Leaning Back Into Support: Why You Don’t Have To Do It Alone
What if the reason you feel so exhausted isn’t because you’re “not strong enough,” but because you’ve been conditioned to believe you should do it all by yourself?
In this raw solo episode, Gervase dismantles the myth of hyper-independence and shares why leaning back—literally and metaphorically—is the medicine women need to restore balance. From nervous system regulation to generational imprints, she shows how centuries of cultural conditioning have pressured women to “do it all,” and why the real path to vitality is found in community, co-regulation, and circle.
What if the reason you feel so exhausted isn’t because you’re “not strong enough,” but because you’ve been conditioned to believe you should do it all by yourself?
In this raw solo episode, Gervase dismantles the myth of hyper-independence and shares why leaning back—literally and metaphorically—is the medicine women need to restore balance. From nervous system regulation to generational imprints, she shows how centuries of cultural conditioning have pressured women to “do it all,” and why the real path to vitality is found in community, co-regulation, and circle.
Listen to this episode to discover:
The simple embodiment practice that shifts your nervous system from overdrive to balance
Why “DIY-ing” your healing is a lie, and how we’re biologically wired for co-regulation
How patriarchy, capitalism, and colonizer mindsets created the myth of going it alone
Why being “everything to everyone” is not strength—it’s burnout
The power of circles, retreats, and sisterhood as ancient technologies for modern women
Why leaning back, receiving, and being supported is the new model of success
This episode is for you if:
You feel depleted, overextended, or like everything will collapse if you stop for a second
You’ve been taught that asking for help is weakness
You’re craving sisterhood, support, and spaces where you can be your full self
You want practical tools to regulate your nervous system and soften back into balance
Join us:
Join G in Charleston to tune into your womanly wisdom, inner knowing, and soulful sisterhood: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/chs-retreat
Mamas- it’s time to reset, resource and rise together: Mothers Rising 6 week circle begins October 15th: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/mothers-rising
Work with Gervase:
Book a Soul Shift Intensive: gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive
Free gift: Trust Yo’self hypnosis track
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Leaning Back Into Support: Why You Don’t Have To Do It Alone
Episode Full Transcript
Hi friends, welcome back to The Modern Phoenix Podcast. I am your Inner Transformation Coach, Gervase Kolmos, and I’m here to talk about community, receiving, and how our culture and internalized systems teach us that going it alone—pulling yourself up by your bootstraps—is the noble signature of success. That little story seeps into our systems, into the ways we woman, into our relationships… and the reality is a lot of our nervous systems are absolutely fried.
I have a lot I want to dig into with you today. First, let’s begin with a subtle embodiment exercise. If you’re driving, just listen and do this later. If you can, sit back in your chair, or on your bed or the floor. Pause what you’re doing for 90 seconds and close your eyes.
Bring in a curious observer. For 90 seconds, simply notice what it’s like to be you right now. Is your energy leaning forward—pushing out, giving, doing, “I’m ready to show up”? If so, that’s totally normal. Most people I work with live there. Now experiment with leaning back—literally. Let your chair support you. Allow yourself to receive the sound of my voice. Notice what shifts.
How do you know it’s different? What do you feel in your body? When we unconsciously lean forward to meet life, many of us get tense—hips coiled, neck tight. When someone cues you to lean back, you realize you can still participate and relax a little. That creates more support whether you’re listening to a podcast, showing up for work, or folding laundry.
That intelligence running through you matters. The simple act of leaning back can be the difference between fried, burnt out, depleted—or nourished and resourced, honoring the body’s “go this way” cues. I’m always curious how my body signals “I like this,” and what’s created in my system when I honor that—more balance and sustainability.
Why this today? I had a session with a client who gives a lot in her life—mom of three, always doing. There’s likely a generational imprint of energy-out: perform, push, produce. We explored her relationship with leaning back—receiving, resourcing. Simply noticing those differences and honoring her body’s cues created a huge somatic release. She was shocked by how much her body had been holding from always leaning forward—and how quickly things shifted, not just in thoughts, but in the heaviness, overwhelm, and burnout in her body.
Here’s what I want to share: the pattern of always leaning forward and never giving ourselves permission to lean back isn’t just about trauma or “the modern woman.” It also tells a story about American history and the imprints we carry—colonizer and conquistador mindsets, capitalism—whispering: “Lean forward. Achieve. Doing it alone is noble and heroic.” But that’s not how anything actually happens.
We’re part of ecosystems that support what we create. It’s like a seed insisting it made the flower happen. The flower might say, “Well, the sun warmed me, there was water, a gardener planted me, the soil was rich, and the bed was the right temperature.” That’s the human reality. Yet we’ve internalized systems—a dash of internalized white supremacy, a dash of colonizer mindset, a dash of capitalism—that have us believing the lie that one-person output equals success. The truth is a dance between doing and receiving, leaning forward and leaning back, inside an ecosystem of support and community.
Many women join coaching calls and say, “Why couldn’t I get there on my own?” or “I feel dumb that I needed help regulating.” It’s wild that we’ve bought into the lie that nervous-system regulation should be a DIY project. We are biologically wired for community, connection, and co-regulation.
So imagine a lasagna of layers: the ecosystem we’re part of, plus the inner balance of forward/leaning back. Many women have both the brainwashing that says, “DIY it. Be strong in silence. Don’t ask for help,” and the cultural demand to be everything: stay-at-home mom, homeschooling mom, chef, sex kitten, working mom… to be it ALL. I’ve felt that pressure, too. The cost is vitality and aliveness. When one woman is supposed to be the breadwinner, the nervous-system regulator, the homemaker, the relationship builder, the designer, the chef—she’s forced to lean forward 100% of the time.
What we’re building—trauma-informed and historically honest—requires leaning back into circle: other women, networks and systems of support. We have to practice the truth that our value and purpose include receiving. It’s not just normal—it’s required—to have support: a mentor or therapist, a women’s group or circle, retreats, church, girlfriends. We need sacred spaces where your weary soul can settle and answer, “How are you, really?” Not chit-chat—though fun has a place. If you don’t have a space for sisterhood and co-regulation, you’re going to burn out. Gaslighting yourself with “Why can’t I do this alone?” is just another layer of the internalized overculture: the brainwashing that pretends the ladder was climbed without anyone holding it.
This isn’t a full anti-racism deep dive—that’s a different conversation with different experts—but we have to notice the conditioning. Like with internalized capitalism, we listen for the little voice insisting this is “just how it works.” It’s bypassing the truth of what lets a flower bloom—or a woman come into full ripeness, vibrancy, aliveness. She needs a web of support—like a woman in childbirth needs midwives to lean back on. There’s nothing noble in doing it alone. If you live like that, you probably feel exhausted and terrified that if you slow down for a second, everything will collapse. You might be right—and that’s information. It wasn’t meant to be held together like this.
Patriarchy’s perfect woman does everything for everyone. Bullshit. It’s not serving us.
That client who leaned back—maybe for the first time in weeks—released a lot. A new imprint emerged in her body: “Thank you for letting that fall apart. That didn’t feel good. We weren’t our best selves. We couldn’t keep going forever. We need support. We get support.” Thank you for finding people who hold space, for learning places that give you permission and tools—even if it means prying control from your white-knuckled grip.
Women are wise. We find safe circles that teach our bodies to relax back. It’s okay to feel afraid. On the other side of even one hour of dismantling? It’s like a snake shedding its skin. A woman relaxing into her feminine, realizing she doesn’t have to be both sun and moon. She gets to be the ever-changing moon—the tides, the phases of a 28-day cycle—and the sun gets to be the sun. Both matter. They work together. That’s masculine and feminine.
(If you’re watching on Spotify or YouTube—my tattoo: a sun, a moon, and three stars for our family. When we’re optimal, my husband anchors the masculine, I anchor the feminine, and our three kids get to be the stars.)
The sun rises and sets predictably every 24 hours—just like the male hormonal cycle. The feminine changes daily—our cycles can literally sync with the moon. Masculine/feminine here isn’t about gender essentialism. The metaphor is rhythm: the moon expands and contracts; full bloom and dark rest; leaning forward and leaning back.
A modern woman needs to remember not only her magic, but the balance of her inner masculine and feminine. None of this says “masculine is bad” or that you can’t be a single parent or trans or anything else. Take what works and leave the rest. I’m speaking to the woman who’s been doing “a man and a woman’s” job for years and is exhausted. Some seasons demand more. No shame. And also: as the wise woman, you get to find the safe circles that let you be “just a woman” for a season—so your nervous system can rebalance, your patterns can unwind, and your energy can restore.
We could link to many past episodes on trauma patterns and overdoing. And this is the work I do. If you’re thinking, “I feel this and don’t know where to start,” and it’s not the time for 1:1, Mothers Rising is a six-week mother circle for $399—a space to drop in, lean back, answer “How am I really?”, and rise together. So much healing happens when women gather, mirror, and compost each other’s pain and beauty.
I also have The Phoenix Retreat in Charleston, November 6–9—an intimate, in-person space to lean back, receive, reset, and connect with women. Different price point than a six-week circle, same intention: community as medicine. We need the village.
We built suburban palaces where red tents once stood. That image hits me. Our task is to weave that predicament with progress—be real about now, and ask: where can I explore in my own body and life? How do I relate to my brainwashing and my body’s patterns, my resistance to or desire for support? How do I create “red tent” energy in my life in a way that works for me? Maybe you don’t want a literal red-tent gathering—great. There are many ways: join a circle, come to retreat, reach out. I create experiences in different flavors so women can co-regulate, collaborate, and rise together.
Practice: “What is it like to lean back and receive?” The more normal you make that in your body, the easier it becomes to ask your kids for help, ask friends for what you need, ask your partner to show up—and the more quickly life responds, because you’ve grown the garden you wish to belong to.
Another garden metaphor (they just work): you are a flower in the garden; you are the moon; you are the feminine; you are medicine. Every circle you think you’re “imposing on,” you are also part of circles that need you. It’s give and take. It’s the harmonizing of masculine/feminine, yin/yang, light/dark that creates the garden, the universe. That’s the magical world I belong to—and want for every woman.
If you feel hyper-individualism coursing through your veins, that’s okay. It’s water we drank. Now that we know better, we can do better.
I love you. Please share this episode with a woman who needs to remember her wholeness—what it’s like to lean back, receive, relax, and be her full feminine self. I’d love to hear from you on Instagram @gervasekolmos—tell me what resonated or what you want more of. See you back here in two weeks. Ciao. Bye.
Your Body Tells the Truth of Your Trauma
What if the real story of your trauma isn’t the one you keep telling yourself in your head — but the one your body has been holding all along?
In this solo episode, G shares how trauma patterns show up in our daily lives (especially as mothers, makers, and women holding it all), and why breaking cycles requires more than mindset work. Drawing on focalizing training and the wisdom of teacher Nick Werber, she will reveal how our most obvious trauma response is often how we treat our own bodies — ignoring signals, pushing past limits, or abandoning ourselves when life feels full.
This conversation weaves together personal stories (including her own rocky “back-to-school transition”), trauma-informed practices, and reminders that your body is not a machine — it’s more like a garden that needs tending. 🌱
When we stop abandoning ourselves and start listening to the body’s wisdom, we begin to re-pattern, restore, and rise.
What if the real story of your trauma isn’t the one you keep telling yourself in your head — but the one your body has been holding all along?
In this solo episode, G shares how trauma patterns show up in our daily lives (especially as mothers, makers, and women holding it all), and why breaking cycles requires more than mindset work. Drawing on focalizing training and the wisdom of teacher Nick Werber, she will reveal how our most obvious trauma response is often how we treat our own bodies — ignoring signals, pushing past limits, or abandoning ourselves when life feels full.
This conversation weaves together personal stories (including her own rocky “back-to-school transition”), trauma-informed practices, and reminders that your body is not a machine — it’s more like a garden that needs tending. 🌱
When we stop abandoning ourselves and start listening to the body’s wisdom, we begin to re-pattern, restore, and rise.
Listen to this episode to discover:
Why the most obvious trauma response is how you treat your body
The difference between the story in your head and the story your body is telling
How generational cycles and trauma show up in motherhood
What I learned from crashing hard during my “back-to-school” transition (and how I found rhythm again)
The ballerina-on-pointe metaphor: why balance is hundreds of tiny adjustments, not one rigid plan
Why your nervous system needs seasons of rest, rhythm, and renewal — just like nature
Practical ways to “resource as you go” so you don’t abandon yourself
Join us:
Join G in Charleston to tune into your womanly wisdom, inner knowing, and soulful sisterhood: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/chs-retreat
Mamas- it’s time to reset, resource and rise together: Mothers Rising 6 week circle begins October 15th: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/mothers-rising
Mentioned in this episode:
Connect with Nick Werber - nicknwerber.com
Nick Werber | Integrative Coach | Instagram: @nickwerber_
Previous episode with Nick Werber (here)
Work with Gervase:
Book a Soul Shift Intensive: gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive
Join Mothers Rising: a circle for women reclaiming their wholeness
Free gift: Trust Yo’self hypnosis track
Quotes to Share:
“The most obvious trauma response is how we treat our bodies.” – Nick Werber
“Your body is not a machine. It’s more like a tree that needs seasons of rest, rhythm, and renewal.” – Gervase
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Your Body Tells the Truth of Your Trauma
Episode Full Transcript
Hello my loves. Welcome back to another solo episode of the Modern Phoenix podcast. We're going to talk about trauma. The body holding trauma, the story beneath the story that we tell ourselves, I was so inspired recently.
I saw an Instagram post by my teacher, my focalizing teacher, Nick Werber, and I'm going to read it to you. And I'm going to relate it to my own life and I want to give this to you as food for thought. As something I'm going to think about, I know a lot of the women in my world we care about and are intentional about breaking cycles. Breaking, generational cycles, generational trauma, and yet a lot of the time I know for myself this started as a head-y idea.
I was trying to do with my thinking and not resolve through my body. And if you're new here, surprise, I'm here to tell you that my work is influenced and informed and I have been trained by a modality called focalizing, which it lands itself to somatic experiencing, it was created by Dr. Picucci, and along with the work of like Peter Levine and these pioneers in the field of trauma in the body, it taught me that the body truly does have its own story to tell. There is the story that we tell ourselves, the story that we attach to an activation response in our bodies, but then there's the body story.
There's just the trauma itself that lives in the body and I'm so infinitely curious about this. I'm so infinitely curious about how to break cycles and patterns of massive dysregulation or freeze or fight or overdoing or putting pressure on myself in a way that is sustainable trauma informed and Makes sense to me and so I'm just kind of guessing I'm just going on on a limb here and thinking maybe you're kind of into that maybe you’re into that too And I think especially in the mother space. There's so much in mother culture that tells us like you know We're gonna break generational trauma. We're gonna change the cycles passed down from our mothers. But what I notice is that there's a lot of pressure to just do things differently.
There's a lot of judgment against the women who came before us and whenever there is that pressure and that pushing that strong reaction that our body has to the way that we were raised or the way that another mother is doing things or the way that we treat ourselves in motherhood. That means that there's actually a lot of trauma that the body is holding usually right it means that you can mindset your way through you can know all the things but until we are working bottom up through the body we can actually do the things we set out to do and that's just putting ourselves setting ourselves up to fail and I don't think we're here for that. I want to share a post from my teacher, Nick Werber (linked in the show notes). It says remember the most obvious trauma response is how we treat our bodies.
Here’s part of the caption: If you're feeling tired of your story, tired of sorting through it looking for answers, tired of the rumination while not making any progress, I want to recommend focusing on something that gets right to the impact of what happened to you. How do you relate to your body? If your body was a person, how would you treat it? How do you feed it?
Do you connect with its emotions? Does it trust you? Do you have a relationship at all? I know for me that when I'm activated there's such a pull to barely eat enough.
Barely listen to it. Leave it behind. Guilty. In these moments my body is abandoned without someone to care for it.
It survives with very little and deals with the stress of that. And that pain. And that pattern, that thing I just wrote says more about my story than anything I could tell you. It is the pattern.
It is the impact. It's the story beneath the story. And so when I show up to my body and myself in a different way a cycle is broken. A pattern is undone.
Mic drop. We've had Nick Werber on the podcast. You’ll find his episode linked in the show notes. He taught me who's one of my focalizing teachers.
And I just think he has such a beautiful of articulating these big ideas and concepts that are really hard to grasp. So I just want to take this and make it tactical for a minute. I'm recording this on August 21st. So my kids went back to school last week, but it'll probably air, you know, several weeks passed August 21st.
But stay with me for a minute now. I transitioned from summer Gervase in the past few weeks. I'm going to be a little bit more active in the future. I'm going to be a little bit more active in the future.
I'm going to be a little bit more active in the to school-year, working-from-home Gervase. And the switch, the transition from, you know, leaned back, relaxed, go with the flow has no schedule to Gervase. In to has so much responsibility has a schedule has five schedules has, you know, financial responsibilities, client responsibilities, mom responsibilities, house responsibilities, Gervase, that version of me. The transition can be a little bit rocky for me. because this is always like this is my work, right?
Like the blending of these two parts of me. And I don't want to make either one of them better wrong, because I think both play a part. And I'm not here to be like, oh, Flowy leaned back to Gervase, is who I need when it's back to school season. Because the truth is it's not that she's not going to help me sign up for 52 new apps and get 26 new passwords in my super secure app that I keep them in. and respond to 5x the number of emails and get everything on the calendar for the extra curriculars.
Like I need a different part of me to show up for that. And what I notice is when I have added responsibility. I put a lot of extra pressure on myself. And the way that I do this is I just begin this process of pushing and grinning my teeth and not stopping for air, not slowing down for a drink of water. not taking care of myself, not resourcing no matter what until I crash out.
And this pattern is something that I have been sustainably and mindfully untangling for years now, especially since my focalizing training. And it has changed dramatically. And still I notice like there's still the bodies inclination to. . . hmm. They're still my inclination to tense up and put pressure on myself and control when I have added responsibilities and ignore my body.
A band in my body. Not eat well, not go for walks, not take care of myself, to not even really give a shit and to feel justified in that and to feel like, it's almost like I'm under estimating. I'm constantly under estimating how I'm under estimating. much value or how much I could get from pouring into myself. I'm constantly underestimating the value of what I fucking teach, and re-sourcing as I go.
And the switch from Summer to Vaze to Back to School of Gervase is one of my rockiest ones consistently every year of my life where I have the biggest like rubber band effect where I have like a slap in the face where I need to really catch myself and find the rhythm. Because I'm not here for like this moment of where I'm perfectly balanced all of my responsibilities and obligation and organized them on my calendar because I know that doesn't fucking work because guess what? The kids are still gonna put their shit everywhere. The backpacks are everywhere.
The kitchen is a mess. The deadlines pile up. There's always stuff I'm creating. So I'm not here to find that perfect organization or balance.
I'm here to relax into the new rhythm and to do that in a way that is sustainable. I know that I'm not here to find that perfect organization or need to notice how I am treating my body. And it is a while to me the crash that I felt several days ago I had just like a big crash like a nervous system control ultimately like force first quit a first quit it my body my nervous system because my body was like what in the actual fuck like hello. We need some water.
We need some space. We need some care. We need like a good cry. We need to release the energy.
And we need to be able to get the energy to be able to get the energy to be able to get the energy to a pressure valve which I talked about in the last episode, right? And then as soon as I noticed, oh, I'm in that pattern. And I'm a massage it a little bit. I work with it a little bit.
I'm like, okay, okay, give myself full permission and forgiveness for whatever just happened because I'm just a human alongside you, Phoenix and spiraling and learning and growing and evolving and I am not the same as three years ago. Not even close. And also, I'm a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit more than a little I know what to do next. I know how to resource in a way that's not like, how do I now put self care on the calendar?
I know how to check in with not just my inner world, but my body's signals and messages and go like, I'm here. What do you need? Oh, you need like a full day of space and rest and your mind is going to come in. You're going to show mine and tell you all the reasons why that's impractical and unrealistic and you don't get to have that.
That's your trauma story. That's your. We are very familiar with that story. We know where it comes from.
It doesn't matter. It just matters that when it's running the show, I am abandoning myself. I am ignoring my cues. I am denying myself the basic things I need.
Whether it's get up and go pee or give yourself space in a break. Because I feel like I can't trust the space. I feel like I can't trust myself to like resource just a little right because if I do that, then I'll it'll be a runaway train and I won't be able to get into this new world. them that I need for back to school to Gervase. And of course this is just a story.
This is not true. This is the trauma story. And anyway, the last few days I've really just been committed to working in the way that I know works best. One plus one equals three results.
I'm working on the potency of everything that I do. So if I'm going to move my body, I'm going to really move my body with a friend. I'm going to feel good about it. I'm not going to be in my own way.
I'm going to be in my own way. I had, I'm not gonna second guess myself. I'm not gonna doubt myself. I know that every intentional choice, I make, whether it's just sick here and record this podcast to you, or it's to lay on the couch and just Netflix, for like two hours is an intentional response to tell my body, "Hey, I hear you.
" Yeah, I notice what's going on for you. And I'm not afraid that I can't handle it. I'm not gonna clench and control and resist what I know that I need, which is consistent, sustainable pockets of space and care. And nourishment for me.
And I know that those will look different every day. And I know that I'd be a little bit clunky at the beginning as I'm finding my rhythm and that's normal. This isn't my first time around the spiral. The Phoenix spiral.
I have experience and practice, and I'm getting better and better and better. And so what used to take me three months is now taking me three days and then I'm finding the rhythm and I'm aligning with the rhythm and I'm allowing it to be a rhythm and not a strict regimented discipline and plan because I know that doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for my human design. It doesn't work for my personality and it doesn't work for my trauma history and it doesn't help me break cycles.
It doesn't help me rise out of those generational trauma patterns. And when I do this, I think that's what I do. I think that's what I do. I think that's when I resource and when I acknowledge the body and when I kind of massage it and work with both flow like summer flowy gervases, rhythm and new back to school entrepreneur working from home gervases responsibilities when I blend those together in a really fluid flexible way where I'm like honoring my nervous system as I go without you know being authoritarian yeah.
Not being super strict or rigid about it, but also not totally letting myself off the hook because I trust myself to hold the middle. Even though it's always changing. I give this example a lot. I don't know if I've said it before to you guys.
But a ballerina who is on pointe. This is an example from the book, the one thing I'm always quoting that book. He gives the example of a ballerina on pointe who's doing flex, which is like spinning on pointe on one foot is making hundreds of tiny micro adjustments on the foot that is balancing. to keep balance. It's not like to spin around in a circle.
You just pick a spot on your toe and hold it because that's not what it requires tiny micro adjustments. And my trauma pattern and my trauma story is that like no no one rigid pattern go go control control pressure pressure. Don't stop until you actually totally collapse burnout on the floor because of course it doesn't work of course it's not sustainable and of course it's coming from a really wounded. not regenerative place. It's my childhood drama, like showing itself and me trying to, you know, respond to it in a way that is immature almost.
And I don't say that in a judging way. It's just I have so much more wisdom that I've amassed from age, from experience, from maturity, from worlds around the Phoenix spiral. So now I get to do it differently. Now I get to create that rhythm and that balance, making hundreds of micro pivot as I go day to day.
I've tried to do it. I've tried to do it. I've tried to do it. I had so many things, I've integrated things at work and I know, oh, I'm in my trauma.
Oh, I'm I noticed the way that I'm relating to my body right now is an old pattern. It's a generational pattern and I understand that and I could be justified in saying like I don't have time when am I supposed to make time for myself and I could do what everybody else does and like put myself in this box and follow all these rules and be really hard on myself and. They have a lot of fear and control and Perfectionism around everything that I do, but like that's not here. That's not what I'm here to do.
That's not the life I'm here to build that's not what I am here to embody and role model for you because if I can feel into this Phoenix womaning way this Phoenix way of womaning then so can you and I want you to have it. I want you to feel it. I wanted to feel the transmission from me to you as a you know busy mom of three who just had a clunky back to school star during the home renovation, who has also, I'm like found my rhythm, right? I'm doing my fouettés y'all.
I actually was never really that good at fouettés as a dancer. That wasn't my genre of choice. It was more of hip hop gal than a Fuetai gal, but it doesn't matter. I digress.
It's possible. We have to notice all the conditioning, all the trauma, all the rules that were playing by that society gives us and go. Actually, I know where that gets me. I know that gets me crumpled on the floor.
I know that gets me joyless a shell of a person in a story about how who's got the time and it's not going to make that big of a difference if I go on a walk just to keep using that silly example. It's not going to make that much of a difference and let me tell you it will make all the difference. I heard this thing on Instagram recently like a you know a real about how these researchers did this experiment with. I'm gonna butcher it like I don't remember what kind of tree but it's like a Sequoia tree like a tree that usually grows to be a hundred years old and When it was you know, not a hundred yet like a few years old they injected it with a adrenaline or maybe it was cortisol Both things that you and I have coursing through our veins my friend and the tree died within a year and these are trees that normally last?
They lived to be a hundred years old and the hypothesis is without the season of wintering without that season to slow down and hibernate and shed and regrow the leaves to sustainably keep doing it again and again and again and again. They all died and I I heard that and I was like this is what is happening to all of us. We're just running on adrenaline and cortisol and the doing and the perfectionism and the pressure and the rules and the trauma, ignoring and abandoning the self and the body. And so we crash out.
You know, and so many women are just like me, so many women come to me that are like super successful, super high functioning that are like, I'm just kind of curious about this pattern of like go go and like, I know I'm going to crash or I have just crashed or I feel the crash is coming and like, oh my gosh, I cannot afford to crash. I literally can't afford to crash. And, you know, we can rework all of those patterns. And this is how we break cycles when we, you know, give ourselves permission and grace and space to rework this rhythm so that we have the seasons of hibernation.
So we have the summers of pleasures and the clunky back to schools and the learning and the seeing what works and seeing what doesn't, but knowing that we're here for the woman way regenerative, restorative, re-sourcing, and so on. And we have the same way. And we have the same way. And we have the as we go so we can live to be a hundred.
And also look fabulous while we do it, and feel good, and have juicy, exciting, authentic lives, right? Because we are not abandoning ourselves, or operating from a trauma story, from our eight-year-old selves, we're actually working with that part of ourselves with grace and compassion, and trauma-informed techniques, and facilitation to rise out of this. And this is what it's looked like for me very, very recently. And I just really wanted to share with you, you know, went and out, you know, as you're kind of listening to this podcast, just remember, Nick Werber's message.
The most obvious trauma response is how we treat our bodies. I'm always exploring this in myself like what, you know, am I waiting so long to pee? how long am I waiting before I go for the damn walk or take care of myself or do the things that I know feel good give myself permission and grace and space. Isn't that interesting? I wonder what it would be like if I began to rework that pattern.
In a, you know, in a no shame, no blame way, just with curiosity and excitement that I think it gets to be better than the rules that I've written. I think this matrix that I'm operating in. is actually not, I think we're losing the plot. And I don't want what I see that a lot of women have. I don't want that version of success.
I want the Phoenix way, I want the woman way, I want the way that allows room and space for my winters, and my summers, and my healing, and also for my wounds, for me to be with the wounds that are there, without bypassing or judging or shaving myself. So just a little note on trauma. I hope that that really Like micro end macro. If you ever want to go deeper on this, just reach out to me, hi, at gervasekolmos. com.
That is my email address, yes it is. And make sure if you want to begin to untangle, who you are with who you've been taught to be. Your trauma stir is from your actual authentic self. Come join a circle.
We've got mothers rising coming up here. Really, really soon. There's all these different ways to work with me this year. I'm like so lit up and excited about the year ahead and all the different ways that women can come into my world and reclaim their wholeness, their feminine, their aliveness and work through the things that have maybe been holding them back or actually pushing them forward past their comfort levels past their bodies, begging signals for rest and restoration.
So, reach out. I love you so much. I hope this resonated. Always DM me on Instagram with any questions @gervasekolmos.
Comments and please share this with another woman who needs to remember she is more than a machine. Her body is like a garden that needs tending. I know that sounds fucking cheesy, but I'm serious. You guys.
You are more in line with the tree in the forest than you are with the machine. Who's patterns you're holding yourself to. And I hope that you remember that as you go through your busy week. Do it all the things. running tiny universes and doing fouettés, on pointe.
All right, see you in two weeks. Bye.
Renovations, Motherhood & Meeting My Upper Limits on The Phoenix Spiral
What if the chaos in your life wasn’t the problem—but the pressure you pile on top of it?
In this raw and personal episode, Gervase shares the story of her unexpected home renovation, how it pushed her to the edge of her money stories and nervous system’s capacity, and the surprising lessons it taught her about money, motherhood, and meeting upper limits.
Instead of grinding harder, she discovered the power of release, metaphor, and permission—the feminine way of moving through life. Drawing from her own experiences and her work with clients, Gervase reveals how embracing the Phoenix spiral of death and rebirth can turn breakdowns into breakthroughs.
If you’ve ever felt stretched too thin, guilty for dropping the ball, or at your breaking point, this episode is your reminder that you don’t have to force your way through. There’s another way—and it begins with letting go.
What if the chaos in your life wasn’t the problem—but the pressure you pile on top of it?
In this raw and personal episode, Gervase shares the story of her unexpected home renovation, how it pushed her to the edge of her money stories and nervous system’s capacity, and the surprising lessons it taught her about money, motherhood, and meeting upper limits.
Instead of grinding harder, she discovered the power of release, metaphor, and permission—the feminine way of moving through life. Drawing from her own experiences and her work with clients, Gervase reveals how embracing the Phoenix spiral of death and rebirth can turn breakdowns into breakthroughs.
If you’ve ever felt stretched too thin, guilty for dropping the ball, or at your breaking point, this episode is your reminder that you don’t have to force your way through. There’s another way—and it begins with letting go.
Listen now to discover:
Why chaos isn’t the problem—it’s the pressure we attach to it
How nervous system capacity sets the ceiling for love, money, and abundance
The Instant Pot “pressure valve” metaphor to release tension and reclaim peace
Why dropping some of the balls you juggle is not only safe but necessary
The Phoenix spiral: why life is death & rebirth, not a straight line
How to reconnect to metaphor, archetype, and your inner world when life feels overwhelming
Permission to embrace all of you—Netflix binges, divine downloads, and everything in between
This episode is for you if:
You’re navigating a season of overwhelm and want a fresh perspective
You find yourself self-sabotaging when life or money expands
You feel like you’re always at your limit and need practical ways to soften
You crave a reminder that being human—messy, chaotic, and cyclical—is not a failure but part of the path
Work with Gervase:
Book a 90-min Soul Shift Intensive for clarity and transformation
Join Mothers Rising—a sacred circle for mothers to reset, resource and rise together
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Renovations, Motherhood & Meeting My Upper Limits on The Phoenix Spiral
Episode Full Transcript
Hello, my fellow Phoenixes. I am coming to you post-client session, where the word that was used at the end was this feeling of weightlessness. And something you may not know—well, obviously, if you've never had a session with me—is that I kind of tune into a client's field when I'm doing this work. And so I feel like I just left the spa because I was just in the vortex with this woman, feeling so deeply grounded and weightless at the same time. And it feels so good.
And it's also really interesting because I knew I wanted to record something for this episode you're about to listen to for a couple of reasons. One is to make sure that you know that a new program has launched today, the day that you are listening to this, which is Monday, September 8th. And I wanted to also, though, speak to—before I talk about this new program for mothers called Mothers Rising—I want to talk about how wild it is having a podcast, because this podcast episode was recorded in a very different energy than the energy I have right now. And I think that's what's so cool about podcasting. It's something I want to keep in my podcast as much as possible. Like, not always this “here's the template and here's the professional version with the rules of podcasting.” I really do want it to feel like me so that we just feel like we're together.
So I'm just naming that because the podcast that you're about to listen to today is fiery and fun and really powerful. And my podcast producer—hi, Laura—she actually reached out to me to be like, “Hey, I just want you to know that episode, this episode, is like super fire. I love the energy you created it with.” And I'm always like, are you sure? Like, I will record something in a different energy than this grounded, weightless energy and be like, I don't know, maybe that was too much. Maybe I should delete it. You know, it's like when people do a post on Instagram and it's like “felt cute, might delete.” And it's just wild.
So anyway, I'm coming to you now to record this to make sure you know about Mothers Rising. And the energy that you're about to, you know, dive into the vortex with me on this podcast was like: you're sitting with me, we're having a cup of coffee—probably more like a glass of wine—and we're talking about real life. We're talking about the mess. We're talking about the way through. We're talking about archetypes and metaphors. I'm bringing all the different ways that I relate to inner work in the real world into this podcast episode. I recorded it a couple of weeks ago when I was deep in the transition of back to school and starting home renovations. And so you're going to kind of get a peek into my real life in that energy.
And I think that's important, right? Because if I would just record podcasts all the time where I was like, “I am this enlightened Buddha coach on the hill”—first of all, that's not helpful. We don't need more people aspiring to that. We need people that can hold the complexity and the multidimensionality of being human, which is sometimes spicy and chaotic and real and, you know, that fire energy. And sometimes it's like this deep grounded, weightless, wise energy. And we get to have it all. We get to have both. And isn't that so fun? Isn't that the point? I want you to feel that here on the podcast.
So I guess that's as good a segue as any to make sure that you check out the Mothers Rising program. Because this is actually—as I'm thinking about it—part of the Mothers Rising program, because it is about bringing all of us to our lives and our motherhood and our womanhood. And I mean, if you just go to the show notes and just check out the details page for this program, I just feel like I wrote it from this place, just so tapped in and connected to why it matters and what is the point and why I am the woman to walk alongside you on the endless spirals of initiations and evolutions.
So go read the sales page. But in a nutshell, Mothers Rising is a six-week—what I call—a mother circle. I actually got that specific phrasing from Kimberly Johnson, who is one of my teachers, and I really love her work. She does a lot of circle work too. And as some of you know, I started coaching mothers like 10, 11 years ago, when I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I set up shop as a coach. I was a mom coach. Everything was about the journey and the transition and the initiation and the becoming a mother. And then my work expanded and evolved. Now I work with people who have not had children as well—can you even believe it?
But I was really feeling right before the summer like, I really want to run something for mothers. I want to gather the mothers because a lot of the women that I work with are mothers. What I find on some of my group coaching calls—or my Phoenix Revolution, my circle, my group coaching call for alumni—is that a lot of the mother stuff will come up, and we get into it there. But I also think there's something really nice about going to the same place every week for six weeks where there's both a circle of mothers who are going to talk about what it's like to be them—the real, honest range of their experience—whether it's hot, spicy chaos, or it's “oh my God, I feel so grounded and at home in myself and my mothering,” because that is medicine. To me, that’s the medicine that's actually missing a lot in this world—that ancient technology of women's circles that is not about fixing, not about being the smartest person in the room with the most information or the wisest things to say. It's about being you. It's about saying what is true, not what is “wise.” The alchemy and transformation that happens, the medicine that infuses a group of women when what is true is shared, is so much more powerful than “let me get my toolkit out and fix this thing about me, let me fix my experience, let me make myself some other way so that I can fit the group.” No—we have so much of that in our culture; some of it is unavoidable. And so that is why I created Mothers Rising.
You may remember that I initially thought this program was going to be something totally different. It was supposed to be called Whole Mother Rising. And for a lot of reasons, I postponed it because it was right after my Dallas crash. I was like, I cannot hold this space right now. This summer, I just was like, business needs to be on autopilot. But when I went back to it, it kept calling me back—don’t give up on this idea, don’t give up on this group of women—like I could feel their energy pulling at the corners of my consciousness. I realized it wasn't quite right. And when I think about mother work and who the women are that I call in—my soulmate clients, the ones I am here to support and help and guide and walk alongside—they are the ones who are looking for an initiated mother.
There’s something I bring to my work as a coach, mentor, and facilitator that is different than, say, a 30-year-old new mom. And when I was the 30-year-old new mom, I still helped a lot of women—there was a lot we wanted to talk about and go through. I think there’s room for everybody, but it's very important that as space holders we know: where is our space, actually? What's the thing we are uniquely qualified and gifted at doing? I was like, oh, of course—I am a gifted seer and space holder for the full range of life and motherhood initiations.
So I know, in my season of life, when I'm looking for mentors and space holders for me, I am looking for initiated women who are not younger and hotter. And there are also women who are like “don't lose yourself,” and, you know, there’s that Champagne Society version of me from five years ago—that was so enlivening. I was different then, not better or worse—just a different stage of my journey. The women I call in now are deep, deep-hearted, big feelers, really soulful, looking for initiated mothers to share space with and to facilitate the conversations they need to have so that they can continue on their Phoenix path and rise, rise, rise, rise, rise. You rise not once, not twice—like a million times. I mean, that’s literally what this podcast you’re about to listen to is about.
So if that is you, and you are looking for a circle of women—not to fix you, not to give you hacks—but to help you drop into your mother wisdom, help you see yourself clearly, connect, and find the “where are the women like me” feeling—the mothers who feel deeply, who want to reset and resource and rise in a mindful, true way—Mothers Rising is your place.
We start October 15th. All the links are in the show notes. It’s gervasekolmos.com/mothers-rising. I would love to have you with us. It’s $3.99, which is by far the most affordable way to work with me at the moment if you want to be live with me on a call where I'm holding space and facilitating. It's not going to be so much coaching as it is circle work. But if you know me, I’m going to show up and be there, so there will be a little coaching. Circle work just feels a little bit different. If you're feeling a little resonance, follow it, because you're going to love how it feels.
Some of the women in my world have been here for years and years. I really believe the reason they come back or stay is because of the group work, the sisterhood, the circle work—how powerful it is and how good it feels to actually move through, spiral up in your mother and life initiations in a metaphorical, supportive, not “fix me” way—using the connections and reflections like a mirror in a circle of women interested in the same journey, doing it alongside you, showing you there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re normal, and also here’s what’s possible. We always talk about one-plus-one-equals-three results in my world, in the Phoenix world. So yeah, if you're feeling that resonance, everything is in the show notes. I would love to have you join us. It will be magical. It will be a little bit of this and a little bit of what you're about to listen to next.
I think that's enough for that—for now. Okay, without further ado, here's a peek under the hood of what I was going through a few weeks back in motherhood, back-to-school season, life, relationships, summer, childcare—did I say renovations? I can't remember. If you resonate, if you like this episode, please let me know on Instagram at @gervasekolmos. Reach out. It's so nice to hear from you, to know that you're listening and things are landing or helping. I’m so grateful for your time and to have you in this circle. All right.
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Modern Phoenix podcast. I am your hostess, Gervase Kolmos. I’ve been thinking a lot about content creation lately, in the wake of so many changes in the coaching industry and in the world. I was listening to somebody's podcast this morning, and he was talking about having a podcast and how if our podcasts are just viral clickbait—if we're running them through a predictable assembly line like mainstream news outlets run their content—you kind of get tired of the morning news shows because you want to know what's actually happening out there. If we treat our podcast that way, which is kind of what's happening, we're losing the plot.
The whole idea of a podcast wasn't to be a huge Good Morning America platform or a talk show. It was to be one person's take—a small, grassroots movement of talking to your community about what’s real for you, what you care about; interviewing guests who aren't necessarily famous with a million followers, but who have a unique take, a point of view, a lesson—and having really interesting conversations. It's sitting with me, and I'm going to kick us off by sharing that I want today's episode to be a little more off the cuff, a little more me-to-you. Not because every episode needs to be that way, but that’s where I am today.
Whenever I sit down to record and have these conversations, I’m always thinking: what do I have to share that could enhance and offer value to somebody's day? I think about time being so precious. And I just think when you feel like you're talking to a real person, it’s nourishing. That’s what I want more of in my life. I listen to tons of content, do tons of courses—all the things, audiobooks—and I hope there are moments on the Modern Phoenix where you can come and feel like you're having a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and just having a conversation with me about what it's like to actually be a woman in modern times: wearing the hats, juggling the things, caring about what you care about, and being devoted to soul living, mindfulness, being your authentic self in a world that tells you to be any other way.
So I'm coming to you today a little raw, a little less prepared, to share what's going on in this season of my life—some lessons and what's helping me. Hopefully you can take what resonates.
I'm sitting here in my dining room, which is where I’ll be recording as long as there's not construction for the next couple months. We tried to plan this huge house renovation for June and then July; it ended up starting one week before school in August. Not earth-shattering—this is caviar problems over here—but it’s been an interesting theme in my life for multiple reasons.
A) It's been very disruptive to the natural order and routine of my life as a mom and entrepreneur, and I've realized how much I value and come back to life when I have my own space—literally time alone. That's something I didn’t have any of this summer. I’m okay with that—we’ll get into my summer in a minute—but I’m setting the stage for where I am today, sitting in my dining room. Outside, I can hear them doing construction on a shed in the backyard that we are refurbishing into a “she shed,” an office for me. Meanwhile, they're not doing construction in my house today for some reason—they’re waiting for a permit or something. The bottom half of my house and half of the top half are closed off for construction. Normally the house is filled with construction workers during the day, so I can’t work or record here.
The whole renovation has been interesting because I noticed I had a lot of stories about renovations. One: “this is something rich people do.” I'm just going to put that out there—I didn’t realize I felt that way. Investing money in a renovation felt like a huge up-level, like I was at my edge financially. Also, our nervous system can only hold so much. There’s a lot of correlation between money, romance, work, family—all the things. Your baseline determines how much you can grow or bring in—how much love, abundance, or vision you can manifest—because if your nervous system freaks out and gets dysregulated and overwhelmed when you bring in more, you will self-sabotage and shut it down. It’s unconscious. And I—ding, ding, ding—have been meeting this front and center.
Backtracking: this renovation happened because a few months ago, I was working downstairs. My husband got out of the shower at 10 p.m., and I started hearing dripping in the downstairs closet. We found a leak from the upstairs bathroom into the downstairs bedroom, opened the walls, and found mold. We couldn’t use the upstairs bathroom until we fixed it. We haven't had that bathroom for a long time. But it didn't make sense to fix the upstairs without fixing the downstairs; and it didn’t make sense to fix the downstairs without redoing the whole thing because it was done in the 1960s. So it turned into this whole thing. This whole f—ing thing.
And it’s also something I really wanted—something I dreamed of. I always said, “We’ll upgrade this and that when there’s more time and money and resources.” It sped everything up—which is interesting about being human. We make plans for how long we think things will take, like we’re little robots with calculators. Meanwhile, I know people who planned a single retirement and within ten months were married with a baby. Life works in quantum-leapy, mysterious, fast-forwarding ways.
