practices to feel more grounded

We also shared accessible, body-based tools that don’t require you to “fix” yourself—just reconnect.

Some of my favorites from this episode:

• Noticing small cues of safety (a tone of voice, a familiar smell, a supportive presence)

• Gentle breathwork without pressure to “do it right”

• Allowing your body to guide what feels safe instead of forcing calm

Because grounding isn’t about perfection—it’s about permission.

🌍 Where culture and healing meet

What stayed with me most is this:
You don’t have to separate your identity from your healing.

Your culture, your lived experiences, your instincts—they are not obstacles. They are part of the map.

And when therapy honors that? That’s when real, sustainable healing begins.

💌 Resources & ways to connect

If you want to go deeper, here are some amazing resources mentioned in the episode:

• Dr. Niloufer Merchant’s work:

https://www.nmmerchant.com/

• Gina Kiem:

https://ginakiem-goldcounsel.com/

• My links (come say hi 💕): https://bio.site/helenbass

Research:

• 2025 article by Elana Curtis and colleagues: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12063315/

• 2019 article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12939-019-1082-3

🫶 Final thoughts

If you take anything from this episode, let it be this:

You are not “too sensitive.”
Your body is not “overreacting.”
You are responding exactly as someone with your story would.

And you deserve healing that sees all of you.

Let me know what resonated with you the most 💭
I’m always listening.

— Helen 🤍

You don’t have to do this alone.

I’m not a mother.

Not yet.

But I’m surrounded by them.

Close friends. Women I’ve grown up with. Women I’ve watched move from one identity into another—quietly, dramatically, all at once. And if I’m being honest, I don’t think I fully understood what that transition asked of them.

Not until I started listening more closely.

Not until I sat down with Peggy and Jasmine.

This conversation was supposed to be an interview.

It didn’t feel like one.

It felt more like being let in on something I hadn’t earned yet—an honesty about motherhood that doesn’t get shared publicly, and often doesn’t get shared at all.

Peggy and Jasmine, the hosts of Healing the Tigress, are both Taiwanese American mothers. They’re both certified in perinatal mental health. One is a therapist. The other, a pharmacist.

But none of that is what stayed with me.

What stayed with me is that they’ve lived it.

Postpartum depression. Anxiety. The kind of experiences that don’t fit neatly into the way motherhood is usually presented—especially in communities where struggle is something you’re expected to carry quietly.

They didn’t carry it quietly.

And because they didn’t, other women don’t have to either.

I went into this conversation thinking I was there to learn.

And I was.

But somewhere in the middle of it, I realized I was also there to say thank you.

Because it’s one thing to hear that maternal mental health matters.

It’s another thing to hear two women talk about it without filtering, without performing, without trying to make it more palatable.

That kind of honesty does something to you.

At least, it did something to me.

I’ve spent a lot of time around achievement-driven environments. Spaces where the default response to difficulty is to optimize, improve, push harder.

That framework breaks down quickly when you’re talking about mental health.

It doesn’t respond to willpower the way we want it to.

And in the context of motherhood, the stakes feel even higher. Because now it’s not just about you. It’s about the child you’re caring for, too.

What Peggy and Jasmine made clear—without ever saying it outright—is that care has to include the mother.

Not as an afterthought.

As a priority.

There was a moment where we talked about treatment.

Not in abstract terms. In real ones.

Therapy.

Medication.

Support.

No hesitation. No caveats. No “only if it gets really bad.”

Just: these are tools. Use them.

It struck me how simple that sounded. And how complicated it becomes in practice—especially for women raised in environments where needing help is often interpreted as weakness.

Or worse, ingratitude.

I’ve heard versions of that message my whole life.

Be grateful.

Don’t complain.

Other people have it harder.

And while those ideas can build resilience, they can also make it harder to recognize when something is actually wrong.

Harder to say, “I’m not okay.”

Harder to ask for help when you need it.

Listening to Peggy and Jasmine, I started to see that tension more clearly. The space between honoring where you come from and acknowledging where it falls short.

They’re not rejecting their culture.

They’re expanding it.

Making room for conversations that weren’t there before.

I’m not a mother.

But I care about mothers.

I care about my friends. I care about the women in my life who will become mothers. I care about the kind of support systems we’re building—or not building—for them.

And somewhere along the way, that care turned into curiosity.

And that curiosity turned into action.

I’m currently studying for my PMH-C certification.

I’m still in the process. Still learning. Still figuring out what role I want to play in this space.

But I know this much:

That decision didn’t come out of nowhere.

It came from conversations like this one.

From people like Peggy and Jasmine, who are willing to speak openly about things most people avoid.

Who are willing to go first.

There’s a tendency to think that impact comes from big, visible actions.

But more often, it starts smaller.

A conversation you can’t stop thinking about.

A perspective that shifts something in you.

A moment where you realize: this matters more than I thought it did.

This was one of those moments for me.

Not because I suddenly understand motherhood.

I don’t.

But because I understand, a little more clearly, what it can look like to support it.

And sometimes, that’s where it starts.

This isn’t a polished lecture. It’s more like a conversation I’ve been having with myself lately… and I figured it’s worth sharing.

Because “personal growth” sounds inspiring—until you’re the one responsible for it.

The quiet pressure no one talks about

When you become a therapist, something subtle happens.

You stop being just a person working on yourself.

And start feeling like you should have it all together.

