Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Happy Stack Podcast, where we explore the science and strategies behind creating a happier, more fulfilling life. I'm Teriann Richards and I partner with organizations to address the root causes of burnout, disengagement, and stress, equipping leaders and teams with the tools they need to thrive, both organizationally and personally. Each episode, we dive into practical habits, insights, and strategies to help high performers like you level up from the inside out. Let's get stacking.
[00:00:34] Welcome back to the Happy Stack Podcast. I'm your host, Teriann Richards, and I'm going to start with something unpopular.
[00:00:40] Most conversations about healing assume you stop your life to do it.
[00:00:46] You know, you take some pause off the job, you take a sabbatical, you focus on yourself, right? But that's not how most people live. Most of us don't have that ability. Most of us are still leading teams and raising kids and building businesses and paying mortgages while quietly trying to heal old patterns, heal our nervous system, and update and find congruency with our identities that were built under chaos and pressure.
[00:01:20] And no one talks about that version of healing.
[00:01:24] Here's the paradox. To me, healing doesn't require you to stop.
[00:01:29] It doesn't require you to stop performing. But performing without changing how you perform will block healing every single time.
[00:01:39] I honestly believe that's what people are missing, right. I feel like each and every single one of us has work to do, and I don't think that journey is ever really done right.
[00:01:50] The problem isn't that you're still ambitious. The problem is how ambition has been wired in your body. And I know for me and for anyone who's followed me for any length of time understands that a lot of my earlier years, that ambition, that drive to be worthy, to be seen, to be valued, it came from a space of not feeling worthy, not feeling valued, not feeling seen.
[00:02:23] Because of the chaos and the trauma that I had experienced as a child, that was my coping mechanism, was actually like hyper ambition.
[00:02:31] And so ambition isn't the problem.
[00:02:34] It's how ambition has been wired in our nervous system, in our bodies. I feel for many high performers, success was never neutral. It was never this norm. It was like a survival, right? Like your nervous system learned. If I produce, I'm safe. If I achieve, I belong. If I don't slow down, I don't. I don't need to feel right.
[00:02:59] And that wiring works. It worked in my 20s. It worked actually for quite a long time. I grew some really successful businesses while living in that peak space.
[00:03:10] But it works until it doesn't. And so here's what the data shows.
[00:03:14] Chronic stress doesn't just make you tired, it shrinks your cognitive flexibility. It increases emotional reactivity. So like you're just biting people's heads off, lowers your capacity for empathy and it affects your long term decision making.
[00:03:31] And why am I saying chronic stress and not burnout? Because chronic stress is what's here, right? It's that compound effect of not doing the work, not healing from what's before and chasing whatever it is you're chasing. And each of us have a different thing that we chase. And for some of us, and I'm speaking to that group right now, ambition is the coping mechanism, right? And so when you don't heal and you do, you start to compound, right? If I produce, I'm safe. If I achieve, I belong. If I just do the thing, if I stay busy enough, I won't have to deal with this thing that I feel inside. But over time, you know, and the book the Body Keeps Score is perfect for this. Over time, whether you like it or not, whether you even know it or not, that stress starts to compound.
[00:04:23] And there's studies on allostatic load, which is the cumulative burden of stress. It shows that people who stay in constant on mode burn through emotional regulation faster, even if they appear highly functional. Let me say this again. It's that compound. It's the cumulative burden of stress. It's not like a wham bam, right? Like it's not this big overarching, huge catastrophe. It's all the little things that you don't deal with that accumulate over time and you stay in that constant on mode. You never heal, you never fix, you never regulate.
[00:05:03] It starts to burn through your emotional regulation faster, even if on the outside you look great. So what am I translating this to?
[00:05:12] You can look fine, you can perform well, and you can still be eroding on the inside.
[00:05:19] Healing while performing, healing while doing the thing you do on a day to day basis means you need to learn a new skill.
[00:05:29] Staying regulated while you're in motion, right?
[00:05:33] Not escaping your life, not numbing your ambition, because I'm still ambitious, y'. All. But changing the relationship you have with that pressure. Here's the truth.
[00:05:43] Healing is not about feeling calm all the time. It's not that for sure. It's about learning to recover faster.
[00:05:51] Resilient nervous systems aren't calm, they're flexible like bamboo. They bend, they don't break.
[00:05:59] So what does that look like practically, right? It looks like micro interruptions. Like we're not talking about massive life overhauls. That's not a game that I play in. Because the habit science is really clear here.
[00:06:14] Tiny repeatable shifts will change your identity faster than the big dramatic resets. James, Clear atomic habits. Great book speaks to this. It's the small shift, it's the 1% better. It's the doing the tiny micro movements that will change you internally to externally better, faster than anything big and dramatic would ever do.
[00:06:41] And so here are three things that actually work. First, we need to shorten your stress cycle.