That's what happened with my house. As soon as we figured out the downstairs renovation, we realized my office wouldn't fit down there, so I’d need an office. Oh—this vision I’ve had forever of a backyard office suddenly became “we’ve got to do it—it’s now or never.” Amidst all this came my financial ceiling of what’s possible and my nervous system feeling so dysregulated, unsafe—“How do we do this?”—freaking the f out.
It would have been fantastic for everything to line up in July, but we still couldn't figure out how to have the money to do this. What’s beautiful is that when I noticed my husband and I were spiraling—we’d already started, got the plans, the architect; we knew we needed to fix the bathrooms and the shed; there was forward momentum; I could feel the timeline collapsing—and yet, in the logical, linear, practical 3D world, the money wasn’t there. So what do you do?
This is relevant for many women I work with. They feel a version of themselves they want to become—present, calm, self-accepting, relating differently to triggers or marriage—but can’t figure out how to get there, how to regulate their nervous system. We always say: the best way out is through.
In my own dysregulation and financial freakout, I had this aha: all the creative answers to my problems lie within. Put down the calculator. Stop trying to solve it in the 3D world. Go inward. That might sound cheesy, but I’m sharing how I blend inner work and real life—and it works. It f—ing works.
Around that time—early July, right after a solo trip taking my three kids to California, then a layover in Dallas to see my sister—after that whole big, awesome trip, I was done. And I was putting pressure on myself to keep up with business, post on Instagram, do all the things entrepreneurs do to make money, be visible, make sure ideal clients can find me.
When I put two and two together—there’s so much pressure in my system: pushing, forcing, stressing, controlling, fear—I realized I’m not going to miraculously come up with $100,000 from this place. I’m not going to have the summer-of-pleasure of my mommy dreams from this place. But I believe it’s possible to have the life of my dreams, and I’m willing to do the work—in the real world and inner work.
So I did inner work and focused. I noticed all the places I was holding pressure, tension, shoulds, doubt, and unrealistic expectations. Summer is when my husband travels for work—he’s a marine biologist—out to sea for 5–10 days at a time. He was gone all summer. Normally his trips get canceled—none were canceled. He was gone back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I felt the accumulation on my nervous system and the conditioned mind that says nothing gets to give; nothing is flexible; there are no solutions; you just have to work harder, faster, smarter. If you just did more doing and controlling and planning and prepping, you wouldn't feel so dysregulated.
Anytime I'm in this, I'm like: this is bullsh—. This is my conditioned mind telling me my journey is linear, not a spiral; that forcing, pushing, being perfect, and overdoing it will get me where I want to go—when I’m here for math that doesn’t make sense. We say in my world, in my inner-circle coaching circle: one plus one equals three. When we're out there pushing, striving, performing, playing by the rules, doing everything “right” to make money or be successful or have the summer of our dreams, we're doing one-plus-one-equals-two math. It’s hollow. It never ends up feeling as good as it looks; it isn’t as satisfying; it never ends. It’s the hamster wheel—“I just have to keep it going.”
I don’t want to live that way. I did not quit my job, have three kids, and create a business out of nothing to follow the rules. I want it to feel good, be mine, be magical and flowy. And I also want to reach my potential, take steps, do actions—be responsible to my visions, dreams, creative expression.
So I did what any well-intentioned woman would do: I noticed all the places I was holding pressure and let them go—like walking around a table of Instant Pots, hitting the release valve. Release, release, release. I gave myself full permission to release all the valves. I leaned back. I stopped clutching so tight.
I use this analogy from the book The One Thing—you’re juggling balls. Some are crystal; some are rubber. The rubber balls bounce; the crystal shatter if you drop them. I asked: what are my rubber balls? Obviously Instagram—that is such a rubber ball. My work—where can I put it on maintenance mode? Of course, I’m going to show up to client sessions and obligations. But there’s a lot I do in my work that is not that. I wish it were all just showing up for calls—it is far from that. So I dropped those balls and watched them bounce. I watched my nervous system relax. I gave myself permission to have a summer of true play and pleasure—permission to just be, to enjoy my time with my kids, to do it my way. And to trust we’d find the money for this renovation, it would work out—but I’d come up with the solution from this state of mind, this nervous system state.
What do you know—two days later I’m on the beach with my husband. I finally feel relaxed. We’re talking about the finances. Waves are splashing, kids are running. I feel grateful—we’re staying on Sullivan’s Island at my cousin’s house; it’s magical. And suddenly I saw it—I saw the whole thing in my mind of how it would work. I’m not going into the details, but I did the next steps. I made the calls. I talked to my husband. It was like we had the one-plus-one-equals-three plan. We could figure out how to make the money work.
Fast-forward: here we are. I’m pretty sure we figured out the financial piece. We’re back in the swing of school and work. Work is not in maintenance mode. Here I am recording a podcast in my house mid-renovation. The kids are at school. I have to leave in 16 minutes to pick them up—like, we back out here. And I’ve been noticing my background programming—“rich people only have renovations”—and meeting that edge with softness and curiosity.
I had a client today working on something similar. She was feeling a lot of pressure. We did some somatic work. She started smiling really big. I said, “Oh, interesting—tell me about the smiling. It feels like you brought a little lightness to your intention, a little lightness to the story we came in with.” She said, “Oh yeah—I don’t need to take it quite so seriously. It’s not life and death. It’s not such a big deal that I forgot; it’s not such a big deal that I don’t know how to do this and that you’re here reminding me. It’s just holding it all a little more lightly with a smile.” Like—whew—life is a lot sometimes. Whew—I feel this program running in the background; I am at my upper limit.
Like in The Big Leap, the book by Gay Hendricks (husband of Katie Hendricks, who was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago—you have to listen to that episode if you haven’t). That’s where I first learned, 12 years ago, the concept of upper-limiting. Noticing: this renovation, this shed, this level up in my business is me meeting my upper limits. I’m sharing this to show how—whether financially or logistically, whatever sphere of life—when you meet that upper limit, when you notice you’re at your nervous system’s capacity, the top of your tolerance zone—how do we release some pressure valves and hold it more lightly? It’s not the biggest deal if you make some mistakes or it’s a little sloppy. It’s supposed to be; it gets to be. That is what it is to be human.
Every single coaching conversation I’ve ever had is a process of holding space for all of that and reminding women: A) you have magical, intuitive wisdom within you. When you relax into your inner knowing, when you regulate, soothe, resource—there is so much wisdom inside you and so much creative flow. B) It’s supposed to look like a spiral of death and rebirth. It’s not linear.
Remembering this is the next piece I want to share. Something I’m doing so much in this season, particularly this past week, is anchoring in the metaphor and archetype of my life. As most of you know, I have three kids. My youngest went to kindergarten last week. My oldest started seventh grade and is having some big-girl initiations. Wow—the threshold of this as a mother; wow—the threshold as an entrepreneur. I started my business for freedom in motherhood 12 years ago. Here I am—they’re all out of the house; I’m building my dream office in the backyard; I’m in my dream home—it’s all happening. How do I hold this lightly? How do I remember not to put so much pressure on myself, to resource as I go?
I remember that my life is metaphor. I lean into the feminine path of the Phoenix—the spiral. I breathe into my soul expression of my life and don’t limit myself to “I am a suburban mom of three; I have to juggle dance class and karate and school drop-off, and do this and that for my business.” Because, circling back to what I started with, then I’m just like an AI bot—what is the point? I’m missing the plot. This is about inspiring your creative expression. Unlocking something in me that unlocks something in you. The woman-way, the Phoenix-spiraling way of juggling it all is unlocking full permission to be in the archetype of the Phoenix as you move through what can feel like overwhelming responsibility—life, work, motherhood, friendships, relationships, self, your body. You’ve gotta work out, eat right, sleep eight hours—the whole thing. It can feel like it’s lacking magic. Like, who f—ing cares; let me Netflix and get drunk and—f it. And if that’s where you are, that’s f—ing fine. I’ve been there recently, okay?
Also—what tends to open my heart back up, quiet the noise in my head, get me from my head back to my heart and soul’s expression—is remembering the spiraling journey of the feminine, the Phoenix. Remembering I didn’t create this life to force, push, prove, and pressure myself. I created this life to f up and live and experience and be and have the full all-of-it. Numb out on the couch with Netflix and feel like I’m channeling from the divine. I want it all—depth, connection, authenticity, vulnerability. I’m not going to get it 24/7, but I’m also not going to settle or pretend this is as good as it gets.
What helps me drop out of the noisy logical mom/entrepreneur brain and into my heart and soul is metaphor—the seasons and cycles of death and rebirth. I teach this in Inner Knowing (we created a self-guided Inner Knowing course; I took the live course content and all the value-packed trainings; you can buy it digital—I don’t know if that’s available yet, but it’s going to be soon). In there you learn how to align your life with metaphor and archetype and the spiraling Phoenix journey, so it changes the way you relate to yourself and your life—so it’s not just drudgery: wake up, make breakfast, get in the car line, go to work, punch a clock, go to the gym. Ugh—is that really what I came here for?
No. I want to feel alive, vibrant, creative, unlimited. I want to feel I’m at my edge—working it, massaging it, expanding above it. That’s what I came here to do. My guess is, if you’re listening, that’s you too—the women I call in are wildly curious, creative, wise, intuitive beings; sensitive feelers, healers; women who are done with doing and proving from the conditioned mind and want to drop into inner knowing, into soul, into a deeper, more satisfying meaning.
For me, I have to remember that constantly. I feel the older I get—I'm 41 now—the older my kids get, the longer I’m in business, the more pressure and responsibility I feel. The logistical planning alone to juggle motherhood and work sometimes will kill me. When it does, that’s okay. I give myself permission to feel my feelings fully because I know that’s part of the Phoenix spiral. Letting old limits, patterns, trauma responses—freezing, fleeing, fighting—shed is me rising into a newer, truer, freer version of myself.
Even now, with renovation outside and downstairs, and not being able to find any of my equipment for this freaking podcast—except this mic my husband put on the table—I’m doing it. It makes it exciting. It makes me feel ownership and creative power over my life. We can do it no matter what our life looks like. It doesn’t matter if I’m a stay-at-home mom or a CEO—the magic, the feminine wisdom, is inside all of us. Aligning with archetypes, seasons, our heart and soul expression—instead of the noisy mind trying to solve all the problems and attach all the trauma stories—feels good. It gets to be available to all of us.
I wanted you to hear what’s real for me right now. Every time I go through another cycle of death and rebirth and have another Phoenix moment, I want to share it. I was talking to a client today who said, “I feel so silly that you need to remind me,” even though our session was potent and powerful—release, tears, aha, remembering. I said, “Yeah—modern women got the bill that they’re supposed to be both a man and a woman—hold both feminine and masculine; be one perfect, arrived thing—and that is too much pressure for anyone.” I want my clients and community to know: I am doing this alongside you.
Another friend in my Voxer said, “I feel like I’ve been Phoenixing a really long time. I’m waiting for this to be over—this initiation.” Sometimes it be like that. Sometimes there are micro-initiations in between, inviting us into something fresher, truer, deeper—right there for us—if we mine the lessons from the hard things, feel our feelings, and know the best way out is through.
Another example: my kindergartner (my son) is doing great with kindergarten, but it’s, like, day five. Yesterday at dinner, he started getting upset, worked up and emotional, and said, “I feel like I’m not allowed to cry.” I said, “Get it out. Everybody can cry in this house.” He had a big cry, sat on my lap—the whole thing took not even five minutes. He went back to the other side of the table, gleefully laughing at his sisters. The whole vibe changed because I was like, it’s not a big deal. Your feelings don’t scare us. Your feelings are not a problem. Let’s just get through them—let them come out. It seemed like they wanted to come out. My husband said, “Man, he really did a 180. He was depressed, and now he’s sky-high.” I said, that’s what it’s like when we give ourselves permission to go through it—to feel fully without judging it or attaching our trauma story. We let the body release the story, release the trauma, release the pressure valve.
On the other side is this blissful “oh my gosh—oops, I forgot—life is amazing; I feel clear, energetically aligned; I feel love and connection.” When I was sharing that, I was like: it happens for a kindergartner, and it happens for you. It’s not so complicated—but we make it complicated because we’ve created patterns of self-sabotage and hiding from ourselves when things get rough, or protecting ourselves from vulnerability, flaws, imperfection—instead of mining the lessons. Saying yes to the next whirl around the spiral—up we go—knowing there is wisdom here. On the other side, I’ll have one-plus-one-equals-three results and solutions and ideas and connections and life—and it gets to be so much better.
This season is reminding me: chaos itself is not a problem. Living in a renovation—yeah, it’s not the best; I’ll be excited for it to be over—but that’s not the problem. It’s the pressure we put on ourselves amidst the chaos that creates explosions.
I remember leaving a crying message to a good friend last week: “I have nothing to land or anchor into. There’s no sanctuary in my house, no safe space; I’m surrounded by people; I have to go to this office all day.” I was spiraling. Thinking about it today—“I have nothing to land in, nothing to anchor into”—I’m reminded: oops—oh yeah. Yes, I do. Myself. My inner world is always where I can land, find myself, remember. It’s fertile ground for everything I want to create, even if it feels like I’m at a limit, it’s not possible, or I’m up against a wall. Every time I go through the inner-world tunnel—drop into the underworld—and allow my life to be a beautiful living metaphor, a sacred spiraling journey into the unknown, I always find solutions. I can land, get centered, get grounded.
There are so many ways I do that. This is the work I do with clients—group programs, masterminds, alumni containers, one-on-one. So many doors we can open to remember who we truly are and what’s available to us; how how-we-feel doesn’t need to be the limit if we’re dysregulated, overwhelmed, under pressure, “too much,” “too much responsibility.”
My invitation: allow it to be what it is. You don’t necessarily need to force or fix it. Give yourself permission to find the valves you need to release, to feel a bit better today—and know that sometimes it takes time. I know you think you have no time. I often think I have no time—and always, time is on my side. The capitalistic, patriarchal lie that there’s no time—it’s not true. Time expands to fill the space available (Parkinson’s law). And the more I allow my soul to lead me through time, the more I get one-plus-one-equals-three results with my time too. I fill the time I have with more potent activities instead of hamster-wheel doing/proving/overachieving to avoid uncomfortable feelings, upper limits, dysregulation, nervous-system patterns.
I hope you hear that and feel hope. I know a lot of you are going to be thinking, “How? How?” Okay—book a Soul Shift Intensive or come into any of the programs we have coming up (linked in the show notes). Mothers Rising is next up—a mother circle. We’re going very deep. It’s a beautiful container for mothers to drop into their inner worlds and rise into the Phoenix archetype.
Also, there are so many resources I offer—free resources, podcast episodes, meditations, visualizations, facilitators, community, friends, rest, play, pleasure, nature. I could go on and on. People ask me about resource all the time. I could make you an exhaustive list—and yet I could get you on a call and notice that the one resource that’s right there and you haven’t tried isn’t on the list. Not to make it seem extra hard—just to remind you there are infinite options. Your solution—to release pressure valves, show up in your modern life, get in the car line on time, submit all the things, download all the f—ing apps for extracurriculars and your kids and your teammates and your Slack channels and your speaking engagements and all the things—it’s all possible. It’s available to you.
I invite you to set the intention to land, anchor, and ground in yourself, in your inner world. Know that every hard thing brings you earth lessons, soul wisdom. Once you integrate that wisdom—once you feel that shift, clarity, spark, rising—you’re never the same. You are changing your life. You are breaking your limits. You are breaking generational cycles. This is how we go up and up and up, whirling around the Phoenix spiral. I’m so grateful to have you along for the ride.
I’ve got to go pick up my kids from school, or else I’d probably talk for another hour. So I’m going to leave it there. I love you so much. If you want to book a 90-minute one-on-one with me, the link is in the show notes. If you’re interested in Mothers Rising, the link is in the show notes. If you want to connect with me on Instagram, I would love to hear what’s real for you. If you want more content like this, find me on Instagram at @gervasekolmos and let me know. I love you so much. Thank you for spending your precious time with me. And let us phoenix together through this back-to-school time. Thank you.
How Internalized Capitalism is Controlling Your Right to Rest and Exist
What if that voice telling you to “be more productive” isn’t your inner wisdom but internalized capitalism? Most of us are living with constant pressure to optimize, monetize, and harvest every moment of our lives, and we don’t even realize it.
In this raw episode, Gervase shares a vulnerable moment from her own life that perfectly illustrates how capitalism has trained us to believe we don’t get to just exist. She breaks down how this system affects modern women and offers practical ways to reclaim your humanity.
This isn’t about becoming anti-capitalism overnight, it’s about recognizing the programming so you can make conscious choices about your own 500 square feet of life.
Listen to this episode to discover:
The moment Gervase realized she couldn’t even enjoy a peaceful lunch with her son without thinking about content creation
How internalized capitalism shows up in everyday life (spoiler: it’s that voice saying “you’re not doing enough”)
Why we’ve been programmed to turn every hobby, idea, and beautiful moment into a business opportunity
The “harvest mentality” and why it’s running you ragged
How capitalism affects both stay-at-home and working moms (and why both feel like they’re never enough)
Simple acts of rebellion: ways to reclaim moments that capitalism can’t touch
Why your worth isn’t determined by your output, and how to actually believe it
How to create conscious moments of rest and pleasure without guilt
The ripple effect of tending to your own “500 square feet” instead of trying to change the world
This episode is for you if:
You feel guilty taking breaks unless you’ve “earned” them
Every hobby feels like it should become a side hustle
You can’t enjoy peaceful moments without thinking about productivity
You're exhausted from the constant pressure to do more, be more, create more
You want practical ways to reclaim your humanity in a productivity-obsessed world
Resource mentioned in this episode:
Toi Marie (Smith): https://www.toimarie.com/
What if that voice telling you to “be more productive” isn’t your inner wisdom but internalized capitalism? Most of us are living with constant pressure to optimize, monetize, and harvest every moment of our lives, and we don’t even realize it.
In this raw episode, Gervase shares a vulnerable moment from her own life that perfectly illustrates how capitalism has trained us to believe we don’t get to just exist. She breaks down how this system affects modern women and offers practical ways to reclaim your humanity.
This isn’t about becoming anti-capitalism overnight, it’s about recognizing the programming so you can make conscious choices about your own 500 square feet of life.
Listen to this episode to discover:
The moment Gervase realized she couldn’t even enjoy a peaceful lunch with her son without thinking about content creation
How internalized capitalism shows up in everyday life (spoiler: it’s that voice saying “you’re not doing enough”)
Why we’ve been programmed to turn every hobby, idea, and beautiful moment into a business opportunity
The “harvest mentality” and why it’s running you ragged
How capitalism affects both stay-at-home and working moms (and why both feel like they’re never enough)
Simple acts of rebellion: ways to reclaim moments that capitalism can’t touch
Why your worth isn’t determined by your output, and how to actually believe it
How to create conscious moments of rest and pleasure without guilt
The ripple effect of tending to your own “500 square feet” instead of trying to change the world
This episode is for you if:
You feel guilty taking breaks unless you’ve “earned” them
Every hobby feels like it should become a side hustle
You can’t enjoy peaceful moments without thinking about productivity
You're exhausted from the constant pressure to do more, be more, create more
You want practical ways to reclaim your humanity in a productivity-obsessed world
Resource mentioned in this episode:
Toi Marie (Smith): https://www.toimarie.com/
Follow Gervase
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✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Feel stuck in your career, relationship or life? Need clarity on how to move forward and get your groove back? Book a 90-minute Soul Shift Intensive with Gervase
How Internalized Capitalism is Controlling Your Right to Rest and Exist
Episode Full Transcript
Hi, it's Gervase, and you're listening to the Modern Phoenix Podcast.
Today we’re going to have a little solo episode about internalized capitalism. Now, don’t run away—don’t turn this off—because I promise you I am far from an expert on this topic. We’re just going to peel back one layer of the onion. We’re going to find the ways internalized capitalism affects all of us, relates to all of us, even if we’re just getting started with the idea of internalizing systems of oppression.
Before I say anything else, I want to caveat that many of the things I’ve learned about capitalism, I learned from Toi Smith—T-O-I Smith. She is such a leader in this space. She has an amazing business and a newsletter called The Deepening, which she sends once a week for a year. Each edition includes a different piece of literature and education—a story, a poem, an essay, a law. It is so robust. And it’s all about capitalism—self-education on what the system is, how it affects us, how it disproportionately affects people of color, how it is oppressive, etc. She is a social activist and such a strong leader. I could not say anything without her help. Go to her website—I'll link it in the show notes—and check it out.
Just know that today’s podcast won’t go quite that deep, mostly because I’m not qualified. What I am qualified to do is peel back a layer on how capitalism has created a culture around us and within us, especially as modern women, to be constantly on—constantly doing, producing, achieving, marketing, selling. I see it everywhere: in my clients, in my own life. I feel the urgency, the rushing, the pressure of capitalism. And I think it’s helpful just to name it.
Obviously, nobody’s going to reverse capitalism today. Toi Smith says something about being responsible for “your 500 square feet” of your life. I think that’s really beautiful—and very anti-capitalistic—because it reminds us: you don’t have to change the whole world. You can change your 500 square feet by being here, learning, educating yourself, empowering yourself against the unconscious brainwashing of an oppressive system. You become better able to clean up your 500 square feet, and that matters—because you’re part of an ecosystem that affects other people: your family, your work, your social life, your communities.
When we shift how we see the systems we’ve internalized—starting with ourselves, even just the top layer—we bring a new perspective to our lives, our communities, our work, and our attitudes. It really makes a difference.
I want to back up and share that I’m having a really intense day over here. My husband is getting ready to go back out on the boat for 10 days, leaving in about an hour. I’m packing me and the kids for a trip to California—we leave at three in the morning. I’m working a half day, he’s working a half day, and the three kids are home because it’s summer. It’s a little crunchy.
So I did the thing I always tell my clients to do when it feels like that: I resourced. I slowed down. Even though I felt like there was so much to do and I had to speed up, I know better now. I’ve created new rhythms for myself. I decided to have a “me time moment.” That’s what I’ve been calling it this summer.
I went outside on a beach towel and lay in the grass. My five-year-old son came out, sat with me, and showed me how his babysitter’s sister polished his nails this morning. I looked at the color—blue—and thought, that would be nice. If you’re watching on YouTube or Spotify, you can see I’ve polished my nails since then. I ended up sitting on the towel and painting my nails to match his. He brought his lunch out. We were just sitting there, having a moment.
I could feel my system downregulating. All the “urgent” things cooling from on-fire to okay. Not perfect, not gone—it probably won’t fully go away until we land in California 24 hours from now—but calmer. I heard the birds, looked at the trees. I was having a moment.
And then my mind: “I should set up my tripod and capture some B-roll. I could teach people. I could show this moment and teach women how to take a moment—how to say ‘fuck you’ to capitalism, sit on the grass, polish your nails with your son, eat carrots and hummus, enjoy the day in the middle of the busiest day.”
Then: “Goddammit, why can’t I just have this moment for me?” It actually brought up emotion, which surprised me. Why can’t I just have this moment because it feels good? Because I get to? Because I’m a human on planet Earth sharing a sweet 10-minute pause with my son? Why? Because of my internalized capitalism.
I’m slightly embarrassed to say, but I’m being honest: I got the tripod and filmed for like three minutes on the grass because I thought I might want the B-roll. The truth is, I rely on B-roll and sharing my stories on social media in order to share my work, for people to find me, know/like/trust me, see what I’m about, and buy from me. That is how I make my living. And it also felt sad that I gave up a piece of that living to market—to produce for consumption.
This is how capitalism is woven into my personal life all the time. “Oh, you’re having a moment? You better capture it so you can produce, package, market it, create content from it, and make money from it.” That thread weaves itself through my life. That’s where I notice internalized capitalism everywhere.
I’m not saying I don’t have choices. I do. I could have chosen to keep that moment for myself. I could have a different marketing system. I’m not a total victim. I opt in—often. I also have plenty of moments where I put my phone down for days, go offline, and forget about social media. That has pros and cons too.
There aren’t quick fixes here. No easy answers. Nobody gets out of this one looking like a hero. I started with my example because I’m part of capitalism too. I’m in it with you. I want you to see and maybe feel how capitalism taught me I don’t get to just be. All of my being must serve production, consumption, marketing, sales.
My friend and colleague Becca Piastrelli posted something similar this morning. She said, “You don’t need to turn your jam-making hobby into a business. You don’t need to take your roadside egg stand and create an LLC. Just because you started knitting doesn’t mean you need to sell your knitting to be worthy or legitimate as a human.” You can knit because you enjoy it. For yourself. You can create things because you have a God-given right to enjoy them.
That is the first thing to go with nearly every woman I meet or work with. There’s this program running in the background—an insidious whisper: “You don’t get to be. You don’t get to create. You don’t get a me-time moment unless it adds to your production later.”
The top layer we’re exploring here is: everything we do must serve mass production, consumption, and the making of money. There’s a systemic undertone and a class dimension. In one of Toi’s newsletters I was skimming for this episode, an author noted that a middle class who luxuriates in time and freedom can be “troublesome,” and this dynamic really took hold in the 60s. There is an upper class that benefits from a middle and lower class who must produce to survive—who don’t have the “luxury” to simply be. Control and order for the upper class are maintained when the rest are consumed by survival and struggle.
We’re seeing this play out on the political stage now. I defer to the experts for deeper dives, but the capitalist thread is relevant. The fact that a high-achieving, successful, powerful, even wealthy modern woman feels she doesn’t deserve time to nourish herself is a signal we’ve all drunk poisoned water. We’ve internalized lies that if it isn’t for mass production or making money, it doesn’t get to exist.
If we go back to our ancestors, we see this isn’t “just the way it is.” The land belonged to all who inhabited it—pre-colonization, pre–industrial revolution, pre-patriarchy. Capitalism—brought by colonizers—said: the land is for taking, dividing, owning, and profiting from. Once land was partitioned and owned by the wealthy, the lower classes had no choice but to work to live, because simply existing on the planet incurred a fee.
Obviously, this is not how it was meant to be. If looking at humans is too tangled, think about animals: they just exist. They don’t pay rent to live on a patch of grass. There is an ethical, integrous truth in the belief that all who inhabit the land have equal value. We don’t have to earn it or prove it. We’re born on a beautiful Earth with everything we need. Yes, we’ve created systems where we work to live, but we all start with value.
The colonizer mindset turned time into money and land into power and money—competition and power-over instead of collaboration-with. It all got twisted. This programming runs inside us in the 21st century whether we subscribe or not—whether we’re eyes-wide-open like me with the tripod on the grass, or we abstain (“I’m off the grid; I’m moving to a farm”), or we fully benefit from the system and see no problem. Whatever your stance, you likely won’t change the world today—but you can look at how the brainwashing operates in your day-to-day.
That feeling that you’re never enough, never done enough, never achieved or impacted enough, never scaled enough, never crossed enough off the list—when we notice it, we can begin to change our 500 square feet. We can become more intentional and discerning about our lives, choices, humanity. Do I get to have parts of my life where I just exist? Or does every moment need to be harvested?
A client of mine is an entrepreneur with tons of ideas, and she pressured herself to turn every idea into a product, content funnel, service, podcast—something. When we got to the root of that urgency, we saw internalized capitalism: “Everything must be harvested.” Every leaf of the mint plant must be picked and used for a mojito. But the mint grows because it grows—it’s beautiful. We take what we need and live in harmony with plants, animals, land, people. It’s when we believe everything exists for harvesting, consumption, and scaling into money/production/marketing that we know internalized capitalism is running our system—and running us ragged.
It’s exhausting to feel like you can’t pause because you’ll “lose the next big idea,” or you can’t relax until every cupboard is cleaned. I know that feeling. This is complex—there are many reasons we resort to the cupboards (and honestly, they can be relaxing). But it’s resourcing for me to pause and remember: I have everything I need. I’m already enough. My biology knows how to be okay now—how to create safety, security, contentment, satisfaction in this moment.
If I feel like a hamster on a wheel, chasing the next big thing for so long that smoke’s coming out of my ears—nothing is enough; I can’t stop; I can’t take a break unless it increases productivity or money—then I can say, “Wait. This is internalized capitalism.” Of course I have it; we live on planet Earth where this is the status quo. It’s sad. It sucks. And while we won’t overturn everything overnight, we can stake our claim to our humanity.
Declare: I get to just be. I get to exist. I get moments just for me—just because. Maybe they won’t make me more productive tomorrow. Maybe they won’t make me a better mom. Maybe they won’t give me my next brilliant idea. Maybe they’re just part of being human.
The more embodied I become—the more human in an age that’s losing its humanity, losing relational tools, losing access to depth, wisdom, relationship, compassion, collaboration—the more a little awareness and conscious resting, consuming, creating, and rebelling will make a difference. It compounds over time. It makes your life better when you realize you don’t have to earn your time off, even if your job tells you that you do. You can drink your coffee without rushing. You can take a pee break without rushing. You can go on the grass and have lunch with your son and polish your nails—even on the busiest day.
It will feel good. It will connect you to the earth, your body, your intention. Why am I doing all of this anyway? It will connect you to the people you’re with. These moments matter—more, I’d argue, than making money.
And if you are in utter survival mode to make money, then the rest of us must do better with our 500 square feet so fewer people live in that state. Most women in my community are not in that level of survival, but many have convinced themselves they are—convinced by capitalism, dominant culture, patriarchy, and their brainwashing. A single Black mom like Toi Smith starts on a different rung of the ladder than many of us. These systems negatively impact her far more. I am affected too—but how can I free myself a little more? How can that ripple outward to change the world, my communities, open my heart to contribute to causes, donate to people and missions that make the world better? To vote for candidates and be regulated and clear-minded enough to make a few calls to my senators—because it’s actually not that big a deal.
We’ve been convinced there’s no time to create the world we want because the hamster wheel keeps us “just surviving”—produce, market, consume, buy, make money. I’m asking us to rebalance: a bit of radical self-responsibility and ownership—done in an empowering way. That move takes our power back from constant pressure and urgency and “I don’t get to” victimhood. It returns us to our humanity and to the current of “I am an inhabitant of the earth.” That has always mattered. Since the beginning of time, that has been consistent. The job, deadline, email, voicemail, content, social post—not the pinnacle of living.
We have to live. To live, we have to be. And being is not for others’ consumption of all our moments. Resting isn’t only to be more productive tomorrow. We have to reclaim our enoughness as humans and see the thread capitalism has woven through our lives—with compassion, humility, honesty, and power.
One last thing: notice how this shows up in partnership. I see women struggling because they’re trying to play a man’s game—patriarchy’s game—to earn worthiness through capitalism: “Look, I am enough, I make money. Look, I have a job.” I love being a working mom; I’ve always wanted that. But how did we get to a place where those raising the children—who may not be making money but are nurturing and growing families—suddenly have no value? When a stay-at-home mom believes she has no value because she’s not making money, and a working mom feels the same despite making money—we know the game is rigged.
We’ve been duped to chase what Glennon Doyle calls the dusty pink bunny. Capitalism dangles a carrot: “Work harder, twice the hours, do a man’s job and hours, have kids, look hot, keep a perfect home—and then you’ll be enough. Keep going. We need more workers.” Internalizing that belief serves none of us.
We can choose what’s right for us and our families—working, staying home, having kids or not. But we have to agree: money is not how we earn value. It’s one contribution in a culture starving for depth, relational connection, to feel seen and tended to—for nourishment. We are starved of nourishment. Money is not filling the void. It’s not healing the wound. More doing isn’t getting us closer. Women are doing as much as men at work and still unhappy. There’s friction in couples because we think power comes from money, legitimacy, jobs.
Your value is not up for debate. Your income is not the currency you want to be compared against or barter with. Don’t let oppressive systems convince you to prove your value via their game. Play the game if you choose, but don’t put all your chips in. Don’t let it wreck your relationship with your partner, your kids, yourself because you’re so busy trying to win that you forget to be who you are—to expand and explore what it is to be in this human body on this gorgeous Earth with other imperfect humans—resting, playing, dancing, sleeping, napping, creating simply because you want to try.
There’s something healing about working with your hands. Music for music’s sake. I play the piano and sing even when there are things to be done. Why? Because it brings me joy. It feels like reclaiming my soul, my time, my sovereignty from a world that tells me there’s never enough time, that I must earn, that I must be a perfect pianist for it to be worthwhile, that I must market it, capture it for Instagram. No. It’s for me. That’s enough. That’s the currency I want to trade in. That’s the world I want to belong to. That’s the 500 square feet I’m tending, a little more at a time.
I hope this encouraged you—maybe inspired or educated you a little—to do the same. Not to shame yourself for the ways these systems are woven through our lives, but to make your choices eyes wide open, and reclaim your life for yourself.
Okay, I love you so much. If you want to take this concept—or any concept—deeper with me, your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive. It’s a 90-minute one-on-one where we can go deep into whatever is coming up for you in this season. We’ll do some gentle embodiment, coaching, a guided grounding activation meditation, and see what’s ready to shift. It would be an honor to work with you in that way.
I love you so much. We’re doing it. I’ll see you in two weeks. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Thank you.
Permission to Be Who You Are: Human Design for Mothers, Makers & Dreamers with Erin Claire Jones
What if the reason you constantly feel drained isn’t because you’re doing too much, but because you’re doing things in a way that goes against your natural design? Most of us are running on empty, trying to force ourselves into systems and rhythms that work for other people—but not for us.
This week, I sat down with human design expert and best-selling author Erin Claire Jones to explore how understanding your unique energetic blueprint can transform how you work, love, and live.
Erin breaks down the practical magic of human design and shows us how to stop forcing and start flowing. She reveals why most of us have been conditioned to work against our natural energy patterns, how this creates burnout and disconnection, and the simple shifts that can help you honor your design. She shares practical insights for all 5 human design types and explains why this system is less mystical theory and more practical life manual.
Listen to this episode to discover:
What human design is and why it’s the most practical system for understanding your energy and intuition
The 5 human design types (Generators, Manifesting Generators, Projectors, Manifestors, and Reflectors) and how each is designed to move through the world
Why Generators and Manifesting Generators need to ask “Do I really feel excited about this?” before saying yes to everything
How Projectors can build successful businesses and raise families without burning out (spoiler: it’s about working with your energy, not against it)
Why Manifestors need freedom to do things their own way
Why energy management is more important than time management
How to use human design to understand your partner and kids on a deeper level
What if the reason you constantly feel drained isn’t because you’re doing too much, but because you’re doing things in a way that goes against your natural design? Most of us are running on empty, trying to force ourselves into systems and rhythms that work for other people—but not for us.
This week, I sat down with human design expert and best-selling author Erin Claire Jones to explore how understanding your unique energetic blueprint can transform how you work, love, and live.
Erin breaks down the practical magic of human design and shows us how to stop forcing and start flowing. She reveals why most of us have been conditioned to work against our natural energy patterns, how this creates burnout and disconnection, and the simple shifts that can help you honor your design. She shares practical insights for all 5 human design types and explains why this system is less mystical theory and more practical life manual.
Listen to this episode to discover:
What human design is and why it’s the most practical system for understanding your energy and intuition
The 5 human design types (Generators, Manifesting Generators, Projectors, Manifestors, and Reflectors) and how each is designed to move through the world
Why Generators and Manifesting Generators need to ask “Do I really feel excited about this?” before saying yes to everything
How Projectors can build successful businesses and raise families without burning out (spoiler: it’s about working with your energy, not against it)
Why Manifestors need freedom to do things their own way
Why energy management is more important than time management
How to use human design to understand your partner and kids on a deeper level
About Erin Claire Jones:
Erin Claire Jones is one of the world's leading experts in Human Design. Through her coaching, content, and digital products, she has empowered hundreds of thousands of people to overcome their biggest obstacles and find their flow at work, in love, and in life. Her personalized guides have been purchased by customers in over 160 countries. She has spoken on stages across the world, and her work has been featured in Forbes, Elle, The Sunday Times, Vogue, Allure, Nylon and more.
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📖 Book: How Do You Choose: A Human Design Guide to What's Best for You at Work, In Love and In Life
🌎 Website | https://humandesignblueprint.com/
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Human Design Certification Course: https://humandesignblueprint.com/product/course/ (use the code PHOENIX for a discount on the course)
Permission to Be Who You Are: Human Design for Mothers, Makers & Dreamers with Erin Claire Jones
Episode Full Transcript
Gervase: All right, my loves, welcome back to the Modern Phoenix podcast. I have Erin Claire Jones here for you. I finally brought you a human design expert—so many people have so many questions. I literally have a list. Everybody on this podcast has heard me talk about human design till the cows come home. I never shut up about it—on my podcast, in my coaching containers, to my friends, my children, my husband. I am a super fan. I’m so honored to have you on. Thank you for your time and for this beautiful book, How Do You Choose, and for your work in the world. Welcome, Erin.
Erin: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here.
Gervase: Erin Claire Jones is one of the world’s leading experts in human design. Through her coaching, content, and digital products, she has empowered hundreds of thousands of people to overcome their biggest obstacles and find their flow at work, in love, and in life. We’re both landing here. I’m always happy to connect projector to projector. You said you’re arriving from school drop-offs and the thick of motherhood. You have an eight-and-a-half-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old. My community knows I have three kids—my youngest is five—and I never feel like I left the thick of it. Projector to projector, how are you, really?
Erin: I feel good. Having a young baby and launching a book at the same time was a lot. I’m not sure I’d do that again, but honestly that’s how my life happens—everything all at once. I feel happy to be on the other side of the book. I’ve been going really hard for quite a while, putting myself out there a lot with the launch. I live in the Hudson Valley; the weather is beautiful. My toddler is about to stop Montessori for the summer, and it feels like more space is opening up. I feel hopeful and excited, but I’m still landing from all I’ve been through. It’s been a wild year.
Gervase: That is a wild year. I always tell mothers: give it two years before you feel like yourself again, like really yourself. You get some of your energy and life back, and things are a little more stable. To have a baby and a book that’s only—what did you say, three weeks? Oh my gosh—three weeks old. You’re in it.
Erin: Yeah. And it’s funny—I stopped breastfeeding when I got pregnant because my toddler just stopped one morning. She was like, “I’m done.” I haven’t been not pregnant or not breastfeeding since February of 2022. There’s this question of, who am I outside of nourishing children in this way? People go much longer than that, but it’s been the most tender time of my life. I also wonder, is there vitality available someday on the other side of this?
Gervase: There is. As a projector mom, you get more and more vitality back—and the energy, you know? That’s what I wanted to start with: energy. Human design found me maybe six years ago. I’d heard whispers of it, but what hooked me was the idea of working with your energy—that you have a unique blueprint for how you’re designed to operate. I always felt I had less vitality than others, even though I was conditioned to be extroverted and go-go-go. I had a lot of burnout and confusion about whether vitality was even available to me. Having my chart read and learning I was a 5/1 splenic projector changed everything. It gave me a permission slip and a map. That’s what your work does too—a map and a toolbox. It told me: no one’s expecting you to stop building your business or raising your babies—those clearly light you up—but you have to find a way to work in rhythm with your energy. Do you hear that a lot? And can you introduce people to what human design is and the five types?
Erin: You described it beautifully. Human design helps us know how our energy moves. We often look at how others do things and think we should have the same energy, build businesses like them, parent like them. Human design reminds us we’re all wired differently. It’s not meant to tell us what we can or can’t do—like “you can’t be a mom or run a business because you’re a projector.” It tells us how to do it best: how to structure our days sustainably, how to find opportunities in flow rather than force, how to know what’s right for us when it comes. It helps us move with who we are, not against it.
Whatever our design, many people come to me living the opposite of it. A projector trying to be a constant doer, or a manifesting generator trying to have just one passion—we often don’t feel permission to be who we are. Human design is a massive permission slip to show up to every part of life more authentically. Not only will it feel better, it will probably be more successful.
For those new to it: human design is a system based on your time, date, and place of birth. It reveals your energetic blueprint—how you’re wired to move through the world: decision-making, structuring days, finding opportunities, leveraging strengths, moving through challenges, and more. It’s as mystical as it is practical. “Birth information” might sound whoa, but the information itself is often mechanical—how you’re meant to make decisions, how you do well being asked questions, what works for you socially. I love the practicality.
If it doesn’t resonate, I never try to convince people. What matters most is not whether it’s true, but whether it’s useful. Listen through that lens. If it feels useful, try it. If not, let it go. You might come back later and see it differently.
If you want to look up your design, go to humandesignblueprint.com. You’ll need your birth time, date, and place. An approximate time is okay. Or just listen along. The five types are manifesting generators, generators, projectors, reflectors, and manifestors. Type is the entry point. You might share a type with someone close and still be totally different in your details. Before I dive in, do you know your kids’ designs?
Gervase: Yes. My husband is a generator. My oldest is a splenic manifester. My second is an emotional projector. And my third is an emotional manifester.
Erin: Wow—two manifester kiddos.
Gervase: Right? And my husband is the only generator—bless him.
Erin: Thank goodness for generator partners. Let’s dive in. Manifesting generators and generators make up the majority of the population. That doesn’t mean they’re not unique; it’s just the first category before we get more specific. These two are the doers—so much boundless energy to make things happen when they feel genuinely excited. When they’re lit up, their energy is through the roof and they can make things happen powerfully.
A big lesson for both is boundaries. Because they have so much capacity, they might find they carry a lot—at home and at work—because they’re so capable. Just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should.
Gervase: That’s what I underlined in the book and starred. I see that in my husband. And even for me—I know if I give him something, he’ll go and go and go. I literally said to a client yesterday—she’s a reflector—that just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you should exploit it constantly.
Erin: One hundred percent. It’s about becoming discerning with their energy and checking in with their gut to see what they genuinely feel available for. As partners, ask: do you really feel excited to do this? Do you have the energy for it?
Between the two, manifesting generators tend to be very multi-passionate—moving among many passions at once. They’re fast and often make things happen quickly. Generators are really here for mastery. They can do many things, but it might look like: today I dive deep into this, tomorrow into that. The example I use in the book of a generator is LeBron James—steady mastery, infectious passion. Nothing beats being around a lit-up generator; they light up the room. Their energy is consistent and reliable. Ideally, they wake up with energy, expend it in satisfying ways, and drop into bed delightfully spent—like “I left it all on the field.” Rest before expending their energy well often doesn’t feel great. Expending it well is the pathway to satisfying rest.