Your mindset.
Your emotions.
Your reactions.
Your blind spots.

All of it.

There’s this unspoken expectation:

“If you help others grow… you should already be there.”

But here’s the truth:

You’re never “there.”

And that realization can either humble you—or exhaust you.

The loop of constant self-improvement

Personal growth isn’t a finish line.

It’s a loop.

Learn → reflect → adjust → repeat.

Sounds simple. It’s not.

Because when your job is helping others improve their mental health, you start holding yourself to an even higher standard.

You analyze your own thoughts more.
You question your reactions more.
You notice your own inconsistencies more.

And sometimes?

It’s tiring.

Not because growth is bad.

But because it’s constant.

The tension: helping others vs. being human

Here’s the tension I sit with:

I want to provide the best therapy possible.

But I’m also human.

I have off days.
I miss things.
I’m still learning.

That doesn’t make me a bad therapist.

It makes me an honest one.

Because real professional growth doesn’t come from pretending you’ve mastered everything.

It comes from staying open.

What keeps me grounded

Two ideas have been anchoring me lately:

1. Seek knowledge—even when it’s uncomfortable

There’s wisdom in staying curious.

Not just about clients.

But about yourself.

The hard questions. The blind spots. The patterns you’d rather ignore.

Growth starts the moment you stop assuming you already know enough.

2. Be slow to speak

This one hits deep.

Because as therapists, we’re trained to respond, guide, interpret.

But sometimes the best thing we can do—for others and ourselves—is pause.

Listen more.
React less.
Make space before forming conclusions.

That’s where real understanding lives.

Humility is the real skill

If I could sum this whole journey up in one word, it would be this:

Humility.

Not the performative kind.

The real kind.

The kind that says:

• “I don’t know everything.”

• “I can still grow.”

• “I might be wrong.”

• “There’s more to learn here.”

That mindset doesn’t weaken your work.

It strengthens it.

Because people don’t need perfect therapists.

They need present ones.

Why this matters (for everyone)

This isn’t just a therapist thing.

We’re all in this process.

Trying to grow.
Trying to improve.
Trying to understand ourselves a little better.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this:

Growth isn’t about becoming flawless.

It’s about becoming aware.

Aware of your thoughts.
Your patterns.
Your impact.

And then choosing—again and again—to keep learning.

Final thought

Be eager to learn.

Not just when it’s easy.

But especially when it’s not.

Because the people who grow the most…

Aren’t the ones who think they’ve arrived.

They’re the ones who stay curious enough to keep going.

Most people think they know what domestic violence looks like.

Bruises. Broken objects. Raised voices.

Something visible. Something undeniable.

But control doesn’t always leave a mark you can point to.

Sometimes, it looks like a bank account you can’t access.
A job you’re discouraged from taking.
A credit card in your name you didn’t open.

Sometimes, it looks like money.

I sat down with Stephanie Prom expecting to talk about advocacy work.

What I didn’t expect was how quickly the conversation would shift from systems to something more personal—how people end up inside these systems in the first place.

Stephanie works at FreeFrom, a survivor-led organization focused on ending gender-based violence. Her path there wasn’t linear. It moved through music, through nonprofit arts spaces, through questions about identity and belonging as the daughter of refugee survivors.

Nothing about her story felt disconnected.

If anything, it felt cumulative.

There’s a certain kind of resilience that gets built when you grow up in an immigrant household.

You learn how to adapt.
How to read the room.
How to make something out of very little.

Stephanie talked about creativity in that context—not as a hobby, but as a survival skill.

Music wasn’t separate from her work. It was training for it.

Paying attention.
Listening closely.
Finding structure inside chaos.

The same instincts show up in advocacy.

At some point, the conversation turned to financial abuse.

Not as a buzzword. As a pattern.

And once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.

It’s not always dramatic. In fact, it often isn’t.

It can look like:

• A partner controlling all financial decisions

• Limiting access to bank accounts

• Preventing someone from working

• Creating dependency and then weaponizing it

What makes financial abuse difficult to identify is how easily it hides inside “normal” relationship dynamics.

There’s no single moment where it announces itself.

It builds slowly.

And by the time it’s visible, the person experiencing it may already feel stuck.

What stayed with me is how much of this comes down to power.

Not just physical power, but economic power.

Because money, in a very real way, determines your options.

Where you can go.
What you can leave.
Whether leaving is even possible.

Without financial autonomy, safety becomes complicated.

Not impossible—but harder.

Stephanie didn’t talk about solutions in a polished, one-size-fits-all way.

She talked about community.

Over and over again, the answer came back to:

• Who knows your situation

• Who you can call

• Who can hold something with you when it’s too heavy to carry alone

At FreeFrom, that shows up in tangible ways—resources, education, direct support.

But underneath all of it is a simple idea:

People need other people.

Not just in crisis, but before it.

There was also an honesty about the work itself.

Advocacy sounds meaningful—and it is—but it’s also heavy.

You’re holding stories that don’t have clean endings.
You’re navigating systems that move slowly.
You’re confronting problems that don’t resolve overnight.

So the question becomes: how do you stay?

How do you continue showing up to something that can easily burn you out?

Stephanie’s answer wasn’t about toughness.

It was about pacing.

About building a life that includes:

• Rest

• Boundaries

• Space outside of the work

Not as luxuries, but as requirements.

We also talked about narratives.