[00:06:49] Most people do not burn out from stress. They burn out because stress never completes, right? You push, you perform, you move on without resolution.
[00:07:06] A completed stress cycle can be as simple as you push, you perform.
[00:07:14] You take a 10 minute walk, you shake the tension out of your body, you do some box breathing, some slow exhale breathing.
[00:07:24] Maybe you pick up a journal, you write out what you're carrying instead of holding it up here. Cognitively, I'm not into woo y'. All. Like, that's not my thing. This is biology, this is science.
[00:07:36] Second, you need to decouple worth from output. You are not worthy because you do a thing.
[00:07:42] And honestly, even when I say it, I still get a little bit of an ick in my stomach. And I know, like logically, every single one of you are listening, going, yeah, of course, like my worth is not attached to my title or my business growth or da da da da, but we still attach ourselves to it, even if we do it subconsciously.
[00:07:58] So what we need to do is stop avoiding it and ask ourselves, if my output dropped by 20% this week, would you still respect yourself?
[00:08:11] Like, if my output dropped by 20% this week, would I still respect me?
[00:08:16] And again, you listening to me say that you're going, yeah, of course. But I want you to say it to yourself. What are the things that you put pressure on yourself for on a weekly basis, whatever that is. Because we all have our own little pressure systems that we put. If you didn't do it this week, if you dropped by 20%, 30%, would you still be okay with you?
[00:08:34] And if the answer is no, the healing hasn't started yet. Because healing requires safe spaces, psychological safety internally, and safety can exist where worth is conditional.
[00:08:48] And then third, change how you talk to yourself under pressure. Oh, this is a tough one. This is not positive self talk. This is accurate self talk, right? So instead of saying, I should be able to handle this, I hate, I hate when we should on ourselves, stop shooting on yourself, stop shooting on anybody, no more shoulding all right, try.
[00:09:08] This is hard, and I'm allowed to meet it without punishing myself.
[00:09:12] Like, this is tough and it's gonna be okay. And, you know, I'll figure this out.
[00:09:19] Not, I should be able to handle this.
[00:09:22] That one shift literally lowers your cortisol levels and increases your capacity to persist.
[00:09:32] So this isn't about teaching you to be soft. I'm not soft. I'm tough as nails. I'm still hyper ambitious. I still go after the things. But I have learned, I've comprehended that certain things aren't sustainable long term. And if you want to be both, like, successful and happy and thriving and fulfilled, all of these things underneath are the foundation.
[00:09:55] How you talk to yourself, how you heal your body, how you complete the stress cycle, all matters, right?
[00:10:03] Healing while performing is not soft. It's advanced. And the people, that's you, who learn to do this, they're not halting everything to go heal.
[00:10:14] What they're doing is they're learning to merge their life. They finally stop fighting themselves inside themselves, right?
[00:10:23] So my challenge to you is this, and it's super simple. I need you to take a beat when stuff gets tough.
[00:10:32] And I want you to not just be like, all right, I can move through this. Push, push, push, right? Do the thing.
[00:10:37] I want you to finish the cycle. I want you to do something that allows your body to know. Have you ever seen when a dog's, like, super excited or super stressed, they do like a shake afterwards? That is a dog shaking the tension out of their body. Animals understand this. We as humans think, I don't know, that's silly or weak or I don't have time for it. I'm not asking you to go to the gym for 45 minutes. I'm asking you for a 10 to 15 minute walk. You do that, you start releasing what they call hope molecules. You're allowing those beautiful stress releasing hormones to start building in your body and great things happen. I'm asking you to sit in your chair, sit on your couch, sit in your bed, and do some deep breathing.
[00:11:21] I'm asking you to pick up your phone and write out what you're carrying instead of keeping it inside or journaling it out with a paper and a pen, which is, you know, ideal. But we're not trying to complicate your life. We're asking you to complete the stress cycle so your body gets the cue, oh, this is done now, right? You pushed, you performed. It's time to move on with a resolution. Let the body heal, right? I'm asking you to not put your worth to anything as an output. You are worthy just as you are when you woke up. I'm happy that you do the great things you do and you make the impact that you do and the world needs that, but your worth is not attached to it and I think we need to create some accurate self talk.
[00:12:05] And lastly, I want you to be the kind of person who really pays attention, right? Pays attention to the things you're putting in front of yourself that you believe is helping you but is really hindering your healing.
[00:12:25] You are worthy. You are someone who is able to do all the great things you do and you also have the capacity and the ability to do healing along that journey.
[00:12:39] Listen, if this resonated with you, I want you to pass it along. If it didn't resonate with you, hey, hit me up and tell me why. If you got something to add to it, why don't you comment below? I hope you all have a great week and I will see you on the flip side.
[00:12:55] Hey, thanks for listening to the Happy Stack Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little extra happiness in their life. Let's keep stacking those wins together. See you next time.