Gervase: That hits the nail on the head for my husband. Isn’t there also something about how you ask questions of a generator—yes/no?
Erin: Yes. Generators and manifesting generators are gut-driven. They often have a visceral response that signals whether they’re available for something. The best way to access that is to ask specific yes/no questions. As small as “Do you want to go out or cook at home? Pasta or salmon?”—like talking to a toddler sometimes. Or bigger: “Does this job feel right? Do you have energy for it? Is the timing right?” It’s not that you can never ask open-ended questions—they often love to talk about their passions. It’s more when they’re deciding whether they have energy for something; posing specific questions speaks to what they really feel.
Gervase: Everything you’ve shared is so applicable. As a coach and projector I lean toward open-ended questions and deep curiosity. But with my husband—especially when he’s winding down, “delightfully spent”—I used to say, “Now let’s have a deep conversation about our hopes and dreams.” He’s like, I don’t have it in the tank. He’s capable of open-ended questions, but based on his energy level and overwhelm, too many options can be overwhelming. It’s cool to think about being more specific.
Erin: Exactly. Depending on other parts of the design, open-ended questions can get them into the realm of endless possibility. You’re asking a thing they actually know, but the way you ask doesn’t pull it out. Many generators and manifesting generators have felt indecisive—it’s not that they don’t have an answer; the way they’re being asked isn’t bringing it forth.
Gervase: The noise versus the knowing.
Erin: Yes. Specific yes/no questions are the path for these types. I’ll often sit with a generator who talks around a decision for ten minutes and feels unclear. Then I ask, “Do you want to do it?” and they’re like, “No.” They already knew; the direct question revealed it.
Gervase: Okay—projectors. You, me, my middle—and Taylor Swift, right?
Erin: And Taylor Swift. Projectors are natural leaders, teachers, guides, coaches. We’re good at making others feel recognized and seen, good at asking the right questions. We love systems like human design—anything that helps us understand people better—because we already understand people deeply. A big lesson for projectors is disentangling worth from how hard we work or how much we do. Our gift is not in constant doing; it’s in our perspective and how we see. Ideally, we’re valued for that—in coaching, human design, parenting—rather than output. We do well with space, rest, and pause. It will look different in different seasons, but it’s vital. Part of being a projector is paying attention to who deeply sees and recognizes you without you trying. Where we’re genuinely recognized and invited is where we’re meant to put our energy. Let that invitation guide us—who’s ready for us and when.
Gervase: Every time I hear it, I feel so seen. It reminds me who I was before human design—seeking in all the wrong places: validation, belonging, proving, forcing myself to be something I could be, but at a cost to how I felt. Can I tell you about my last 24 hours? My husband is a marine biologist; he travels at sea for five to ten days at a time for six months of the year, and he’s gone now for a couple of months. This is when I really test: can I align with my energy and human design and still be the mom I want to be and show up for my business?
Yesterday I woke at 4:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I got my kids up at 6:30, to camp by 7:40, came home at 8 with my five-year-old still home, and felt like my brain needed to be washed. I had a whole plan, my sister was coming with her little kids, the works. And I was like, nope—I have to sleep. I put my son in front of the TV and slept from 8 to 10 because nothing I could create or any family time would benefit from me not sleeping. I woke at 10; my sister walked in. The plan flipped and I pivoted—baked muffins, made coffee, enjoyed the family chaos. Dishes, cooking, meals, crying—five kids in the house. I actively showed up for that without worrying about work or feeling bad that I’d slept. Around noon I shifted into work mode and prepped for this interview. It wasn’t about doing less or more; it was about trust and permission threaded through my day—always pivoting to follow the energy when it’s available because I trust how much good comes from that: juicier moments, better work, better mothering, better family time. Am I doing it right?
Erin: Only you know, but yes—it sounds like you’re honoring where you are and what you have energy for. We can’t always do that as projectors—you might have a big talk you must show up for—but you do what you can. The energy is not always on. The wisdom I hear is: you had things you wanted to create, but trying to create from an unwashed brain—exhausted—won’t generate your best work. You don’t need to force it. Projectors often push to keep going, thinking more doing leads to success, but creating from a place of low resources doesn’t yield our best and makes it harder to access our gifts. Waiting until the energy is there means you’ll make it happen quickly and at far better quality. It’s worth waiting for. Ideally, we create enough spaciousness to listen to where we are. We ignore nudges and “muscle through,” but do we have to?
Gervase: Some projectors say, “I can’t—my job, the season of parenting.” I tell friends and clients: if you even consider designing your life around your energy, there will be icky parts where you reverse engineer and undo things that aren’t working, then plant seeds and wait for them to grow. In my current season, I planted so many seeds when my kids were babies. I held the dream and vision, showed up, structured my days, and learned from so many mess-ups. Like, “I won’t put them in camp; I’ll be with them every day and casually work from home”—then realizing after a summer that doesn’t work. For anyone discouraged, unlearning is part of realigning. It counts. It’s worth it. You may need to wait longer, but it’s better than pushing misaligned.
Erin: Sometimes we can get away with ignoring our design, and then we reach a point where we can’t. Becoming a mother brought me face to face with my projector-ness more than anything. My energy is for sure not unlimited. I desperately need help. Alone time is essential—even five minutes on the bathroom floor. Discover what works for you. I hear you moving from authenticity, not shoulds. “I should be doing all this stuff,” but that’s not where you are right now. It’s not always feasible, but be as connected to your truth as you can.
Gervais: And I trust I’m building toward something meaningful and aligned—for the world, my kids. The trust and potency matter.
[Mid-episode note from Gervais:] Just popping into this awesome interview with the amazing Erin Claire Jones to let you know: if you’re listening to her talk about human design and want to go deeper into your own design and apply it to your life, patterns, and relationships—know that as part of my one-on-one private coaching packages, I include two one-on-one custom human design readings with my local expert, Erin Matthews. She’s been in my community for years and is a former client. This is part of how I guide you once you’re working with me. As soon as I’m working with someone, I need to know your human design, your authority, and everyone in your family—I coach people that way. I tend to call in a lot of projectors and coach them very specifically (I have two manifestors in my family and a generator, as you’ve heard). I’m not an expert—Erin is—so go to her site for all the amazing resources, tools, and her book. But if you want to dabble and apply it to your personal growth and transformation, know it’s included in my private mentorship packages and woven into how we work toward your intentions, transformations, goals, and relationships. I’m obsessed with it. Okay, back to the show.
Gervase: Someone asked about “discerning rest periods.” It makes me think about our culture’s obsession with energy—indoctrination and internalized capitalism. We don’t see how we’ve been brainwashed to believe we’re more machines than nature. Energy is glorified. I remember five to seven years ago—exactly where you are—feeling grief that I’d never get my energy back, that I wouldn’t belong, matter, be relevant, or successful, as if the main thing you need for those is energy. Now I trust it’s about authenticity and alignment—discerning rest periods and then intentional sprint periods, like your launch. I know when it’s a sprint I can do it, but I’ve been training for this, planting seeds, tilling the soil. The end result isn’t just raw energy; it’s authenticity—the potency of the energy, not constant 24/7 doing. Can you speak to that?
Erin: Totally. More is not better—for projectors and, honestly, for all of us. The quality of my energy and work when I’m overdoing—filling every moment—is not great. It’s hard to tap into my gifts when I’m not rested. When I honor my energy and take rest and alone time when needed, I feel more connected to my gifts and more effective, inspired, and insightful in the moments I’m working and sharing. On discernment: for projectors, stay connected to what you have energy for. Create checkpoints throughout the day to step back and ask, “Do I have the energy to keep going?” Sometimes it’s a full yes; other times it’s time to step back. For generators, discernment is less about rest and more about commitments: do I genuinely have the energy for this task? When the energy is there, they’re the most powerful, but they may say yes out of obligation or a desire to please. Trust that a wholehearted, gut-led yes is worth waiting for. Across types, human design helps us become more discerning about where and when to put our energy.
Gervase: Sometimes we think, “I’ve got the energy now,” and then realize later we overdid it. I’m a sloppy learner—I do it wrong a lot to get the message. I have to look back and see the moment—like answering 20 texts for 30 minutes when I could’ve gone for a walk—that was the moment not to do it, even if I had a coffee high. Let the period of trying be part of aligning with your energy: try doing more, notice how it feels; try doing less, notice how it feels. In the last six months I’ve been more discerning in work and personal life. If I have texts and Voxers from clients, I can check in: I have energy now, but it’s just enough to get me through bedtime. If I spend it at 3 p.m., I’ll leave it all on the floor and still have a long way to go. It’s been a beautiful arc—try, notice the energetic arc, refine, repeat.
Erin: I often remind people of the value of experimentation. Build breaks into your day. Don’t book back-to-back. Say yes to fewer commitments. See what happens. As a projector, I’m still tempted to overwork, and yet my experience is: the more I allow rest, the better everything is and the more opportunities come my way. It’s worth experimenting to find the rhythm that works for you.
Gervase: So good. Okay—manifestors.
Erin: Manifestors—like your youngest and oldest—are innovative and disruptive (in the best way). They’re here to tread their own path and do things their way. They’re not here to be guided or told what to do, which isn’t always easy with kids. They feel comfortable setting the terms of how and when they do things. As a mother—I have an eight-month-old manifester—it’s about setting boundaries that make them feel as free as possible while still being safe. Manifestors love freedom—what they want, when they want, how they want. They’re great at kickstarting new ideas but not always at sustaining them. Their energy—like projectors, but different—is bursty: on fire followed by a pullback to rest. They shouldn’t expect consistent momentum. As a parent, check in on what they have energy for and model boundaries yourself: “I’m not always available; I need moments to myself.” Manifestors are actually the only type meant to make the first move—following urges. Do you observe that?
Gervase: Oh, so much. My oldest’s inconsistent energy is wild. I’m helping her notice and honor it without shame, while also teaching her to work within family boundaries—like, “You’ve been reading in the downstairs room for 12 hours, and I love that for you, but now we’re having dinner with Grandpa.” I notice her urge for freedom could go far, and I’m into it—ride your bike, disappear for the day, never have a phone till you’re 25. But I also want her to be part of a family and friend group authentically.
She recently switched from elementary to middle school—big deal. There’s a selective arts school (middle and high school) that’s audition-only. I was raised by a stage mom; I’m very artsy but had no connection to the joy of the arts until I was 38—I’ve been reclaiming it as an adult. I don’t push it on my kids; I try to let my manifesters lead me. My oldest had no arts training and said, “I want to go to School of the Arts.” I felt like it might be her first splenic moment. She led; I followed.
We opened the application. She was going to do writing, but I looked at the essays and thought, maybe not the vibe—people work on those for years. I said, how about theater? I think you have raw talent. Long story short, we prepared a monologue, but her rehearsals kept getting worse. One day she said, “Mom, can I just do it my way?” I said yes. She did it—I laughed, I cried—and remembered she’s here to lead herself. She went in, got in, and it’s been beautiful for our whole family. Sixth grade is when I really started parenting her with her manifester design. She started dance mid-year—most start at five. I told her, “You’re supposed to skip steps; you’ll be fine.” I’m watching her thrive—become obsessed and just do the thing. It’s so cool.
Erin: Amazing. Knowing our kids’ designs is useful not to control them but as a lens to observe and support. Like: she said she wants to go to that school—very intuitive, clear knowing. Honor it. Or, “I’m over-guiding her through this audition; she’ll probably do better her way.” There are so many small ways it helps us look at people. With my eight-month-old: at two months she started rolling over, breaking out of her swaddle, only sleeping on her belly. The internet says no belly sleeping that early. I tried flipping her, called my pediatrician: “What do I do? She keeps flipping back; she’s really early to be rolling.” The pediatrician said, “You let her be.” I was like, what an awesome pediatrician. She said, “You can’t do anything. She knows what she wants. Make it safe by taking the swaddle off.” It reminded me: she’s a manifester—ready to move, strong, powerful. Let her do her thing. Human design is a helpful lens to see why something might be happening and how to support them through it.
Gervase: How can I support them through this. Yes—so beautiful. Okay, reflectors.
Erin: Reflectors are our mirrors, our evaluators. They see, sense, and feel things many people miss. They mirror back the quality of a space or community and let us know how it’s going. Their perspective is invaluable. It’s so important for them to be ruthless about where they spend time and with whom because they feel it deeply: cities and towns they enjoy, schools that feel good, offices, bedrooms—environment matters. Reflectors are fluid; they may express their purpose in many ways over life, and their look might change in many ways across, say, high school. They’re not here to box themselves into one expression. Allow their natural fluidity and vastness.
Gervase: I was working with a reflector yesterday and told her to buy your book. I started underlining so much because it’s the one type I know the least about—I don’t have any reflectors in my life. What’s so helpful about your book is how it’s broken down: type; how to make decisions; how to be you at work and in relationships; how to support someone of each type in relationship. It’s so tangible. To me, that’s the difference between human design and astrology. If someone doesn’t resonate with their design, it can feel like astrology—overwhelming and hard to apply. I’m into astrology too, but I find human design more straightforward. Your book makes it so applicable and practical. That was your intention, right?
Erin: Yes—to make it very usable. Most people don’t want to learn human design; they want to know what they need to know about their design to transform their life. I have many students and teach all the details if you want them, but that’s not what most people want. Until now there hasn’t been a book focused on practical application; it’s been textbooks. I love textbooks—but human design can impact more people beyond that. I wanted a resource manual you return to: “I’m struggling with a decision—remind me what to do,” or “I feel out of alignment in my career—open projectors and career,” or “I’m struggling with my partner or kid—read about them.” It’s been cool to see people read it who’ve never been exposed to human design—they’re open to a new way of doing things and want to understand decision-making. It’s accessible.
Gervase: Could you wrap by sharing about intuition? That was the second most important piece for me—understanding my authority. For someone curious about making decisions aligned with their intuition, how does human design help?
Erin: I titled the book How Do You Choose because so often we don’t know how. We feel paralysis because we don’t know how to tap into our intuition or inner knowing. Human design—through a piece called “authority”—helps us know how to tap into our intuition, what it looks like for each of us, and how to know what’s right and when. Some people, like you, are meant to act on spontaneous, fast, quiet insights—because you’re splenic authority. Your intuition comes quietly and quickly, without reason—it might be a voice, tingles, a knowing. You’re meant to become quiet enough to hear it and courageous enough to act on it. Others, like me (emotional authority), find truth over time. I’m excitable; I have immediate instincts and feel differently the next day. I assess what’s true by feeling a decision over a couple of days—what stays true, where excitement grows. Some people find truth by talking things out; some need a full month. We all access knowing differently; human design gives us a reliable method. As someone who’s meant to decide quickly based on intuition—has that been true?
Gervase: Life-changing. Rest and decision-making were life-changing. I suspected this was how my intuition spoke to me, but I was confused whether everyone felt it that way. I needed the language. When I heard splenic authority described, nothing felt more true about my experience, but no one had explained it. I was midway through my journey of coming home to myself and knew intuition was a piece I’d been playing with for years. I’d felt this quick knowing—my friend calls it “know and go”—and wondered if that’s how everyone experiences it. Hearing it named gave me a deeper yes. Now I live my life this way. For my daughter I say, you’ll know right away—how does it feel, what do you hear—and then you’ll go. That’s not how everyone hears it, but it is how you’re meant to hear it. For my emotional daughter, I’m learning: ride the wave and come back. Take your time; we’ll revisit. Having it named is huge for someone trying to align her life—and her kids’ and clients’ lives—with inner knowing. Between energy and intuition I’m like: there you have it—go out and conquer your life. You’ll be fine.
Erin: One of the hardest parts of writing the book was choosing what to include. I wrote 150 pages that didn’t make it in—heartbreaking, but necessary. I asked: what pieces, if you know just these, can transform your life? Everything else is helpful additions. To your point: when you know how to honor your energy rhythms, create opportunities in the most aligned way, and tap into intuition to know what’s right—you have the full package. Everything else deepens and eases the path. With those three locked in, you’re flowing authentically, finding your way to the right things, saying yes at the right time, and working sustainably. Those pieces alone can totally change your life.
Gervase: It’s enough—more than enough. For anyone discouraged—feeling like they don’t resonate—know you have enough. You have everything you need in this book. Make small, simple changes. Start with energy or intuition. Erin gives the frameworks. It’s enough to radically transform your life so it feels good—not just looks good, which is what I’m after.
Erin: One hundred percent.
Gervase: Erin, I want to acknowledge you. As an entrepreneur, I really see you. I’m moved by how much you’re doing that’s aligned with your purpose. I know it feels like a lot right now, and also the work is potent. It’s transformed my life, and I hope your book and work transform the lives of many more women coming home to their inner knowing, energy, intuition, and vitality. Thank you for your time. How can people keep in touch, work with you, and explore their design?
Erin: Thank you so much for having me. If you want the book, you can get it anywhere books are sold. It’s called How Do You Choose: A Human Design Guide to What’s Best for You at Work, in Love, and in Life. My website is humandesignblueprint.com. We also sell custom guides personalized to your design and chart there, and you can use the discount code Phoenix. On Instagram, I’m @erinclairejones and @humandesignblueprint. The discount code also applies to our course if you want to learn it all—it’s a great place for that.
Gervase: Amazing. We’ll put it all in the show notes. Do it, guys. Thank you again for your time. It’s been lovely, and I will see you soon.
Erin: Thank you.
I AM a Multidimensional Woman
Let’s be real: the world doesn’t need another “put-together” woman who’s mastered pretending. It needs you—whole, honest, luminous, messy, intuitive, powerful-as-hell you.
That's why we're bringing back this special episode -- straight from the Vault!
G goes all in—sharing raw personal stories and client transformations to show you the sacred evidence of what’s possible when you stop hiding parts of yourself. Light and dark. Joy and rage. Fire and softness. All of it belongs.
This episode is your reminder (or wake-up call) that being fully expressed isn’t a luxury—it’s your lifeline. Especially if you’re navigating mental health shifts, heavy relational dynamics, or the never-ending mental load of modern womanhood.
Here’s what you’ll walk away with:
What it actually means to lead with your heart
How to feel more grounded in your truth—even when life feels like a lot
Why emotional range = personal power
A new definition of “strength” that lets you breathe easier
A soul check-in: Are you living the Woman Way… or still shape-shifting?
Hit play now. Let it land. Let it stir you. Then share it with the women who need it. And if it moves you? Come join the Phoenix Revolution. We’re not here to play small anymore.
Get more support to create your masterpiece of a life
CREATRIX: a 4-day on-demand for the woman who wants to reconnect to and amplify the feminine magic and empowered mindset that allows you to easily create everything you want in your life.
You are not the same every single day. And while you can become outwardly successful with values like perfectionism, discipline and hustle—I can show you a better way. An easier way
Inside this four-day on-demand course, you'll learn:
What keeps us stuck in cycles of shame, self-doubt, over-doing and feeling disconnected from our whole Woman and how to connect back to Her.
The role conditioning plays and how to undo it.
How to use your Creatrix magic to let go of your death grip on control and invite in more joy, pleasure, connection, presence.
A process for breaking cycles of toxic narratives and life patterns.
An empowered mindset that allows you to trust yourself more.
And so much more…
Let’s be real: the world doesn’t need another “put-together” woman who’s mastered pretending. It needs you—whole, honest, luminous, messy, intuitive, powerful-as-hell you.
That's why we're bringing back this special episode -- straight from the Vault!
G goes all in—sharing raw personal stories and client transformations to show you the sacred evidence of what’s possible when you stop hiding parts of yourself. Light and dark. Joy and rage. Fire and softness. All of it belongs.
This episode is your reminder (or wake-up call) that being fully expressed isn’t a luxury—it’s your lifeline. Especially if you’re navigating mental health shifts, heavy relational dynamics, or the never-ending mental load of modern womanhood.
Here’s what you’ll walk away with:
What it actually means to lead with your heart
How to feel more grounded in your truth—even when life feels like a lot
Why emotional range = personal power
A new definition of “strength” that lets you breathe easier
A soul check-in: Are you living the Woman Way… or still shape-shifting?
Hit play now. Let it land. Let it stir you. Then share it with the women who need it. And if it moves you? Come join the Phoenix Revolution. We’re not here to play small anymore.
Get more support to create your masterpiece of a life
CREATRIX: a 4-day on-demand for the woman who wants to reconnect to and amplify the feminine magic and empowered mindset that allows you to easily create everything you want in your life.
You are not the same every single day. And while you can become outwardly successful with values like perfectionism, discipline and hustle—I can show you a better way. An easier way
Inside this four-day on-demand course, you'll learn:
What keeps us stuck in cycles of shame, self-doubt, over-doing and feeling disconnected from our whole Woman and how to connect back to Her.
The role conditioning plays and how to undo it.
How to use your Creatrix magic to let go of your death grip on control and invite in more joy, pleasure, connection, presence.
A process for breaking cycles of toxic narratives and life patterns.
An empowered mindset that allows you to trust yourself more.
And so much more…
More Free Resources
Download Gervase’s free gift, the Trust Yo’self hypnosis track: https://bit.ly/3xKuaPv
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
I AM a Multidimensional Woman
Episode Full Transcript
Hi friends, Gervase Kolmos here, the host of the Modern Phoenix podcast, and you are going to love today's solo episode. We're bringing it back from the vault. It's from a couple years ago, and it's called I Am a Multidimensional Woman, and I'm pretty picky about podcasts that I repub. Like, I'm not just trying to take any old thing and put it in here. I'm always checking in with the frequency and the energy and the inspiration and the intention that something was created with. This one is straight fire, so I think you're really going to like it. If there's any references that seem out of date, this was, I think I did it three years ago.
And because as I was listening to this, it inspired me to go back in to products I've created and kind of give a facelift, give a little glow up to one of my products called the Creatrix. Now the Creatrix, it's something I talk about in this podcast a lot, and it is now for sale. $97 gets you this four-day on-demand course. It is such a cool course. I remember that when I was creating this course, the idea was like dropping women out of their logic-bound brains and their limited mindsets of like who they are and what they're capable of and the right way to woman and dropping them like deep into their feminine magic and their souls. Like this is a very spiritual, energetic transmission from me. There's a lot of feminine energy. There's a lot about doing things the woman way. I give a lot of personal examples from my life. Like I really believe in the value of this mini course. So I really think if you didn't grab it when it was available three years ago, go ahead and grab it at the link in the show notes now.
There's four modules in the Creatrix. The first one is called I Am a Mind, Body, and Soul. The second one is I'm Here to Break Cycles. The third one is I Am Light and Dark. And the fourth one is I Am the One I've Been Waiting For. And I think those kind of speak for themselves. So I hope you enjoy I Am a Multidimensional Woman. I hope you remember that you are a multidimensional woman. I hope that you give the Creatrix four-day on-demand course a try even just to get you back connected to your truth, your power, your soul, your feminine energy, your magic.
It is exactly what it sounds like. Creatrix, the word itself to me, carries an energy that feels really activating to me. And I hope that that's what it can be for those of you listening. I think a lot of content for me that I purchase or listen to, it's almost like a transmission for me. It's like when I have forgotten something. It's like a Gervais in your pocket. It's like, you know, a sermon. It's whatever you need to reattune, realign to your magic. And the part of you you've forgotten. The part of you that's playing small, limited, like, you know, thinking within the realms of logic and forgets that you get to be a Creatrix. You get to be multidimensional, light and dark, mind, body and soul, breaking cycles, recreating yourself, evolving, phoenixing, and also the one you've been waiting for. The one with the power to change your life and make it what you hope it will be. Over and over and over. Up and around the spiral we go. If those of you who have been in my containers, you know I always teach about the spiral of evolution. And so, yeah. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And check out the Creatrix mini course.
I'm really excited to talk to you about today's topic. I'm going to have a solo episode for you coming in hot. And I really hope that I convey everything that is, like, bursting out of my heart and soul right now. Because this always happens when, you know, I know you guys know I'm a human design projector. So my energetic pattern is always sprint, rest, sprint, rest. And this is something that I took the time. It was very intentional that I really wanted to learn this about myself. Because when I got energy, when inspiration and creativity is flowing, it is like a well that will not dry up. And then when I feel complete, I really need to kind of go into a cave and hibernate.
And so some of you guys had messaged me on Instagram and been like, where have you been? And I just have been really kind of hibernating and focusing on my work and behind the scenes stuff that I've been preparing for the moment that we are at right now. And now I'm in a sprint. And in a sprint is when everything that I engage with, every piece of content I watch or read on social media, every client conversation leaves me bursting with something I want to say in response. It leaves me bursting with like a teachable moment and like a message, like a really important truth that I am pulling out from these conversations that I want to make sure that I share with you in a way that you can really hear it, that it can really land for you.
So anyway, as I am recording the videos and like mapping out all the content right now for the Creatrix, that starts May 9th and runs through May 12th. And the link to join us to register for this free mini courses live and people have started joining. And so I'm feeling the energy of this and I have so much I want to say about it because I'm in this Creatrix energy. And so I want to share with you some examples from a couple of client conversations I've had in the last 24 hours. And it's funny because these have shaped day one of the Creatrix of what you're going to learn inside this free training and the free video series that comes out for days one through three. It's like videos of me teaching you on these concepts. But I wanted to give you a snippet here on the podcast. You can kind of understand what this is about.
So if you're here, you likely consider yourself a modern woman. I know I do. I know all of my clients. There are some of them who come to me and they're like, I don't even know why I feel drawn to you, why I'm in your world. But like, I just feel like there's something that you are reflecting to me about myself that I get to have, or maybe a piece of myself that I've lost connection to that I want to learn from you. And I want to tell you, yes, you as a modern woman are so much more than you have been taught to believe. You as a modern woman are here to be a Creatrix. You are here to not only make babies, be productive, do, partner, create, but also to dream, make magic, to see things that other people don't understand, to see solutions to problems, to feel intuitively from your inner guidance system, your intuition, or your soul, or your heart, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Answers to things in this modern world that you can't get from your logic brain.
So I want to talk to you about the truth that you are a multidimensional woman. I am a multidimensional woman. And it is really easy, particularly in this day and age, to look around, particularly with the internet, and see a woman and decide she's that kind of woman. You might look at me and say, oh, she's whatever. She's woo-woo, or she's, you know, wears lipstick, or she's the married type, or she's the suburbs type, or she's the jungle type, whatever. You might make a quick assumption based on just a tiny bit of data that you know about me and say, I'm this kind of woman. And it's totally fine. Like, we're all doing this. We're all making assumptions. But I want you to notice how much this limits your own ability as a modern woman to create the life that you want, to create the results that you want, to be all that you are.
Because when you decide, let's say, I'll use myself as an example, when I started this journey, so I've been a coach for eight years. So at the beginning of my journey, my business, sorry if this is recap for some of you, was called Shiny Happy Human. And there was periods in between each word because I was grappling with this reality that I was shiny and I was happy. But I also had this very human side to me that didn't quite fit in this identity that I had made for myself. And the problem with this was anytime I started experiencing very normal, natural feelings that were, quote unquote, dark, my depression, overwhelm, you know, the wounding, like my mother wound, any like mom guilt I started to feel or cognitive dissonance between the mother I was and the life I had and the one I wanted to be in a life I wanted to have. Any cognitive dissonance between shiny and happy Gervais started to mean something. I started to make it mean something about me.
And so what happened here is I forgot that as a multidimensional woman, I am darkness and light. We are all darkness and light, just like the earth, just like the moon, just like the seasons of nature. There is winter and there is spring and you need both. There is medicine for you in both. There is productivity and worth in both of those. And so what happened for me at the beginning of my coaching journey is I was starting to play with, oh, I am shiny, happy and human and talk more about the human stuff and the human side. But what was really happening is I was experiencing depression on and off, which I had carried on from early in my life. And I had a lot of shame about it. And I was hiding it. And I wasn't really talking about the depression. I was talking about, you know, the human anxiety. That's so popular. It's so mainstream to be anxious, right? I was talking about, you know, fights with my mom and whatever mom guilt and, you know, the kind of surface layer stuff. But I wasn't talking about the true source of my shame. The thing that I had really hidden from myself and from the world was my depression because I had a lot of feelings about it and I had a lot of stories about what that depression meant about me.
And the problem with this is that I wasn't bringing my full self to my life. I was allowing the shiny, happy version of me to sit at this table, to have a voice in my brand, to be present as a mother in my marriage, in my closest friendships. But the depression, like that was like, ooh, let's just tuck that away. Let's just like, you know, we'll get help for that, but we won't talk about it because how embarrassing, how weird that I have this darkness.
And I did this group hypnosis training for a friend of mine for her community. And one of the women on this call at the end of the training was sharing how hypnosis had been so powerful to help her drop out of her anxious, depressed mind into her body and how she had struggled with anxiety and depression for a really long time. And her question to me during the hot seat coaching part of this training was, how do I control my depression? How do I control my anxiety? And I was struck by her choice of words, by her need as a multidimensional, multifaceted, like magical woman to say, yeah, but this I need to control.
I want you to feel the energy of the word control. I want you to feel the intention of the word control. And maybe just for yourself, start to play with this idea that what's a word that feels better? Why does allow and accept and work with my depression, my anxiety feel so much better than I need to control it? This is the difference between my interpretation of the feminine and the masculine. It is not because we don't desire and crave as humans stability and structure and management of ourselves and our lives. But control serves a very different purpose than how do I work with this? How do I blend this into my life? Okay. So that's just something for you to notice. That's a different conversation about why as women, we have been brainwashed to believe we need to control the parts of ourselves that are not cookie cutter, that don't fit in this perfect little identity box that we have been handed. As modern women, this is what you get to be. This is what a good mother looks like. This is what a devoted wife, this is what a successful woman looks like. Just something to notice, something to bring your awareness to start being an active participant in the words that you use and consume and decide if that works for you or not. Okay. And we're going to kind of get into that in the creatrix.
But going back to the story, when this woman said this to me, I reflected back to her. I said, you know, I want to point out the use of the word control and for you to question that. And I want to share my experience with depression and share with you that my depression didn't lose its grip and control on my experience of my life until I stopped trying to hide it, shame it, or control it. And I just allowed it to be part of me. It's all me. The depression and the shiny, happy Gervais. It's all me. And that's okay. And I started to really challenge this notion that this depression didn't have something to teach me. That this depression didn't have something to bring to the dynamic, dimensional experience of me.
Because I know personally, when I am connecting with another person who is one-dimensional, who is only allowing the shiny and happy part of her to be present, I'm a little bored. I'm a little bored. That like GPS system inside of me as a magical, multidimensional woman that knows every human has depth and layers is kind of like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Where's your dark? Where's the stuff that makes you interesting? Where have you been? What have you been through? What do you come from? What are you working for? What's hard for you? What are you learning? And for me, my depression had so much of that to teach me.
And from there, I'll share. I was with a VIP client on the phone yesterday. And she was having a similar experience with her darkness. And saying like, yeah, I just want to understand why I have these two versions of me. This version of me that I feel is like at her worst, like just crazy. She's just, you know, I hide her. I'm so embarrassed by her. I just feel like she just assumes she's bad. You know, she's the cause of everybody's problems. Like if there's a fight, it's my fault. And I should just, you know, remove myself from this situation. And I'm bad and it's all bad. And it's always going to be bad and it's bad. And then this other version of me that's like so normal, it's so calm, collected, grounded, healthy, thriving, vibrant.
And we started to bring in the same conversation. This like, what does it look like for you to, instead of controlling or hiding your darkness, to welcome her and allow her to be part of you? Instead of trying to figure out why do I have this? What trauma is this from? What wound? What happened to me? What if this is just a piece of you? What does it look like instead of hiding it for you to welcome this piece of you and say, okay, you get to be here. Okay. You're feeling a lot of feelings right now. Okay. What do you have to teach me? Let's talk about it. Let's bring this into my conversation with my partner, but not from a place of wobbly insecurity, from a place of, I know this is a part of me and she gets to be here. And how are we going to work through this? What is she trying to tell me?
You know, often the women who have like the women, especially the women that I work with are very much like me. It's like canaries in the coal mine. It's not that there's something wrong with you. It's that you are just breathing in the poison of a situation and you're not as tolerant. You know, your ability to withstand constant being controlled and put into a tiny little box is less. And that's good. That is like you are gifts to the world because we need people to call out the bullshit. That is modern women being told you are one dimensional and this is how you get to be. Right. And so I reflected back to this client. I was like, I just want you to know why I love you is not because of that other polarity of you that is, you know, happy and calm and grounded and composed. That is not what I love about you. I love that you are hungry to heal and explore and know more about yourself and to have deeper, more real and true relationships with your partner and your parents and your friends. I love that you are vulnerable and honest and wanting to go to the root of your life's experiences and hold yourself to this high standard of putting yourself at the center of your life. Putting yourself as I am responsible for creating what I desire in my life. I love your shadow and how it works and complements and dances with your light. I think that's what makes you you.
And I feel like the more that you can just bring all of you to every conversation, relationship, challenge, the less suffering you will have. The more you stop trying to control your depression and anxiety and just allow her to be here. Like stop making it such a big deal. Stop trying to figure out where she came from or why she's here and just say like, oh, this is who I am. Okay. What if that was just okay? What if what gets to be the standard for a woman is who you actually truly are? What if you bring her, all of her to your life from this place of total worthiness and trust and belief that like only then will you feel the most powerful version of yourself. Only then will you be able to solve the problems that have felt unsolvable.
As women, we have so many magical superpowers that we can't see that sometimes tell us so much more about what we need and how to quote unquote balance it all as a modern woman than our logic brain or a book or a blueprint ever could. Right. Right. We don't just get shit done. We don't just do and create and do the fucking dishes and the things that we put on our to-do list, the mental load. We are so much more than that. What about what we feel? What about what we sense? What about what we intuit? What about when we kind of just know in our bodies like, oh, it's time for me to change the kids clothes from winter to spring. This is like a really mundane example, but it's like, what about when we just kind of know it's time for a change for my kids school? Oh, it's just, it's time for me to start pouring into myself more. I'm out of the season of hard. I'm out of the trenches. Oh, it's time for me to whatever. The things that we know, not because somebody told us, not because we read it in a book, not because Gervais said so, because we feel it from the wisdom of our soul, from our beings, because we are creatrixes.
And these layers of light and dark, these multidimensional layers that we're going to get into in this training, but like for today, just let's talk about the shadow and the light. That is part of like the composting process of our life, which as cycling women mirrors nature. And how does nature just know when it's time to bloom or when it's time to compost, when it's time to lose the leaves and when it's time to grow new leaves? How does nature know when it's time to rain? Like it just fucking knows. Of course, there's like the science behind it, but it's like, how do the animals into it when it's time to fly? Like there's so much magic in nature and in the world and our bodies and our beings as women mimic, mirror these cycles and knowings of nature.
But we aren't even allowing ourselves to tap into that, to be aware of it, to see it, to make it count just as much as so-and-so's, what she said makes a happy household. What so-and-so says makes you a good mom. What this parenting technique and this organizational blah, blah, blah. And I'll end with this example, like another conversation I had with a client this morning. She was talking about this book that I'm sure lots of you have read and heard about, Eve Rodsky's book about the mental load. Fair play, fair play. And if you haven't read this book, I haven't read it because I kind of talked to enough people about it, heard about it, and I kind of ascertained like what it was about. And I feel like I got this.
And this client was sharing how in this book, there's all of these cards. I don't know. I'm just going to, I'm going to do this disservice, but I'm going to try. Basically, everything that a woman carries in her mind, you put it on a card so you can see the task. And then you can bring that card to your relationship and lay it on the table and talk about it with your partner and even out the load. And one of these cards is like the unicorn card that gets to be like, what is the thing you're doing for you? Where's your joy? Where's your whatever? How are you like having time for fun? How are you making time for your marriage? And I understand that most modern women resonate with this system. I understand that modern women are carrying such a mental load that feels like they just don't know how to do it all without burning the fuck out and being resentful, anxious, divorced, like really not having time for themselves, not feeling space. I understand that. And I love that they exist.
And I also want to point out. And I said this to this client. So I think that's a lot of people that I'm going to be taking all of the anxiety of women, validating it, making it manifest in the physical form and using that as the way that you communicate your needs to your partner, which to me takes all of the magic, all of the intuition, all of the opportunity for true heart-to-heart connection. And not, here's what's on my to-do list. Between partnerships, between partners, and vice versa. And when women are taking on so much of this mental load, we need to talk less about, well, what's on your to-do list? And let's put it on cards and let's balance it out. And more about, what's on your to-do list? What's on your to-do list? Oh, I feel like I'm in a season that requires this of me.
What about strengthening not your ability to manifest your anxiety into a to-do list that you then share with your partner, but more about strengthening that other muscle that we're not strengthening, that other layers, the other dimensions of us, the things that we feel and know that we desire. And talking about your desires and talk about that with your partner. Because there's going to be seasons where you do the dishes every day and there's going to be seasons where he does or she does. And that's not what this is about. The mental load is a symptom of our disconnection to ourselves. The mental load is a symptom of our inability to accept that we are more than our productivity, that we are more than our clean house, and we are more than our perfectly behaved and dressed children. The mental load is a byproduct of our inability to accept and allow ourselves as multidimensional women who are both light and dark, who both get shit done and feel and sense in our hearts and intuitions other things that need our attention.
And if we can't feel and sense and intuit from our souls, like where we desire to be and what we need to compost out of our life. And if we're only over here in the logic brain, in the light, look, I am grounded and composed and I've got it all together. We're missing the opportunity for deeper connection, deeper transformation, deeper understanding of self, better conversations, truer to-do lists, truer partnerships that aren't about like, are we doing things equally, but are we tending to each other as partners? Not are we making time for a date night? Like what's in your heart right now, in this season of your life, what's true for you?
Because I promise you the times when I've been carrying my partner on my back, but then we sit down and he takes the time to be with, be present and hear me and see me and hold space for my full multidimensional woman. I don't fucking care about the mental load. I feel held. I feel held emotionally. And that matters so much more. And if we're not creating a conversation and a narrative and an awareness that we are so much more than this one dimensional, oh, well, it's all got to get done. Somebody's got to do it. Who's got to do the kids? And if we're not creating an awareness and a culture that leaves space for the depth and the winter seasons and the hardness and the darkness and the things we can't see and the things about a woman that make her herself, like all of us, if we're not bringing our full embodied womanhood to every area of our life, the world is missing out. Our partnership is never going to be what it could be. Our life, our careers, our dreams, our mothering, our experience of our life is never going to be what it could be because we're missing the darkness, the compost stage.
And what I'm relating here is like your darkness gets like when it's like soil that's tilled, right? It's like it's turned into compost. And then something new and beautiful grows from that, that you couldn't have even imagined. Like again, Disney reference, if you've seen Encanto, which like I fucking hope you have. It's like when the girl who does the planting, she's like, I want to plant something new. It's like, we know you can make roses. We get it. Roses are pretty. Everybody likes the roses. They're perfect and symmetrical and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, what if you could take all that anger and resentment that you're feeling and like work through it and like channel it into something? And then what would grow? And then she starts to grow these like jungle plants and these cacti. And she feels so alive. It's like that aliveness.
And when we bring our full selves to our womanhood, when we accept and allow, instead of control and constrict and balance out and, you know, do our checkbook of, okay, is everybody, is it all even? Is it all fair? And have I done everything that other people told me I should do? That's when we get to feel the most alive, the most us, the most fully, like I go through my life now with being a person who resonated so much with depression. And I'm like, oh, that shame and judgment has been composted into power, into the me you see here who can talk about it and just be like, feel nothing but power. Feel nothing but trust that that was medicine for me. And there was lessons for me. And I grew from that. A new version of me grew from that composting. And it all belonged. It didn't come from controlling it and hiding it, from being perfect or being one way. It came from making space for all of me, all of my womanhood.
And I hope that this gives you permission, maybe even just awareness of where you might not be doing this in your life to do the same, to bring this aliveness, this intention for aliveness for versions of you you don't even know exist into every area of your life. And trust that like, that is something that only you know how to do. And it only happens when you tap into not just like your organization, time management bullshit. That's fine. We don't have a problem with that. Like we don't have a problem with that. Look around. When you tap into this other part of your feminine being, the part that mimics nature, that mimics mother earth, that mimics the moon, you work in cycles, sprint, rest, sprint, rest, and you don't panic about the rest period. You just shore up your energy. You just know you drink your fucking water. You take your vitamins. You know, you're going to sprint again soon. And when you do, if you're like me, it's going to be like, boom. Create tricks time.
If you haven't signed up for the create tricks, I am inviting you to join us. It's four days. It's totally free. The link is gervasekolmos.com/creatrix. C-R-E-A-T-R-I-X. It's going to be, I've never done a free training this way before, and I'm so fucking excited about it. It's going to be so powerful, so potent, and it's totally free. I can't wait to see you inside there. The last day, day four is this live group call training, which starts with a guided hypnosis and a rapid fire coaching. It's going to be so good.
And the core of this training, the core of being a creatrix is accepting and seeing and acknowledging that you are a multidimensional woman. You came here to be all of it, to be more, so much more than you think. You've been brainwashed to think you only get to be this small, this tiny version of you that society would allow. You are so much more. There is so much depth and layers and power and ideas and creativity and problem solving and magic in you. I can't wait to help you unlock it.
Okay, that was it. What did you think? Did you enjoy it? I would love to hear from you. Message me on Instagram. That's the place I like to play at @gervasekolmos. And let me know what you thought. Where do you stand on this whole like being multidimensional nonsense? Are you like, yes, I feel you. I want this, but I don't know how. Or are you like, yes, I am already in the fire, Khaleesi-ing with you. You know, I find myself at all stages of this journey at every turn around the spiral.
So I hope that you enjoyed that older episode. And again, check out the Creatrix four-day on-demand course. It's $97, which is like seriously a steal. And it is such powerful, empowering content that you can listen to whenever you want, like this podcast and have forever. I love you so much. Please share this podcast episode with somebody that you think could use the Gervais church, the sermon, the return to their multidimensionality and their magic. And thank you so, so much for being here and spending your precious time with me. I will see you back here in two weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
How to Connect with Your Heart (And Get Out of Your Head) with Katie Hendricks
What if the reason you struggle to speak from your heart isn’t because you don't know what to say, but because you've forgotten how to connect with yourself first? Most of us want deeper connection, but we’re so stuck in our heads, running on adrenaline instead of presence.