Specifically, who gets to define them.

Too often, survivors are reduced to what happened to them.

Their story becomes the worst thing they’ve experienced.

But that’s incomplete.

What Stephanie and her work push for is a shift:

From victimhood → to agency
From isolation → to connection
From silence → to voice

Not to erase what happened.

But to expand the story beyond it.

I kept thinking about how easy it is to miss something you’re not looking for.

Financial abuse is one of those things.

It doesn’t always match the image people have in their heads when they hear “domestic violence.”

Which means it often goes unnamed.

And what goes unnamed is harder to challenge.

This conversation didn’t feel like it ended with a conclusion.

It felt more like an invitation to pay closer attention.

To relationships.
To patterns.
To the ways control can show up quietly.

And maybe more importantly:

To the people around you.

Because intervention doesn’t always start with expertise.

Sometimes it starts with noticing.

Sometimes it starts with asking a better question.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or financial abuse, support is available.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233

You don’t have to figure it out on your own.

And you don’t have to wait for it to get worse to ask for help.

A few years into my therapy practice, I noticed a pattern.

A couple would sit across from me — one partner hurt, the other defensive — and the wounded partner would say some version of the same thing: “I just don’t feel safe with you.”

The defensive partner would look genuinely confused. They hadn’t yelled. They hadn’t threatened. They hadn’t done anything dramatic. And yet the absence of safety was palpable in the room.

This confused me too, early on. But over hundreds of sessions, I began to see something that research has since confirmed: emotional safety isn’t about the absence of harm. It’s about the presence of regulation.

The Misconception

We’ve inherited a strangely passive idea of what it means to be a safe person. Most people believe that if they aren’t actively causing damage — if they aren’t raising their voice, calling names, or shutting down — then they must be safe. This is the emotional equivalent of believing that not poisoning someone’s food makes you a good cook.

Safety, it turns out, is not a default state. It’s a skill. And like most skills worth having, it requires practice that most of us have never been taught.

Dr. Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory offers a useful framework here. His research demonstrates that our nervous systems are constantly scanning our environment for signals of safety or threat — a process he calls neuroception. This scanning happens below conscious awareness. Your partner’s nervous system is reading your tone, your facial micro-expressions, your body tension, and your breathing patterns, and making a determination about safety before a single word of your conversation registers.

This means something uncomfortable: you can say all the right words and still be broadcasting danger.

The Real Work

Here’s where it gets interesting — and where most relationship advice falls short.

The popular guidance tells you to be a safe place for your partner. Use “I” statements. Validate their feelings. Hold space. This isn’t wrong, but it skips a critical step. It’s like telling someone to drive smoothly without teaching them how the engine works.

The engine, in this case, is your own nervous system.

When your partner shares something vulnerable — a fear, a wound, a need — your body responds before your mind does. If what they’ve shared triggers your own unresolved material (and it often will), your nervous system shifts into a defensive state. Your chest tightens. Your jaw clenches. Your prefrontal cortex — the part of your brain responsible for empathy, patience, and thoughtful responding — goes partially offline.

In that state, you cannot be safe for another person. It’s physiologically impossible.

This is why the path to emotional safety is counterintuitive. It doesn’t start with learning how to respond to your partner. It starts with learning how to manage yourself.

Three Practices That Actually Work

If emotional safety is a skill, then it can be developed. Here’s what I’ve seen work — not just in theory, but in the real, messy context of my clients’ lives:

1. Learn your activation signature.

Every person has a unique physiological pattern that shows up when they’re becoming dysregulated. For some, it’s a tightness in the throat. For others, it’s a sudden urge to leave the room or a flood of counterarguments forming before their partner finishes a sentence. Start paying attention to yours. You can’t regulate what you can’t recognize.

2. Build a pause practice.

This is not the same as stonewalling. Stonewalling is withdrawal — a shutting down that leaves your partner stranded. A pause practice is an intentional, communicated break. It sounds like: “I want to hear you. I need sixty seconds to settle my body so I can actually be present for this.” The difference between a pause and a shutdown is transparency.

3. Separate your story from their story.

When your partner says, “I feel alone in this marriage,” your nervous system may hear an accusation: You’re failing. You’re not enough. That interpretation belongs to your story — your history, your wounds, your fears. Their statement is its own thing entirely. The practice of separating these two narratives — in real time, under emotional pressure — is perhaps the most demanding skill in all of relationships. It is also the most transformative.

The Deeper Principle

What strikes me most about this work is how it inverts our usual model of love.

We tend to think of love as something we direct outward — toward our partner, our children, our people. And it is that. But the foundation of being a safe, loving presence for someone else is an inward discipline. It is the unglamorous, daily work of managing your own nervous system, examining your own triggers, and taking ownership of your own emotional state.

This is not selfish. It is, in fact, the most generous thing you can do for the people you love.

The couples I’ve watched transform their relationships didn’t do it by learning better communication scripts. They did it by becoming people who could stay regulated in the presence of another person’s pain. That’s the skill. That’s the whole game.

And like any skill worth developing, it doesn’t require perfection. It requires practice.

— Helen Bass, LCSW

Gina’s insights reminded me that our inner worlds—our bodies, nervous systems, and ancestral stories—aren’t just abstract ideas; they shape how we show up in relationships, how we love, and how we heal. There’s something profoundly hopeful in that realization: the more we bring awareness to these internal landscapes, the more we empower ourselves to navigate life with clarity, empathy, and intentionality.

The conversation touched on everything from the nuances of family dynamics and cultural differences to the subtle ways modern dating and attachment patterns influence our connections. What resonated most was Gina’s emphasis on nervous system awareness—a reminder that real growth isn’t just intellectual, it’s embodied. Paying attention to how we feel in our bodies can open doors to healthier relationships, both with ourselves and others.

I left this discussion with a sense of possibility. Growth means showing up, noticing patterns, and choosing connection over avoidance. In a world that often feels rushed and fragmented, moments like this are invitations to pause, reflect, and lean into the deeper work of understanding ourselves.

If you’re curious to explore these ideas further, I highly recommend checking out the resource links below to deepen your understanding. This conversation left me with a renewed sense of hope: the journey inward may be challenging, but it’s also the path to deeper connection, authenticity, and personal growth. It’s an invitation I’m grateful to accept—and I hope it inspires you to explore your own inner landscapes, too.

Links to Explore:

• Work with Gina (Maryland): ginakiem-goldcounsel.com

• Work with Helen (California): sincerepractice.com

• Learn more about Polyvagal Theory: polyvagalinstitute.org

• Family Constellation Therapy: https://www.brooklynsomatictherapy.com/blog/understanding-family-constellations-a-path-to-deep-healing

Key Moments from the Conversation:

• 00:00 Understanding the Mission: Sincere Practice

• 11:21 Living Inside the Body vs. Being Aware of It

• 22:12 Navigating Family Dynamics and Ancestral Influence

• 32:54 Navigating Personal Experiences in Therapy

• 37:53 The Importance of Nervous System Awareness

• 45:05 Cultural Differences in Love and Money

• 56:09 Patterns in Relationships and Attachment Styles

• 01:02:27 The Impact of Modern Dating on Relationships

• 01:08:20 Building Trust and Safety in Long-Term Relationships

• 01:14:57 Understanding Change and Expansion in Relationships

• 01:20:54 The Role of Boundaries and Authenticity in Relationships

There are moments in life that feel almost cinematic—quiet but irreversible. A single conversation shifts your trajectory. A door opens where there wasn’t one before. For me, that moment came in the form of a good friend.

He was my Young Life leader, Nelson—a friend from a Christian youth group who had walked with me through some formative years. One afternoon, he did something that, at the time, felt radical: he shared his own journey to therapy.

He didn’t frame it as failure. He didn’t whisper it like a confession.
He spoke about it as growth.

Up until then, therapy felt distant—like something other people did. People with different problems. Different backgrounds. Different access.

But hearing someone I respected speak openly about sitting in that chair made something click. It quietly dismantled the unspoken narrative I had absorbed: that faith meant handling your struggles privately, that strength meant endurance, that asking for help was somehow a spiritual deficiency.

So I went.

The services were low-fee—accessible enough for an 18-year-old with limited means. That accessibility mattered. Without it, I might have waited years. And those early years are tender ones. The beliefs you form about yourself during that season can calcify if they go unchallenged.

Therapy became the space where I began untangling the quiet narratives I had internalized.

I unpacked the internalized racism I carried about my hair and my face while attending an overwhelmingly white college. I began to see how invisibly heavy it had been to move through classrooms and social spaces feeling both hypervisible and unseen. Therapy gave language to that tension.

It also gave me permission to reimagine faith.

I learned that faith and therapy are not opposites. They are not competitors. One does not cancel the other out. In fact, for me, faith became sturdier when it was no longer required to carry everything alone. Trusting God and seeking help were not contradictions. They were companions.

Most importantly, therapy introduced me to the power of true acceptance.
Healing took a while. It was a slow, steady work of integrating all the parts of myself—my cultural identity, my questions, my grief, my ambition, my doubt—into something whole.

I didn’t know it then, sitting nervously in that office, that those sessions would eventually shape my vocation. I only knew that I felt less alone.

Years later, when I became a licensed clinician, I carried that 18-year-old version of myself into the room with me. The one who needed affordable care. The one who needed someone to name internalized racism. The one who needed to hear that faith and mental health could coexist. The one who needed unconditional acceptance before she could offer it to herself.

Therapists are not born immune to struggle. Many of us were first transformed by the very process we now facilitate.

And if you’re reading this wondering whether you’re “allowed” to need help—whether faith, culture, pride, or fear are whispering that you should handle it alone—consider this your permission.

Sometimes the most faithful, courageous thing you can do is sit down on the couch and begin.

It was not impulsive. It was not fueled by ambition. In many ways, it felt like a loss. A letting go of structure, predictability, and a certain kind of safety. Yet in hindsight, I see it was less a career move and more an act of trust.

And trust, I’m learning, is rarely dramatic. It is quiet surrender.

The Illusion of Stability

For much of my life, I believed stability was something you could construct — through wise decisions, careful planning, and responsible stewardship. A steady paycheck. Clear expectations. Measurable progress.

None of those things are wrong. They are gifts.

But they can slowly become functional saviors.

When I began sensing a call toward private practice, what unsettled me was not the workload — it was the exposure. Without institutional backing, I would have no one to hide behind. My gifts would be visible. My limitations would be visible too.

And that is what we fear most: being seen without a safety net.