This week, Gervase sits down with best-selling author and international consultant Katie Hendricks to explore how to make the journey from head to heart and discover the practical tools that make authentic connection possible.
Katie reveals why most of us are walking around “from the neck up,” running on adrenaline instead of presence, and how this disconnection affects everything—from how we show up with our partners, to how we navigate conflict, to how we experience our own lives. She shares practical tools for reconnecting with your body, giving yourself nourishing attention, and moving through the world with your heart open, even when it feels scary.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
The simple “hmm” technique that shifts you from criticism to curiosity (and opens the pathway between your head and heart)
Why most people live “from the neck up” and how this keeps you running on adrenaline instead of true presence
Katie’s “loop of awareness” practice—how to circulate attention between yourself and others so you don’t get lost in your head, or lost in others
How to ask yourself “How am I experiencing this in my body right now?” and why this question changes everything
Why opening your heart feels scary and how to move around the fear instead of forcing through it
The difference between giving attention from adrenaline versus presence and why one nourishes while the other depletes
How to separate “stuff talk” and “heart talk” so business doesn't block heart connection with your partner
How to shift from seeing your partner as a “fixer upper” to an evolving work of art
The game-changing concept of a “no blame relationship” and how to create one
What if the reason you struggle to speak from your heart isn’t because you don't know what to say, but because you've forgotten how to connect with yourself first? Most of us want deeper connection, but we’re so stuck in our heads, running on adrenaline instead of presence.
This week, Gervase sits down with best-selling author and international consultant Katie Hendricks to explore how to make the journey from head to heart and discover the practical tools that make authentic connection possible.
Katie reveals why most of us are walking around “from the neck up,” running on adrenaline instead of presence, and how this disconnection affects everything—from how we show up with our partners, to how we navigate conflict, to how we experience our own lives. She shares practical tools for reconnecting with your body, giving yourself nourishing attention, and moving through the world with your heart open, even when it feels scary.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
The simple “hmm” technique that shifts you from criticism to curiosity (and opens the pathway between your head and heart)
Why most people live “from the neck up” and how this keeps you running on adrenaline instead of true presence
Katie’s “loop of awareness” practice—how to circulate attention between yourself and others so you don’t get lost in your head, or lost in others
How to ask yourself “How am I experiencing this in my body right now?” and why this question changes everything
Why opening your heart feels scary and how to move around the fear instead of forcing through it
The difference between giving attention from adrenaline versus presence and why one nourishes while the other depletes
How to separate “stuff talk” and “heart talk” so business doesn't block heart connection with your partner
How to shift from seeing your partner as a “fixer upper” to an evolving work of art
The game-changing concept of a “no blame relationship” and how to create one
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Connect with Katie Hendricks
Be. Play. Love Podcast: https://beplaylove.com/
Love and Relationship products: www.heartsintrueharmony.com
Hendricks Institute: www.hendricks.com
How to Connect with Your Heart (And Get Out of Your Head) with Katie Hendricks
Episode Full Transcript
Gervase: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Modern Phoenix Podcast. I have brought you a bit of a legend today. Katie Hendricks is here with us to share a beautiful conversation. Katie, it is beyond an honor to be here across from you. Thank you so much for your time and your work in the world.
Katie: Oh, thank you. It’s my pleasure. Having this way of connecting with people when we’re not in the same place has been so exciting. We can have these conversations and share presence no matter where we are in the world. I think it’s one of the best things about technology.
Gervase: Agree. And you are such a connector in the way you show up. I’m really in love with your podcast.
Katie: Oh, thank you.
Gervase: Your podcast is so good. I literally listened to one of the episodes twice because the way you speak about relationships is so refreshing. It’s grounded, wise, and something I really respond well to.
I have to say—the first personal growth book I ever read was The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, your husband, which I’m pretty sure you influenced quite a lot.
Katie: Yes, yes, yes.
Gervase: It’s wild to be here with you 11 years later after reading that book. Let me read your bio so people can come into our world, and then let’s dive in.
Katie Hendricks, bestselling author and international consultant, has been an evolutionary catalyst, contextual disruptor, and freelance mentor for over half a century. She’s passionate about our ability to give and receive more nourishing attention and loving play in all aspects of our lives.
Her purpose: I feel through to the heart with laser love and evoke essence through deep play.
So beautiful.
Katie: Thank you so much. It took me several years to really land on, “This is what I do.” Because you go to parties or conventions, and people ask, “Who are you?” Usually people say, “I am a writer, I am a coach.” But I wanted to say, “Here’s what I do in the world.” And that always leads to, “Oh, how do you do that?” It opens a conversation rather than putting me in a category.
Gervase: That is so good to hear. I truly struggle with that question depending on my environment. When I first became certified as a life coach 11 years ago, it was so edgy for me. The word “life” in front of it—like, I’m going to coach you through life—felt so pretentious. I would panic when someone asked me.
Over the last decade I’ve changed a lot, added modalities and passions to my portfolio, but I still freeze depending on who’s asking. Like yesterday, the window guy was here and said, “What do you do?” I said, “I help women untangle who they are from who the world told them to be.”
That is what I do, but I cannot land it. It sounds like the train is still leaving the station. Part of me feels really nervous about it.
Katie: I’ve found that if I move from a noun—“I am a”—to a verb, it makes a big difference in how I experience myself. It also creates a connection. If I say, “I facilitate, I assist, I guide, I consult,” those are verbs. “I am a” fixes you. Verbs are my favorite. I forget who said it, but I love the quote: “I think I am a verb.”
Gervase: I love it. As you were saying the verbs, I checked in with my body and felt a sense of wonder and play. That kind of kicks us off.
You are really an expert in so many things. In your bio, when you wrote about connecting with the heart, I thought that was really interesting. Let’s start there, if that’s okay with you.
I have some brilliant friends, and one therapist friend once told me: when she’s in a conversation and struggling to explain herself, she closes her eyes, puts her hand on her heart, and says, “I wish you could feel what’s in my heart right now, because in my heart I feel…” Even as I say that, it makes me emotional.
Some people listening will roll their eyes, but for others, the idea of communicating through the heart might feel foreign. How would you recommend someone start? Like, if you’re in a conversation and not connecting, the words aren’t landing, and you want to cut through and speak from the heart—you have to first access it in yourself. How can people do that?
Katie: I’d say the main thing people struggle with in relationships is making the trip from head to heart to body. It’s like a canyon. Many people say, “I don’t know what I’m feeling.” Or, “I know what I’m feeling, but I don’t know what to do about it.”
The big move is including the rest of your body. When people are talking about an issue, I ask, “How are you experiencing that in your body right now?” Even if they don’t have an answer, they have to do something—they have to make that trip and inquire. That’s the move, and most people need to make it many times.
What helps is curiosity. The sound hmm moves us from our critical brain into our wonder brain.
Gervase: Oh my God, I just did it. I went, hmm.
Katie: Exactly. That sound opens the highway—your throat, your breathing, your ability to speak. Hmm relaxes your throat, so you’re not gripping to say the right thing. It allows you to think better. So I suggest: hmm.
Another thing is to take slower breaths. That moves you out of fight/flight/freeze/faint into presence. Then, I like to have people share something they appreciate about themselves. For example, I might say, “I appreciate the quality of your voice—when I hear it, I find myself relaxing.”
Sharing appreciation opens the space to be with ourselves more fully. Because most people live from the neck up—in their heads, in their phones, thinking about life rather than experiencing it. They don’t move. Kids learn through movement, but adults suppress that playfulness and spontaneity. So I ask people to shrug their shoulders or feel their feet, just to experience their body directly.
Opening the heart is scary for many people because they’ve been wounded. So I don’t go directly for the heart. I move around it with breath, movement, appreciation. It lets people know however they are is welcome.
Gervase: Thank you. That felt like hearing someone describe focalizing—the body-based modality I’m trained in. The journey you described is almost identical.
In focalizing, we repeat: no shame, no blame, no expectation, no pressure. Just show up however you are. It sounds cheesy, but giving someone permission to be as they are—even anxious or disconnected from their heart—is a big deal.
Katie: It is. We grow up in environments where rules matter more than presence. “Look good, be nice, don’t say anything if it’s not nice.” Spontaneity gets suppressed.
Letting people know however you are is welcome—that’s the biggest gift. I use the image of sitting with a friend on a porch swing, just rocking together. That slows down the anxious stuff and lets essence emerge.
I’ve even asked people to invent how they like to retreat when it’s too much—like building a fort or creating a safe space. That makes a huge difference.
Gervase: Yes. I was told I was “too sensitive” growing up, and now I know that’s my superpower.
Katie: Exactly. Sensitivity lets us find the little windows where people are closed off. Presence trickles through the cracks like water. And instead of saying, “There’s nothing to be scared of,” we let people feel safe through our own presence. That thaws the ice, lets energy flow, and brings us back to being enough.
Gervase: It also shifts us from achievement fueled by adrenaline—which is empty—to nourishment through oxytocin and connection.
Katie: Yes. One of the practices I use is the loop of awareness: shifting attention between yourself and others. Inside, it looks like noticing a sensation and being curious instead of critical. With others, it’s noticing them, then noticing yourself. It keeps circulation going.
When I use loop of awareness, I can teach ten-day trainings and end up more vital than when I started, because I’m constantly refilling myself. It’s like an attention pump.
Gervase: I love that. My friend Edie Allen, a Big Leap facilitator, taught loop of awareness and essence pacing at my retreat last year. It’s so approachable.
In my Inner Knowing Mastermind, I emphasize resourcing. But it can sound too cognitive. Loop of awareness feels more natural—like a constant rhythm: in to me, out to you, back to me. It’s not time-blocked self-care. It’s moment by moment.
With my three kids, I see how much better my days flow when I check in with myself throughout: Do I need water? Do I need to slow down? That’s embodiment. That’s sustainable.
Katie: Yes. And if you add a quiet hmm when you shift, it brings curiosity instead of criticism.
Most people are “outies” with attention, always outward. So just shift the other direction. That’s the basic skill. You can also play with rhythm—fast, slow, alternating. It wakes up the witness inside you, who can say, “Oh honey, you’re anxious. Let’s be with that.” Often, acknowledgment and a breath is all that’s needed.
Gervase: That reminds me of saying “I’m fine” with a broken hip.
Katie: Exactly! Years ago, I fell off my bike and broke my hip. Within five minutes, fire trucks and ambulances were there. They asked, “Are you all right?” and I said, “I’m fine.” Automatic. Even with a broken hip. That’s how ingrained it is.
Gervase: Yes. “Don’t mind me, just a broken hip.”
Katie: Right. But when you learn loop of awareness, you stop draining yourself. You can give from fullness. And attention becomes nourishing instead of fear-based.
Gervase: That’s beautiful. Let’s talk about relationships. You and Gay have been married how long?
Katie: We’ve been together 45 years, married 43.
Gervase: Wow. You clearly figured things out. You’ve said presence and attention open love and creativity—but what about when stuff gets in the way? Like resentment, exhaustion, decades of disconnection?
Katie: We created two conversations for couples: the stuff talk and the heart talk. Ten minutes each. Stuff talk is for the business of life—schedules, toilets, dishes. Heart talk is for sharing experience and appreciation.
This structure keeps the business from overwhelming the relationship. When you know you’ll have a business meeting, your body relaxes. It takes a couple of months to get into rhythm, but it’s worth it.
Another big shift is seeing your partner not as an improvement project but as an evolving work of art. Commit to appreciating. Whenever you catch yourself criticizing, move to appreciation. Research shows you need at least five appreciations for every criticism. We chose a no-blame relationship years ago, and it’s been transformative.
Gervase: I love that. I tell clients—it’s never about the dishes. It’s about connection.
Katie: Exactly. If dishes are an issue, schedule a stuff talk. But heart talk keeps love flowing.
We also teach couples to drop words and use sounds and gestures when they’re triggered. It often turns funny. Or we’ll have partners put their hands together and go, “Na-na-na-na-na-na.” That’s what all power struggles are. Then you laugh, melt the adrenaline, and reconnect.
Gervase: Yes. It brings you back to why you’re together. You didn’t marry for a clean sink.
Katie: Right. You marry for love, fun, and co-creativity. A relationship is like a team, like a great sports team. Everyone becomes an expression of the whole. Out of that “we space,” new ideas and creations emerge.
Gervase: And resentment dissolves when you shift from blame to appreciation. Instead of demanding they change, you get curious: what happens if I shift to appreciation?
Katie: Yes. And when in doubt, it’s probably fear. Befriend fear, and the energy caught in fight/flight becomes available. Sometimes just saying, “I feel scared” (not “I feel scared because you…”) shifts everything.
Gervase: Thank you so much for your wisdom. We’ll link your books, websites, and materials in the show notes.
Katie: Thank you. What a pleasure to co-create with you.
Gervase: I want to acknowledge you. The little one in me is grateful for your mother energy—nurturing, loving, grounded, wise. I soaked it up. Thank you for your presence today.
Katie: Thank you.
Gervase: Tell everyone how they can find you.
Katie: We have two websites: hendricks.com for seminars, coaching, and relationship resources; and foundationforconsciousliving.org for dozens of free videos on breathing, essence pace, loop of awareness, and more. Our nonprofit offers programs on restoring resourcefulness and creating caring community.
We also share on my podcast Be Play Love with my partner Sophie.
Gervase: It’s so good. Your relationship with her is lovely to listen to. We’ll link all that in the show notes. Thank you again, Katie.
Katie: Thank you.
Dharma, Destiny & Divine Design: A Vedic Astrologer's Guide To Your Life’s Path
What if you came to Earth with a divine design and a map of your life already written in the stars?
This week, Gervase sits down with Carol Allen, a Vedic astrologer with 34 years of experience to explore how this ancient system can offer profound insights into your life's purpose, relationships, and spiritual path.
This isn't your typical horoscope chat. Carol shares how Vedic astrology—practiced for thousands of years in India—reveals your “celestial DNA” and why understanding your divine design can free you from the Western pressure to be something maybe you’re not meant for, and help you live in alignment with your soul’s true destiny.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
Why Vedic astrology is different from Western astrology and how it works as “ancient technology” for understanding your soul's path
How your chart is your celestial DNA, a snapshot of the Universe the moment you took your first breat
Why Western hyperindividualism is making us miserable and how ancient wisdom shows us we're all interconnected frequency beings
The concept of dharma and why you're not meant to force yourself into someone else's blueprint for success
Why finding love isn't just about you, it's about both people's destinies aligning and what this means for taking pressure off yourself
How to live at “the level of love” by being who you're truly here to be
How vedic astrology can help you parent based on who your child actually is (as they come “pre-loaded at the factory”)
How your chart reveals your natural gifts, relationship patterns, and even physical characteristics with stunning accuracy
The cyclical nature of life and why expecting constant progression is making us miserable and exhausted
What if you came to Earth with a divine design and a map of your life already written in the stars?
This week, Gervase sits down with Carol Allen, a Vedic astrologer with 34 years of experience to explore how this ancient system can offer profound insights into your life's purpose, relationships, and spiritual path.
This isn't your typical horoscope chat. Carol shares how Vedic astrology—practiced for thousands of years in India—reveals your “celestial DNA” and why understanding your divine design can free you from the Western pressure to be something maybe you’re not meant for, and help you live in alignment with your soul’s true destiny.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
Why Vedic astrology is different from Western astrology and how it works as “ancient technology” for understanding your soul's path
How your chart is your celestial DNA, a snapshot of the Universe the moment you took your first breat
Why Western hyperindividualism is making us miserable and how ancient wisdom shows us we're all interconnected frequency beings
The concept of dharma and why you're not meant to force yourself into someone else's blueprint for success
Why finding love isn't just about you, it's about both people's destinies aligning and what this means for taking pressure off yourself
How to live at “the level of love” by being who you're truly here to be
How vedic astrology can help you parent based on who your child actually is (as they come “pre-loaded at the factory”)
How your chart reveals your natural gifts, relationship patterns, and even physical characteristics with stunning accuracy
The cyclical nature of life and why expecting constant progression is making us miserable and exhausted
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Dharma, Destiny & Divine Design: A Vedic Astrologer's Guide To Your Life’s Path
Episode Full Transcript
So, I don’t know about you, but I can tend to lose myself in the summer because I find my routine totally in the shitter. I’m home working full time with three kids, and it’s easy to get sucked into old patterns of martyrdom or burnout or controlling—feeling like a shell of a human because I’m covered in children. If you’re a mother, you might relate.
I’m really excited—and it was very much by design—that I decided to run a mini mastermind for mothers in July. Starting July 15th at noon Eastern, for four weeks I’ll be meeting with a group of mothers so we can reclaim our wholeness, vibrancy, and aliveness, and plug into a space that’s just for us during the season when it’s easiest to lose ourselves.
I’ve been working with mothers for almost 12 years now. When I started my career 11 years ago, I became a mom coach and worked exclusively with mothers, talking about the juggle for a really long time. I have a lot of lived experience in this topic, but I haven’t done a program on it in a while. I’m excited to invite you to plug into Whole Mother Rising this summer.
Week one: the belief is “You get to be you.” The theme is enough—being enough, having enough, doing enough. We’ll unlearn scarcity: internalized systems, capitalism, patriarchy, programming, conditioning, trauma, and mother culture. Week one alone is going to be a banger.
Week two: the belief is “You get to.” The theme is permission, and we’ll unlearn the rules.
Week three: the belief is “Space is safe.” The theme is space—taking it, having it, occupying it, feeling it. We’ll unlearn guilt, shame, and the ways discomfort speaks.
Week four: the belief is “Fear is the mind-killer.” That’s a line from Dune—I’ve quoted it before. It’s profound; I feel it in my body. The theme is freedom, and we’ll unlearn micromanaging and analyzing fear versus feeling it.
This will be weekly group coaching with me. It’s a pretty high-touch container for a really low price: $399 for four calls. There’s intentional pre-work I’ve journaled out for you in a PDF at the beginning, plus bonus resources, and a Voxer group to connect between calls. I’ll start every session with a grounding visualization/activation (my signature thing from my hypnosis background). You’ll plug into a community of moms who are noticing how the pendulum has swung—from our mothers’ generation unconsciously passing stuff down to kids, to our generation taking everything on ourselves and deciding we, the mothers, are the problem. We put all the pressure on ourselves.
If you want balance—finding the murky middle where you aren’t living in either extreme—and you want to be in my energy and paradigm (the way I do mothering is, I can confirm, a little different than pretty much every mom I know), come join us. We start July 15th. All the links are in the show notes. It’s GervaseKolmos.com forward slash mother dash rising. I’d love to see you there. It’ll be a small group, so join right away so you don’t lose your spot.
We’re not told this enough, but I believe you can be you while raising them. This program is designed to return you to that truth, to that belief, and help you align with it in a group of women with tools, modalities, and coaching from me.
All right, my loves—welcome back to an interview on the Modern Phoenix Podcast with Carol Allen, who has been an astrologer for a casual 34 years.
Carol: Give or take a month or 12.
Gervase: We are so lucky to have you here. We had a one-hour conversation about a year ago that I just rewatched because I’d never had this type of astrology reading. I’ve only dabbled. It felt like a psychic reading. It was a big deal for me—and it looked effortless for you. You were so in your natural zone. I’m excited for you to share a little of your magic with the listeners. Everyone here is astrology-curious at minimum, astrology-heavy at maximum. We’re going to dive into the cosmos. Thank you for being here.
Carol: Thank you for sharing that you found it helpful. Astrology is so rich, deep, and amazing. I’m a little biased about the system I do—Vedic astrology from ancient India. Pretty much every ancient civilization had a system (over 50 kinds). Vedic astrology is the most consistently practiced with no interruption and the most fully integrated with a culture. It’s astonishing. I felt like you did at my first reading: the astrologer told me my life story, when I’d marry, what job I should have. I was on the wrong track, and he said I was supposed to be some kind of spiritual counselor. I thought he was crackers. In India, this is thought to be very spiritual—you come in with a divine design and a map of your life, working with something much greater than yourself.
I love helping people remove the noise—“Why don’t I have this? Why hasn’t that worked out? I should have more, be more, do more”—which is a very Western problem. It’s an honor and gift to do this work.
Gervase: Even hearing you talk about it, my whole system goes, “Oof.” I feel how ancient it is. It doesn’t feel new-age trendy, which is refreshing. It feels like potent, ancient technology and wisdom. Can you explain how it works? What is it? Why does it know everything?
Carol: Most of us come to spiritual stuff via “soundbite spirituality” that brings people into the tent—like “Hey, Aquarius, you’re good with Libra and Gemini,” or “What’s your Enneagram? Human design?” That’s fine; then you can go deeper.
I wish I could speak for the universe, but my human understanding is that we’re all frequency beings. We’re energy; nothing is solid (physics knows this). The ancient writings (the Vedas, among the oldest books on the planet) talk about emanations of light from the sun, moon, and planets. It’s not gravitational pull; it’s energy, frequency.
Once on a plane, a guy in a suit told me he measures the temperature off stars in the aerospace industry. He said it affects everything—plant growth, our bodies, life itself. I thought he’d be open to what I do—nope. The head of a major observatory near me—same. But Carl Sagan was open to astrology. He pointed out we didn’t believe in continental drift until we could measure it. Gravity worked whether or not you believed in it. That’s astrology: emanations of light. Vedic astrology is also called jyotish, “science of light.”
We take our first breath at birth—our first independent inhale—and essentially inhale the universe. That moment imprints us: the positions of the sun, moon, and planets. That’s your celestial DNA for life. Your chart is a snapshot of the sky at your birth, divided into 12 houses (life areas). The sun, moon, and planets represent different aspects of you and your life. I don’t know why it works—it just does. I’ve talked to thousands of people; it never fails. It shows talents, gifts, relationships, parents, bones you’ve broken, whether you need glasses, if you smoke, addictions, sexuality, all of it.
Westerners struggle with the idea of a predestined dance card or train schedule because we’re taught everything is up to us. But was your hair or eye color up to you? Your height? Your parents? Where you were born? Your citizenship? These aren’t your “fault.” We have parameters—a spectrum of possibility. We can’t go beyond that spectrum.
People in L.A. ask, “Will I be a movie star? A big director? A millionaire?” If fame and fortune aren’t in your chart, you really won’t want them from a true place. You’ll want them from conditioning, to please parents, or ego. What’s right for us springs from our authentic selves—those are the things that will happen. A true heart dream is meant for you.
There’s a beautiful word from ancient India—dharma. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. We come in with a destiny, a path, a way to express our life force. For some (think Elizabeth Taylor or Kim Kardashian), it’s to be beautiful, have jewelry, be wealthy. People judge that as less spiritual than praying all day, but if that’s your dharma, you’re being just as spiritual as someone praying all day.
Gervase: Thank you for explaining that so eloquently. I was giving a training yesterday in my Inner Knowing Mastermind on the soul. I don’t usually use the term God—I’m spiritual, not religious; I vibe with Glennon Doyle’s “God is the water; religion is the glass.” But I kept saying: “God doesn’t care.” Meaning, what we’re here to do is notice what’s authentic for you. What’s motivating you—conditioning, shoulds, shame, guilt, trauma, fitting in—or your true self? If it’s true, God doesn’t care. Thoughts?
Carol: I think of “God” as the consciousness permeating everything. If you’re a Bible person, chapter one basically says God is omniscient and omnipotent—in everything. Scientists, the deeper they go, the more they believe something else is happening—order, intelligence, consciousness behind everything. The solar system is mimicked by our cells: the nucleus is the sun, electrons spin around—billions of solar systems in us. We’re made of stardust.
It’s not everyone’s life path to partner, or to partner once for life. Society has expectations; thankfully some are loosening (and some tightening). Everyone can be who they truly are and have relationships that fit. I love taking the pressure off.
Gervase: Such a good point about partnering—it’s not just about you; it’s about them too. Western hyper-individualism has poisoned our ability to have harmonious relationships. We defer to degrees and science as the only truth. Hello—you’re a piece of stardust. We lack balance between our dimensions. It’s one-dimensional: “Science wins,” “It’s just me.” But to be successful, you have to be part of an ecosystem of individuals and work with that.
Carol: True science starts with a hypothesis and tests without bias. Certainty shuts science down—and it’s a great life metaphor. When you think you know, be careful. In relationships, thinking you know and being the smarter person—yep, I’ve caused trouble that way.
As Westerners, it’s “What do you want, little Billy?” Great, but everything being on you isn’t making us happy. The U.S. ranks about 35th in happiness. Countries with communal life are happier. Balance autonomy with support. In Puerto Rico, 17 people pile in the car for a doctor’s appointment. Here, my parents both got cancer diagnoses alone. There are problems.
Astrology shows some are hardwired to be introverted lone wolves; others get success through friends (that’s my chart). Any time I’m in a jam, a friend saves me. If your path is that good things come through fun, you’re not being indulgent to have fun. For someone else, it’s degrees, money, or moving abroad. I love telling people what opens doors for them—and when. Your chart’s also a weather map: money season, confidence season, season of loneliness, season of love. My marriage was predicted seven years in advance. I thought I’d beat it—nope. By the time the seven years passed, I’d calmed down. Three days into the window—there was my husband, right on schedule. I was happy single by then and actually thought, “You’re early in the window—could you give me another month?”
How did people respond when you talked about God and the soul?
Gervase: I actually needed that module. I might move it up next time. It felt so good to go there; I could just channel. One woman asked, “Can you say more about ‘God doesn’t care’? I feel a voice telling me there’s a right and wrong, and I should feel guilty.” We went into religious dogma. I’m careful because women in my world have faith backgrounds. I don’t want to make anyone bad or wrong. But if guilt and shame arise when I say “God doesn’t care,” let’s explore what’s there from conditioning and religion.
Carol: The Buddha, Christ, Muhammad—enlightened beings in unity and heart consciousness. Organizations formed around them, then beyond them, and lived on after them. Organizations need rules and structure. Over time, dogma can overshadow truth. If God is omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent, it’s in everything—even in judgmental people and negative rules.
On “God doesn’t care,” my teacher Ernst Wilhelm says the most incredible things. We think we should always be kind and honest. But what if lying saves a life? What if you need to be harsh in an emergency to get people to move? Respond to each moment with the right action that does the most good. Sometimes that’s you being a jerk. In relationships, once I said to someone, “You never listen; I’m sick of it; screw you.” He snapped out of it and was amazing. He could finally hear me. It was better for the relationship than polite “sweetie” talk.
Gervase: You’re making me think about parenting. There’s so much conditioning about the “right” way to mother and speak to children. It mirrors the macro: separation, right/wrong, shame if you get it wrong. People can’t hear their inner wisdom or feel what’s appropriate—what to say, the move to make, the relationship to choose—because of dogma around motherhood, relationships, religion, spirituality, government. As soon as we’re judging, we’re separate—from others, from truth, from our hearts. It’s ego trying to stay safe. The more rigidly people cling to right/wrong, the more insecure they are.
Carol: If God is in all of it, truth is in all of it—how can we judge? Even when something “bad” happens: the farmer with the horse—“We’ll see.” Then the broken leg—“We’ll see.” Then the war—“We’ll see.” We don’t know. Our job is to love every minute, be in our hearts, and do the next right thing the situation calls for.
I bow to parents. Your kid is your kid from day one. The introvert kid is an introvert; the loud, bossy kid is loud and bossy; the demanding kid is demanding; the easy kid is easy—at zero and at 50. Stop blaming yourself for how they turned out. They come preloaded at the factory—that’s what their chart shows. Parent based on each kid: some need hands-off; some need hovering; some need structure and discipline; some need you to say, “I trust you; you’ll do the right thing,” and lean back.
Gervase: I can hear someone listening who doesn’t live this way and has relied on rules to get to success or survival. Maybe that’s helpful for someone more controlling or Type A. Or they’re just Type A.
Carol: “Know thyself.” I love all systems that help us understand ourselves—psychology, personality typing, birth order studies, family patterns. Knowing who we are helps us be on our own side. When you’re aligned with you, there’s nothing you can’t do. You’ll be the best mom and the best version of yourself when you embody yourself and are on your own side.
I’ve learned how much noise people have in their heads—how mean they are to themselves—no matter who they are: aristocracy, wildly wealthy, drop-dead beautiful, talented, famous. The noise is the same: Am I enough? Am I a phony? Do people care? Am I doing it right? We’re hardwired to be accepted by the tribe or die. The most attractive thing that makes people accept you is already accepting yourself. The best way to accept yourself is to know yourself and cut yourself a break.
I’m a little sister, with the nodes of the moon prominent and a weak Mercury (technology, information). I’m goofy, chaotic. My office is a disaster. I’m not great with detail or planning. My sister is amazing at all that—two-time NYT bestseller, always ahead on tools and tech. I could think “she’s better,” but I don’t. That’s her. I’m me. I bring a different thing: reading charts, woo-woo, surfing the clouds, pulling stuff down. We all have different gifts.
Gervase: That’s the best example. We need all kinds of people and souls. My work is giving women space and permission to untangle and clear the cobwebs so they can even know who they are—and trust that whatever they find under there, even if it’s different than Karen or the big sister archetype, is still enough. How do you recommend people use their chart to support that unraveling-and-reweaving process—the phoenix moment?
Carol: I love the phoenix archetype—everything burns up, then you’re reborn. Western culture assumes life is a progression—better and better over time. By X age, we “should” have this or that. People come to me with self-imposed deadlines: “By 40 I was going to…” What astrology has taught me is life is cyclical. We oscillate. There are times of expansion and contraction—night becomes day; day becomes night. In more contracted times, it doesn’t mean it’s over or you blew it or God left the building. It may mean it’s time to pivot, reevaluate, go deeper, or wait for spring. You might be in a personal winter, but spring always comes.
Vedic astrology has cycles; the dark phases are always followed by light ones—and vice versa. If you’re in a low point, it will get lighter. Many are scared now—the world is changing. History shows flux leads to something better later. Do the next right thing and trust the bigger picture—your life and the world’s story.
Gervase: Beautiful. We’ve lost the honoring of the other, of the earth, of complexity—anything not “science and rules and prove it and be the best.” It’s hollow and exhausting—unsustainable.
Carol: A Rumi quote (he wrote love poems to his spiritual teacher; he was a Sufi): “What is this love that has made me forget my practices?” When you have a heart opening and you’re in unity consciousness, do you need to pray, meditate, or do yoga? You’re there. I teach something called living at the level of love. When you’re being who you’re here to be, you’ll love your life. Doing what’s true for you, you’ll love your life. I don’t care if you’re a dishwasher—if it’s true for you, your heart will resonate, you’ll emanate that to the world. This has been scientifically studied: they can image your heart’s energy field and monitor your vitals. When you’re connected to yourself, your heart becomes magnetic—you attract people and good things.
Follow the truth of your heart. Trust and believe it. It will never fail you, no matter what studies or rules say.
Gervase: That makes me think about living a life and making choices that don’t “make sense.” I’ve had many moments where others didn’t understand my direction, but inside I’d check in and hear, “You’re good.” Money is a big one—people say, “I need to make money.” Same. And it requires deeper trust: in oneself and something bigger; trust that if it feels right in your heart, it’ll be okay somehow in a way you don’t yet know. Astrology feels like a way to make it gentler and more manageable for the person feeling trapped in the rules—to see a map that explains why certain choices make sense in the chart.
Thank you for your wisdom. Before you share how to keep in touch and follow your work, I want to acknowledge you. You may be one of the greatest spiritual women I’ve had the pleasure of sitting with. Everything you say feels like someone finally speaking sense in upside-down land. I credit a lot of my own de-brainwashing for why it lands, but I truly want to acknowledge you for being such a wonderful spiritual teacher—even in this conversation. The reading you gave me made me want to join the “religion” of Vedic astrology. I’ve never felt so seen—ever. I’m a human design devotee; it’s been my map and wildly helpful. But the way you read my chart felt very different than traditional astrology; it felt like a psychic reading. Thank you.
Carol: Thank you, and thank you for the beautiful work you do. I’m grateful to be here and have a conversation at this level. It’s really fun for me.
Gervase: You’re so welcome—come back anytime. Tell everyone how to support and follow your work. Where can they find you?
Carol: You can find articles, my newsletter, and really accurate, helpful reports—compatibility reports, an astrology calendar with symbols for every day of the year for you, a timing report, a “capacity report” that shows what you need to work on to show up better—at soulmadestars.com.
Gervase: Soulmadestars.com. Thank you again for your time, Carol. It’s been lovely.
Carol: Oh, thank you, Gervase. This was great.
Gervase: Thank you.
You Are a Soul Having a Human Experience
What if every challenging experience in your life—the difficult relationships, the heartbreak, the family drama—wasn't happening TO you, but was actually teaching you where you still needed to grow? This week, Gervase shares the spiritual psychology framework that has helped her reframe triggers, move through some of life’s most traumatic events, and no longer be affected by other people’s perception of her.
This isn't about spiritual bypassing. It's about understanding that you're a soul having a human experience, and Earth is literally school for your consciousness.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
Why you’re a soul having a human experience, and how to view life’s challenges as a video game so you can move to the next level in your journey
Why Earth Stackers (spiritual allies) keep sending you the same lessons until you learn them (spoiler: your triggers are your curriculum)
3 powerful questions to ask yourself when you’re feeling triggered so it no longer has power over you
The difference between religion and spirituality that allows you to connect with the divine without the dogma
How to shift from “I am upset because…” (victim mode) to “how can I take my power back” (spiritual boss mode)
Why your most difficult relationships are actually your greatest teachers (and how to work with them instead of against them)
The ONE question that can reveal your bigger intention in life
Hey Mamas, let’s be YOU again, while raising them:
Introducing Whole Mother Rising, a 4 week mini-mastermind for mothers who are ready to reclaim their power, purpose, and joy… without guilt.
Because the world has endless advice on how to be a mom, but almost nothing to help you be YOURSELF while mothering.
Check it out here: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/whole-mother-rising
What if every challenging experience in your life—the difficult relationships, the heartbreak, the family drama—wasn't happening TO you, but was actually teaching you where you still needed to grow? This week, Gervase shares the spiritual psychology framework that has helped her reframe triggers, move through some of life’s most traumatic events, and no longer be affected by other people’s perception of her.
This isn't about spiritual bypassing. It's about understanding that you're a soul having a human experience, and Earth is literally school for your consciousness.
Listen to this episode now to discover:
Why you’re a soul having a human experience, and how to view life’s challenges as a video game so you can move to the next level in your journey
Why Earth Stackers (spiritual allies) keep sending you the same lessons until you learn them (spoiler: your triggers are your curriculum)
3 powerful questions to ask yourself when you’re feeling triggered so it no longer has power over you
The difference between religion and spirituality that allows you to connect with the divine without the dogma
How to shift from “I am upset because…” (victim mode) to “how can I take my power back” (spiritual boss mode)
Why your most difficult relationships are actually your greatest teachers (and how to work with them instead of against them)
The ONE question that can reveal your bigger intention in life
Hey Mamas, let’s be YOU again, while raising them:
Introducing Whole Mother Rising, a 4 week mini-mastermind for mothers who are ready to reclaim their power, purpose, and joy… without guilt.
Because the world has endless advice on how to be a mom, but almost nothing to help you be YOURSELF while mothering.
Check it out here: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/whole-mother-rising
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
You Are a Soul Having a Human Experience
Episode Full Transcript
Hello, my loves. Welcome back to another episode of the Modern Phoenix Podcast. I am Gervase Kolmos, inner transformation coach and your host, and I am really curious what you're going to think about today's episode.
Today, I pulled a training out of the vault that I have been going through diligently as I gear up to host a few programs and run the Inner Knowing Mastermind. I went through a program I ran called Legacy and found a module that I teach pretty much in every program I've ever run on the soul. Obviously, you know my work in the world is to help women align with their inner knowing, not just their brains, and the soul and the body are what we call inner knowing. I'm also noticing in my work with clients how much spiritual psychology is woven into the teachings that I share. If you're talking about soul, if you're doing soul work, what are you backing it up with?
I don't really resonate with a lot of spiritual teachers out there because I don't feel the need to make it one thing. I feel very open to this idea of the soul and spirituality and God and what it means to be in relationship with source energy and nature and the body and inner knowing. To me, it's all mystical and magical. You have to be on board with that if you're going to drop a little deeper than the scientific brain. Teaching my clients about spiritual psychology and giving them concrete tools and methodology to work with the soul has been part of what I do for a long, long time. But I realized there's not a lot of this content on the podcast.
When I rewatched this, there are so many really good questions from a client who gave me full permission to use her questions and her voice about how to apply spirituality and the concepts of spiritual psychology to your life. She asked me about when my brother died, I talk about my relationship with my mom, and how do we decide whether to have a third baby. These are the things we actually want to work for. We want these practices so we can take them into our lives and make better choices—make decisions as modern women. I thought this training had a lot of value for those of you looking for deeper context and foundational principles to build up your relationship with your inner knowing, to explore this concept of your relationship with your soul, and I wanted to share it with you today.
Keep in mind, I recorded this three years ago, so much has changed. At the time, my podcast was called It's All Me. I was really passionate about that framework, which is still woven into some of my teachings, but it's changed a bit. As much as I believe coaching and healing give women the opportunity to reorient themselves in relation to their trauma, stories, and challenging events so they can be in a place of power, at choice, and not feel like victims, I also really don't believe in spiritual bypassing or judging and shaming a woman who feels trapped in victimhood. My coaching practice, my framework—like me—has evolved in three years, and there's a much bigger component now that is about never shaming or blaming our human or soul. That is the cornerstone of my work.
There was enough space for somebody to misinterpret It's All Me, which is part of why I rebranded the podcast. I say something in this training—“indulging in victimhood and shadow”—and I am not sure I mean that today. I don't think I believe that, and I invite you to listen with discernment, knowing the person who recorded this still believes in pretty much everything I say, and I was passionate and speaking from lived experience. If there's a part that sounds like, “Huh, I don't feel like she would say that today. That feels bypass-y, judging, or shaming those who are in victim,” that was a part of me still working with my own relationship to being in victim. I wanted to name that, not to throw myself under the bus, but to make sure you’re listening with discernment.
When you're putting out content like this, it's easy for a person who is in a vulnerable situation—mentally or physically—to listen and take everything literally, put the person speaking on a pedestal, and make themselves bad or wrong. It's important in my career right now that nobody ever does that. Anyone who speaks about spiritual or healing concepts in a way that shames and blames the victim—I can't see how that is ever helpful. I also understand now, because of my focalizing training which I started right after this program, how much healing has to happen in community, how much we need each other, and how much we need messy, complicated relationships to heal. That's another reason why It's All Me didn't land anymore. I teach women It's All Me now from the lens of “all of you gets to fit in your life,” but no longer from “I am empowered and in charge of everything that happens in my life.”
I hope that gives you context and allows you to listen with an open mind, take the valuable spiritual concepts in this episode, and apply them to your life in a way that makes sense for you. The questions were so good. The examples were relatable. It's a high-level, high-value training. I hope it serves you. I hope you feel more at peace, more grounded, less pressured and stressed about your healing or your life or your choices or wherever you are. Nobody has arrived at exactly where they want to be. You can take away this trust that the right thing will come your way when you're ready to receive it at the right time. That gives me such a settling of my nervous system. My foundation in spiritual psychology has given me that.
Let me know if you want more content like this—more spiritual stuff. I'm a pretty deep, soulful person, and I notice this part of my teaching is usually reserved for inside my paid container. If there are specific questions or concepts you want me to dive into, I would love to hear your feedback. DM me on Instagram at @gervasekolmos, and let's see how we can apply these concepts to your life as a human in the modern world. I love you. Here we go.
Welcome to Module Four, my personal favorite, called You Are a Soul Having a Human Experience. For me, this is the book: it's called Loyalty to Your Soul by Ronald and Mary Hulnick. This was the first book I was given by my mentor eight years ago, and it was my launchpad into everything I stand for and believe today. The way the book is written is by an older couple, so a lot can get lost in translation when 70-year-olds are talking to a 30-year-old. And yet, as I reviewed the concepts in preparation for this call, I was in awe of how much of my mission and message—what I hope every woman I connect with takes from our work—stems from this book and the principles of spiritual psychology.
My goal is to give you a broad outline of what it is and what it means to me, and then give you some examples. Spiritual psychology is the study and practice of the art and science of human evolution in consciousness. I’ll say it again: the study and practice of the art and science of human evolution in consciousness. It is a way of life that makes spiritual awakening the cornerstone of one's purpose. The tagline, which I say all the time, is: you are a soul having a human experience. Spiritual psychology leads with the belief that we need to bring the psyche—the soul—back into psychology because it’s been taken out over time. Then we also have religion. What often happens between clinical psychology and religion is that the soul gets lost in transmission. We can understand psychology and how behavior and the brain work, and we can understand religion, but the goal of spiritual psychology is to put everything into a soul-centered context.
To recap, my belief and experience have taught me that Earth is a school that souls come to for the evolution of consciousness. Let’s talk about religion for a minute. My personal experience: I was brought up Roman Catholic. I’m the oldest of four, very Catholic family, Catholic schooling, huge family, extremely Catholic. All I knew up until spiritual psychology was religion—Catholicism, dogma, and other religions. I moved from New York to South Carolina at 16 and my aperture widened to many other religions. The problem for me was a lack of internal connection. I felt like I was reading a history book or a math book. There was nothing about these religions that connected to, “This is an inside job.” In the book they describe religion as a vehicle—a path that takes you to God and your soul. Over time, and this is not shaming of religion, religion often separates people and separates connection to God. It says, “My connection is the right way and yours is wrong.” That left me in a philosophical quagmire. How can I say Catholicism is the right way and someone in India raised on Hinduism is wrong? Who am I to decide the correct path to God?
I started to feel God and connection to self and source were absent for me in the way I experienced religion. When spirituality entered my realm, it was the perfect time for me to accept a different worldview. I loved that it’s all about connection to the soul and source. Religion is the vehicle or channel that gets you to God, source, soul, whatever you want to say. Spirituality cuts right through it. Spirituality is an awareness of the sacred reality of the divine essence within and beyond all creation. I’ll read that again: an awareness of the sacred reality of the divine essence within and beyond all creation.