In these moments, I was surprised by the comfort of Scripture, that true security has never been rooted in systems. It has always been rooted in the faithfulness of God. Leaving was not a rejection of wisdom. It was a confrontation with where I had misplaced my trust.

What My Husband’s Entrepreneurship Taught Me About Faith

My husband has worked for himself for years. I have watched him walk into uncertainty with a steadiness that both comforted and unsettled me.

Owning your own business has no guarantees. No guaranteed salary. No predictable rhythm. Yet he works diligently and rests confidently, not because outcomes are certain, but because God is.

He once told me, “Provision has always followed obedience.” He does not mean prosperity. He means presence.

In seasons when income was lean, we were sustained. In seasons when it flourished, we were reminded not to cling. Through it all, I saw something I had been slow to learn: faith is not the absence of planning. It is the refusal to anchor your heart in the plan.

When I left my job, I was not stepping into recklessness. I was stepping into dependence.

The Pivot Toward the Heart

For years, my work centered around creative women building meaningful work. That calling was good. But beneath nearly every professional question was a relational one.

“How do I scale?” often meant, “Why do I feel alone in this?”
“How do I clarify my brand?” often meant, “Who am I now?”
“How do I manage my time?” often meant, “Why am I so overwhelmed and unseen?”

So my work began to shift. Less focus on output. More attention to the heart.

Less emphasis on visibility.
More emphasis on intimacy — with God, with spouses, with self.

Because the condition of our relationships inevitably shapes the fruit of our work.

You cannot build a peaceful business from an anxious heart.
You cannot cultivate deep creativity while neglecting deep communion.
You cannot sustain external growth while internal fractures widen.

Leaving my job created space to attend to these deeper realities — in my clients, and in myself.

The Deeper Invitation

Looking back, I see that God was not merely redirecting my career. He was reordering my loves.

He was asking:

• Where does your security truly rest?

• What happens when your competence fails?

• Who are you when the titles fall away?

These are unsettling questions. But they are kind ones.

Because every false foundation, no matter how respectable, will eventually crack under the weight of real life — postpartum bodies, strained marriages, uncertain finances, unmet expectations.

Grace meets us not in our polished competence, but in our admitted need.

If you are standing at a threshold — whether vocational, relational, or spiritual — perhaps the question is not, “Is this safe?” but “Is this faithful?”

The Christian life has never been about constructing invulnerability. It has always been about trusting the One who holds us when what we built gives way.

Leaving my job was not the boldest thing I have done.

It was simply the next act of trust.

And so far, grace has met me there.

Then, during a conversation with the designer and artist Jessie Kate Bui, I realized something quieter and more unsettling: stories are not just what we tell. They are what we inhabit.

They decide what feels possible long before choice enters the room.

Jessie and I were speaking about creativity, though it quickly became clear we were talking about something broader—how people, particularly high-functioning ones, organize their lives around narratives they rarely examine. Narratives that once protected them. Narratives that now confine them.

“I don’t think people are afraid of change,” Jessie said at one point. “I think they’re afraid of leaving the story that kept them safe.”

The Architecture of “Story”

Long before psychology named defense mechanisms or attachment styles, cultures understood something fundamental: human beings make sense of upheaval through story.

Joseph Campbell famously traced this impulse across civilizations in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, identifying a recurring pattern of departure, ordeal, and return. Variations of that arc appear everywhere—from ancient myths to modern cinema, from Tolkien’s epic worlds to the compressed storytelling logic of contemporary television.

These structures weren’t designed to entertain. They were designed to orient.

But orientation has a cost.

When a story works—when it helps someone survive loss, instability, or pressure—it doesn’t politely step aside once the danger has passed. It settles in. It becomes identity.

In therapy, I often hear versions of the same sentence: “I know what I should do. I just can’t seem to do it.”

That gap, Jessie suggested, isn’t a failure of insight. It’s a failure of distance.

The Problem With Understanding Yourself

Modern self-knowledge is abundant. Personality systems, diagnostic language, quizzes that promise clarity in ten minutes or less. They are useful tools—mirrors, really—but mirrors don’t move you out of the room you’re standing in.

“You can understand your patterns perfectly,” Jessie told me, “and still be living inside them.”

Jessie Kate Bui is a Los Angeles–based designer whose career spans education, visual storytelling, and entrepreneurship. A former Arts Center instructor, she has spent years mentoring emerging artists while building an independent design practice rooted in narrative and symbolism. Her work—ranging from illustration and conceptual design to creative direction—has been featured in professional portfolios such as ArtStation and profiled by VoyageLA, reflecting a career shaped as much by teaching and mentorship as by making.

Distance as a Form of Safety

Rather than asking people to confront their stories head-on, Jessie invites them to step sideways - a method she calls the “Parallax Framework”

Free Download - Parallax Framework by Jessie Kate Bui

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4 step-framework creatives can use to take space from their anxious/people-pleasing narrative & live from a more helpful story or framework

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She begins with identification—key moments, recurring roles, the beliefs that quietly organize behavior. But instead of lingering there, she encourages a turn toward metaphor. Fiction. World-building.

The move sounds abstract until you see it work.

By translating lived experience into symbolic form, people create distance without denial. The nervous system relaxes. Defensiveness softens. Curiosity returns.

This is why art, historically, has functioned as a kind of communal medicine. Temples, theaters, studios—these were not luxuries. They were spaces where identity could be tried on and taken off without consequence.

Jessie’s method, in many ways, feels like a private version of that ancient technology

Here’s the distilled version, through the lens of how it actually showed up in our conversation:

1. Find Your Story

Before you change anything, you notice what’s already running.

• key story moments

• the archetype you default to

• the “lie” that once kept you safe

• Not lies as failures—but as adaptations.

This is where people start realizing they didn’t lose their preferences. They just learned to override them.

2. Fictionalize Your Story

Instead of trying to “fix” your story, Jessie invites distance:

• metaphor

• world-building

• characters

3. Rewrite Your Narrative

You don’t rewrite a narrative with affirmations. You rewrite it with environment and ritual.

Your space.
Your routines.
Your creative practices.

If your life structure still supports the old story, the new one won’t last.

4. Burn the Script

Burning the script means:

• freeing preferences

• expanding options

• choosing consciously

It’s the shift from performing a story to authoring one.

Letting the Story End

Burning the script does not mean erasing the past or rejecting the self that survived it. It means loosening allegiance. Allowing preference, choice, and uncertainty back into the picture.

It is less dramatic than it sounds. Often, it looks like small freedoms—rest without justification, creativity without output, decisions that don’t need to make sense to anyone else.

As our conversation ended, I found myself thinking about how often coherence is mistaken for truth. How easily capability becomes confinement. How rarely we question the stories that are no longer actively harming us, but quietly limiting us all the same.

Stories, after all, are powerful things.

And power, once it has done its job, deserves to be renegotiated.

Why This Matters (Especially If You’re “Doing Fine”)

As a therapist, I hear versions of this weekly:

“I know what I should do. I just can’t seem to do it.”

That sentence is almost never about motivation.

It’s about permission.

Jessie’s framework explains something many people feel but can’t name:
If the story you’re living inside doesn’t allow for change, your nervous system will resist it—no matter how much insight you have.

This is why creativity isn’t extra.
It’s how people renegotiate identity without threat.

What I’m Personally Taking Forward

After this conversation, I noticed a subtle shift in how I’ve been asking questions.

Less: What should I optimize?
More: What story am I reinforcing by default?

Less: What’s the right next move?
More: What options have I quietly ruled out?

Closing Thought

if you’re feeling restless, constrained, or oddly bored inside a life that “works”—that’s usually not a problem.

It’s an invitation to step back, change the angle, and remember that authorship is still available to you.

—

Referenced moments from the conversation include:

• Story, Myth, and Narrative Structure

  • J. R. R. Tolkien on World-Building
    Essays and letters outlining Tolkien’s philosophy of sub-creation and myth-making, especially On Fairy-Stories, which explores how imagined worlds create psychological coherence.
    https://onthecobblestoneroad.com/fantasy-worldbuilding/

  • Dan Harmon’s Story Circle
    A modern, simplified narrative model based on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, widely used in contemporary television and screenwriting.
    https://reedsy.com/blog/guide/story-structure/dan-harmon-story-circle/

  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
    A foundational text tracing recurring mythic structures across cultures, introducing the concept of the Hero’s Journey.

    • http://www.rosenfels.org/Joseph%20Campbell%20-%20The%20Hero%20With%20A%20Thousand%20Faces,%20Commemorative%20Edition%20%282004%29.pdf

• Trauma and Therapeutic Modalities

  • EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
    A trauma-focused therapy that helps individuals reprocess distressing memories by engaging bilateral stimulation.
    https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

  • Overview of Major Therapeutic Modalities
    A comparative breakdown of approaches including CBT, psychodynamic therapy, somatic therapies, narrative therapy, and more.
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy/therapy-types-and-modalities

• Personality and Identity Frameworks

  • The Enneagram
    A personality system describing nine core strategies for coping with fear and desire, often used as a reflective tool in therapy and spiritual formation.
    https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/what-is-the-enneagram/

Yet in therapeutic contexts, these same qualities sometimes appear alongside chronic fatigue, emotional constriction, and a persistent difficulty receiving support. The question, then, is not whether strength is valuable—but what function it is serving.

Strength as Adaptation, Not Identity

From a developmental perspective, behaviors that appear as traits in adulthood often originate as adaptations in childhood. When a child grows up in an environment where emotional needs are inconsistently met—whether due to caregiver stress, emotional immaturity, absence, or unpredictability—the nervous system learns to minimize dependency.

This learning is not conscious. It is biological.

The implicit logic is simple and protective:

Reducing needs reduces risk.
Self-reliance increases safety.

Over time, this adaptive stance can solidify into what is commonly referred to as hyper-independence. Importantly, this is not a diagnostic category, nor is it inherently maladaptive. It reflects a system that learned to function effectively under constraint.

In many cases, this strategy leads to success. Individuals become reliable, capable, and often indispensable within their families, workplaces, and communities.

The Physiological Cost of Continuous Self-Reliance

While hyper-independence is frequently rewarded externally, it carries a less visible internal cost.

From the standpoint of neurobiology, sustained self-reliance often coincides with prolonged sympathetic nervous system activation. This state is typically associated with the fight response, though in high-functioning populations it may not manifest as overt aggression.

Instead, it appears as:

• Persistent problem-solving

• Difficulty tolerating uncertainty

• A strong urge to act, fix, or manage

• Discomfort with rest or dependence

The body remains in a state of mobilization—prepared to respond, anticipate, and contain.