This speaks to when you hear people say, “I am love, we are love,” or “I am a drop in the ocean and the ocean is in a drop.” It’s the idea of oneness and connection—there’s something we can’t see that is divine and magical. Call it what you will, but it’s there. Spirituality calls that out and says, “Yes, that is there, and I’m here for that.” The channel that gets me there is irrelevant. The religion has nothing to do with this because the sacred divine is within me and all around me. On my journey to exploring what I believe about God, religion versus spirituality, it was the first time experiencing spiritual psychology that I could see, “Oh, intuition—that is something I feel, know, and sense within me that I can’t see and can’t explain, and nobody spoke about to me via religion. I’m here to explore this.” The soul’s sixth language: if you’re a soul having a human experience, it uses the five senses, and intuition is the sixth sense of the soul.
Spiritual psychology is about using the soul not only as the destination, but also the vehicle, and the belief that you are a soul having a human experience. You are the vehicle even if you don’t have a religion. You came to Earth with this vehicle to reach divinity, higher consciousness, deeper connection with intuition and God, and it is within you—your soul. You’ll hear me refer to spiritual curriculum. Relating to the events in my life as my spiritual curriculum has totally changed my life.
What I had been doing before was categorizing my life: here are the good things and here are the bad things, and I don’t really know what to make of the bad things. Before I found spiritual psychology, let’s take my brother’s death. Here’s a bad thing—it happened. I hear the Catholic dogma around death and it’s not resonating. So I’m still just putting things into buckets: good and bad, right and wrong. Here are the choices I made. I dated this guy for a long time, so I guess that was a bad choice—versus what spiritual psychology teaches: it’s all soul school, all earth lessons. There is no good or bad, no right or wrong. Your soul came here to learn a lesson. Don’t worry about anybody else’s lessons or how it fits into the bigger picture. What did that relationship that ended teach you? If you’re not looking at how unfair it is that your brother died early and what religion says, what did you take? What can you learn from your brother being taken before his time?
I changed the lens through which I viewed my life. It became less about things happening to me and whether they were right or wrong, good or bad—that put me at the center of the universe. The ego seeks to make itself right and be the center. Instead, I got curious. I looked at my experiences from curiosity, neutral—no good or bad. Because of that, I pulled lessons from them. The example I give is a Nintendo game. There’s a book, Busting Loose from the Money Game—another out-there book I pulled a few things from—with the same idea. If you’re not thinking about religion or everyone else, and you look through the lens that this is all soul school, you can look at your life as a video game. “I wasn’t sure whether to move. I made the choice, and now this is hard. If this were a video game, this is the next level. Here are the challenges. How do I beat this level?” It’s not by bypassing your experience or deciding the move was right or wrong; it’s saying, “Whatever’s coming up for me at this level, that’s soul school—my spiritual curriculum. To beat this level, I’ll get curious about how I’m relating to these challenges and learn and grow.”
Question from client: “How does ending a relationship or losing your brother—heartbreaking—how do we not think of those as bad? How can we not be like, ‘This sucks’?”
I love this question because the misunderstanding is that you don’t get to be human. The other key component of spiritual psychology is you are a soul having a human experience. The human gets to say, “This sucks.” The human gets to feel feelings fully without judgment. That is step one. Step one is awareness that this approach exists—that it’s possible your soul is here having a human experience, and spiritual psychology could be a path that resonates. Then you go about your life as a human, and Russia starts bombing Ukraine and killing people. You go, “What in the actual…? This doesn’t feel good. This is not right.”
No part of what I stand for is bypassing the yuck or bypassing the natural human reaction to heartbreaking tragedy. Where spiritual teachers go wrong is skipping the fundamental step: let your human be a human. Let your human feel feelings. If we weren’t meant to feel feelings, why do we have them? Rage, anger, grief, disappointment, fear—if they weren’t meant to be felt, why do we all feel them all the time?
It’s about loving and accepting your human where she’s at in the moment. Of course when my brother died I was devastated. Understanding that feeling your feelings fully is part of the process. Giving yourself love and compassion is part of the process. Then the second part is, “Okay, this thing is happening in Ukraine and it’s so sad. What can I do? Who do I choose to be today in a world where this is happening? What good can I do?” With my brother: I’m not going to say “things happen for a reason,” but how helpful is it for me to go about life believing life doesn’t matter, it’s not fair, and I don’t get to live fully? One day I decided: I had felt it enough—cried, grieved, raged. My human was exhausted and freed. “Now who do I want to be? What’s here to learn?” If I can make it neutral, acknowledge, feel it, release judgment, come back to self-love and compassion, then ask, “What’s here for me to learn?”—then it became: post-Thomas’s dying, I traveled to Peru. That was my second or third time listening to intuition. It was clearly: go here, do this, have this experience. It was healing my human and opening something in me that needed to be opened.
Client: “Sometimes that sits next to insensitivity. Like, your brother just died and you’re going to Peru?”
That’s a great question. I don’t think that—but the key lesson is it doesn’t matter if you think that or not. It’s my one precious life. This is my soul school—my spiritual curriculum. Part of my curriculum has been letting go of other people’s definitions of me defining my choices. That comes from conditioning, a deep-rooted belief that I’m only as good as others’ approval. A belief that taking care of myself and taking full advantage of my incredible life makes me selfish—a theme we’ve talked about. The older I get—then I have children—I think: let them think I’m selfish.
I’m going on a retreat on Wednesday. When I did this seven years ago, I did it even though it was uncomfortable. The voices were loud: “What will people make this mean about me?” One lesson of my curriculum has been: what do you think about you? Can you stand for what you think about you? As a mother leaving a legacy, nothing could be more powerful than choosing for yourself what is true for you. It gets to be different for everybody because everyone is having their own experience—everyone’s in their own Nintendo game.
If in my Nintendo game this experience keeps coming up, and I desire it but deny myself because of other things, that’s not helping me show up in integrity with my values as a mother as my kids get older. Such good questions.
Another thing: spiritual laws are universal. Just like gravity, they exist whether or not you think they do. The earth being round—people didn’t used to believe it, but it was round regardless. The perspective I lead from, without needing to convince others, is that spiritual laws are universal. Me being a soul having a human experience—that’s fact for me. These spiritual laws go on regardless of others’ beliefs. I’ll keep bringing in the mindset shift. This has been huge—what I stand for. This is what I mean by It’s All Me: it doesn’t matter what others think; it’s about me. It doesn’t matter what’s happening; it’s about how I respond. My spiritual growth can be gauged by the results I feel within me and how I choose to lead my life.
The goal of spiritual psychology: learning how to lead and relate to your life in service to your soul’s curriculum. Again, I am what I can control. It’s all me. It doesn’t matter others’ perception of me. It doesn’t matter how bad this thing is or where I’m at in grief or confusion—as long as I’m operating from the understanding that this is a curriculum my soul came to work through, I’ve got me. We’re going to be okay. It gives the opportunity to use everyday experiences as rungs on the ladder of spiritual evolution.
Coming from Roman Catholic and corporate America, where it was all about external ladder rungs—how holy are you, how many sacraments, how much does your job pay, did you climb the ladder—I checked the boxes. When something challenging happened—when my brother died—those things were useless. When life actually happened, those things were useless. In deep inquiry about purpose, next steps, people in my life—those things were useless. I kept feeling: I see these work for others, but for me it has to be an inner guidance system—an internal ladder. The rungs have to be internal so I’m more at peace with my choices, more tuned into my desires, what I can control, what I want, who I’m becoming. The ultimate goal is to find your way home.
Often, when I have women on coaching calls, they’re looking for the final goal, destination, solution out here. I will bring it back here. I’m not saying the outer world doesn’t exist or matter. I am saying the only path to freedom, inner peace, and leaving a legacy that feels true and strong is coming home to self-knowing, self-compassion, and self-love.
Based on what I said—the ego likes to make experiences good/bad, right/wrong—you learn quickly that a soul doesn’t categorize. If you’re seeing through soul, you’re not separating experiences into good and bad because the soul sees all experiences as learning opportunities. Everything is earth school. Coming back to Christina’s question: my brother dies. I didn’t know any of this when he died, though a lot makes sense now. My human feels all the things. Later, once I learned this, it was like, okay—I felt the things. I loved and lost. I grieved. I raged. I was down and out. Now I’m alive. What’s here for me to learn? What did this horrible tragedy teach me about what I want, who I want to become, the legacy I want to leave? It created an opportunity for deep growth and expansion as a human. I took the road less traveled that I would not have taken if I hadn’t had this loss. I went to South America, then back again. It became part of my soul—an experience I was meant for.
Another piece of soul school that’s important—we’ll move into the shadow and light side—is anchoring the principle of not judging the self, human, feelings, or dark, and accepting the duality of being on earth. You’re on a ball of rock hurling through space. You are a soul and a human. You will have light and dark. Days of effervescence and joy and ease, and experiences of darkness, heaviness, and shadow. What if it’s all here to teach you? What if it’s all here for you? That’s critical.
From there, we move into Earth Stackers: what they are and how to heal them. According to the book, consider the possibility that you have spiritual allies who stack up potential events in accordance with your earth school, spiritual curriculum, or karma. They take these potential events and send them to you at opportune moments in support of your spiritual growth. We call these Earth Stackers. Stackers are instruments of your soul. They guide you—not always through ease and joy—through the lessons you need to learn.
Taking my brother’s death: if I’ll say this isn’t good or bad, I’m not saying it happened for a reason; I’m just saying, “This thing happened. What is the direction of spiritual growth this is sending me toward right now?” The lessons were immense. Or look at a family member who had the same experience I did but who doesn’t believe in Earth Stackers, who doesn’t believe she’s a soul having a human experience, who believes life is cruel, the world is hard, it’s not fair, she has no control, and this bad thing happened. She is entitled to her own experience. I trust she is a soul having her own human experience. But if you follow the idea of Earth Stackers, she will keep being served “life is cruel, this is hard.” The Earth Stackers continue to send her those events that line up with that curriculum, because what she is here to learn is that life is not good/bad, that she can always come home to love, that it’s all me—I am what I can control, I get to choose, I have options, I get to be human and a magical speck of stardust. Every challenge is an opportunity for her to take her power back from self-defeating beliefs that keep her suffering, frustrated, and disconnected from her soul.
There are a million options and choices you could make. Your privilege as a human is you get to make them. I have this conversation a lot with women—let’s say drinking. A client says, “Today I drank the wine. I didn’t want to. I feel bad. I should stop.” What if there are a million ways to relate to the wine? You could drink with the perspective it’ll be a fun night. You could drink with “I’m a victim.” You could give up wine for a lifetime. You could do a cleanse. There are so many options. We get stuck thinking here’s the laid-out path versus thinking less of a specific bullseye and more of a state of being.
The goal is total ownership over your life. Not to separate experiences, choices, or events into good/bad, but to take the higher perspective: this is all set up for learning; I’m coming home to self-love and my soul; what is the experience my soul is here to have, and what are the million ways I can get to it? There’s a saying: what is meant for you will not pass you by. At the beginning of my spiritual journey, I felt pressure: I see two paths—the “good” path of spirit guides and soul and God, like “have a third kid,” and the ego is terrified. The truth is I could not have a third kid and still reach my destination—total self-love, self-compassion, self-responsibility. I don’t need to make this or that choice to reach the end goal of who I want to be, how I want to feel, and how I relate to life. If there’s a lesson in having a third baby and I don’t choose it, I’ll get that lesson a different way. My Earth Stackers will send me that lesson. It’s not that it will hurt; it’s that there’s soul school for me, and I could get it this way or that way. My soul may be like, “I want this,” and I might say, “No.”
Client: “So whether you have the third kid or not—or drink the wine or not—have power over the decision and make it align?”
That’s it. What’s meant for you isn’t going to pass you by either way. Your Earth Stackers—spiritual allies who keep sending you experiences to learn what your soul came to learn—will find another way to send it.
Another example I share is my mother—my relationship with my mother, which I’ve been candid about. From age 20 to 30, it was super challenging. Looking back through the lens of spiritual psychology, I can see what I was meant to learn: how to be there for myself, validate myself, mother myself, forgive, and see someone through a lens of non-judgment. My ability to truly see someone I felt the most animosity and resentment toward through non-judgment allows me to do my job really well. Those ten years of suffering—tumultuous back-and-forth communication—once I decided, “It’s time to face the music. I’m taking ownership of this relationship. What is here for me to learn?”—tuning into my soul and asking, “Okay, Earth Stackers, what is here? How have I given my power away?”—that becomes the question.
I often relate Earth Stackers as triggers. When you are in the midst of an Earth Stacker sending you something—a trigger—ask: how have I given my power away? What idea, belief, lie, or story have I fed that causes me to feel like a victim in my own life? At that time, it was: “My mother doesn’t think I’m a good person.” I was feeding the wolf that believes I’m a bad person, I let people down, I disappoint people—my mother, my husband, my kids. And it kept coming up.
When I faced it and asked, “What is the lesson that keeps coming up for me?” it was like, “What if I didn’t disappoint my mother? What if my mother’s disappointment has nothing to do with me? What if my only job on this planet, as a soul on this earth, is to not disappoint myself?” How does that change my emotional charge around this relationship?
You do it once—it’s rocky and sloppy—but you get there and everything’s great. Me and my mom are so good. Then of course your Earth Stacker says, “I call bullshit. There’s power still given away to this relationship. She needs her mom to need, validate, believe in her.” I’ll send another telegram—another experience where her mother shows up as the perfect character actress invalidating who she is. Immediately, I’m triggered and upset. My human freaks out. Then I remember: “Wait, I did this before. Where have I given my power away? What story am I telling? What have I made her beliefs mean about me? What do I choose instead?” This is the work. Do it over and over until one day your mother sends something and Earth Stacker’s like, “It’s been a while; let me make sure,” and you get a nasty email. You read it and say, “She must be really scared right now. She’s feeling helpless. I have compassion. Maybe I’ll send a card or give her a call. Then I’ll go back to my work because I’ve got work to do. I’m leaving a legacy. Eyes on my own paper. I know what my soul is here to do. I’ve learned that lesson.” It feels amazing.
However, I had to go through a lot of Earth Stackers to get there. I had to be willing to receive the assignment. Often what happens, as they teach in this book, is the ego says, “I am upset because…” and then seeks to justify why it’s right. “I am upset because…” is a total victim position and the perfect solution by which the ego can engage in negative behavior and still be right. Versus It’s All Me—personal responsibility—the foundational key that opens the door to freedom. It’s up to me. It’s within me. It’s about me and my perspective. That is the curriculum my soul came here to learn.
Whether it’s fair that my mom sent me a nasty email doesn’t matter. She is in her own video game. I have one assignment: learn the thing and be the full expression of what my soul came here to learn—which I know because I keep getting the lessons. I keep seeing how I’ve given my power away to the story that I disappoint others. Come back to me. What do I know is true? Do the work on the stories and thoughts so you can return to self-responsibility. Why? Not because you’re a good person or better than your mother. Because you have work to do. Is this productive? We’re concerned with productivity, but when we talk about doing the work internally, we get caught up in triggers, old patterns, beliefs, conditioning, and spirals. We don’t stop to ask: even if I’m justified—“I’m upset because” and I have a good reason—is this productive? How is this moving me forward, moving the needle on the legacy I’m here to leave, who I desire to be, and my highest consciousness? It’s not. It stalls you.
Client: “When you get that email—do you set a boundary? How?”
Such good questions. Obviously this process isn’t always A + B = C. There are a million possibilities for how I could respond. With a client, the first thing I ask is: what’s your intention and desire with your mother? I’ve had clients who truly don’t want a relationship. Okay, we proceed differently. For me, intuitively, it’s “No, I choose this relationship. I choose to have this woman in my life.” Not because I’m better than someone who doesn’t—I just know that’s the path for me. It’s the legacy I want: a relationship with my mother. There’s something here for me. Usually, if we’re choosing something, there’s a payoff and I get the rewards. As long as I’m choosing the higher perspective, I benefit from this way of relating.
When you get a nasty email, first be clear: what’s my intention with this person? What do I desire? What’s aligned? Then respond. Because I want a relationship, and I see how it plays out now, I say, “She is triggered. She’s acting out, inflamed—spiraling, freaking out. She doesn’t have the tools to handle this.” I’m not responsible for catching it. I used to catch the hot potato and burn my hands and say, “Look, I’m a good daughter,” and my hands were charred. Now, she throws the hot potato and I step aside and it hurls over my shoulder. I wait: “I’m here when you’re done.”
It’s kind of like dealing with a two- or three-year-old. With kids, our intention is beautiful, nurturing, loving relationships. Does that mean we let them treat us badly? It depends—kids are kids—but we set loving boundaries. “Yes, I know you want candy for breakfast. How about a muffin?” It’s not “You don’t get to ask me ever again,” it’s understanding they’ll ask because they’re little humans. We have the intention for who we want to be, and we show up that way.
Client: “And when you set that boundary, if the person isn’t used to it, they test it, right?”
Exactly. It circles back to the beginning: it really doesn’t matter how that person reacts. They’ll have an opinion. All that matters, if I’m playing a video game and my soul is here for an experience, is: what move do I make next? I don’t need to worry about what the other person does when I set a boundary. I need to be clear on my intention, on what I will and will not receive, and on the move I need to make next. It simplifies so much. We get distracted by others’ ideas, judgments, opinions, or reactions—when we can’t control them anyway. Come back to your center, intention, legacy. What do I need to do right now? What choice do I make today to align with my legacy? I don’t know what she’s doing; it doesn’t matter.
Another interesting piece with current global crises: some people are called to serve this crisis; that’s their mission. If all of us focus on the crisis, we’ll miss the person who has something profound and progressive to say about what’s happening. Or if a person who is supposed to be a guide, leader, truth-teller is overindulging in the shadow, they won’t be there for their soul’s work. They won’t show up for what God needs them for. I think about this often. Make it micro for a second: before I could feel confident as a coach, I had so many stories—“Because of my depression, who am I to do this?” I was indulging in fears, shadow, human. Women were coming into my field who could benefit from my work, but I was too blind in self-doubt and self-criticism to help them. Now, when I have a moment of overwhelm, I focus on service. “There are women coming to a call today. We get to shift the paradigm together.” That is more important than me wallowing today.
On the macro level, it can feel like it doesn’t make a difference. But every human making micro shifts—moving from victimhood to ownership—is what moves the collective. It allows healing voices to come out through the crisis. Suddenly there are solutions, speakers—we see them, hear them. They use their light and voice because they’re not worrying, “Shouldn’t I be over here grieving?” Everyone gets to say, “What is happening is awful”—that gets to be a normal human response. But then spending the next year dimming your light because you feel like, “Who am I to…?”—that’s the slippery slope.
The last thing I’ll say, a reminder about Earth Stackers and the hard stuff and dark stuff, is that challenges show you internal unresolved issues inviting completion. Going back to my mother: “I feel super triggered by my mother’s email.” That’s okay. You get to feel triggered. Now bring the mindset shift—the spiritual psychology ideology—into your process. Step one: feel it. Step two: “I trust this is showing me unresolved internal something. There is something here for me to take my power back from—a belief, a wounding, an idea.” Now I get to complete the next level of this Nintendo game. I get to do the work on this belief.
The stackers know that how you react in a challenging situation is determined by what you believe. What you believe is essential to the quality of your everyday experience. This is why belief work matters. Your choices will be based on your beliefs.
I want to end with a quote from Emerson: “To different minds, the same world is a hell and a heaven.” That reminds me to live in the gray, to get out of duality thinking—right/wrong, good/bad. Three kids could be the most abundant blessing, or you could cry for a year when you find you’re pregnant with the third kid. One silly example, but it’s proof there’s no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad. It’s all soul school.
This perspective has become the framework of the way I live. The beliefs, ownership, self-responsibility, the awareness and curious perspective that the Earth Stackers send me lessons and triggers—and that’s okay. I get to be a human and choose, stay in my own lane, clarify my intention, move through it, get to the next Nintendo level. That means more joy, peace, and abundance in my life—and that’s what we’re here for.
All of that leads to doing the work. The work is journaling, hypnotherapy, sitting with it. We’re getting there. How we do the work: it would be a disservice to say, “Do eight weeks and you’re done and blissed out forever.” No. There’s no rushing the work. Trust that it finds you when you’re ready. The Earth Stackers send it when it’s ready to be healed—when you’re at a place in your consciousness to work through it. How you do the work varies: journaling, coaching conversations, therapy, hard conversations with your partner, hypnosis tracks, walks in nature. It depends where you are and what you need. Before you bring your highest self to the how, you need the foundational how. This is the foundational how.
There have been many times I’ve walked myself through this. It didn’t come up when I was in a coaching course at first because my mind was exploding from putting on different glasses. Then you walk through the world and see through different glasses and everything is different. The work you would have done five weeks ago you’ll look at totally differently five weeks from now because you’ve changed your perspective. Trust that it will find you and you will be guided to the right thing at the right time. You’re doing the work by being here. It’s already happening. The lessons will show up for you in accordance with your soul’s curriculum now.
Client shares: deciding whether to move came quickly, and my Unwavering Trust hypno track helped. It became clear over time this is where we need to move and why. I was praying too, but I wasn’t doing anything else.
We think it’s a lot of doing. That’s a huge mindset shift: the external doing isn’t as productive as the internal doing. Listening to a hypnosis track every day—it gets to be that easy. It’s mind-blowing that it came to you when you were ready, for free. We get caught up in the how—who to hire, how much—versus trusting the right thing will come our way in the way we’re ready to receive it at the right time. It’s a lean-back approach of trusting your spiritual guides, Earth Stackers, and the universe. The other option is futile: spinning wheels to do where there’s not a problem, creating problems where they don’t exist.
That’s it for spiritual psychology. Thank you for letting me bring you into my world of spirituality. I hope it serves you as much as it has served me. Let it ruminate. Give it a minute. Maybe listen again. Know what’s meant for you will not pass you by. What you need to learn from here and moving forward will circle around and find you.
If you are a modern mother looking for an empowering reframe in your relationship to your role, job, title, identity as a mother, run—don’t walk—to get the Reclaim Your Mother Story free masterclass. It’s a two-day masterclass I recorded a couple of years ago. I rewatched it recently and it is the most fire masterclass I’ve possibly ever recorded, and I’m giving it away for free because summer is crazy for mothers. If you are a mom, or you have a mom, or you love a mom, go to gervasekolmos.com/free-masterclass-for-moms and sign up.
This masterclass will teach you how to be more you while raising them—a refreshing take in a culture intent on polarizing mothers, watering us down, making us too much or not enough, fitting us into tiny boxes that do not fit the multidimensional, multi-passionate, modern, amazing human you are. I’m going to return you to your power, joy, and wholeness. It’s totally free. When you watch the two videos, you will discover how to uncover the hidden stories shaping your motherhood experience and rewrite them for more joy, freedom, and fulfillment; reconnect with the woman inside the mother so you can hold your dreams, your needs, and your children without losing yourself; break free from the cultural myth that says you have to choose between your aliveness and being a good mom; shift from self-sacrifice to self-honoring without guilt; find your power within—not in parenting hacks, external approval, or checking one more thing off the list; and rewrite generational patterns to redefine what motherhood can look and feel like for you and your kids. The link is in the show notes or go to gervasekolmos.com/free-masterclass-for-moms . Ask me how many takes it took me to get that URL right. I hope to see you inside. I want to hear how it goes for you.
Thank you so much for listening. I’m grateful you spend your valuable time with me. I hope you love these deep talks about life and the meaning of it all and how to tap into our soul and body wisdom as much as I do. I appreciate you being here. Maybe I’ll see you inside Whole Mother Rising. Maybe I’ll see you on the ‘gram—find me @gervasekolmos. Any questions ever, or if you want to take this work deeper with the Soul Shift Intensive, head to gervasekolmos.com. The links are in the show notes. I’ll see you back here in two weeks.
It's OK To Press The "Easy" Button
What if the key to getting hard tasks done when you’re overwhelmed (or just bored!) isn’t willpower—but more pleasure? This week, Gervase shares how to work with your nervous system by infusing your daily life with pleasure and intentionality when you want to give up.
This isn’t about numbing out or pushing through. It’s about tending to yourself so you can stay in the game instead of burning out or bailing when things get tough.
Hit play now to discover:
The kitchen sink saga that sparked this episode, and why it’s Gervase’s North Star when it comes to her business, parenting and I getting sh*tty tasks done (aka: never-ending admin!)
The ONE question to ask yourself when you want to bail on a hard task so you can stay in the game without burning out
Why adding just 1% more pleasure can ease overwhelm, help you get the thing done, and soothe your nervous system
How intention anchors you when motivation is low and pressure is high
How to stay in the “uncomfortable middle” when you want to quit your job (and burn it all down!)
If you’re tired of grinding your way through resistance (or giving up and regretting it later) and you’d like to adopt a more joyful, soul-honoring way of being during these moments, this short and simple episode is for you.
What if the key to getting hard tasks done when you’re overwhelmed (or just bored!) isn’t willpower—but more pleasure? This week, Gervase shares how to work with your nervous system by infusing your daily life with pleasure and intentionality when you want to give up.
This isn’t about numbing out or pushing through. It’s about tending to yourself so you can stay in the game instead of burning out or bailing when things get tough.
Hit play now to discover:
The kitchen sink saga that sparked this episode, and why it’s Gervase’s North Star when it comes to her business, parenting and I getting sh*tty tasks done (aka: never-ending admin!)
The ONE question to ask yourself when you want to bail on a hard task so you can stay in the game without burning out
Why adding just 1% more pleasure can ease overwhelm, help you get the thing done, and soothe your nervous system
How intention anchors you when motivation is low and pressure is high
How to stay in the “uncomfortable middle” when you want to quit your job (and burn it all down!)
If you’re tired of grinding your way through resistance (or giving up and regretting it later) and you’d like to adopt a more joyful, soul-honoring way of being during these moments, this short and simple episode is for you.
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It's OK To Press The "Easy" Button
Episode Full Transcript
Hi guys, Gervase here, your host for the Modern Phoenix Podcast. I hope you’re watching us—I know you can watch on Spotify and it’s very cool. I’ve had quite a journey with video as an entrepreneur and it’s always felt so fun and natural to me, maybe because I was a theater kid. So watch it and tell me: do you like watching it, or are you a listener?
I knew I wanted to record a podcast today and I had this pretty intense outline on over-functioning, but it was not feeling like the vibe. I wanted to come to you with something more personal, because this is personal to me. This work is personal to me. This community is personal to me. My clients are a beloved part of my circle. My friends listen to this. My life is my inspiration for my work and my healing and this podcast. So I decided to scrap the plan and tell you a story—an anecdote about my daughter—to show how offering yourself a little bit of pleasure as a resource when you’re doing something hard is one of the best ways to work with your nervous system patterns. It’s one of the best ways to have a flexible, resilient nervous system and not get stuck in fight or flight.
There are two examples here—one is a client and one is my daughter. Let’s start with my daughter. Literally before I recorded this, I had a lot going on. My daughter is home sick from school. That always feels like a stressful juggle. She’s bored and looking for direction. The dishwasher broke a couple of days ago, which has totally thrown off our ritual of getting the kitchen clean. I was single-parenting and thought, I’ll deal with this tomorrow. Then tomorrow was yesterday. We ran one load, but, if you know, you know—there’s a ton of dishes. It looks like a bomb went off. We just need to play catch-up, but no one has the bandwidth because it’s not the most important thing.
However, I’ve got an eight-year-old who needs a project. So I said, “Hey, Maya, why don’t you put these dishes in the dishwasher, hand-wash these ones. I’ll pay you $2.” She said yes. She stepped up to the sink—which looked like a dump—and started. After maybe two and a half minutes she looked around and said, “How am I going to do this?” So relatable. She said, “I don’t want to do this,” and started taking the gloves off. She was out.
Immediately I said, “Hold on. Is there something you can do to make this experience a little more enjoyable and not quit?” This is my question to you for everything in life. What we tend to do is get our nervous systems into these janky extremes: go all in—over-function, over-give, over-do, be so disciplined and productive—or swing the pendulum the other way and quit, tap out, numb out, cancel, disconnect, never talk to that person again. Pick a side. Instead, I suggested what I do to get through the misery of cleaning the kitchen at night: pop in headphones and listen to music or a podcast or an audiobook. “Do you want to put on headphones and listen to music while you clean?” She said yes, got her headphones, and went back to the sink. That’s where I left her. I thought, I’m going to record this now without an outline because this is it—this is the work in real life.
This question has become the North Star of my life, my mothering, and my practice. What I’ve found personally and with my kids and clients is that it shifts our nervous systems from “I’m so overwhelmed I’m not doing the dishes at all; I’m so overwhelmed I’ll quit my job; I’m so overwhelmed I’m never talking to that person again” into “I’m still overwhelmed, but what’s one thing I can do to bring a little resource, a little pleasure, a little enjoyment, so I can stay in the game a little more.” Not by pushing through—I’m actually tending as I go.
I’ve spoken about this a lot—resourcing as you go, getting curious when you notice patterns of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Can you ask, “How can I stay with this thing and not fight, but bring in a little more joy, pleasure, safety, communication?” Of course that looks different depending on the situation.
Here’s the client example. She’s been working through a couple of things, one of them leaving her job. That’s a big question with a big answer. It requires untangling, certainty, looking at things from many sides, and feeling into your next right move. Through our questioning, she realized it would be easier to quit her job and walk away than to stay but give a little less. I’m going to say that again for the high-functioning achievers in the back: it’s easier to quit (flight) than to stay while giving less of yourself to the job. We even defined it as “stay in the job, but give a few less fucks.”
We uncovered a pattern that wanted to run/hide/flight or lean all the way in and give 200%. The middle was very challenging and uncomfortable. And to do something in the middle, you have to stay. So if we’re talking about a job, how do you stay in the game and, like with my daughter, bring in a little joy, levity, relief, pleasure? The resource that was needed was: can you give a little less? What’s it like to stay but give a little less? This is another way to bring in a bit of resource while still doing the job, so you can change the neural pathways and find out how it actually feels. You deserve to know before you quit.
Because my sense was, and where she landed, was: you can take a sabbatical or quit, but the pattern may persist. What we resist persists. If you take a sabbatical because you want relief and escape from something overwhelming and demanding—you have good reasons; most corporate cultures are tone-deaf and take advantage of employees—the pendulum will likely swing back when you return. That’s fine; there’s always time. It’s an endless journey of evolving and spiraling, shifting our systems and patterns and choices and behavior and relationships. Nobody gets a prize. These are nuanced decisions.
But what is it like, if you relate to the job thing, to consider doing what you’ve never done—stay in the game—and ask yourself, “How can I make this a little more enjoyable? What would bring a little relief here?” That part—where you notice your patterns and ask this question and begin the gentle, compassionate, curious tending to your nervous system as you work through something to shift how you behave—is how I’ve changed how I show up for my job, for you, in my mothering, and in my marriage. Instead of throwing up my hands and burning it all down every time things got hard, I stayed with my initial intention and asked, “How can I bring 1% more joy, pleasure, relief, resource, support? What might that look like?” There are infinite options. That’s the spiraling, winding path of the feminine. You’re never stuck or locked in. Nothing is the beginning or the end. It’s always evolving. There are always more next right things to try, endless chances. We’re not playing a linear, capitalistic, patriarchal timeline. We don’t need to. Every moment is a new breath and a new opportunity to make a new choice, relate differently to a pattern, sensation, trigger, activation, overwhelm, or defeat. There are so many ways to do that. Those are the things I teach and want you to know.
The last thing I’ll say is: always start with an intention. In focalizing, we always begin sessions with an intention. If you don’t have one, you can really flounder with purpose and follow-through and resilience to stay in the game. Your intention can be silly: “My intention is to get the house not looking like a dump today.” You might feel overwhelmed and think, How am I going to do it? Those are natural thoughts. Okay, but I have this intention. How can I be with it? How can I stay in the game even though I feel overwhelmed, want to quit or escape, or lose myself in it?
Even though I’m not a nervous system expert and there’s nuance between states, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how this plays out. So even though I feel a certain way in my body and system, how can I work with this intention and bring in just a little pleasure, joy, relief, or resource? Get curious. Get creative. If the intention is “get my house clean,” can I get my kids to help? Can I put on music? Set a timer? Dance around like Mary Poppins? Make it a game? Hire help? Press the easy button?
I have so much going on today and an event tonight. I thought, “I’ll make Buddha bowls—quinoa, roasted vegetables, chickpeas.” Then I was like, What am I talking about? That’s taking up so much space in my brain and this is not the day. This is chicken-nugget day. This is the easy-button day. I can still fulfill my intention of feeding my kids, and it’s within my values because I wouldn’t have that food in my house if I weren’t okay with them eating it. We’re good. There are endless opportunities to make Buddha bowls. Today’s meal isn’t the end all, be all. Our life is full of endless choices—chances to choose again.
I hope this feels personal and also concrete and applicable to anything you’re working through—patterns, intentions for your life, womanhood, motherhood, career, relationships. Get clear on your intention. Then ask how you can work with it with a little more levity, pleasure, joy, resource. Tend as you stay with the intention. And it’s okay if you need breaks—maybe you call out of work for a few days, or take a break from the dishes for ten minutes and go lie in the grass, or whatever your thing is. Sunbathing is mine at the moment.
I love you so much. Please share this with another woman who needs practical, actionable, trauma-informed, nervous-system-based, body-based tips that let you work with the hard, crunchy parts of being human in a way that is creative, optimistic, hopeful, and creates lasting transformation. If you want to take this work deeper, your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive—the link is in the show notes. If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, find me on Instagram at @gervasekolmos or email us at hi@gervasekolmos.com. I love to hear from you. Thank you for spending your precious time with me. I’ll see you in two weeks. Ciao.
Stay or Go? Healing Relationship Patterns with Katarina Polonska
For this week’s podcast, I brought along a friend… high-performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist, Katarina Polonska! In this episode, we discuss how to make the difficult decision of whether to stay or leave a relationship, how to navigate messy power struggles, and how to move from individualism to collaboration to build stronger, more connected relationships. Yep, we cover it all!
Watch this episode now to discover:
The #1 way to get clarity on whether you should stay or leave a relationship (hint: the result is win-win: you either transform the relationship or you leave and find someone who is more aligned)
The 6-month strategy to "clean up your side of the street" and find undeniable clarity
The blame game that often happens in the power struggle phase of a relationship when our wounds (aka: sneaky unaddressed demons) like to come out
The responsibility we have to try and understand our partner's needs and to hold them AND ours with equal importance
How we've moved away from being collaborative in relationships to being individualistic and believing our needs matter more than our partners
A mindset shift that can help you have a better relationship with your in-laws and extended family (even if you couldn't be more yin and yang!)
About Katarina Polonska:
Katarina is a high-performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist who specializes in helping people make clear relationship decisions. Her expertise in attachment theory, behavioral science of attraction, and the cultural influences on relationships provides a unique framework for understanding and transforming relationship patterns.
For this week’s podcast, I brought along a friend… high-performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist, Katarina Polonska! In this episode, we discuss how to make the difficult decision of whether to stay or leave a relationship, how to navigate messy power struggles, and how to move from individualism to collaboration to build stronger, more connected relationships. Yep, we cover it all!
Watch this episode now to discover:
The #1 way to get clarity on whether you should stay or leave a relationship (hint: the result is win-win: you either transform the relationship or you leave and find someone who is more aligned)
The 6-month strategy to "clean up your side of the street" and find undeniable clarity
The blame game that often happens in the power struggle phase of a relationship when our wounds (aka: sneaky unaddressed demons) like to come out
The responsibility we have to try and understand our partner's needs and to hold them AND ours with equal importance
How we've moved away from being collaborative in relationships to being individualistic and believing our needs matter more than our partners
A mindset shift that can help you have a better relationship with your in-laws and extended family (even if you couldn't be more yin and yang!)
About Katarina Polonska:
Katarina is a high-performance relationship coach and gender dynamics social scientist who specializes in helping people make clear relationship decisions. Her expertise in attachment theory, behavioral science of attraction, and the cultural influences on relationships provides a unique framework for understanding and transforming relationship patterns.
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram to get her best scroll-stopping insights: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
And for even more wisdom (and juicy discounts), sign up to her newsletter so you never miss out: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Stay or Go? Healing Relationship Patterns with Katarina Polonska
Episode Full Transcript
All right, my loves—welcome back to the Modern Phoenix podcast. I brought you a friend, my new Czech bestie, Katarina Polonska. She’s going to talk to us about relationships. Katarina, would you introduce yourself? Then we’ll dive into all the juicy goodness.
Katarina: Absolutely. I’m Katarina. I’m a high-performance relationship coach and a gender dynamics social scientist. I help people with their romantic relationships and also do corporate work to improve professional dynamics. I specialize in what I call the behavioral science of attraction—really looking at what you’re attracting into your life on an unconscious level from a relational point of view, what you actually need to attract to be happy long-term, and how to do that. Think behavioral science meets law of attraction, working with the subconscious mind, and understanding your patterns: your core wounds, how you might be creating dysfunction in your relationships. I specialize in attachment theory, gender dynamics, and cultural/societal/familial conditioning, and I help people recondition their brains to work for them so they can have healthy, happy, secure, meaningful relationships.
A big subset of my work is helping people decide whether to stay or go in their romantic relationship. That was my dilemma for a long time with my ex-fiancé. I spent years unsure—“Is it me? Is it him? Is it the relationship?”—doing couples counseling, feeling frustrated by the process. I did end up leaving that relationship; I met my husband less than a year later. Now I help people figure out that decision, which is always influenced by conditioning, wounded parts, and limiting beliefs—helping them see the relationship clearly so they can make the best decision for them, knowing they’ve put in their all, cleaned up their side of the street, and can look back with integrity. They didn’t make a wounded decision, they didn’t jump and run, and they didn’t stay unnecessarily; they made a healthy, empowered, clear choice.
Gervase: Yes. I’ve been getting that a lot in my practice lately. I always say there are three big decisions: Should I quit my job? Should I leave my marriage? Should I become a mom?
Katarina: I help with the career question too—it’s similar to the marriage question. I worked with the COO of a global bank—making well into the millions, extremely young at 45—who said, “It’s like I’m in a toxic marriage with my job. I’ve got golden handcuffs, don’t want to leave, but I’m being abused and mistreated.” Where do I go next?
Gervase: So important—and so understandable that so many people are confused: Is it me or the systems? Me or the relationship? That’s the thread I hear. I was listening to you on another podcast, and while our modalities are different, I think we share frameworks for getting people to the other side—like you said, cleaning up your side of the fence. I’d love to hear more. Years ago I had a client in the “Should I leave my marriage?” boat. It was rough. There was anger, resentment, frustration: “It’s not fair—he’s not doing the work, won’t go to counseling.” I told her what I still feel now: “We’re not doing this for him. We’re doing this so you feel so clear about what’s right for you—that you gave this everything, that you’re aligned and coherent, no shoulds in the room, heart open and protected—so you can make a decision from that place.” Yes, it’s great when two people work on it, but the first thread (my old podcast was called It’s All Me) is being grounded and deconditioned in yourself.
Katarina: One hundred percent—and that’s actually the hardest thing. I’d done 15 years of therapy. I was already a trained coach, mindfulness teacher, had been to tons of retreats. My father worked with people like Joe Dispenza; I grew up in that world. I worked in behavioral science; I was a regional VP at a behavioral science company. Of all people, you’d think I could be grounded and figure it out. I’d also healed anorexia twice. And yet I’d sit here in Vancouver, meditating, and every day the question plagued me: “What do I do? Is it me? Is it him?” I was ruminating—extremely anxious—my gut firing signals I couldn’t discern.
My relationship coach then, the phenomenal Lisa Page, kept saying, “Get clear: Are you projecting past wounding onto this relationship, or are you responding to the present moment in real time?” I struggled to do that. I couldn’t see through my own fog—because your brain won’t let you see what you’re not ready to see, and I didn’t realize how much conditioning was playing in. I also didn’t know the full extent of the truth. It’s usually a gray area of both. But you still have power to clear your side of the street, to show up as best you can, and to try to inspire your partner to change versus nagging or cajoling (which won’t work). Reframe it. Give it a final six months—don’t drag it out for years. Be intentional with how you show up. Clean up your side; that’ll take at least a couple of months. Then own how you’re showing up with them, and look for data points: What do you need to see to know you’ll actually stay?
That helped me. Within that six-month window, I looked around and thought, “This isn’t enough for me.” I kept surrendering and praying for a sign—really wanting a final little kick to move me. I got a real kick—the clarity I needed—right at that six-month mark. I’d come so far; even our relationship had improved, but I prayed for clarity and then got it so loud and clear the decision was a no-brainer. I couldn’t have gotten there without that process. If I’d decided sooner, I’d have regretted it and never known. Now I’m in a healthy relationship. And to your point with your client: this approach is a win-win. You either up-level yourself and find someone better, or you up-level the relationship. Win-win.
Gervase: So true. Thank you for sharing your experience. What I keep hearing is waiting. Most modern women don’t have a great relationship with waiting—myself included. I’m a Projector in Human Design; our strategy is to wait for the invitation. For years I practiced: “Am I waiting? Being patient? Or pushing past my bandwidth?” In our modern world we’re primed for quick results and lightning shifts. I’m always reminding clients, family, myself: Nature is the guide. Some things take time. If you can accept that as the natural way, things shift when you least expect it.
Katarina: One hundred percent. And reframe “waiting” as not passive. You’re not just in a waiting room. It’s a process of learning and assimilating new information, embodying a new version of you, integrating, then up-leveling—bit by bit. Every challenge (relationship, business, health) invites you to learn, expand, integrate, upgrade. You can’t rush to the conclusion or you’ll miss the growth you need in order to hold the result. Think of winning the lottery—if you haven’t done the inner work to expand your capacity to hold money, appreciate it, and steward it, and you get a million dollars tomorrow, you’ll lose it. Better to take the slower route, do the work, get there, hold it, and compound it.
Gervase: Yes. One of my mentors, Jo Miller, says: “The slow way is the fast way.” It annoyed me at first, and now—through embodiment—I’m like, oh. If you take a fully formed flower and stick it in the ground: “See? Flower.” No, babe—you plant a seed, then wait. It looks like waiting, but it’s not passive. Things are happening in the dark. It takes time, roots grow, you water it, then it grows. That’s how you get your flowers; then they last. If you just stick a cut flower in the ground, it’s dead tomorrow. Respect the natural order of growth and evolution—humans as nature, not machines to quickly produce and multiply.