Over time, this can contribute to elevated cortisol levels, muscular tension, sleep disruption, and emotional fatigue. Subtle signals often emerge: irritability, resentment when additional demands arise, or a sense of depletion that does not resolve with typical forms of rest.

These are not character flaws. They are indicators of a system operating near its limits.

The Paradox of Armor

Hyper-independence can be understood as a form of psychological armor. Armor protects. It enables survival. It allows functioning under pressure.

But armor also limits range of motion.

When the nervous system remains oriented toward self-containment, opportunities for co-regulation—being supported, soothed, or assisted by others—are reduced. Even in the presence of safe and willing relationships, the system may not register support as accessible or trustworthy.

As a result, individuals may feel isolated despite being highly connected, or exhausted despite being successful.

Reframing Receiving

In clinical work, the task is not to dismantle strength, nor to encourage dependency. Rather, it is to expand capacity.

Receiving support can be conceptualized not as a loss of autonomy, but as a skill—one that requires gradual exposure and nervous system recalibration. Small, low-stakes experiences of receiving allow the body to test a new hypothesis:

Support does not automatically lead to loss of control.
Need does not inherently result in danger.

This process is incremental. It often begins with noticing opportunities to pause before self-initiating, allowing space for shared effort, or offering honest responses to relational bids.

Over time, these moments can help the nervous system update its expectations.

From Adaptation to Choice

Strength developed under necessity is not something to discard. It is evidence of resilience and intelligence.

The work, instead, is to transform strength from a compulsory strategy into a choice.

When self-reliance is no longer the sole means of safety, individuals gain access to a broader range of responses—rest, collaboration, vulnerability, and expansion.

In this sense, the movement is not from weakness to strength, but from survival to flexibility.

And flexibility, in both psychological and biological terms, is one of the clearest markers of health.

Unlearning Practice: Introducing Choice into Self-Reliance

The goal of this practice is not to reduce competence or increase dependency. Rather, it is to introduce choice where self-reliance has become automatic.

This practice works at the level of the nervous system, not willpower.

Step 1: Notice the Impulse

Once per day, notice a moment when you feel the urge to immediately handle something yourself—solve, fix, respond, or take over.

There is no need to change the behavior yet. Simply note the impulse as information.

You might silently name it:
“I want to fix this myself”

Step 2: Pause Briefly

If the situation allows, pause for approximately 30–60 seconds before acting.

During this pause, bring attention to the body:

• Is there tension in the jaw, shoulders, or abdomen?

• Is the breath shallow or held?

The purpose is not relaxation, but awareness.

Step 3: Introduce a Small Alternative

Ask one neutral, low-stakes question:

• Is there support available here?

• Would shared effort change the outcome?

• What would it be like to not be the only container for this?

If asking for help feels too activating, the alternative may simply be allowing help that is already being offered.

Step 4: Observe the Outcome

After the moment passes, note the result:

• Did safety decrease, stay the same, or increase?

• Did control collapse—or remain intact?

• What did the body learn from this experience?

No judgment is required. Observation is sufficient.

Why This Matters

Repeated, small experiences of shared effort help the nervous system update its internal model of safety. Over time, strength becomes less of a requirement and more of a resource—something accessible without constant activation.

The aim is not to stop being capable.

It is to discover that capacity expands when it is not carried alone.

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Til next week - Helen!

They believe they are afraid of failure.

But if we listen to the body —
not the story —
we often find something else.

A reaction to success itself.

1. When Things Go Well

Notice what happens when life opens a door.

The client says yes.
The date flows.
The money lands.
The idea works.

And instead of relief, something tightens.

An urge to withdraw.
A sudden irritability.
A spiral that seems to arrive out of nowhere.

This is not a mindset flaw.
It is not a lack of gratitude.

It is your nervous system doing its job.

Pause here

You don’t need to answer perfectly.

Just notice.

• When something good happens in your life, what tends to follow?

• Do you feel energized, uneasy, distracted, or suddenly self-critical?

• What do you usually do right after a win?

No fixing.
Just observation.

2. The Nervous System’s Thermostat

In somatic psychology, we talk about the Window of Tolerance.

Author Gay Hendricks describes a related pattern called the Upper Limit Problem.

An image helps here.

Think of your nervous system like a thermostat.

If your internal setting is calibrated to struggle, effort, or just getting by, that becomes your baseline for safety.
Not because it feels good — but because it is known.

So when something genuinely good happens, the internal temperature rises.

Joy.
Visibility.
Expansion.

And the body responds with a quiet alarm:

This is unfamiliar. This might be unsafe.

The system attempts to bring you back down to what it recognizes.

That “cooling” often looks like self-sabotage.

Pause again

Stay curious.

• What feels most familiar to your body: ease or effort?

• When things slow down or stabilize, do you relax — or get restless?

• What level of “aliveness” feels tolerable before you brace?

3. Why Excitement Can Feel Like Fear

To the amygdala — the part of the brain scanning for danger —
excitement and fear are nearly indistinguishable.

Both involve:

• increased heart rate

• heightened sensation

• shallow breath

• alertness

If you grew up in chaos, stress, or emotional unpredictability, your body learned something important:

Intensity meant something was about to go wrong.

So when a big win arrives, your body may not celebrate.

It prepares.

Not because you are broken —
but because your nervous system is protective.

A gentle check-in

Let this be simple.

• How does your body respond to intensity, even positive intensity?