Can we talk childhood wounds? In my marriage, couples work has been such a beautiful investment. One thing that came up: bringing the unconscious to light. When I’m triggered and he’s triggered, we’re often projecting childhood wounds onto each other. It’s wild. For example: I was raised by a very control/discipline-oriented woman. Rushing is a trigger for me; I was rushed for 17 years. My husband loves order—he’s a Capricorn, spreadsheets. We once fought when I said, “We still have time,” and he said, “I hate being late. If I’m on time, I’m late. I need to be early.” I finally heard him: for him, being on time risks being late—and that’s so upsetting he gets grumpy. His childhood stuff is the opposite of mine. How do childhood wounds show up in relationships, and how do we use them for healing and “cleaning up our side of the fence”?
Katarina: Where to start! Honestly, the dating phase is unpacking your wounds and getting ready to even receive a relationship. Then you get the relationship and think, “I’ve arrived.” I did too—when I first got engaged I thought, “I made it through the wilderness.” Then commitment happened and all my stuff came up—worse. I’d done the mother wound, the father wound, plant medicine—“How is this all back?” I believe in romance you have to feel safe, vulnerable, and loved for your system to relax—and then your crap comes up. That’s why we have the power struggle phase. The honeymoon is hormones and rose-tinted glasses. You relax (which is good), and then your little wounds feel safe to come up and be addressed—“Mommy, Daddy, listen to me!”
Most of what happens in the power struggle (and beyond) is rooted in core wounds and conditioning. That’s how personality forms. High level: between zero and eight, your brain is a sponge; you’re mostly in theta (a light hypnotic state). You absorb everything and make it about you. If a parent comes home angry nightly because they hate their job, you make that anger about you. Children are egocentric; they form childlike conclusions: “I’m bad, not good enough, I did something wrong, I’m defective.” Repeated thoughts become the filter through which you see the world and yourself.
There are hundreds of millions (some say billions) of bits of data around us at any moment. Your filters decide what you take in. You and I take in different data based on our childhood conditioning. There’s no objective reality—only subjective. I had a multimillionaire client in a penthouse with a Ferrari who walked around saying, “No one wants me; the economy is terrible; there’s a recession,” (there’s always a recession with him). It was never enough—because he was never enough to himself. His perceptions impacted how he saw the world.
When you get into romance, those filters can hurt you; you and your partner see things differently, and maybe not accurately. Unaddressed stories and experiences that never got closure resurface. If you felt neglected as a child and never voiced it, it will show up in partnership. That’s a golden opportunity—assuming the dynamic is safe—to go inside, ask where it’s coming from, and revisit it (through modalities that work for you) so you stop seeing through an outdated lens. That’s what the power struggle is for. When people are arguing, can’t see eye to eye—“You did this; you did that”—I’m like: Great. Your stuff is up. Now you can examine it, do the inner work, get the therapist or coach, unpack and heal those broken stories, and see your partner, yourself, and your life more clearly and productively. Make sense?
Gervase: Totally. Thank you for the breakdown. It reminds me of something from our couples work: our coach would ask us to verbalize what we’d love the other to do instead of what they were doing. I can get cocky—“I’ve done the mother wound; I’ve been in therapy since 18; I have no blind spots”—so that question caught me. I was only pointing out what he was doing wrong, with “diagnostic evidence.” Being asked what I wanted instead—and finding it hard to answer—was humbling. It showed me I’d been stuck in a blaming, ruminating, better-than-thou mind. Practically, it became a pattern-breaker: I’d catch myself mid-speech, pause, and ask, “What do I want from him right now? How can I articulate that?” It changed our pattern. It also mirrors my work: less “Why is this happening?” and more “What resource is needed? What do you need to feel safe, resourced, supported, permitted, or to get a break right now?” How do you shape those questions for couples?
Katarina: You’ve hit something crucial: beneath every conflict is a need trying to get met. Your subconscious mind—whether you’re in a screaming match or brushing your teeth—is working to get needs met. In a fight, you might be seeking connection, validation, safety—whatever it is. The key is to drop beneath “what they’re not doing” into: What do I feel? Where is it coming from? What do I need to feel better? If we all pause to get clear on that—and even ask, “What might my partner need right now?”—nine times out of ten the argument stops and you’re back to a normal conversation.
And understand your needs will often differ from your partner’s. You might not understand their needs. They may seem irrational. That’s not your job—just like your needs aren’t theirs to judge. In a monogamous committed relationship, you do have a duty to try to help them meet their needs, but it’s not on you to decide right/wrong about those needs. I coached a couple who kept going, “He said… She said… you’re wrong.” I told them, “You’re both wrong; you’re both right.” The night before, at 10 p.m. (and honestly, any argument after 9 p.m.—good luck), my husband told me what hurt and what he needed. I remember thinking, “I literally don’t understand. I’m hurt.” My brain couldn’t compute. But it’s not up to me. That’s what he feels. So I had to give him what he needed—even though it took swallowing pride. The gold standard is moving from scarcity/competition (“I have to win, so you must be wrong”) to abundance/collaboration (“There’s enough to go around; we can both be right and both be wrong; they’re allowed to want what they want, and so am I”). No one has to lose here.
Gervase: That brings up the part of me that says, “I don’t have to.” I can choose to. Which, of course, I want to—because I love my people. What helps the stubborn teen in me is remembering I get to give what I want to receive. A lot of women have a confused relationship with giving and receiving—out of balance and highly conditioned. If I drop down, I remember I’m in a partnership where I also get to receive the thing I’m giving. That collaborative energy is missing in our culture; this right/wrong paradigm is hurting couples, families, everyone. How do you work with that?
Katarina: I actually think it is our job to give our partner certain things—if we’re in a marriage or chosen monogamous contract. That choice comes with a contract. You also get to break it; you have freedom. But the less we treat it as a burden to rebel against and more as a privilege and part of the contract, the better. If I make $3 million, I have a job to be responsible with it—to nurture and steward it. It would be sloppy to say, “I don’t feel like looking at it.” There’s a responsibility in caring for our partner’s heart. It’s a privilege—but it also means they have a responsibility to care for ours.
That night at 10 p.m., I wanted to sleep; I was crying and felt awful. But I came back to: here’s the man I’m devoted to. Even if he looks like a demon to me right now, he’s vulnerable and has needs. It’s my job to be as loving and caring as I can, even when it’s freaking hard. We need more of that duty to each other, to neighbors, to community. In Anglo-American cultures, we’re so individualistic—“I don’t want to do that.” Frankly, no one wants to do the hard thing, but if we all refuse, society frays. Humans progress with collaboration, community, generosity. Bring that to romance. I don’t know where we lost it (capitalism plays a role), but somewhere we did.
A few years ago at work in Vancouver, a colleague said she’d been to the weirdest wedding—very “conscious relationship.” The couple’s vows were basically, “I’ll look after me; you look after you; we’ll do our own thing and come together freely.” On the one hand, yes—be responsible for yourself. On the other, why get married? We’ve demonized responsibility for the other. You can do both: be fully responsible for yourself and for carrying your spouse’s heart. That’s a win-win relationship.
Gervase: So much comes up. With extended family and in-laws (already complicated with your own family, and now you add another!), I’ve landed here: me and you—and that gets to work. How do I honor extended family? “Responsibility” isn’t my favorite word (semantics), but I do feel a commitment to my in-laws because I love their son. It’s not my job to judge them or separate from them. I belong to this tribe. It’s messy and confronting and loving and supportive. The deeper I can be with the mess of those relationships, the more I grow. We all belong to each other in different ways. We have an unspoken contract. I could pretend it doesn’t exist, but by honoring my in-laws, I honor lineage—our children’s lineage. Americans, especially, have lost ties to ancestors, belonging, community. It’s easier to sit in isolated castles and be “right,” but your child is the grandchild of his parents. Are you going to chop that off at the root? How do you be with the mess of ancestry? That’s part of the work.
Katarina: As you’re saying that—same. My husband’s from Barbados; you look at that lineage and it’s slavery. He doesn’t know where he’s from—Latin America? Africa? There’s a generational memory gap from a horrific capitalist outcome. I’m half Russian—its own mess; family in Ukraine; family in Israel—more hot mess. I’ve lived in eight countries. It makes sense we’re all different; we all have different lineages. We are one global family on one home—this planet. There’s a range to the human experience.
In my academic career (during my master’s), I studied Anglo-American feminism. From my perspective it was “right.” When I lived in Dubai, I got passionate about emancipating women and tried a research project there. The women were like, “We don’t need emancipating. Go to Iraq.” Interesting. So I studied Russian women’s emancipation. After the Soviet Union collapsed in the 90s, many Anglo-American women came to “set you free,” but Russian women were like, “We had abortions—the state did lots of them. We don’t want more. We don’t want to have to work in the public sphere; we want a private life.” It challenged my assumptions. Then I looked at how other cultures view the Anglo-American landscape—Japanese feminism called American women barbaric for mutating bodies with plastic surgery/Botox and for grinding through menstruation without rest. Fascinating.
So there’s no single right/wrong (beyond fundamental liberal truths like peace, freedom, love, don’t kill, equality). In partnership, you do want enough value alignment—religion was a big issue with my ex—and cultural alignment on fundamentals. But there’s a range of humanity we have to accept. We’re learning what it is to be human—and how weird the world is.
Gervase: Of course you did casual feminist research in Dubai and then Oxford. A thread to land this: when you’re with people different from you—partner, extended family, strangers—ask: What is my intention? With Great Aunt Sue (my husband’s aunt) who lives a totally different existence, we share my husband. Sometimes that has to be enough. I’m not gaslighting anyone into toxic relationships; I’m talking about the imaginary Aunt Sue. What helps when it’s confronting is asking, “What do I want from this relationship? Why am I visiting? What do I need? What do we share?” It’s easy to focus on what we dislike or think is wrong. It’s harder to flex curiosity: “Huh, I wonder why they’re that way? What’s my intention here? Could I bring intention to this?” That question is more motivating and gets me through more than, “I have an obligation.” It applies everywhere.
Katarina: A hundred percent. I love: “For what purpose am I doing this?” For what purpose am I trying to prove I’m right? So I can be right? Maybe it’s enough to know my own opinion and belief system—and I don’t need others to agree. If it’s not enough, get curious about why. Often it comes back to the wound of not feeling enough.
Gervase: This has been lovely, as usual. Thank you for your insights and your really smart brain. Tell people how to find you and your work. I know you have a masterclass and a podcast—share everything so folks can keep in touch.
Katarina: First, find me on a patio with you for an afternoon—that’s what I want! But yes: my website is www.katerinapolonska.com—that’s K-A-T-A-R-I-N-A-P-O-L-O-N-S-K-A.com. You’ll find a link to my free 20-minute masterclass on the behavioral science of deciding whether to stay or go in your romantic relationship or your career. I’m very active on LinkedIn—posting twice a day with educational content—so come engage with me there (search “Katerina Polonska”). I’m also now on TikTok (a week ago I bit the bullet): @katerina.polonska. And on Instagram I’m @katerinapolonska. You’ll find me under my name across platforms. YouTube is where my podcast tends to be these days, and of course it’s on Spotify, Apple, and the rest.
Gervase: Amazing. We’ll put that in the show notes. Thank you for your time. I want to acknowledge you for being such a brilliant, curious, empathetic human—and for working so hard to make sense of this crazy mess called being human with other humans. It’s so hard. Thank you.
How Overfunctioning Disconnects You from Your Body and Your Life
Does every task on your to-do list feel as equally urgent and like a threat to your survival? In this week's episode, Gervase dives deep into the pattern of over-functioning that keeps so many women stuck in perpetual stress. You'll learn why your nervous system gets locked in high alert and overdrive, even for unimportant tasks such as the laundry. And how this cycle of perpetual doing and achieving causes burnout and a never-ending sense of “psychotic urgency.”
And to help you rewire these patterns, Gervase shares practical steps such as how to reconnect to your body, slow down and create moments of calm even in the chaos of modern life.
Watch this episode now to discover:
The biggest indicator that you’re an over-functioner and how this “psychotic urgency” prevents you from being, enjoying and living life
Why your brain can't relax when it’s stuck in overfunctioning without signals from your body first (and how this creates a chicken-and-egg problem for over-functioners)
The real cost of constantly operating like a computer instead of honoring your HUMAN need for rhythm, rest and pleasure
A simple 4-step practice to interrupt the overfunctioning pattern when you feel yourself spiraling
The narcissistic-like belief many of us have that unknowingly depletes your energy (and how to contribute without sacrificing yourself)
How to create 30-second intervals throughout your day to tune into your body’s wisdom and gradually rewire your nervous system
Does every task on your to-do list feel as equally urgent and like a threat to your survival? In this week's episode, Gervase dives deep into the pattern of over-functioning that keeps so many women stuck in perpetual stress. You'll learn why your nervous system gets locked in high alert and overdrive, even for unimportant tasks such as the laundry. And how this cycle of perpetual doing and achieving causes burnout and a never-ending sense of “psychotic urgency.”
And to help you rewire these patterns, Gervase shares practical steps such as how to reconnect to your body, slow down and create moments of calm even in the chaos of modern life.
Watch this episode now to discover:
The biggest indicator that you’re an over-functioner and how this “psychotic urgency” prevents you from being, enjoying and living life
Why your brain can't relax when it’s stuck in overfunctioning without signals from your body first (and how this creates a chicken-and-egg problem for over-functioners)
The real cost of constantly operating like a computer instead of honoring your HUMAN need for rhythm, rest and pleasure
A simple 4-step practice to interrupt the overfunctioning pattern when you feel yourself spiraling
The narcissistic-like belief many of us have that unknowingly depletes your energy (and how to contribute without sacrificing yourself)
How to create 30-second intervals throughout your day to tune into your body’s wisdom and gradually rewire your nervous system
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram to get her best scroll-stopping insights: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
And for even more wisdom (and her juiciest discounts and invites), sign up to her newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
How Overfunctioning Disconnects You from Your Body and Your Life
Episode Full Transcript
Hello, my friends. Welcome back for another solo episode of The Modern Phoenix Podcast. I am your host, Gervase Kolmos, Inner Transformation Coach, here to guide you out of the cage of your conditioned mind and into your body and soul wisdom.
I want to talk to you today about over-functioning. As I was prepping some notes for this episode, I noticed the way I was describing things could almost be pathologizing because I was going to say, “Let’s talk about our over-functioners,” like you are either this person—this type of woman—or you’re not. And then I was like: uh, hello, I was over-functioning yesterday. I might be freaking over-functioning right now.
It’s not bad or wrong. It’s just a way that we survive the pace of modern life. So I want to talk to you about a pattern—a way of womaning—that I call over-functioning. You may even identify with, “I am an over-functioner,” and that’s fine. That’s a part of you. But it’s important to have this conversation in the context of the real world and to acknowledge that over-functioning is kind of how we get shit done, right?
It’s how I, today, am able to record this podcast, do a two-hour group coaching call, pack my family of five, go to the grocery store, parent my kids, and leave for a flight tomorrow morning. It’s part of the gig. And also, because of the fast pace of modern life, so many of us have gotten a little stuck in over-functioning. I want to share what that can look like, why it happens, and what to do—how to get it unstuck a little bit—and things I do on days like today where I’m like: whoa.
In Inside Out 2—if you haven’t seen it, great movie—there’s a character, Anxiety. At the end, she’s running in circles around the control board and there’s smoke coming out of her ears—cannot compute, moving so fast. It’s so relatable. I feel like that’s how most women feel all the time.
We’re going to hold this with a both/and: while that is highly relatable and sometimes supportive to function in the modern world, I also see the ways we get stuck—like Anxiety in Inside Out—and we need tools and guidance on how to pull out of overdrive to normal functioning… maybe minimal functioning… maybe not “functioning” at all—maybe just living, being, enjoying your one incredible life. Because isn’t that the point?
I keep coming back to this. The to-do list and getting everything done—yes, it’s satisfying—but then something inside me is like, really? Did you see the sky today? It’s pink. Did you know there are tiny particles out in space? The list cannot be it.
I was talking to a client yesterday who would definitely self-identify as an over-functioner. The list does feel good to complete. And also, I’m here to give you access to your birthright, which is not just brain functioning—thinking, planning, executive functioning, making it happen—but also the body and the soul being along for the ride so you can enjoy what gets created as a result of the functioning.
We’ve all had this experience: you do all the things to get ready for vacation, and then you go on vacation and you still don’t feel relaxed. You still feel anxious. You’re like, “How come I don’t feel better? I did all the things on my list so I could get to vacation and relax.” I’m not saying it never happens, but I noticed for me—on a trip with my husband about five years ago—I still didn’t feel relaxed. I realized this isn’t a “get-shit-done” problem. Over-functioning isn’t supporting me here. I need tools and access to communicate with my body that it’s okay to relax now. Hey—this is the living part.
Obviously, it’s also problematic that we build lives we need to escape from and then have only a couple weeks a year to enjoy them, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s talk about over-functioning.
If I distill it, what I hear my clients say is: “I want to feel like it’s okay to shut my brain off. I want it to feel realistic, practical, and doable to chill out—but I don’t know how.” Here’s why. When we get into a fast pace of doing, we signal to the body: everything out here is a threat. We’re overactive, hyper-vigilant; there are threats everywhere and they’re all equally important.
You’ve heard me say: everything is not an emergency. Everything does not get equal weight. If everything starts to feel equally important, that’s a sign that the pattern of over-functioning is blocking you from enjoying your life—from pleasure and access to your body and soul sovereignty.
When the brain has convinced the body that everything is a threat, the nervous system can get stuck in overdrive. It’s kind of a mind-fuck because to relax—to slow down, to feel safe shutting off your brain—you need a signal from the body. The body must interrupt the brain pattern. But it can’t because it’s stuck, because the brain is moving so fast and doing too much. Chicken-and-egg.
This is where I come in. This is where tools, practices, and sisterhood come in. If you try to DIY this, you likely won’t be able to. It’s easier to see in others. I watch my husband sometimes—he’s such an over-functioner, so good at life—and he needs help. He cannot do less. He cannot shut his brain off. He listens to my hypnosis tracks in the middle of the night all the time. I’m always like, “Oh, it surprised me that that works,” and then—why am I surprised? You all should be listening to my hypnosis tracks in the middle of the night. It’s why I include them in my programs and give them to all my private coaching clients: we need access to the parts of the brain that are open. The subconscious is only open if we’re in a state of focused relaxation, which is what hypnosis is.
We cannot relax the brain until we get the body to send the message. If we’re not acknowledging, communicating with, or tapping into the body, we will never calm the fuck down. Physiologically, we cannot. You can go to talk therapy and talk about over-functioning forever—and that can work for some people—but often there’s a block because you need to work bottom-up.
Focalizing equipped me with tools to work with the limbic brain—the part that runs what you’re unconscious of (your breath, for example). I work bottom-up because when a woman is spiraling into story and overthinking—over-functioning, justifying the doing, insisting it’s not practical or safe to slow down—I know I don’t need to talk to her about slowing down. I need to help her slow down the machine. I’m not going top-down, talking to her brain; I’m going to her body. We work directly with the nervous system and the natural intelligence of your inner knowing to let that wisdom move up into the brain.
You can rewire your body—your whole self—because you’re not just a body or a brain; you’re all of it: mind, body, spirit. All parts of you are designed to be online. We work with the body to communicate to the brain, and often you just need a translator. That’s where I come in. Sometimes you need someone to manually help you relax the body and connect to body wisdom so it can open the gates of the brain and send the message: “This is code green.” The grocery list is code green.
I did this with a client yesterday—I do it all the time. Early on, she once said, “Next time can we do some focalizing?” and I laughed because we’d been doing it the entire session. That’s the fun of being in this field for 11 years: I have my own style and signature. I’m always threading mind-body-spirit, resourcing and redirecting, opening gates and pathways. Sometimes it’s more clinical—eyes closed, body drop, grounding, visualization—but most of the time it’s subtle: little cues that connect you for 30 seconds to something besides the brain’s urgency narrative that everything is an emergency and if you don’t do it, you’re not enough.
When I asked this client—after we dropped out of the overactive mind—“What do you notice now?” she said: “I feel calm. I feel like this is progress. I’m on the right path. I feel hope.” These are the messages we actually need to get us through the day. “I’m going the right way.” The brain is convinced that if we don’t push, the train will derail. Often we just need encouragement and reassurance: You’re doing it. It’s safe to be you. It’s safe to do less. It’s safe to slow down for a moment.
We’re working 30 seconds at a time, and that’s fine—and efficient. You don’t need to meditate an hour a day. I help women rewire their nervous systems over months—my favorite container is six months—30 seconds at a time. We’re changing the circuitry, creating communication channels between body, soul, and brain. Then, when the brain hears the message, it takes it into account next time the pattern kicks in.
Yesterday I was trying to catch up on work before a trip to Costa Rica. I felt like smoke was coming out of my ears—like Anxiety from Inside Out. Then I noticed: oh, I’m over-functioning. Pause. You’re good. It’s okay. You can take a pee break. Go outside for five minutes. Sit on the grass for ten. Eat lunch in the sunshine. Drink water. Make a nice salad. These are basic human needs we convince ourselves are superfluous when we’re hyper-vigilant. We think we have to justify them.
I can’t tell you how many times someone joins a call eating and apologizes. Please don’t. You need to eat. We’ve taken the corporate, capitalistic structure and applied it to everything. We’re more robot than human. That might be great for efficiency; it’s not great for health, mental health, relationships, or pleasure.
So how do we connect the two so you feel good while you build that life? Because if your life is for producing and it’s for everyone else—not for you—what’s the point?
I was Voxering with a client who’s had huge leaps in the last year. She was triaging at work after layoffs—stressful—and noticed a part of her witnessing it all: “Oh, that’s what’s happening with that person. That’s what’s happening at work. That’s what’s happening with me.” She said something I loved: “I no longer feel like I need to pull things through me as I am lifing.” That hit me. This was my journey, especially in motherhood. I felt like I had to pull everything through me—be the sieve of emotions and problems. It’s a narcissistic approach to life: nothing outside of me can function unless I pull it through myself. If that’s your posture, then yes—everything’s a threat; you burn out because you’re giving yourself instead of knowing where they end and you begin. How can I contribute without being on the sacrificial altar?
First, notice you’re doing it. Notice the over-functioning, the depletion, the lack of permission for anything not tied to productivity. Modern life is fucking psychotic. What now?
Here are the steps (yes—I brought steps; I’m proud):
Notice your focus is “out there.” When you’re hyper-vigilant, your eyes narrow, your body contracts, you hunch over the phone or desk; your vision zings into the screen. You lose self-awareness.
Check in: “What is it like to be me right now?” Pause. Breathe. Close your eyes for three seconds (if that feels safe). Ask the question. No judgments—just curious observing.
Scan for sensations. What do you notice in your body? Shoulders hunched? Hips clenched? If you’re new to this, you may only notice what feels bad. That’s okay—awareness is the win.
“Where’s my water?” (Metaphorical.) What is one small thing you can do right now to slow down for a few minutes, to feel 1% better? Refill your water and actually drink it; stand up and look out a window; step into the sun for 60 seconds; put bare feet on grass; pee; eat something real. Nothing is too small.
Re-check: “What is it like to be me now?” Maybe you feel the same; maybe there’s 1% less urgency. It’s all data.
This isn’t about fixing it once and going back to a psychotic pace. It’s about repatterning your nervous system and lifestyle so it feels as good as it is efficient, productive, successful, wealthy—whatever.
If all of this feels overwhelming and you want to punch me (lovingly), just book a Soul Shift Intensive. It’s a 90-minute session and I’ll do it with you. We’re not taught how to do this. I don’t do this perfectly for myself either; I have support. Everyone has blind spots.
As I move through my life—even today—I notice: my vision is narrowed; I’m moving fast; I feel anxious. Okay—breath, lean back, inside eyes: “What’s it like to be me right now?” Sometimes my brain feels like an overheated computer. That’s my cue: I’m doing too much. What can I cancel, slow down, or reschedule? How can I create a little space for me today? Then I switch gears.
Resourcing looks a million different ways. In my communities, we’re always talking about it because we’re learning to check in with our nervous systems, bodies, and souls: Are you okay? What resource is needed right now to give my system a felt sense of safety for a few minutes? That unlocks the “gates”—unfreezes the computer.
Think of IT support asking you to restart your computer. Even computers overheat. When we model our lives after computers and don’t feel safe to shut down and restart, what do we think happens? Of course we feel depleted, overwhelmed, joyless, confused. The flex is: I don’t have to over-identify with the crisis to contribute. I contribute plenty—and me first.
Please share this episode with a fellow over-functioner—open your phone and pick five. Pretty much everyone could use the permission, tools, and methodology for feeling better while building the life of their dreams. It’s the secret sauce of life.
Inside eyes. Intuition over everything. This is the way, my loves. As we march into a season of being even more enmeshed with tech, living in a capitalistic society, we have to reclaim agency over our bodies and souls. We are not computers. We have souls. Tend to them. Know them. Honor them. Love them. Enjoy them. Play with them—so your life is filled not just with doing, but with the living of the life. The living of the life is the point.
Thank you for being here. I love you so much. I’ll be back in two weeks. I love you.
I Can't Like Myself If I'm Who You Want Me To Be
Tired of contorting yourself into a pretzel so you’re liked? Or so you don’t make others feel uncomfortable by being YOU? In this week’s episode (which is our first ever video podcast!), Gervase dives deep into why women have been conditioned to “perform” and prioritize being liked over being authentic. You’ll learn practical tools and a few hard-hitting truth bombs to help you break free from this hypervigilance so you can come home to yourself.
Watch this episode to discover:
Why you're taught that likeability is the gold standard for women (while men aren't held to the same expectation)
What this hypervigilance on everybody else's comfort level is doing to your nervous system
The real cost of abandoning yourself to please others (hint: no amount of external validation can make up for the 3 things that you’re losing)
Why other people's triggers about you are actually reflections of their OWN discomfort, and have nothing to do with you
How to stop making yourself responsible for others' emotions and reclaim your power and agency
A practical exercise to transform your relationship with triggers so you can use them as data for self-discovery
The intoxicating freedom that comes when you focus on liking yourself rather than being liked by everyone else
Want Gervase’s personal guidance?
If you’d like to become who you’re really meant to be (instead of who they told you to be), you’re invited to join Gervase’s upcoming Inner Knowing Mastermind. During these 8 group calls, you’ll get an embodied sense of who you are, what’s right for you, and how to choose it.
But hurry: the first call starts April 30th - and to keep them intimate, there’s only a limited number of seats left!
Visit GervaseKolmos.com/inner-knowing-mastermind to reserve yours now.
Tired of contorting yourself into a pretzel so you’re liked? Or so you don’t make others feel uncomfortable by being YOU? In this week’s episode (which is our first ever video podcast!), Gervase dives deep into why women have been conditioned to “perform” and prioritize being liked over being authentic. You’ll learn practical tools and a few hard-hitting truth bombs to help you break free from this hypervigilance so you can come home to yourself.
Watch This Episode To Discover:
Why you're taught that likeability is the gold standard for women (while men aren't held to the same expectation)
What this hypervigilance on everybody else's comfort level is doing to your nervous system
The real cost of abandoning yourself to please others (hint: no amount of external validation can make up for the 3 things that you’re losing)
Why other people's triggers about you are actually reflections of their OWN discomfort, and have nothing to do with you
How to stop making yourself responsible for others' emotions and reclaim your power and agency
A practical exercise to transform your relationship with triggers so you can use them as data for self-discovery
The intoxicating freedom that comes when you focus on liking yourself rather than being liked by everyone else
Want Gervase’s personal guidance?
If you’d like to become who you’re really meant to be (instead of who they told you to be), you’re invited to join Gervase’s upcoming Inner Knowing Mastermind. During these 8 group calls, you’ll get an embodied sense of who you are, what’s right for you, and how to choose it.
But hurry: the first call starts April 30th - and to keep them intimate, there’s only a limited number of seats left!
Visit GervaseKolmos.com/inner-knowing-mastermind to reserve yours now.
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
I Can't Like Myself If I'm Who You Want Me To Be
Episode Full Transcript
Welcome back, friends, to the Modern Phoenix podcast. I am your host, Gervase Kolmos, and I'm very, very grateful for your time here. This is our first episode that is live on video streaming platforms, of which I'm not absolutely positive which ones we're live on yet, but I’m sure it is linked in all the show notes, and I will find that out before the next episode. That's when you know you have a really amazing team running things for you, and you get to just show up and do your thing, which is this.
If you are new here, my hope is that by listening to this podcast episode and every episode of the Modern Phoenix, you drop a little bit deeper into yourself, into your own inner knowing. You walk away from these episodes knowing who you are, what you want, and how to choose yourself and make choices for yourself out there in the modern world that honor and support your authentic expression and all the things that you actually truly deeply desire, if you believed you could have them. And a lot of the reasons we don't believe we can have these things or be the versions of ourselves who is unapologetically authentic is because of our conditioning, and that's why we always start there.
And today's episode is no different. We're going to talk about why so many women that I know and work with—and I've been doing this for 11 plus years, okay? And I'm no stranger to being a woman myself, obviously—so many women have this fear that if they are not liked by someone else, that they can't survive.
The gold standard of being a woman in today's culture seems to be likability. Men don't have to be liked. Men have to be rich. Men maybe have to be powerful, but they don't have to be liked. Women are trying to be rich and powerful and liked all at the same time because popularity is that core ingrained standard that we take on at a very young age. And then we're conditioned for an entire lifetime to be nice, to be polite, to be charming, to be pretty, to be pleasing to the eye and the ear and to be pleasing company. We're taught to take care of everybody else, to anticipate other people's needs, to emotionally tend to all those around us, to clean up other people's messes, and, like I said, to do everything a man can do—except with way higher, less tolerant standards.
What this looks like from a nervous system lens is hypervigilance. I work with a lot of women who enter the room with this way of womaning, which is focused on scanning the room to check how are other people experiencing me—which is really code for: what can I do, how can I bend myself into a pretzel, to make that person more comfortable, to give that person an impression that I am (fill in the blank) the version of me that they want me to be. And this hypervigilance creates a lot of stress in a woman's body—not just in her system, with her hormones, with her mental health, but also just that literal pressure and pushing going through her life.
Modern life is already busy. It's already crazy. There's already a lot of stress. My latest stress is that robots are going to take over the world, and I am high-key stressed about it. So there are a million super valid reasons to be stressed already. And then we don't even realize that this hypervigilance on everybody else's comfort level, on everybody else's experience of us, is also ticking up our stress another notch. And also we're holding it in our nervous systems. We're holding it in our bodies. It's creating patterns of behavior and holding and pushing and fighting and fawning that we don't even have any control over—though we feel bad about ourselves for that. But it's not our fault because we've literally been conditioned from a super young age to bend ourselves into a pretzel, to be who everybody else wants us to be, at the cost of being ourselves.
So let's think about that for a minute. Let's just think about one scenario in your life. For me, when I went to therapy at the age of 18, I walked myself into a therapist's office and I said, how come I feel like I am responsible for everybody in my life and also like I'm letting them down? I felt like I was responsible for both of my parents' happiness and stability. I felt that my choices as their daughter determined whether they would be okay. I felt like I was emotionally responsible for my siblings. I felt like I was emotionally responsible for anybody I was related to. All of my friends—I had a hyper-dependency on my friends. I was so hypervigilant and so busy noticing how other people were feeling and doing and also focusing on being liked and loved and popular that I was in a perpetual state of depression, anxiety, or performing.
What did it cost me to focus more on how other people were doing and how other people were experiencing me than on my own experience of myself? Immediately, dissociation. And dissociation is not bad or wrong. This isn't to make any nervous-system state bad or wrong or to make it one fixed point. We're always changing. We want fluid, flexible, responsive nervous systems. Hold this lightly. It's just data. Get curious. Notice: what is my optimum state? I know when I feel totally dissociated that it's costing me my vitality, my pleasure, my connection, my feeling grounded and connected to my inner knowing. And I know when I'm doing it—oh, it's helping me right now. Okay, cool. We can work with all these things. Nothing is a forever sentence.
The point is: what does it cost me? What is it costing us to focus more on being liked than on how we ourselves are doing in any moment? It's costing us our peace, our connection to ourselves, our sense of self, and that deep, unshakable inner knowing of who we actually are.
When I started to shift this—from looking at myself through the eyes of other people to turning my eyes inward, listening to my body wisdom and my soul voice, connecting to my inner knowing—it changed my life. The level of self-trust and sovereignty that I began to notice in big and little choices was unmistakable. And that's why this matters. We think, what's the big deal? I'm really good at making other people comfortable. Could that be such a bad thing? Yes, and… What about when it causes you to abandon yourself?
When I abandon me and my authentic expression in favor of who you want me to be, what is the cost? I lose trust in myself. I lose my anchor. I lose my connection to my inner knowing of what to do next, who I am. My body signals—“I need to pee,” “time to rest,” “you’ve been dissociated for so long, time to show up for your job today”—all these big and small ways that our inner knowing is always communicating with us. Those become credible mentor voices guiding us toward what is for us and what is not.
Any experience that pulls us immediately out of our inner knowing into “I’m going to look at myself through your eyes, I’m going to behave so you like me,” means I lose access to me.
I’m using this language because I’m running the Inner Knowing Mastermind (starts April 30th). This is not too late to learn. This was my journey home to myself. And here was a sticking point: I can come home to myself, but wait—am I going to lose people? Gain new people? Disappoint people? Be misunderstood? Yeah. That’s part of the gig of being humans in these earth suits, in these awkward relationships, on this crazy planet. You’re going to be misunderstood. Some people won’t like you. Some people won’t get you. Some people won’t feel comfortable when you are yourself.
Let’s talk about what’s happening in the micro when who we are makes another person uncomfortable. What are we so scared of? Triggering other people. God forbid a woman trigger someone else.
But what’s actually happening when we make ourselves responsible for someone else’s experience of us?
One: I take her power away. I remove her agency. I believe each person has power and agency to change their own life. Yes, privilege matters; internalized systems matter. And with the right resources and support, every person is here to learn their earth lessons. Every trigger is an earth lesson.
When we rush in and say, “You’re uncomfortable? I’ll carry it; I’ll do it better,” we’re taking other people’s power away because we’re uncomfortable with their discomfort.
Two: it’s false security. A trigger is a reflection. If someone’s triggered by who you are, it’s because it’s making them uncomfortable with who they are not. If they’re triggered by your choices, it’s making them uncomfortable with the choices they’re not making. Five people can have five different experiences of the same person. So is it “you,” or is it their lens?
Here’s something to try. If you want more permission to be your authentic self, start by giving others the same thing. When you’re triggered by someone, get curious: what about her choices or expression is reflecting something in me that I’m uncomfortable with? Make how someone makes you feel into data about you—not a verdict about them. That practice makes it easier to give others their power back and let them have their own experience of you—without your manipulation, overthinking, or performance. Let them have their lesson.
This kind of embodied learning is what we practice in the Inner Knowing Mastermind. It’s missing in our culture. Understanding the wisdom of our cells and tissues and triggers and soul voices happens in relationship. Just because your husband’s anger makes you uncomfortable doesn’t mean you should get divorced; it means there’s information.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if everybody likes you. It matters if you like you. You can’t like yourself when you’re bending into who you think I want you to be. That shrinking breeds shame and erodes self-trust. We want to bring back self-trust for the modern woman who is willing to feel anything. When you’re willing to feel the discomfort of being disliked—and to be yourself instead of controlling others’ experience of you—you’ll experience unshakable self-trust. You’ll feel unwavering clarity, intuition about next steps—from what to eat and wear, to who to talk to, to what business model to implement. Everything runs through your inner filter because you’re willing to feel what it feels like to be you.
Once you reckon with the paradox inside you, you increase your tolerance for humanity in general. No one is one thing. No one is universally adored or hated. We’re all multidimensional, all evolving. In that place, you can anchor back into your own experience and believe: it doesn’t matter if they like me; it matters that I like me. What does it feel like when I like me? When I’m in tune with joy, pleasure, power—and I kind of forget the rest of the world? It’s intoxicating, additive, and no one can take it away. You offer that to your relationships and to the world. Even with people triggered by you, you’re no longer taking ownership of their experience. You like you. You know who you are. They feel that. Sometimes it becomes aspirational for them: “I’m triggered—maybe because it’s possible for me, too.”
If you want to take this work deeper, the Inner Knowing Mastermind is in its last week of enrollment. We start April 30th. Eight weeks, eight modules. Each 90-minute call: first half embodied learning, second half live group coaching and Q&A. There will be embodiment exercises and connection with other like-minded modern phoenixes. I’ve been building this for six months; I’m proud of it, and I know it will help you feel comfortable in your skin, come home to yourself, and feel safe trusting yourself publicly in real relationships.
All links are in the show notes. Website: gervasekolmos.com/inner-knowing-mastermind. On Instagram: @gervasekolmos. Email: hi@gervasekolmos.com.
Thank you for being here. I know your time is precious. I’m so grateful for this community. See you in two weeks.
What is Inner Knowing, And Why Will It Change Your Life
The pressure to be more, do more, have more is exhausting, but what if the real problem isn’t you… but the unrealistic expectations you’ve internalized?
In this week’s episode, G unpacks the invisible forces keeping women stuck in a cycle of never enough, and reveals why Inner Knowing is the path to authentic happiness and fulfillment.
She’ll show you how to tune into your own body and soul wisdom, how to identify when you are being led by external pressures, and how to trust your inner compass to make empowered, aligned choices.
You'll learn:
What Inner Knowing is and why it’s so important for modern women
How to start listening to the body and soul’s signals for easier, more aligned decision making
How to break free from external expectations and step into your true essence
Practical tips on how to trust intuition in everyday life
The power of making decisions based on what feels right, not what looks right
Our souls are literally begging us to pay attention to our inner truth- and how we feel - instead of who we “should” be, how we are “supposed” to act and who they told us we are.
If you’d like to learn how to access your inner knowing - anytime and anywhere - join G in her Inner Knowing Mastermind.
This powerful 8-week experience will unlock the wisdom of your body and soul, and help you create a life aligned with your deepest truth.
Sessions begin April 30th, and spots are limited. Act now and learn how to free yourself from the pressure, perfectionism and “pushing through” of modern life.
It’s time you live a life that lights you up from the inside out.
Go here to enroll and get more details: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/inner-knowing-mastermind
The pressure to be more, do more, have more is exhausting, but what if the real problem isn’t you… but the unrealistic expectations you’ve internalized?
In this week’s episode, G unpacks the invisible forces keeping women stuck in a cycle of never enough, and reveals why Inner Knowing is the path to authentic happiness and fulfillment.
She’ll show you how to tune into your own body and soul wisdom, how to identify when you are being led by external pressures, and how to trust your inner compass to make empowered, aligned choices.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
What Inner Knowing is and why it’s so important for modern women
How to start listening to the body and soul’s signals for easier, more aligned decision making
How to break free from external expectations and step into your true essence
Practical tips on how to trust intuition in everyday life
The power of making decisions based on what feels right, not what looks right
Our souls are literally begging us to pay attention to our inner truth- and how we feel - instead of who we “should” be, how we are “supposed” to act and who they told us we are.
If you’d like to learn how to access your inner knowing - anytime and anywhere - join G in her Inner Knowing Mastermind.
This powerful 8-week experience will unlock the wisdom of your body and soul, and help you create a life aligned with your deepest truth.
Sessions begin April 30th, and spots are limited. Act now and learn how to free yourself from the pressure, perfectionism and “pushing through” of modern life.
It’s time you live a life that lights you up from the inside out.
Go here to enroll and get more details: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/inner-knowing-mastermind
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
What is Inner Knowing, And Why Will It Change Your Life
Episode Full Transcript
Hello, my loves. Welcome back to the Modern Phoenix podcast. I am your guide and teacher and hostess with the mostest, Gervase Kolmos, Inner Transformation Coach—here to guide you out of the cage of your conditioned mind and home to your body-and-soul wisdom and your inner knowing. And today, we’re going to talk about inner knowing.
The Inner Knowing Mastermind is officially open for enrollment. Early-bird pricing is live until April 9th, so you have three more days to save 25%—that’s over $300. And this is so much more than a mastermind; it’s a transformative experience. My goal is for every woman there to have a felt experience of her own inner knowing every single week—over and over—so she can practice it, strengthen it, apply it in relationships and real-life circumstances, and get live coaching from me as conflicts and wobbles come up (those moments when your brain says “it doesn’t apply here”)—so I can guide you home.
I thought it would be helpful to do a podcast all about inner knowing so you can decide if this course is right for you—and so you can dive into the topic even if you have no interest in joining. Inner knowing is pretty much the main thing I’ve stood for throughout my 11 years as a coach. It’s the trick up my sleeve—the strategy and life skill that has never, ever let me down. Just listening and learning about it will serve you.
Let’s start by defining inner knowing for the purposes of this podcast. This is my working description, developed from lived experience as a modern Phoenix—endless cycles of death and rebirth, forgetting and remembering—and from coaching thousands of women to their own felt sense of inner knowing. By my definition, inner knowing is an organic combination of your body and soul wisdom, which I have found is always, in every moment, guiding you toward balance, healing, pleasure, joy, and what I call the next right thing.
It includes soul vision and body voice. I teach this everywhere—body and soul communicate differently than the rational mind. Body and soul speak in metaphor and imagery: inner-child pictures, sensations, gut instincts, intuition. Many women describe expansion, buzzing, or a clear click. All of these make up what I call inner knowing.
Inner knowing is knowing something on the inside that may not make sense on the outside. Step one is hard for modern women. We’ve been groomed to believe that “right, true, and real”—and the best way to success—lives outside of us in linear rules and gold stars. External knowing looks like one-plus-one-equals-two. Inner knowing is rarely linear. It’s cyclical, spiraling—leaving space for choices that don’t make sense but feel really good. It’s being with the person you never expected, landing the career you never imagined, deciding to stay home when you planned for corporate, or vice versa. Inner knowing often looks like the things that “don’t make sense.”
There’s a reason for that. We’re conditioned to let money, approval, and optics validate our choices. Yet, in my work—from C-suite leaders to soulful SAHMs—there’s one constant: the prescribed way often doesn’t feel good on the inside.
A client recently started drawing and discovered she’s an artist. When she explored what actually resources her after a draining corporate day, art surfaced. She drew a before-and-after self-portrait. “Before” was a contracted woman twisted into a pretzel, small and overwhelmed. “After” was liberated, aligned, clear, uncovered.
Our inner knowing gets covered by external noise and shoulds—patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, “good feminist,” “good mom,” religion, don’t be greedy, be successful but not too successful, be liked but not selfish. So many rules tie women into knots. When we quiet the noise and tune to inner imagery, sensation, energy—the soul begging for attention—we emerge uncovered. The next right step becomes obvious when we aren’t fixated on whether it’s linear, likable, or profitable. Nature is our guide. It’s cyclical, sometimes slow, sometimes sudden, not about maximum harvest but about authentic growth. Make your life yours—a full expression of who you are inside—and let your outside choices reflect her. That is the art of being a woman.
No, it’s not always simple. And no, it doesn’t mean lying in the grass for weeks. We’re not going all-or-nothing. When we collapse into victim or martyr, we’re in a defense pattern. That’s human. Your body protected you. But when you stay stuck there, you can’t hear your body’s wisdom or access intuition. Then nothing feels as good as it looks—and if it doesn’t feel good, what’s the point?
Give yourself permission—and reprogram your subconscious—to believe you deserve a life rich in pleasure and a felt experience of your authentic expression. Once you taste this, you won’t go back. It isn’t always easy; there are winters and storms. The question is: how do we become the eye of the storm—preserving the spark within? How do we rise like a phoenix without phoenixing 24/7? Through cyclical evolution: death and rebirth. What’s not serving me? What’s being born? I am becoming. That is the journey. And we need tools, guides, and community because dominant culture benefits from us being busy, overwhelmed, and distracted.
I shared on Instagram that the political landscape felt chaotic. When I don’t have a clear inner sense of “where am I and what’s my next right step,” I know no action is needed yet. I keep checking in; it can change in a moment. Recently it did—clarity dropped in. I was no longer reactive to the news. My inner knowing said: boom—this is where we go. I didn’t rush; I waited and trusted I’d know when it was time and what was right for me. If that meant less news for a bit, fine. More for a bit, fine. I kept checking my inner barometer.
When you live this way, external circumstances matter less. We come back to the It’s All Me framework (Module 6 in the Inner Knowing Mastermind): orient yourself squarely in the center so you don’t react; instead, regulate and resource, know who you are and what you believe, and then—boom—move with clarity, alignment, power, and decision. Every action becomes potent. All the chaos is more reason to quiet the noise and drop into inner knowing—not to bypass forever, but to respond wisely. With community, tools, and a guide, you can get back in the game, testing your capacity day by day. This is spiral work, not linear. We choose curiosity over judgment (Module 7).
This serves us in everything—natural disasters, grief, politics, ruptures with our kids. It always helps to go inward, quiet the noise, and find the next right step. Trust it’s enough. Then take it. Over time, those steps move the needle toward the woman you’re here to be—rising as the phoenix. You develop a responsive, flexible system that can be with chaos without over-identifying with it. You learn the difference between wisdom and an information onslaught, and you know when your nervous system says “receive” versus “nope—resource.” You learn how to resource so the channels come back online even in chaos.
While preparing for this podcast and the mastermind, I reflected on how inner knowing is a magical, mystical gift—our sixth sense (really, many senses). It became my lifeline. Yes, it eventually shaped my career, but it serves far beyond money. It came online early because I’m highly sensitive and intuitive. For many sensitive women, that sensitivity becomes a survival skill. Like a blind person’s hearing sharpening, a sensitive person can develop powerful intuition that cuts through noise and alchemizes nonsense. It simplifies.
As a child I often thought, “the math is not mathing.” When life’s linear math doesn’t add up, we either make ourselves the problem or we do different math. I sensed outer realities and my inner reality. What is that inner thing? What’s its language? Over and over, I trusted the clear inner click—euphoric mind-body-soul “yes.”
I tell this story a lot: I quit a corporate job that looked fine but felt miserable. Everyone said, “Work harder, be nicer, make more money—then you’ll feel fine.” My insides said, “This is not it.” I quit. I sat next to a life coach, learned about an industry I didn’t know existed, and my body and soul sang: this way. Because I had already created space (“not this”), the brainwashing didn’t drown me out. I followed the twisty path.
I needed language. I called it intuition, worked with a coach, explored Human Design, unpacked conditioning about “right” moves. I became obsessed. I designed my life around inner knowing: health choices, career choices, money, friendships, parenting, rest, play. I reverse-engineered everything from the inside out. Every choice became like a hundred choices. I stopped overperforming, overthinking, overdoing. When you align with inner knowing—over internalized “good woman” rules—the next right thing is more powerful than a thousand proving actions. Energy is conserved. Potency rises. Trust deepens. And I thought: this is the elixir—why aren’t we teaching women this?
Instead, we’re told there’s one way to health, wealth, relationships, career. Enter bio-individuality. My friend, health coach Laura Butler, once said: vegetarians insist on veg; carnivores insist on meat. The truth? Every body is different—ancestry, environment, genes, gut, goals. Now apply that to life. We keep templating everything to a single “right way.” It’s boring—and deadening. Honor that another woman may thrive her way because of her blueprint. So put on blinders. Stop looking outside for worthiness criteria. Come back to It’s All Me: Who am I? What feels healthy for me? What does success feel like? Which relationships and resources fill my cup?
If you’re still here, you’re picking up what I’m putting down. I’d love to invite you into the Inner Knowing Mastermind. I truly believe it will be the most powerful thing I’ve run to date. Creating this curriculum stretched me. Shoutout to Sophia Prater, who helped me name the thing I do without knowing I do it—the thing that, if a million women learned it, could change the world. Inner Knowing.
It’s eight weeks, a hybrid of live teaching and group coaching, so you can ask your specific questions in real time. We start April 30th. Early-bird pricing is available for three more days—you can save 25% (over $300). I’d love to have you.
Having a concrete, well-rounded understanding of the natural, invisible intelligence flowing through your body and soul can change your experience of life—no matter what you’re going through, where you’ve been, or how convinced you are that you can’t change. Activating your intuition and creating safety, balance, wisdom, and pleasure inside can transform everything outside.
I’m so excited to share this with you. I’ll be talking more about Inner Knowing on the podcast in the coming weeks. If you have questions, DM me @gervasekolmos on Instagram, or email hi@gervasekolmos.com. All the info is in the show notes, on gervasekolmos.com, or at the link in my bio—you know the drill.
I would be honored to guide you through Phoenix Cycles and a way of womaning that’s restorative, balancing, regenerative, inspiring, and pleasure-filled. You will never regret the sometimes-scary journey from the conditioned mind to your body and soul. I love you so much. I’ll meet you back here in two weeks. Thank you for spending your precious time with me. It means the world when you share the podcast with friends or on your stories. Please pass this to another woman who knows there has to be a better way—a different way—something she’s missing but hasn’t been taught—and she’s like, “someone has the key, the missing puzzle piece.” Share this with her so she can come home to herself, activate her own intuition, and become the solution to the problems she’s been trying to solve out there—by activating her inner knowing.
All right. I love you guys. See you soon. Bye. Thank you.
You Can’t “Out-think” Your Triggered Body
Have you ever found yourself completely overwhelmed, frustrated, or stuck in a cycle you can't seem to break? You may feel your body tense up, your mind race, or feel paralyzed by indecision. You know you’re triggered, but you’re not so sure what to do next.
In this episode of The Modern Phoenix, Gervase dives into what it actually takes to move through a trigger, not just from a logical, intellectual place, but through a somatic and soul strategy that allows you to shift your nervous system and return to a state of clarity, empowerment, and ease. This is not your basic “identifying triggers” surface-level episode. This is about integration - learning to recognize, resource, and regulate yourself in real-time so you stop spinning in mental loops and start embodying a new way of being. Listen in as Gervase shares how to move from an activated state into a place of true self-knowing and safety, so that the next time a trigger hits, you’ll know exactly how to navigate it.
If you're tired of being hijacked by your triggers and ready to move through them with ease, grace, and actual solutions, hit play now. And if you’re feeling called to go deeper, Gervase’s Inner Knowing Mastermind is now open! Check out the link below for more info.
Have you ever found yourself completely overwhelmed, frustrated, or stuck in a cycle you can't seem to break? You may feel your body tense up, your mind race, or feel paralyzed by indecision. You know you’re triggered, but you’re not so sure what to do next.
In this episode of The Modern Phoenix, Gervase dives into what it actually takes to move through a trigger, not just from a logical, intellectual place, but through a somatic and soul strategy that allows you to shift your nervous system and return to a state of clarity, empowerment, and ease. This is not your basic “identifying triggers” surface-level episode. This is about integration - learning to recognize, resource, and regulate yourself in real-time so you stop spinning in mental loops and start embodying a new way of being. Listen in as Gervase shares how to move from an activated state into a place of true self-knowing and safety, so that the next time a trigger hits, you’ll know exactly how to navigate it.
If you're tired of being hijacked by your triggers and ready to move through them with ease, grace, and actual solutions, hit play now. And if you’re feeling called to go deeper, Gervase’s Inner Knowing Mastermind is now open! Check out the links below for more info.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Why knowing about triggers isn’t enough (and what actually shifts them)
The biggest mistake we make when trying to "fix" a triggered state
How to recognize and work with your body’s activation responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn)
A simple question to ask yourself when you’re overwhelmed and don’t know what to do
How resourcing yourself properly can completely shift how you experience triggers in the future
Why emotional intelligence isn't just a mental game, but a Mind-Body-Soul strategy
*NEW* The Inner Knowing Mastermind. A sacred space to develop unshakable self-trust and body and soul-led intuition
This 8-week group coaching/ live training experience is designed to give you access to your deepest, most profound truth, and help create a life that makes YOU most happy (instead of all the pushing, pretending and people-pleasing that creates so much stress and incongruence now).
If you are a woman who has “it all” but still feels something is wrong despite all you’ve “done right,” this mastermind is for you.
G will help you unlearn the conditioning that keeps you trapped, and tap into your soul-voice and body wisdom to live a life of authenticity, freedom and feeling fucking good.
It’s time you get to be who you REALLY are, not who *they* told you to be.
Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/inner-knowing-mastermind
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
You Can’t “Out-think” Your Triggered Body
Episode Full Transcript
Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Modern Phoenix podcast. I am your inner transformation coach here today to offer you some more of what I do, which is somatic and soul strategy. And this is something that you really need when you are stuck in a trigger.
Raise your hand if you, like me and every person I have ever met walking planet Earth, have experienced the distinct pleasure of being triggered. And now I want you to take that a layer deeper. And I want you to think about maybe you're triggered right now. Maybe you popped on this podcast because you're in the middle of a trigger, or maybe something is really fresh. And if you can tune into right below this top layer, the mind's understanding of I am triggered, I want you to go into the body. I want you to go into the nervous system and notice, how do I know that I am triggered? What is happening in my system, in my body, when I experience this trigger? And likely, what you're going to notice is sensations that feel uncomfortable. You're going to feel a body that is tense. People use words like anxious, tightness. A client the other day just said like a pot of water boiling over. And this is all totally normal and just very cool. And I think it's very cool when we start to relate to ourselves as not just minds having experiences, but bodies having experiences.
Today I want to talk to you about what to do when you're stuck in a trigger. But we're going to approach this from a trauma-informed nervous system approach. We're not going to get into all of the information of what's happening in your nervous system. Because my guess is you probably know all the information. You probably saved all of those, you know, infographics online. You can talk about the parasympathetic and the sympathetic and blah, blah, blah. But that doesn't actually help you move through a trigger when you're in it. And what happens and what has happened to us as modern women is we're in this modern age of information. So we have all the information about what's happening when we're triggered, all the information about what a nervous system does. But we actually don't have somatic and soul strategies to work through those things. We don't know how to apply that information and integrate it through a mind, body, soul strategy to reach the other side where we get to feel complete, relaxed, relief, solutions, et cetera.
Another thing I want to say about triggers is that aside from them being totally normal, a natural part of the human experience, they are a very common phase of a phoenix cycle, of a cycle of death and rebirth. And, you know, a lot of the times on this podcast and when I'm sharing my own stories, I'll share with you like the big climactic phoenix cycles that I've been through. But also it's worth noting that anytime we feel activated, paralyzed, indecisive, uncertain, confused, which by the way are different symptoms and ways that triggers can present, we have this opportunity to move through a mini cycle, a mini phoenix session, a mini phoenix cycle. And that is really cool. When we start to see our life's experiences through this cyclical lens of constant, infinite, circular dynamics, it can just be a relief because I don't know about you, but for me in the past, when I have found myself really triggered by something, the bigger it is, the more I let my mind convince me that this is the only way that it is. And this is the way it is going to be indefinitely and that I am stuck. And this becomes like the identity I wear. For example, I am a person who just, I have a mother wound. I have challenges with my mother and this is just who I am and et cetera. Versus I am a person in process working with this trigger I have around my mother. This is, I mean, I've shared tons of that on this podcast and how it has shifted significantly over the last decade through thousands of mini phoenix cycles. And the more you're willing to wash and repeat, you know, get in there, wash it out, circulate it all, come out the other side, the quicker you're going to change paths, the quicker you're going to make different choices. And as we know, on this podcast, I'm really here to teach you and equip you and empower you to know, know what's happening in your body, know what's happening in your subconscious and your limiting beliefs and your patterns and your behaviors and your relationships and make different choices. So that little by little, you find yourself at the end of a road that is suddenly so different than where you started and where you thought you were going to end up. Because through this cyclical pattern of the phoenix, your awareness and knowing is leading you to making thousands of tiny choices that are a little bit different every time until suddenly you end up with a totally different nervous system, with a new neural pathway when it comes to you and your relationship with your mom, or you and your relationship to your work, or you and the way that you relate to your kids. Fill in the blank.
So what do we need to know when we're stuck in a trigger? Aside from the fact that it is so empowering and helpful to start to bring awareness to our bodies and our felt senses and our nervous systems and to identify, oh, a trigger for me is likely an activation state. Okay, so if it's an activation state, if my nervous system is activated, which is casually referred to as I'm in a trauma response, but I don't really want to pathologize here. I don't want to get into that because we can just say broadly, our nervous system is activated. So we may be feeling some variation of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. It is so helpful to then identify, okay, what's happening for me? Oh, I feel frozen. I feel an inability to make a choice. I feel ill-equipped to have that conversation. Or we might notice a fight response. I had a client who was talking about this exact experience of feeling trapped in this cycle, in this trigger with her kids. And every time she would get triggered by something her child would do, she would feel that activation response inside of her that I helped her identify was a fight response.
Now our conditioning and our culture will come in here and give you all the reasons why that is bad. You are a wrong parent for feeling like you want to fight your kid. And I think it's really helpful here to notice all the places culture and conditioning come in and interfere with what is actually a very normal, healthy biological process. Our physiology is doing its own thing unrelated to our intentions to be whatever, mindful parents or the mind's, you know, ideas of what it is to be a good parent. And that is normal. That's what we, I refer to it often as the animal body.
So once again, once you've gotten out of the mind of like, I'm triggered by my children. So let's stick with this example of this client. I'm triggered by my children. And every time this happens, my body goes into a fight response. Now I can know, okay, that's what's happening. That's all that's happening. I'm in a fight response. And on top of this, let's add some gasoline. I feel a lot of guilt and shame about having this physiological response because my conditioning tells me that good mothers do not get triggered by their children, which by the way is absolute bullshit.
So what all my clients know and what we practice and strengthen in their patterns, behaviors, in their choices is that when they feel this activation response, if they, I mean, if they get on a call with me or if they can put a little bit of distance or bring in a little bit of awareness to know everything we just talked about, the symptoms, what is happening in their nervous system. And if they can know that this is the part where the mind is going to come in and try to override anything you try to do by bossing you around and gaslighting you and telling you what is right, wrong, what you should feel ashamed about, what you should feel guilty about, what a good mother does, what the right way is to behave in this whatever situation, if you can know all of this, this is a superpower. Because then what we know is there is nothing that you can choose out there in the world from an activated state that is going to create the type of results that you are looking for in your life. There is nothing that you can choose or create from an activated state that is going to leave you feeling calmer, more grounded, and more like your authentic soulful self. Because if you make choices from an activated state, we're not here to make it bad or wrong. The trigger is normal. But if you start to make decisions and choices from this state, we know we'll just create more and more and more and more chaos, more and more and more paralysis, decision paralysis, more and more rupture and fighting. If you're angry, and you try to tell your kids not to be angry, suddenly everybody's angry. It's like that funny meme where it's like no one in the history of the world has calmed down when they've been told told to calm down like that. It doesn't actually work. Okay, because these are mind strategies. These are just like thinking, you know, the quote unquote, right thing to do and trying to do it from this mental state when your physiology is inflamed, when your nervous system is having its own experience when your animal body needs something absolutely different than what your mind is going to tell you that you need.
And so what I was saying with my clients is like, we all my clients know, this is the moment where we need to create some space, we need to pause, we need to do nothing, we need to reel it in, we need to bring it back to the it's all me framework, we need to be able to control. And so we need to be able to control. And so we need to be able to do this. In this moment. And right now, if I'm tuning into more than just my mind, if I'm tuning into my body and my heart and my soul, I can sense and feel that I am activated, upset, overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, tired, not sure how to fix this. Okay. Okay. That's okay. That is normal.
If you have gotten to this step in the process without any support from any facilitation, I mean, really, you are a freaking pro. Like I hire people to help me do this because it is not taught. It goes against everything that we have learned, which is like, do everything right and you will get the right results. And if you don't get the right results, use these mental strategies to overcome those results and convince people to get you what you want. But hopefully you've realized by now that life doesn't work that way. The best way to shift your state, if you're triggered, if you're not getting the outcome you want, if you feel stuck in a loop of anger or a freeze response, or you keep trying to run away from your problems or repress your feelings, the best thing you can do is to honor that you are a mind and a body and a soul. Is to thank your mind and your ego for trying to protect you, trying to problem solve, trying to push through and be resilient and keep you safe. Give yourself so much grace and compassion. Like, thank you. That part of me that's doing that thing again, where I push through or I, I scream to get results or I shut down to protect this relationship or I don't have that conversation or I become this version of myself to get that result. Thank you. Okay. I can have so much compassion and appreciation for this old strategy and understand that I am here for a new way of womaning. I am here for an integrated approach to womaning that brings my body and soul wisdom on board and creates true harmony and collaboration and peace in my life. It is absolutely possible when I just know what's going on when it's happening, create that gap, that pause where I thank my mind and my ego for stepping in and also let them know, actually, we got this from here.
And I check in with the body. What do you need? I check in with my heart. What do you need? Check in with my soul. What do you need? Or somebody that you're working with helps you. Check in with these parts of you because it may feel like totally meta and hard for you to even conceptualize. I just went for a walk in my backyard and did this like check in with myself because I've been doing it for like 15 years. And when we focus then on, okay, it's all me. What is the resource that's needed? I know you want to fight that battle or prove you're right or make yourself wrong or focus on this external thing, but let's bring it in. It's all me. I'm tuning in to what's happening beneath the mind, below the mind. I'm literally thinking about like a body and then you go down and then below the mind is the body. I don't know. I'm checking in with the heart, with the soul. What is it that you actually need right now? If you didn't need to worry about being wrong or right or good or bad or making your case or fixing anything right now, I know you're triggered. But if I promised you, we are going to fix that. We're going to get to that. We're not bypassing it. We're not going to force you to come to a conclusion with it that you don't actually even like. We're just going to like pause and put it aside for a minute and check in with the body. What is it that would feel so good right now?
On the Season of Pleasure Masterclass, which if you haven't grabbed the replay to that, you absolutely should. I will link it in the show notes. I refer to this as like, where's my water? It's like you're in a desert. I'm triggered and I'm in a desert. I want to focus on where is my water? Not on solving all these problems and getting to the other side. It's like rule number one. Okay, I need water. And so in a trigger moment, you're just going to do the same thing. Like where is my water? And this could look like laying down, calling a friend, canceling something, going to something, shifting things around, having space from the person, doing something that brings you pleasure, that brings your nervous system, that humming pleasure that is going to change everything about the experience that you are having.
And what you're going to notice, if you give yourself the permission and the gift of time, just a little bit of time. I mean, most of us don't even give ourselves like five, 10 minutes. We don't even give ourselves time to like refill our glass of water or like make that quick call or do anything that isn't hyperproductive or efficient or for someone else or crosses off something on our to-do list or isn't exciting or fill in the blank. So when I say time, yes, this can turn into long stretches of time. But if you're just listening to this and that feels really uncomfortable for you, just know, I'll take five minutes. And by I, I mean, your body will accept five minutes. Your soul will gladly take five minutes if it's gotten zero in weeks.
Back to this client example, she found herself stuck in this trigger with her family and with her work. And she just said, like, I just have felt so anxious, like this pot boiling over. There's so much to do. There's so much going on. Everybody needs me. If I don't handle it, it falls apart. Raise your hand if you relate to this experience. It is so common with modern women. And then she came to our Phoenix Revolution group call for alumni and current private coaching clients. And this is like a very intimate, intensive, high level group coaching call, right? So we go very deep in these spaces because these women have done this work. They're here to be supported. And as soon as it's her turn to speak, what do you think happens? She's given herself the gift of this 90 minute call. She was not able to prioritize it for such a long time, for a week since she comes to this call and what happens? Tears, tears and tears and tears and relief and tears. The tears don't mean anything except she's finally giving herself a little bit of space, a little bit of resource, a little bit of community. And this gives her nervous system the signal, you're safe here. It's okay. It's okay that you felt angry. It's okay that you made those choices. It's okay that you are who you are. It's okay that you are where you are in your journey. And the resource that is needed is like, let's just be here on this call and allow ourselves to be seen, allow ourselves to be witnessed. Let's allow ourselves to be supported and just give ourselves permission to just be who we are and feel how we feel and just not overthink it in this space.
How many of us would benefit from just giving ourselves space to be held? And it didn't take long. After her hot seat, it's like she's suddenly feeling herself again. There's space for her soul. All of her suddenly gets to fit in her life. And yes, of course, we talk through that trigger. We troubleshoot. We create somatic and soul strategies, but we also are meeting the nervous system where it's at in that moment because you can't rewire your nervous system while it is activated. The best way to choose differently from a triggered state is to choose resource, is to choose compassion and permission and space and grace and teach your nervous system to attune to that. We refer to it as pleasure. We refer to it as water. Refer to it as breath. Okay. It is the resource that's needed to teach your nervous system. It's okay. We're okay. We don't actually need to fight that fight. That's actually not the enemy. Oh, what's actually happening is you actually feel really overwhelmed. You feel like there's not space for you in your life. That's okay. That's normal. What is the resource that's needed? Okay. Why don't we just come to this call and give ourselves space to feel and be seen and witnessed and heard and supported and have community and sisterhood? And let's see what kind of choices we make after we have that kind of space. Let's see what kind of choices we make when we have that space consistently, repeatedly. We're strengthening that pathway in the nervous system.
That trigger begins to feel smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. It doesn't mean that the next time when you normally would feel angry with your kids, you don't feel angry. First of all, you get to feel angry. There's nothing wrong with anger. Anger has a very vital place in your physiology, but that's a totally different podcast. However, we always want to make it right-sized. We want to make sure that our anger is identified and understood and worked with in a productive way instead of something that is repressed or shamed.
So for this client, it's like she came to the session thinking, it's not okay for me to stop. It's not okay for me to feel my anger. It's not okay for me to feel my feelings. It's not okay for me to have space in my life. It's just none of it is okay. So if you're holding all that in your nervous system, what do you think that's going to feel like? Anxiety much? And it's complex and it's layered and it's multifaceted. And so we work with that, right? That's why you find someone who is trained to untangle all those different layers and interlacing threads to help you make sense of them and see things clearly so that you can show up as the most regulated, authentic, self-sovereign version of yourself who is integrated in mind, body, and soul. You can know what's happening when you're triggered and you can know all the different choices that are available to you to shift out of that trigger. And you can also know, oh, if I am caught up in the mind's logical choices, I'm not tapping into the good shit. I'm missing out on the best wisdom and solutions and problem solving that I have in me, which is my body, my somatic and soul strategy.
Okay. So if I want to tap into my somatic and soul strategies and I'm trapped in a mind fuck and I'm triggered and I'm going over a soap opera in my head and I'm thinking of all the things I could do, I already just know I'm like in the wrong arena. I need to look around, notice the arena I'm in, politely excuse myself, back myself out of that arena, give myself a lot of heaping doses of grace and compassion, like whoops, wrong one. Shut the door, open the new arena. Okay. Here, let's check in with the animal body. Oh, I'm in a fight response. Okay. If that wasn't bad or wrong, if I wasn't going to fix it from the mind's perspective, if I was just going to tend to that activation response and ask myself, what is the resource that's needed? What can I offer myself? What are the resources available to me? And then you choose that and you feel what it feels like to be authentically you. You feel your soul. You feel your body. You feel that integration of mind, body, soul. You feel them all working together. And then suddenly it's like, like the whole engine is on board, right? There's gasoline, there's oil, there's tires, there's a person driving, there's the gas pedal. Everything is there. And you're suddenly like, oh, I'm not perfect. I might run out of gas again. I might get angry again. This thing might happen. Life is going to life. And also I'll know how to get back to myself. I'll know how to honor myself, not abandon myself or judge myself or shame myself for being triggered, but instead just tend to my nervous system, to my activation response and give myself the resource that's needed. So I can come home to myself and my soul.
And from that place, the solutions that I think of, the next steps, you would be amazed when someone comes to a call with me and they're trapped in the mind, which is not bad. That's literally my job, right? So they know that's okay. And they're trying to solve a problem. And then we drop in to somatic and soul strategy after that. And then I ask them what they're supposed to do. What do you think? What do we do now? What's the next step? They could have never come to the somatic and soul strategy while in the mind. It's like a different, truly a different arena. It's like two different trees, right? It's not even like two branches of the same tree. And so just knowing that without making it bad or wrong that you're in one or the other, it's just incomplete if you're just using one. Okay? You are meant to integrate mind, body, and soul strategy to move through life. And life includes activation responses, physiological responses that might be culturally inconvenient. Well, so what? Sorry. Sorry, culture that was created for something besides like a whole messy human who is animal and human, who has a limbic brainstem that negotiates so much of the actions that they take and the physiological responses in their body.
So when we have these things all working together, when we integrate, the trigger isn't such a big deal. And the solution to the trigger, we know which arena to go into to get to it. And where we usually land at the end of this twisty, turny little phoenix cycle is, oh, it's okay for me to be who I am and feel what I feel. And I can have so much understanding and appreciation for the ways I've tried to have my needs met in the past or the behaviors I've engaged in. And I can see the path forward now. I can see a path forward. And mine is going to look different from yours. And there's little paths. And then there's the big, gigantic life changes that we make. And they're all important. They all compound to create a life that is true, a life that is yours, that is authentically you, that is integrated in mind, body, soul, that feels on the inside as good as it looks on the outside.
I am so thrilled to share that enrollment for my new Inner Knowing Mastermind is now live. This eight-week program is one of a kind. It is a hybrid of live training and group coaching. And my intention is to not just pile on more information about what Inner Knowing is, but to give you a felt experience of your own inner guidance system each and every week in all the somatic, subconscious, and soulful ways I am trained to do so. And in a group format that makes it accessible and interactive, which is so, so cool.
Having a concrete and well-rounded understanding of the intelligence flowing through you can change your experience of your life. No matter what you are going through, where you've been, or how sure you feel that you can't change, activating your intuition and beginning to create safety, balance, wisdom, and pleasure inside of you can transform everything outside of you. To take advantage of early bird pricing of 25% off, make sure you get in by April 9th. It's on sale today. You can find the link with all the information and registration in the show notes on my website, gervasekolmos.com, or at the link in my personal Instagram bio, which is @gervasekolmos. I have not been this excited about a program in a really long time, and I really hope that I get to connect with some of you inside.
REPLAY: A Woman Who Has Her Own Back
Have you ever felt like something in your life, career, or relationships isn’t working, and instead of questioning the system, you immediately assume you must be the problem? That there’s something wrong with you, that you’re not trying hard enough, that if you were just different, everything would fall into place?
This episode of The Modern Phoenix is a wake-up call. Gervase shares a raw and powerful riff from the vault - straight from a live coaching session. She dives into the deep-rooted conditioning that convinces women to gaslight themselves, unpacks how the systems we exist in, like patriarchy, capitalism, and generational conditioning, keep us in a cycle of self-doubt and self-abandonment. Most importantly, she offers a different perspective: what if your emotions, your overwhelm, your desire for change aren’t personal failures, but signals that the ecosystem around you needs to shift? If you’re ready to reframe your inner dialogue, reclaim your discernment, and trust yourself enough to create the ripple effect that leads to real, systemic change, listen in now.
Have you ever felt like something in your life, career, or relationships isn’t working, and instead of questioning the system, you immediately assume you must be the problem? That there’s something wrong with you, that you’re not trying hard enough, that if you were just different, everything would fall into place?
This episode of The Modern Phoenix is a wake-up call. Gervase shares a raw and powerful riff from the vault - straight from a live coaching session. She dives into the deep-rooted conditioning that convinces women to gaslight themselves, unpacks how the systems we exist in, like patriarchy, capitalism, and generational conditioning, keep us in a cycle of self-doubt and self-abandonment. Most importantly, she offers a different perspective: what if your emotions, your overwhelm, your desire for change aren’t personal failures, but signals that the ecosystem around you needs to shift? If you’re ready to reframe your inner dialogue, reclaim your discernment, and trust yourself enough to create the ripple effect that leads to real, systemic change, listen in now.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Why so many high-achieving women believe they are the problem (and why that’s a lie)
How to recognize when burnout and dissatisfaction are signals and not personal failings
The power of the shift; trusting your emotions instead of suppressing them
How to have your own back through the inevitable cycles of transformation
What it really means to be a culture-changer in your own ecosystem
Are you ready to stop gaslighting yourself? To stop thinking that you’re ALWAYS the problem, and start accessing your inner wisdom? Be a woman that has her own back. Start with a Soul Shift:
The Soul Shift Intensive was created for the woman who is ready to leave behind the stories society has conditioned her to believe, and instead embrace the calm and clarity that comes with being connected to soul wisdom.
Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
REPLAY: A Woman Who Has Her Own Back
Episode Full Transcript
Welcome back, my loves, to the Modern Phoenix podcast, where I teach you how to know who you are and what you want on the inside so that you can transform your beliefs and thoughts into choices on the outside that actually work for you. In that spirit, I want to welcome you to another replay. This is an older episode from 2023 that I really wanted to pull out of the vault for you, especially since we’ve rebranded with The Modern Phoenix as the brand and the name. I’m so inspired by this brand name, and what you’re going to hear in this replay really aligns with where this brand is putting down roots.
We talk about trusting yourself. We talk about feeling your feelings fully without a story attached. We talk about the difference between victim and martyr and how there is a wide opportunity—a wide range of possibilities—in the middle for you to step into, own, try on, and embody as a Modern Phoenix. I’m excited for you to hear this episode today. If you heard it already, listen again, because I listened to it three times just to make sure this is something I feel proud of and that it’s a strong piece of content to reshare. I heard something new every single time, honestly. I hope it serves you. I hope it offers you an inner transformation that creates outer transformation in your life. It’s called “When a Woman Has Her Own Back,” so you can imagine what we’re going to talk about inside.
Let me know if it resonates with you. Message me on Instagram at @gervasekolmos and let me know other topics you want me to cover—things coming up in your modern life that I can help you transform your relationship to, your beliefs about, and your choices around. The themes I talk about in this podcast are some of the ones that are so common and so powerful to shift within my private coaching containers and my alumni coaching containers. I hope you take something from it. I love you so much. Without further ado, here we go.
When I began my healing journey—when I walked myself into a therapist’s office at the age of 18—there were a couple of repetitive, common themes I noticed and worked through over time that I now see often when I start to go deep with a one-on-one client. One theme: if something isn’t working, there’s something wrong with me. “My relationship with this member of my family isn’t working. It’s my fault. I must not be doing something right. I’ve let someone down. I am a disappointment. I’m not trying hard enough.” That’s one way it presented for me.
Fast forward: I’m in my corporate job, crying all the time, miserable after having a baby and going back to work, and I’m thinking, there must be something wrong with me, because all the women around me I see have children, go back to work, and seem to be fine. This is so interesting to me because it is the first sign of self-abandonment in a modern woman. It is deeply programmed into our psyches as women that if we have emotions—if we feel depressed, sad, angry, anxious, panicked—there’s something wrong with us, instead of there’s something wrong with the situation. There’s something wrong with the system we’re a part of. There’s something wrong with the company we work for, the marriage we feel trapped in, the family of origin we came from.
This is a trap—obviously, it’s a trap. What happens when you feel so brainwashed to believe that anytime you feel pain, discomfort, or emotion there’s something wrong with you is that you’re endlessly feeling guilty about who you are. You’re endlessly feeling guilty about the way you are and believing if you were made some other way, this wouldn’t be happening. There would be no problems. Your marriage would work. You could work at that company. You could have the perfect family. All these things would just right themselves if you were inherently different.
I’m hoping, if you’re listening to this, that you can hear how toxic this is and that you can have deep compassion if you resonate. It is not your fault that you believe this because we are part of a culture that has taught this. A lot of us were raised by parents who believed this for themselves, and grandparents who taught it to our parents. It’s important not just to see clearly the root, but also the ecosystem—the system—where something comes from.
I was working with a new client this month. She was expressing not just frustrations about her work environment, but deep dissatisfaction. She’s in constant pain and suffering because her work situation is so intense and stressful. She’s not seen and recognized, not compensated appropriately. She is expected to do too much—to overgive, overdeliver, overwork—and to do so without feedback, without complaint, without rest or pauses, without discernment about whether things need to change or pivot, what’s working and what’s not. She kept expressing, “I’m not happy; I feel like this is killing me,” but then she’d say, “maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe if I just work a little harder, a little faster. Maybe if I were a better manager.”
The women I have the privilege of working with these last few years are boss-ass bitches who’ve been brainwashed to believe the problem in their company is not the workload, the job description, the good-old-boy culture, the internalized patriarchy, or the paycheck. No—the problem is the woman, her bandwidth, her emotion, her stress. After she shared how her job is killing her and how maybe it’s her fault—that if she could be different, she could do the job better and not experience what she’s experiencing—we started talking about the culture. We started talking about this subconscious belief that if it’s not working, there’s something wrong with me. Where does that come from? Why does a woman have that feeling? Why are all these high-achieving professionals having the same conversation with me?
Could it be that it’s not that there’s something wrong with them, but there’s something wrong with the culture? I am a wealth of knowledge about the culture, and I got curious about why this was happening. I have read and mentored under and learned that it is the culture. It’s called patriarchy. It’s called capitalism. It succeeds when everyone falls into line under this one premise: keep going, don’t ask questions, the man at the top is always right, there is no room here for your feedback, your emotions make you weak and are a problem, and if you could just be “normal,” if you could just get on board with the agenda, this would all go smoothly.
It’s important for women—particularly career women—to really hear this: if something isn’t working in your workplace, very likely this is a symptom that there’s something wrong with your workplace. Very likely you, like most women, have the capacity to feel as deeply as the ocean. This is part of your feminine design that allows you to be almost like the canary in the coal mine—to be the barometer for what is best for the ecosystem and what is not. There is a reason why working women are suffering and struggling and feeling “there’s something wrong with me”: because the culture is broken. The culture has brainwashed women to distrust their internal barometer, to distrust their feelings of overwhelm and their discernment when they feel tired or like maybe it’s time for a change, a break, a pivot. “No, no, that means you’re not a real professional. You’re not as ambitious as you said you were. You’re not getting that job because there’s something wrong with you. You’re not enjoying that job because there’s something wrong with you.”
I’m not here to take down corporate culture. I would love to infuse a healthier ecosystem into corporate cultures—some of them. Some are doing great; some are not. What I care about is that women start to hear a message other than “if it’s not working, there’s something wrong with me.” I want women to get curious about why they think that, where they heard that, who it serves, and what would change in their lives if they were part of a circle, ecosystem, or mentorship where they were reprogrammed to believe: if something’s not working, there’s something wrong with the ecosystem, and I am sensing it because I have the power to change it.
If I feel guilty about the way I am, that is the result of my programming—that is the result of my brainwashing. The truth is: the way I am is how I was designed. It is not a design flaw. This is not like an iPhone. You are not an iPhone. You are designed exactly with what you need for your earth curriculum. The more you can trust yourself and believe that if something’s not working or if you are in pain, that is your red flag to look at the ecosystem and shift something for the greater good, the more we can create good in the world. The world gets better—and companies and workplaces get better—when smart, career-minded women feel empowered to trust their gut, trust their instincts, and know that emotion is not weakness. Emotion is a symptom of a flaw in the system so that they can make the system better for everyone.
If you work in a workplace where one woman is feeling so much angst and so much dissatisfaction, I guarantee you there are a hundred more feeling just like her. I have clients—especially in the last few years—who shared this with me. One woman would start doing this work, get into different circles, work on her conditioning and subconscious and her trust in herself—practicing having her own back—and suddenly she’d make different choices in the workplace. Suddenly, behind the scenes, women would come up to her and say, “What are you doing differently? What company are you moving to? How did you have the bravery to do that thing?” We are a metric for what’s going well in the ecosystem. The more we learn and feel safe to trust ourselves and feel our feelings—without making ourselves the problem, bad, or wrong, but actually the guides and leaders that all systems need, the balance to the masculine of feminine—the more we can make cultures, ecosystems, families, workplaces, schools, politics, and government better for everyone.
You go first, but there are so many behind you just waiting for someone to show them the way, give them permission, remind them of who they are, and tell them the truth. That resonance—when I’m working with somebody, especially at the beginning, and I tell her the truth, “If it’s not working, there’s not something wrong with you; there’s something wrong with the system”—she always says, “Oh, I know that. That feels true. I feel that resonance in my soul.” So much of my conversation with women is returning them to that center, that soul wisdom, that knowing we’re born with that tells us which way to go and how to be true leaders for the collective, for our families, for our companies, for everything.
The more women have this universal truth reflected back, the more they feel, “Yes. That feels true. I don’t feel crazy. I knew I wasn’t crazy, but I thought I was.” You’re not crazy. You are deeply wise and knowing in a system that does not acknowledge and respect your wisdom and knowing. Your only choice isn’t to go into a boardroom and say, “Hey, my intuition told me…”—hello, this is everyday life. However, you can start to practice having your own back. What does it look like to have your own back when you feel discernment, emotion, pain, struggle? It means not gaslighting yourself.
For this client, for example: “I’m feeling total burnout and like I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown.” Okay. “I need to express how I’m feeling. I need to give myself permission to feel my feelings fully without the story attached and know there’s nothing wrong with this feeling. This is just a feeling. It will pass.” As quickly as you can boil water and then simmer water—that’s what it’s like to be a woman. You are the ocean. If that’s the case, you can feel those feelings differently without shame and a story attached. When you feel your feelings without shame and a story attached, they work themselves through you and then they’re done. In that space, you have the quiet intuitive whisper of creative solutions and possibilities—ways you could pivot your life, conversations you could have differently in the workplace. You’re now solving problems from an empowered place, not from the place the patriarchy thinks they want women—which is not working—but from a place of a woman who has her own back.
You can see, “I’m not better than anyone here; however, this isn’t working for me.” I had another client who shared a family living situation with a relative that wasn’t working. It was frustrating. It was a lot. It became too much. That’s okay. Because of our work, she had her own back as she went through the cycle of feeling those feelings—frustration, anger, resentment—without attaching a story or making herself bad or wrong. Suddenly she could talk it out calmly. She was not a victim, nor a martyr. We don’t want to be victims, and we don’t want to be martyrs. The “It’s All Me” mantra and mindset puts us squarely in the center of our circumstances in a place that says, “I’ve got my own back. Nothing about me is bad or wrong. Here’s what I see as my next step. Here’s what I see as our family’s next step.” For her family, she came up with a creative solution she’d never thought of, and honored what her inner knowing was showing her: it’s time for this family living situation to change. That gets to be okay, too.
Solving problems without shame and gaslighting ourselves feels different. It creates a lot less inner drama, turmoil, and friction. Any friction that was there is released with the emotion—with the permission to feel the feelings and talk about them—without feeling like, “These will make me weak. I’m going to disappoint someone. I’m a bad person for having this feeling about this family living situation.” A woman who has her own back has space for nuance, intentionality, and the ability to both love her family—maybe be a caretaker and love the person in her house—and also discern, “Something here is not working. My resentment is showing me something.” Sometimes resentment is different—there are many ways this can show up—but in this scenario, resentment is showing something. “Let me feel it, express it to an appropriate person, and see what comes next without feeling small for how I’m feeling and then playing small in the creative solutions I can come up with.”
I can’t even imagine what this could do for workplaces if women felt safe—and of course this is an issue of safety. We also need to talk about privilege. I’m having this conversation as a white woman who works from home for herself. My risk now is very low. It used to be much higher when I worked at a company. I made hard choices to get here, and I have so much privilege. I want to invite those of you who have privilege in companies, in families of origin, in government, in politics, on the school board—whatever units you’re part of—to use it to pave the way so those who have less can live in an ecosystem that’s safer.
To do that, the women with privilege must feel safe. They must feel safe to feel their feelings fully without a story attached. They must feel safe in their own bodies to feel emotions. Why do you think women—even wealthy, white women of privilege—don’t feel safe to feel their feelings? That’s a problem with the ecosystem. I’m not saying “smash the patriarchy” (though that would be cool too). I’m saying: work on your own ecosystem within yourself first. “It’s all me.” I go first with my own lie I’ve been believing—the one that’s been in the water I’m drinking—which is, “If it’s not working, there’s something wrong with me. If I feel emotional, there’s something wrong with me. Who I am is the problem.”
If you are a white woman with privilege and that’s how you’re feeling, and you don’t feel safe to slowly use your discernment, power, and leadership to come up with creative solutions from a stance of “I’ve got my own back, and here’s what I see, here’s what I’m feeling, here’s what I’m discerning—this isn’t working; here are some ideas,” then the first step is to work on safety within your own experience. Of course you’re not going to march into a boardroom and propose new creative ideas for your company’s ecosystem if you don’t first feel safe within your own experience—if you haven’t worked through your own inner world. That’s why I do this work: to return you to empowerment, safety, knowing, alignment, and calm discernment. “It’s all me. I’m the ocean. I’m feeling all the things, and I know what to do with this. I know how to feel safe in this ocean that is my discernment,” which sometimes is resentment, sometimes anger, sometimes grief, sometimes suffering and struggle. “I can work through this because I can feel safe within my own body and experience. I can hold myself through this. I can walk through this fire for me first.” Then you go out into the world and make it better for everyone below you and above you. This doesn’t discriminate.