• When you feel excited, do you also feel the urge to brace or scan?

• What happens to your breath when something good approaches?

The Visibility Question

For many women, there is another layer beneath this.

Visibility.

For most of human history, safety meant belonging.
Standing out — having more, being seen, taking up space — could threaten attachment.

That memory still lives in the body.

So as success grows, a quiet question may surface:

If I get bigger… will I still belong?

Will I be loved?
Will I be resented?
Will I be alone?

Without conscious awareness, we sometimes shrink ourselves back to the size of our environment — not because we lack desire, but because connection feels essential.

Sit with this gently

No conclusions required.

• What did “standing out” mean in your family or community?

• Who were you allowed to be — and who were you not?

• When you imagine being fully visible, what emotions arise first?

The Practice of Titration

This work is not about pushing past fear.

It is about expanding capacity.

In somatic work, we use a principle called titration — adding intensity slowly, in manageable amounts.

Like warming a cold glass, drop by drop.

Try this now:

1. Bring to mind a small recent win — something genuinely good but not overwhelming.

2. Notice where your body registers that goodness. Warmth, softness, expansion.

3. Stay with that sensation for 10 seconds.

4. If you feel the urge to deflect, minimize, or pull away — pause. Breathe. Return gently.

This is how the nervous system learns.

Not through force.
Through repetition.

After the practice

Reflect quietly.

• What was hardest about staying with the good?

• Did any protective impulses arise?

• What did your body need in order to stay present?

A Closing Truth

You do not need to break through anything.

You do not need to override your fear.

Your body is not resisting success —
it is asking for safety as you expand.

It is safe to feel good.
It is safe to be seen.
It is safe to be big.

And that safety is built slowly, patiently, one sensation at a time.

If this resonated, you may want to explore the next piece where we talk about the False Self — and why it often activates right when life starts to open.

You’re not behind.

You’re learning how to hold more.

If you’d like, to go deeper - grab these resources:

→ FREE Resources (Calm Reset + tools):
https://www.sincerepractice.com/free

→ Sincere Reset (9-week support + teaching group):
https://www.sincerepractice.com/reset

→ Trauma-Informed Therapy (Los Angeles + Online):
https://www.sincerepractice.com/therapy

• 🧠 Why productivity can become a stress or trauma response

• 🧠 How chronic overdrive impacts mental health and clarity

• 🧠 Why slowing down actually increases focus, capacity, and performance

• 🧠 How embodiment and movement support nervous system regulation

• 🧠 What sustainable growth really looks like for high achieversIf you feel like you can’t stop — even when you’re burned out — this conversation will help you understand why, and where to begin.

👇 Stop forcing. Start listening.🌿 Support & Resources — Helen Garcia (The Sincere Practice)

• Website:https://www.sincerepractice.com

• Free 2-Minute Calm Reset (nervous system relief):https://www.sincerepractice.com/free-calm-reset

• Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/thehelengarcia/

• LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thehelengarcia/🦁

Movement & Embodiment — Lauren DeVera (The Lion’s Den)

• Lauren DeVera:https://www.lauren-devera.com

• The Lion’s Den Classes & Community:https://www.lauren-devera.com/tldschedule

• Instagram — Lauren DeVera:https://www.instagram.com/thelaurendevera/

• Instagram — The Lion’s Den:https://www.instagram.com/thelionsdendmv/

• Lauren + Helen Interview  @yellowchaircollective  : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqeu5knYKF0

• Why “trying harder” often keeps you stuck

• How outsourcing self-trust delays your life

• The subtle ways productivity can become emotional avoidance

• Why calm can feel unsettling when intensity has been your baseline

• How protective roles shape identity—and limit growth

• What actually creates lasting emotional change

• Where am I waiting for permission I may never receive?

• What emotion might I have to feel if I truly went after what I want?

• Which protective role am I afraid to loosen?

• What would it feel like to let calm be unfamiliar, not wrong?

If you’ve ever felt close to what you want—but unable to reach it—this conversation is for you.Reflection questions to sit with:Resources & SupportLearn more or explore support at https://www.sincerepractice.com

If this episode resonated, consider sharing it with someone who might need it—and take a moment to leave a review. It helps this work reach the people it’s meant for. Thank you for being here.

We dive deep into the "sincere practice" of maintaining a multi-hyphenate identity in a world that pressures us to simplify ourselves. Whether you are navigating a career change, balancing multiple passions, or looking for inspiration on how to be your most authentic self, Xochitl’s journey offers a masterclass in living without limits.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Journey

00:55 The Intersection of Music and Journalism

02:45 Cultural Identity and Storytelling

03:36 Navigating Career Choices and Faith

05:26 The Pressure of Perfectionism

07:38 The Political Landscape and Personal Identity

10:23 Embracing Multiculturalism in Art

13:07 The Importance of Representation

15:55 Understanding the Political Nature of Identity

18:40 The Emotional Toll of Performance

21:30 Lessons from Live Performance

25:00 The Pursuit of Perfection in Performance

29:05 Navigating Perfectionism and Self-Compassion

31:27 Faith as a Foundation in the Face of Challenges

36:10 Understanding Calling vs. Job

41:44 Embracing Multi-Hyphenate Identities

46:00 Confronting Conformity and Embracing Authenticity

Follow Xochitl’s journey:

Website: xochitlshernandez.com

Instagram: @xochimilcatv