It isn’t “men at the top are bad and women are the…”—honestly, it doesn’t matter. We can clearly see patriarchy is a thing. We can clearly see capitalism tells us never to stop, rest, pause, or reassess. We can clearly see both men and women are suffering in their own ways. If I can reach you—man or woman—and you can hear the message to feel safe within the “It’s All Me” framework, safe in your own experience, safe to be all that you are without judgment and a story attached, and know that if you do have judgment and shame and a story attached, it’s not your fault—it’s because the culture has brainwashed you for a long time, for generations—then you can be one ripple, one drop in the ocean that creates more ripples. That can create slow, organic change for all systems—change that is sustainable and safe for the collective—solutions we can’t see from a limited perspective of fear and “I better just step in line.”
I can see how that way of being got us to where we are in some ways, and I can see how now it limits us—the separation, the judgment, the hierarchy. My invitation to you is to notice: where are you feeling guilty about who you are, how you are, the emotions you have, the stress responses you have, your trauma, what’s happening in your body? What would it be like if you had your own back through these cycles of tiny deaths and rebirths I’m always talking about? Because if you see something in me, that’s all it is. When I am in the dark night of the soul, I’ve got my own back. I’m no different than you. It feels really hard. It hurts a lot. But I trust myself that this is who I’m here to be. I trust that I’m okay, I’m going to be okay. I don’t need to go out there and change. I need to have my own back and believe, on the deepest level, that I am exactly who I need to be to graduate from this earth assignment.
If something isn’t working, there’s not something wrong with me. If I’m feeling emotion, there’s not something wrong with me. As a feminine being, I’m here to feel it all and then alchemize it—work through it. Another rebirth cycle—boom. On the other side: peace, clarity, deciding, making choices from a place of “I’ve got my own back. I already know that I’m a good person, good daughter, good CEO, good manager”—speaking for you—and “here’s what I see. Here are some ideas. Here are some shifts and pivots I see for this culture, community, ecosystem.” That is powerful. Do not underestimate your power in being a culture changer. But it starts with you.
If this resonated with you and you feel this is your moment to take this work deeper and explore the transformation and healing available to you in your life, your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive. The link is in the show notes. That’s a 90-minute one-on-one with me, where we will go deep into whatever area of life you feel most stuck and shift your experience of that theme. We’ll shift it in your mind, your body, and your spirit. You will leave feeling different—lighter, clearer—with a deep sense of inner trust and inner knowing. After that session, if you want to continue this work together, you’ll be invited into a three-, six-, or twelve-month package with me for one-on-one. I have three one-on-one spaces available right now, and the cost of your intensive will be applied toward one of those packages.
Additionally, we’ll be releasing a new group coaching program very soon, and my one-on-one clients get access to everything I have ever made totally free—hypnosis tracks, paid courses, alumni group coaching circles, PDFs, resources—literally everything. You get it for free. So it’s a good time if you’ve been thinking about jumping in. If that feels like a step too far, get on my email list. You’ll get exclusive access and early-bird pricing to new offerings and group coaching programs I’m releasing. Those are lower-priced offerings, and I always share them first with my email list. I also send out Phoenix Diary emails every other week that are straight from my heart—raw, vulnerable, diary-like entries from the life of a fellow Modern Phoenix, which is me. I’d love to have you join us on my email list.
I have a free masterclass you’ll get right away if you sign up—it’ll be emailed to you. It’s the Season of Pleasure Masterclass, which will talk you through some embodiment concepts for attuning to pleasure, joy, and peace instead of chaos, overwhelm, dysregulation, and overdoing—something all of us could use, especially this season. I hope that served you. Please share this with another woman you want to free from the cage of her conditioned mind and see rise like the Phoenix she is. I love you so much. Thank you for spending time here with me every two weeks, and I’ll see you soon.
It's Not Your Job To Make Other People Happy
How often do you hold back, soften your words, or twist yourself into knots just to make sure no one gets upset? Whether it’s navigating a tough conversation with your partner, setting boundaries with your kids, or simply taking time for yourself without guilt, many of us have been conditioned to prioritize other people’s comfort over our own truth. In this episode of The Modern Phoenix, Gervase is sharing a behind-the-scenes look at a live coaching call from The Phoenix Revolution, where she explored the deeply ingrained belief that your peace depends on everyone else being okay.
If you’ve ever found yourself walking on eggshells, silencing your needs, or measuring success by how well you "land the plane" in a tough conversation, this episode is for you. You’ll hear real coaching, real breakthroughs, and a powerful shift in how we approach boundaries, self-trust, and standing in our truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
How often do you hold back, soften your words, or twist yourself into knots just to make sure no one gets upset? Whether it’s navigating a tough conversation with your partner, setting boundaries with your kids, or simply taking time for yourself without guilt, many of us have been conditioned to prioritize other people’s comfort over our own truth. In this episode of The Modern Phoenix, Gervase is sharing a behind-the-scenes look at a live coaching call from The Phoenix Revolution, where she explored the deeply ingrained belief that your peace depends on everyone else being okay.
If you’ve ever found yourself walking on eggshells, silencing your needs, or measuring success by how well you "land the plane" in a tough conversation, this episode is for you. You’ll hear real coaching, real breakthroughs, and a powerful shift in how we approach boundaries, self-trust, and standing in our truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Why so many of us feel unsafe when someone is upset with us (and how to shift this pattern)
How placing your power outside yourself keeps you stuck in people-pleasing patterns
The sneaky ways perfectionism and control show up in relationships
What it really looks like to stand firm in your truth, even when it’s uncomfortable
A new way to approach difficult conversations that centers your needs, not just theirs
Tired of bending over backwards to keep the peace? Are you curious what it would feel like to burn people-pleasing patterns away and stand in your own truth, powerful and calm in the face of chaos, or other people’s expectations?
It starts with a Soul Shift:
The Soul Shift Intensive was created for the woman who is ready to leave behind the stories society has conditioned her to believe, and instead embrace the calm and clarity that comes with being connected to soul wisdom.
Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive
Did someone mention Pleasure?
Summer may be over, but the Summer of Pleasure free Masterclass is timeless:
Read more here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/summer-of-pleasure
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/themodernphoenix
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
Resources:
It's Not Your Job To Make Other People Happy
Episode Full Transcript
Hi friends, it’s Gervase here, and I want to cue you up for this episode of the Modern Phoenix podcast because it’s going to feel and sound different than past episodes. This is actually an excerpt from a live coaching call I had with a group of my long-term clients. What you’re about to hear wasn’t recorded with the intention of being a podcast, so it’s a little more off the cuff and casual. You can tell I’m in a really intimate relationship with the people I’m talking to. I have more of a potty mouth—if that’s even possible—because some of these women have been with me in coaching containers on and off for like five years. You’re going to notice that when you listen.
This episode is my response to a common theme I heard in the group that day. The group is my alumni coaching container, The Phoenix Revolution. Often we do hot seat coaching, though sometimes I’ll do riffs. We do mindset, embodiment, circle work—it’s really high touch. One woman had been echoing a theme I’d heard before that day. She shared a personal story of going through a triggering situation, talking about money with her husband, and moving through stages where first she felt super triggered and overwhelmed. She reached out to the group on Voxer and we were all chiming in, coaching, and supporting her that way. Then she followed up: “It actually went really well because I focused on landing the plane. I knew I had to land the plane well. He received what I had to say in a really calm way.”
We all know what this is like: the conversation went really well because I bent myself into a pretzel to make sure the other person was super comfortable. “Things are going well because externally I have proof.” But what we do in this coaching container—and on this podcast and in everything I do—is teach a woman to feel her power from the inside out, to know her boundaries from the inside out, to focus on recreating neural pathways and habits that give her not just permission but courage and literal capacity in her nervous system to feel through: What’s right for me? What would feel like a success for me in this conversation? How do I want to show up? What’s my boundary? Where’s my line? What’s my yes and my no? And then feel stable, grounded, and strong enough to be okay with whatever the other person’s reaction is. Holding space for the humanity of the people we love is a big part of this work.
I jokingly referred to this as a sermon; it really highlighted that theme. We all felt it was a valuable riff to share on a broader platform so you could have the same mindset shift—and to give you a sense of what it’s like to be in a coaching container with me. A lot of women who come to me for private coaching come from the podcast. You’re discerning customers—which I highly recommend. Really know, like, and trust the person you’re working with. Listening to this gives you an example of what it’s like to be a fly on the wall on a group coaching call. It’s very different from one-on-one, where I definitely talk way less.
I’d love to hear what you think. Did this topic resonate for you—this idea of placing our power inside of ourselves instead of outside of ourselves? What did you learn? Would you like more episodes like this? Hit me up at @gervasekolmos on Instagram or email us at hi@gervasekolmos.com and let us know topics or very relatable relationship challenges you’re bumping up against in real life. You are not the only one. You’re never the only one. And you’re not supposed to just know how to do this. We learn how to rework the way that we woman together in community, because the conditioning tells us to do it the other way. That’s part of what I was letting this client—and all my clients—know on this call: it’s not your fault that you were manipulating the situation to do it this way. This is what women have been brainwashed to do. Not anymore. Not on the Modern Phoenix. I hope you love this episode. Please share your feedback. Without further ado, here we go.
Welcome to Gervase Church. The thing you said that is so relatable—that everyone can relate to in a different way—let’s fill in the blank like Mad Libs: “I needed to land this so I could say it to my husband and he wouldn’t freak out. And my win came because I said it to my husband and he didn’t freak out.” Of course we understand this. We want to set the boundary with our child without them hating us. When you set a boundary and they say, “You’re the worst mom ever,” and they storm off—yet they observe the boundary but are mad at you—that doesn’t feel good. Our job as parents is to set firm, loving boundaries. That’s it. Their job as the kid is to feel however they want about that boundary—and honor it.
We can see this clearly in parenting. We can fill in the Mad Libs blank and see all the ways we do this: we put our power and our safety outside of ourselves. “I can only do the hard thing I need to do—set this boundary—if my kid isn’t mad at me. But as soon as they push back, I don’t feel safe, so I can’t set the boundary.” Then everything falls apart, because we need those boundaries for the kid to thrive. We need our own boundaries. We need moments where we are the rock. It’s critical to creating what we want in our lives.
Another example I heard recently: a client said, “I took a break from my desk and did this thing for myself—I went to a workout class—and I was nervous my boss would email while I was away and I’d get in trouble. But it was okay because I came back and nobody noticed.” So it was okay because the boss didn’t find out. Never mind that she’s a boss-ass bitch who deserves to take an hour for a workout; it doesn’t affect her quality of work. It’s framed as a win if her boss didn’t get mad. The goal is: you do the things because you honor yourself. These are boundaries of self-honoring, self-protection, self-care. You set those boundaries with your boss even if it’s uncomfortable, because there will be a time when someone’s looking for you while you’re at Pilates. They’ll be pissed because they wanted you right now. “I bet you wanted me right now. I was unavailable. I’m here now, ready to do my best work. What is it?”
Now let’s take it to our husbands, ladies. We all want to do things in a way that is pleasing to our husbands, because when they’re mad at us, it feels really bad. “I can’t feel safe if my husband is mad at me.” The patriarchy says, “If he’s mad at you, he’ll kill you.” There are literally countries where that happens if you’re not pleasing to your husband. I do not believe we are in one of those countries—hope not. So we have to explore the edges of our excuses around our own boundaries, where we say, “I have to figure out a way to make them okay so I can be okay.” This places our power outside of us. Once we do that, we will never get it back. We won’t feel calm or safe or in control. And other people—even those who love us, like our kids and our husbands—won’t know that we matter, that we have our own power, knowing, desires, and wants.
The ultimate flex is catching it and going, “Oh, I’ve put urgency on landing this plane just so, so I can be me and make sure he receives it calmly so I can feel good.” Can we get curious and ask, “How can I be calm right now no matter what, with what I’ve got—this group, Gervais, my tools, my body, embodiment, resourcing? How can I be okay right now?” That frantic feeling—“I need them to be okay so I can be okay”—is my conditioned mind. It’s a lie from a culture that tells me I’m only as good as the people I make comfortable and serve: happy kids, happy husband, boss who gets everything they want, friends who can reach me anytime, clients who never wait an hour for a Voxer message. I don’t think that’s true. It can’t be the best way for a culture to thrive.
We understand why we have this conditioning as women—deciding our power, safety, and okayness depend on others not being mad. It’s complex; there are real reasons. We’re not here to gaslight ourselves. There are ways to resource ourselves and remind our bodies that safety and security are right here: “I am unshakable.” Now I’m going to talk to my husband. Now I know the difference between “I’m grounded and uncomfortable” versus “he’s ungrounded and uncomfortable.” He gets to be that way. He gets to be him, and I get to be me. This might take a while, especially if we’ve never done it before.
In the last six months, I’ve had some very interesting money conversations with my husband. We used to not have these at all. We started like most women: we just won’t talk about it. We’ll hope it works out, or it never comes up, or I never spend a little too much or make just not quite enough to make him uncomfortable with the number in our bank account. We’ve been through periods where that bank account was literal zeros. You want to talk about money work—I have done money work. It was fascinating this last time we talked about money because I was like, “I am here. Let’s talk about the bank account and all the reasons it looks the way it does and all the plans and solutions going forward.” We were both solidly resourced in ourselves, having a conversation. I thought, we think we know it’s working when there’s a million dollars in the bank. But to me this was our final money test: we’ve come so far we can have this conversation. Spiritual psychology teaches it’s constant earth lessons on the same topic until the trigger comes up and you’re not triggered. “Huh. My body feels unshakable, but this external thing is telling me I’m not safe—the bank account, this person. How am I now?” I said, “Here’s the plan. Here’s what I feel and know. Your turn.” He said, “Same.” Both a little uncomfortable, but okay—hold hands, take another step. Here we go.
That’s where we want to go, because the money will always be changing. We think there’s a magic number; there’s not. We say, “There will be a time when the car’s not breaking or we don’t want to pay for that program.” There’s not. We’re here. In The Science of Getting Rich, he talks about this: we’re here to express the full expression of being alive. We do this through money. Life will keep doing its thing. The earth stackers will keep showing up. So how do we relate to this so I’m safe no matter what? I know my boundary no matter what. I don’t like it when my husband’s mad at me. Also, my work—this has been big—has been shutting up and letting him be however he is. Being in charge of my vibe: who am I being, how do I feel, where is my power and safety, where is my water? Focus on minding my own business, staying in my lane, resourcing. Come back to the conversation—because we live in the real world and still have to pay bills together.
That’s a beautiful reminder of how the slippery slope can get out of hand. We can feel like, “My whole life is out of control. I have no power and don’t know what to do.” That is uncomfortable. Of course we want to strengthen that inner steadiness. Everyone strengthens this by, “Where’s my water?” Feel how you feel, but don’t move into action. When we feel how we feel and immediately call the person, send the text, have the conversation, make the decision—we’re perpetuating the same chaos. When we feel and then ask for resource, we can say to our husbands, “Could you hold me? Could we have a hug?” Our partners get to be part of our resourcing. We’ll know if we’re avoiding discomfort or if it’s, “We’re not ready to talk, but can you hold me?” Or we can send a text: “I love you.” The more we practice feeling the uncomfortable and resourcing our bodies, the more we create new neural pathways that build strength, stamina, and capacity to be with a husband’s energy.
Where’s your water? Because he ain’t it. I know you think he is your water—he’s not your water. He doesn’t have to keep you alive to be your partner. Partnership is a beautiful place for healing, resourcing, mirroring, working on your stuff. And also—the Phoenix way, the “It’s All Me” framework—is, “Oh, it’s my work again.” I had a whole coaching session months ago: all my husband’s fault. Then I was like, “Wait—nope. Didn’t clean up my side of the fence yet.” But I’m so evolved! Nope—same old stuff. Great. It was a great opportunity, and I’m changing that. It feels so good when you realize, “I don’t have to control them or make sure they’re not uncomfortable. I just have to work on my stuff.”
Thank you for coming to this sermon. Thank you for coming to church today. I did a dance class before this, and apparently I am very resourced and have a lot to say. It’s interesting: when you’ve ignored pleasure so long, you have zero clue what that could be. Then trying stuff out, seeing how simple pleasure actually is. Sunshine. Sometimes it’s microdosing pleasure. Five minutes of sunshine when you’ve had zero for five years makes a big difference.
All right, that wraps it up. What did you think? What are you taking from this episode? At the end of my sessions, I always ask: what is your takeaway? After that group coaching call, here are some of the things the women said. I type them in the chat so they have the note of their transformation or aha moment.
“Can someone teach a class about how it’s not about making other people comfortable and happy? A majority of my life and marriage I thought that’s what I was supposed to be doing, and now I’m like, what on earth was I thinking?” (This inspired a reel we’ll link in the show notes—I was like, I’ll teach a class about that.)
“It's okay to not know everything. Your body is still learning it.” Yes.
“It’s all practice, and it’s all okay. Wherever I’m at is okay.” I love that. It’s something I’m always reiterating and having women embody.
A couple other comments: “Keep practicing. No one knows everything already.” And: “My hard thing is I ‘should know this already.’” Do you relate to any of these? They’re brilliant, wise, and honest. When we give ourselves space, permission, and communities to have these wild perspective shifts, everything changes. The way we relate to everything can change.
I hope this gave you another way to reflect on how you set boundaries, where you place your power in relationships and otherwise, what holds you back from taking care of yourself, and what internalized conditions you may have accepted as facts and truth. Maybe—just maybe—you can change your life one brave decision at a time. I am here to help you. The Modern Phoenix Podcast is here to help you. I hope you’ll meet me back here in two weeks. I love you so much. Till next time. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah. Mwah.
Thank you.
Why Women Don't Like to Cry (And Why You Should Start)
Have you ever been told that you’re too emotional? Or do you avoid crying at all costs because you don’t want to look weak? In this week’s episode, Gervase flips this narrative upside down, offering a powerful reframe that reveals why crying is actually a profound act of healing, as well as an opportunity for connection and growth. Listen in as she breaks down the societal indoctrinations and personal barriers that make us resistant to feeling our emotions, as well as the physiological and intuitive benefits of crying, making a case for why embracing your tears is a radical and necessary practice.
Have you ever been told that you’re too emotional? Or do you avoid crying at all costs because you don’t want to look weak? In this week’s episode, Gervase flips this narrative upside down, offering a powerful reframe that reveals why crying is actually a profound act of healing, as well as an opportunity for connection and growth. Listen in as she breaks down the societal indoctrinations and personal barriers that make us resistant to feeling our emotions, as well as the physiological and intuitive benefits of crying, making a case for why embracing your tears is a radical and necessary practice.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Why the fear of being "too emotional" is costing us authenticity
How patriarchy, capitalism, and even feminism condition us to suppress emotions.
How allowing emotions to flow can deepen our relationships and create a bridge to our intuition
The physiological benefits of crying, including access to soul-wisdom
Why creating safe, intentional spaces to feel is key to emotional health
How women's circles, somatic healing, and working with a trained facilitator can help you access your intuition, soul wisdom, and deeper clarity
Are you ready to stop suppressing your emotions and start accessing your inner wisdom? Start with a Soul Shift:
The Soul Shift Intensive was created for the woman who is ready to leave behind the stories society has conditioned her to believe, and instead embrace the calm and clarity that comes with being connected to soul wisdom.
Check it out here: https://www.gervasekolmos.com/the-soul-shift-intensive
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/themodernphoenix
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
Why Women Don't Like to Cry (And Why You Should Start)
Episode Full Transcript
Today I want to make a case for crying and give you all the reasons why you may or may not be afraid of your emotions, super resistant to crying, and why it’s actually good for you. Let’s start by talking about the systems. If we think about our culture and society at large, what are the messages that are in the systems—in the water we drink, in the air we breathe?
First, patriarchy. Our internalized patriarchy has made it clear that crying is a sign of weakness and that weakness will not be tolerated—also in men. Reminder: patriarchy doesn’t just negatively impact women; it also negatively impacts men. We’re operating within a system that tells us emotions, feelings, tears are weak.
We’re also in a capitalistic society that values, prioritizes, and glorifies time and money. Crying is a waste of time and crying does not make us money. So what’s the point? Now let’s also look at feminism. With all of the positives it has offered, it’s also put an extra rock in our backpack: we have to be super strong no matter what. It gave us resilience and empowerment to fight the good fight. But what we picked up from that was the message that vulnerability in any form isn’t going to get us where a man goes. We’re trying to play a man’s game. Because we’re in patriarchy, men don’t cry. Feminism reinforced that strong, empowered women don’t cry. It’s helpful to see all the ways we’re conditioned to not feel our feelings.
On top of this, in the micro: you might be in a partnership where your partner feels uncomfortable with your tears. You might be consuming motherhood content that tells you “don’t project your feelings onto your kids; your kids aren’t responsible—tuck that away.” You might have been raised by emotionally repressed parents, which is true for many of us, and so you internalized the message “don’t show your kids any emotion.” Also not to give it back to your parents as a child. Your childhood trauma might literally be to not show emotion because it makes everybody uncomfortable. It’s inconvenient. It’s bad or wrong. Everyone would agree crying in the corporate workplace is frowned upon. We have narratives around “hysterical women,” “emotional women,” “don’t be too sensitive.” This makes sense why women avoid their emotions at all costs. We resist the urge to cry no matter what.
This is maybe a gross parallel, but I had the stomach bug last weekend. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I noticed: you know when you have to throw up and you know it’s coming but you’re like “no, no, no, I don’t want to,” and you hold off as long as possible—and then your body does the work for you? That’s like crying for most women I work with. They feel the emotion inside them and will do anything to prevent it from coming out in almost any scenario—even feeling deep fear and vulnerability with a loved one. Because of all these factors—add a dash of childhood trauma, pick your cocktail—we’ve been conditioned not to inconvenience others with our feelings, not to feel our feelings, to distrust our feelings, to believe our feelings make us weak, and to keep them in no matter what.
We also live in a society that intellectualizes everything. When you feel emotion, or as you’re feeling it, or after, we’re never noticing “how did that feel to my system? What was that like for my body?” We’re just like, “Why did that happen? What was that about?” We’re always creating a story about the tears. We’re always trying to figure out “why am I crying? Why do I feel sad?” instead of just releasing the pressure valve and allowing ourselves to feel sad.
Let’s talk about what this does to us as women. We know all the reasons why we don’t; let’s talk about why it’s damaging. If we go back to the vomit example: one of my children had the stomach virus at the same time I did. Because they’re young and have less experience managing nausea, they didn’t make it to the toilet on time. When you have all that stuff building up, it needs to come out. But you don’t have a hygienic, disciplined practice. You don’t have practice of doing it in a healthy way, in a healthy place. You throw up in your bed. You throw up in the middle of the classroom. You throw up in the sink. Parents, I know you feel me. If we take this parallel and apply it to our emotions: so many women have the experience of “I have these outbursts, but it’s always at the wrong time—when I’m super triggered, or with my children. It can’t come out in a professional setting.” This makes sense. There’s a reason it’s happening: your body isn’t being given a predictable, reliable outlet to release emotion, so you lose control of it entirely.
Nobody wants to be totally out of control with their emotions. It’s possible to feel your feelings fully without judgment while also feeling a sense of integrity. You knew it was coming. You expected the big collapse after a big high or whatever’s going on. You made space for yourself or you’re working with someone like a professional to hold space for you. You have proper outlets to process it.
Aside from exploding at the wrong time—and I say that with love and compassion because who hasn’t exploded at their kid in the grocery store—we’re also holding in our authentic selves. We’re not giving our loved ones and relationships our best selves because we’re contracting and hiding a part of ourselves to stay safe, to keep it together, to not metaphorically throw up no matter what. Doing that costs us authenticity. Then we wonder why so-and-so doesn’t know us. Well, we haven’t allowed ourselves to be known. We haven’t allowed ourselves to be seen. That hinders connection. It hinders relationships. It hinders repair because one never lets oneself get “out of control” and feel feelings fully. We also miss out on amazing creativity and connecting to and hearing our inner voice.
A lot of the bridge I create for women is the bridge between “here are these external symptoms of feeling like a boiling pot of water” to “what is the wisdom on the other side of that?” There’s a reason we want to do this for our bodies: it creates physiological balance. It releases anxiety, depression, stress. We’ll get into that in a second. But it’s also the bridge to hear your intuition. It’s the bridge to soul wisdom. Every single time I have someone on a session releasing a little emotion, when it’s complete, we access a deeper truth—deep soul wisdom you could never have come up with if you were just talking in talk therapy or intellectualizing. If you do this with a trained facilitator, you’re gently and masterfully guided through your emotion so you can release it in a way that allows your body to release stored trauma and process it in a soulful, intuitive way instead of just from the mind.
Wow—all these things we’re blocking ourselves from by not allowing ourselves to cry, not to mention our healing. We cannot heal what we are unwilling to feel. I know why we’re unwilling to feel it. But what would you do differently if you knew that is the path to healing? You want to heal your childhood trauma? You have to feel your childhood trauma. And it gets to feel your childhood trauma. It does not have to be huge, exhausting, devastating. A trained somatic practitioner will gently guide you through emotion and any trauma the body is storing, releasing the pressure valve, accessing soul wisdom, and starting the healing process in a sustainable, resourcing way. If you’re having explosive releases and then you’re exhausted and there’s no transformation, get curious about that. That doesn’t need to be the way.
Now we know how we’ve been conditioned not to feel, why this hurts us and damages our relationships, what’s on the other side, and how this is the bridge to healing and soul wisdom. I also want to give you a couple benefits of crying. I googled this—I kind of knew it but double checked. Crying releases oxytocin and endorphins, which ease physical and emotional pain. Those are the endorphins that make you feel good and balanced. It lowers cortisol levels—cortisol is the stress hormone. Raise your hand if you’re not stressed. Everyone’s stressed. Modern life is stressful, packed, busy, overwhelming. We need easy ways to reduce stress. Releasing this pressure valve is one of the easiest ways your body knows how to self-soothe, self-regulate, and reduce stress.
It also creates connections. I read something recently—didn’t double fact check—but it said when you are crying and being witnessed, your tear will fall very slowly because the longer it’s visible to the other person, the more empathy and compassion it builds, the more connection between two people. We were designed to be a connected, compassionate, feeling society. Humans, pre-patriarchy, understood community was vital to survival. This is why everybody feels the epidemic of loneliness. One way this plays out, for a complex web of reasons, is lack of vulnerability, lack of being witnessed, lack of witnessing others.
This is why I do women’s circles. Because witnessing, being witnessed, and witnessing each other in your humanity, vulnerability, and power is such a powerful way for your system to feel connected to another system. That feeling of belonging, that feeling of connection cannot be overstated. You can’t buy it. There’s no hack. You just have to be willing—and curious—about being in community and allowing your authentic self to be seen, knowing that tears are medicine and connection points. This is how you build authentic relationships.
Does this mean every time you get into a women’s circle or with friends you need to be crying to create connection? Absolutely not. But if you’re bubbling over with emotion and you go to be with women and you don’t feel it’s okay to share that with the circle, it might be a supportive resource to find circles where that is normal. On my group call today, a couple of women said, “I’m not usually that vulnerable, but I love doing it in the circle.” It’s not always appropriate to be vulnerable and crying in a professional networking event. Nobody’s saying go out into the modern world and start crying. However, your body physiologically needs to release your emotions—anger, sadness, fear, grief, whatever—in a sustainable, healthy, healing way. It’s your job to find the places where that is normal and actually pleasurable, resourcing, and delicious, that also create this web of community—which is probably also the thing you’ve convinced yourself you don’t get to have, but somebody else does. Authentic, connected community happens through vulnerability; via vulnerability comes authenticity. In that space, feelings happen. Humans have lots of feelings. If we’re honest and have a place where we share deeply—“How am I really? Who am I really today?”—emotions may arise.
When you’re in a well-tended container or circle where feelings don’t need to mean anything, you don’t need to intellectualize or get to the root, you know how to resource and support each other, witness and be witnessed, and then let it go and rise in your power. To me this is the most ancient and easy intelligence available. I’m always like, “Where’s the low-hanging fruit? Oh, a good cry? Yeah, I could do that.” Do I have an hour for a class? Not all the time. Sometimes crying is going to be it. Sometimes crying in community. Sometimes crying with a facilitator, guide, healer. Sometimes walking, holding yourself through this process. I’ll share my own experience: I hold myself through waves of emotion all the time now. It’s part of my life—like washing my hair, having a cry, brushing my teeth. My clients can do this too now. Eventually you’re not afraid of the emotion. You don’t feel terrified of yourself and what’s inside lurking beneath the cool, controlled surface. You understand this is a resource—physiologically supportive, with health and mental health benefits, creating community and all these things. It becomes not a big deal. It becomes part of your routine as needed. Tending to the body, accessing soul wisdom.
When I have hard questions I’m trying to get answers to, or when I feel very triggered—all my insecurity and childhood trauma stuff coming up—what do I do? I work through the emotion. I allow it to move through me. I have a ritual for it. At the end, that’s how I hear my soul. That’s how I hear the truest thing I need to hear in that moment—which is not all the thoughts swirling in my head, which is not something logical, which is not what somebody else thinks I should do. Unless you’re my coach or a deeply wise friend I connect with this way, I don’t want somebody else’s advice. I need my own inner voice. I need my own advice. That’s confusing sometimes—how do you get your own advice? You allow the emotions and sensations to move through you and you practice doing this in a healthy, resourcing way. Accessing your own somatic and soul wisdom becomes second nature. It becomes the language you speak. It’s gratifying and satisfying. Nothing makes me feel still and clear like having moved myself through a trigger or wave of emotion, gotten to the other side, listened for the deep inner wisdom, written it down, taken deep breaths, done movement, and gone about my day. I’m like, wow, I feel like a magician. I’m not playing this game. And you don’t have to either. The way you do it doesn’t have to be the way I do it. We live different lives, have different personalities, responsibilities, and gifts. We get to do it the way that makes sense for us. The story we tell ourselves is, “She can do it because X, but I can’t.” I’m letting you know: feeling your feelings is your birthright. Your body was programmed with this when you came into this world. It’s a stress release programmed into you. I can teach you to use it masterfully, gently, sustainably, as a bridge between all the thoughts, obligations, and conditioning swirling in your head and what you really want to know—what you need to solve that problem, have that conversation, keep going one more day. That is the deeply wise counsel you’re only going to get from yourself. If you know how to hold yourself through a good cry, you’ve got you. There’s nothing you can’t do. That is the vibe of the Modern Phoenix, and I want that for every single woman I meet.
If that sounds like a journey you’d like to go on, I’d be honored to support you. We don’t have to cry, but we probably will—let’s be honest. It always makes me chuckle when a woman comes in and says, “I’m not going to cry today. I’m not a crier.” I say, “That’s totally fine.” Then 20 minutes in she starts crying. “This has never happened. I don’t know why.” Considering this has happened to me about 20,000 times, I’m going to go ahead and say it’s not an accident and you’re here for a reason. Your mind knew I was the resource your body needed to make it safe and okay for you to experiment—even just 20 seconds of tearing up. Take what feels too much and make it right size for you. That’s how we work. That’s how any trauma-informed practitioner should and will work.
I would be so honored to support you in a Soul Shift Intensive. We’re no longer selling the Somatic Soul Sessions—that was just a special for January—but I do have spots for private coaching I’ll be talking about until they’re full. Your first step to explore that and see packages I haven’t advertised online yet is to book a 90-minute one-on-one with me. I’ll support you through this process and talk about what it could look like. You have a gut, an instinct, an intuition guiding you all the time. I invite you to trust it, honor it, make it normal, get curious about it, lean into it, explore it, and get to know who you truly are. I love you so much. See you in two weeks.
My mental health story & what therapy couldn’t “fix”
When it’s deeper than talk therapy, it needs a mind-body-soul approach. This week on the Modern Phoenix, Gervase shares insights from her mental health journey turned full-blown personal evolution. Listen in as she opens up about how transitioning from mind-based therapy to soul and body-centered practices like focalizing, somatic healing, and nervous system regulation opened new paths to healing and inner transformation. As she recounts pivotal moments that shaped her understanding of herself, she shares the profound power of trauma responses, intuition, inner child healing, and more, inviting you to look beyond conventional therapy practices and consider your own unique path to healing.
When it’s deeper than talk therapy, it needs a mind-body-soul approach. This week on the Modern Phoenix, Gervase shares insights from her mental health journey turned full-blown personal evolution. Listen in as she opens up about how transitioning from mind-based therapy to soul and body-centered practices like focalizing, somatic healing, and nervous system regulation opened new paths to healing and inner transformation. As she recounts pivotal moments that shaped her understanding of herself, she shares the profound power of trauma responses, intuition, inner child healing, and more, inviting you to look beyond conventional therapy practices and consider your own unique path to healing.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The strengths and limitations of talk therapy that led Gervase to explore mind-body-soul healing
The role of somatic practices and nervous system regulation in mental health
What it means to understand and address trauma responses through body awareness
Why shifting from self-fixing to self-tending is crucial for healing
The importance of integrating mind, body, and soul in any healing journey
How to embrace the complexity of healing and look beyond conventional therapy practices
New to the idea of Mind-Body-Soul integration? Start by dropping into your body wisdom with a Somatic Soul Session:
For the first time ever, current, past and new clients can enjoy a 60-minute session with Gervase to set intentions for the New Year, get clear and focused when you feel stuck and overwhelmed, or address any persistent problems that keep recurring.
Get unstuck and tap into your body wisdom. On sale through January. Buy it now, use it any time this year: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/f1c7c21a-5772-4222-bf65-7bac78672c33/buy
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
My mental health story & what therapy couldn’t “fix”
Episode Full Transcript
Hello, my loves. I want to invite you to grab a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and join me because I’ve got a cup of tea for a little story. I did a post on Instagram this week talking about my journey of healing. And I mean, the word healing gets thrown around—I don’t even know what that means sometimes. It can be so subjective.
I know that when I am getting to know and like and trust other teachers, guides, and mentors, it’s really important for me to know their story. So when I did this post, I felt inspired to go back down memory lane and even remember my own story of how I got here and why I’m so passionate about mind, body, soul healing and inner transformation. Because I did it first. Because it was the thing that healed me.
I said something like, I healed myself back to wholeness. And I stand by that—it feels true. But we know healing is not linear. It’s a spiral of evolution. That’s why the phoenix is the imagery for this podcast. That’s why I want us all to embody the phoenix: to understand that the idea of “how I healed” is actually a falsity rooted in systems we’re going to talk about today—the idea of arriving. Really, what my journey has taught me is constant evolution.
Some of you might relate to my story of starting in the mind with talk therapy, moving into intuition, spirituality, the soul, inner child healing, shadow work, and then ending in the body with somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and my focalizing training. So, grab your tea, and let’s begin.
I’ve shared parts of this before in masterclasses, but never the entire story in one place. I’ll start where I always start: when I was 18 years old, I walked myself into a therapist’s office. I told her I wanted to heal. I said I was there because I didn’t understand why I felt responsible for everything and everyone, and also like it was never enough. Nothing I did was ever enough.
In therapy at 18, I began to unravel and unpack my family of origin, my ways of coping and relating that I had created as a child. The psyche develops between ages seven and nine, and I had created an entire way of relating to others that left me feeling I was never good enough, that I was carrying the world, that I had to mother everyone, and that I still wasn’t doing a good job. Some of you may relate to that.
I think we all come from childhood with unique wounds. The point is, I started where most people begin: in the mind. I began in therapy. I think everyone could benefit from therapy. I’m a huge advocate for it.
Fast forward: when I was pregnant with my second child—so from age 18 to 32—I had been on and off in therapy, taking breaks but having pivotal moments in my twenties. My brother passed away. I was on and off antidepressants. I was grappling with what I’d call chronic depression, though that’s not technically a diagnosis. I’d feel paralyzed in my mind and body, trapped in negative thoughts. I didn’t know to call them intrusive thoughts. I just thought: I’m sadder than other people, I have a more negative view of myself, I can’t get out of bed.
A friend in college once gently said, “I think you might be depressed.” Between 20 and 30, I had big defining moments—motherhood, loss, breakups, life changes. I was still in the clinical world of therapy, antidepressants, mainstream culture’s identity of wellness and healing. It was great in many ways. I really tackled my mother wound then. My relationship with my mother—no secret—was the biggest thing I wanted to figure out. I’m proud of the work and the internal shifts from that time.
At 30, after having my first child, I discovered life coaching as a career. When I understood coaching was helping people untangle challenges, family dynamics, stuck situations, I thought: oh God, I’ve spent a decade doing that in therapy. I’ve always been fascinated by it. I thought I’d be a therapist or psychiatrist in college, considered majoring in psychology, but I didn’t love school and didn’t want more years of it. Now I see my intuition was guiding me elsewhere.
So, with ten years of therapy experience as a client, realizing those same things made me uniquely qualified to hold space for others, I began life coach certification. Then I got pregnant with my second child and felt that familiar weight of prenatal depression. I had a knowing: what got me here won’t get me there.
Many women come to me from therapy. They say, “Therapy was amazing—we worked on the mind, the stories, the beliefs. But I wasn’t progressing. I was circling the same stories.” That was my experience too. I felt depression again but also felt: there’s more out there.
At this time, I had entered entrepreneurship, joined a mastermind, done a program full of self-help and spirituality, met friends who thought differently, not from mainstream therapy. I connected with a now-dear friend, Cora Poash, a life coach trained in spiritual psychology. My first interaction with her on a retreat was like a meeting with my intuition, a deepening into my soul. Something mystical became tangible. I knew I had to work with her.
So at 32, for the next five years, I went on a journey of the soul and intuition. Spirituality light. I have a rich inner spiritual world, but I also know spirituality can turn people away who actually need it. So listen with discernment: this part of my journey was about the universe, manifesting, soul, spiritual psychology, earth lessons. I dove into a deeper understanding of life, gained a higher perspective, a higher meaning.
The biggest thing happening then was my intuition coming online. The deepest work with Cora was inner child healing, which was so therapeutic. I learned how much I had shamed myself for depression. I saw the ways it was normalized yet still stigmatized for me. I did soul work, intuition work, and asked: what if depression is partly a symptom of paralyzing beliefs? Of disconnection from spirit and intuition? What could I learn from it?
I began creating a next-level relationship with my intuition. It became an obsession because I started seeing evidence—times I zagged when the world said zig, and my life actually made sense when filtered through intuition. The old filter—dominant culture, external metrics—had been causing suffering. Freedom came when I made my inner knowing the authority.
This was radical. Easier to gaslight yourself when using the world’s rules. But once you decide your discernment is the authority over what’s “normal” or what other moms are doing, you feel intoxicating freedom. Of course I had pain before—I was trying to fit into wrong-shaped boxes. But releasing that pressure, I felt lighter, freer, with less inner friction.
At this time I also explored human design. My intuition screamed at me to do a reading. I learned I’m a 5-1 Splenic Projector—20% of the population. My authority is my spleen. I started making the intangible tangible, aligning my life with my energy. Energy is in the realm of soul and spirituality: you feel it but can’t see it.
This second part of my journey was the intangible, the mystical. It made everything make more sense, with or without the spiritual lens. For me, intuition is sometimes interchangeable with God, sometimes its own thing. It doesn’t matter—try it on for yourself. Take what resonates, leave the rest. We’ve been brainwashed to think we must accept entire religions or else it’s flawed. But life is nuanced.
Down the intuitive path I went. But another thing was happening: even as I healed and felt lighter, sometimes I went into trauma responses—fight, flight, freeze, fawn. I got curious about trauma: big T, little t, childhood trauma. I realized my childhood experiences, though not “big” enough to label trauma, still shaped my nervous system.
When faced with failure, financial instability, relational rupture, my body shut down. Freeze: I’d get depressed. Fight: I’d attack. Flight: I’d disappear. Fawn: I’d perform, pretend, abandon myself.
This tied into my sober curiosity journey. Had I been drinking to numb, freeze pain, or to fawn and fit in? Yes. Was it bad? No. But now I saw it. Healing is seeing deeper layers—like more of the Matrix online. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
So even as things improved, I saw my nervous system pattern. I remember one scenario: relational uncertainty with someone, talking it out with my husband, and I went into a panic attack. Hysterically crying, on the floor: why do I feel things so deeply? That’s always been my story. An ocean inside me, painful, scary, big emotions. I thought nobody else felt this way.
Part of me saw maybe this wasn’t balanced. Another part of me saw I was gaslighting myself. It’s actually okay to be emotional.
Then came focalizing—a somatic, nervous-system-based trauma training created by Dr. Pacucci. I trained with Nick Werber and Joanna Miller (both have been on this podcast). I learned about the body, the limbic brain, trauma responses, how trauma stores in the body. In the animal kingdom, trauma organically releases. Humans can too, but conditioning gets in the way.
I dove deep into somatic healing for my big emotional bursts. I also realized I’d been addicted to fixing myself for two decades, convinced I’d solve the riddle of what’s wrong with me and then I’d change forever. Subtle, unconscious, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I shifted from mind—“Why is this happening? What’s wrong with me?”—to body: “What resource is needed?” I started stabilizing and regulating my nervous system sustainably. At the same time, I was unlearning systems of oppression, strengthening intuition and soul as authority, practicing not making any parts of me bad, incorporating parts work and family constellations.
You can see why I now can’t encourage healing that doesn’t include mind, body, and soul. Where I stand today: I’m still not perfect. I still spiral sometimes. But I have deep safety in my bones. My nervous system feels safe. Because of that, everything else is manageable. Life will keep life-ing. It’s never about perfect conditions. That’s the lie from the mind.
Exclusively solving problems in the mind leads to binaries: good or bad, right or wrong, success or failure, good mom or worst mom. Black-and-white processing. But healing includes nuance, intuition, regulation in the face of chaos.
I also reflect on generational patterns. Have we swung too far in blaming the generation before us and trying to make things perfect for the next? That pursuit of perfection is internalized patriarchy, white supremacy—even in healing.
So it’s complex. It deserves an integrated mind-body-soul approach to get to the place where you feel safe no matter what. Where you can resource yourself, meet discomfort with intention, and try—even if it’s messy.
Many clients realize “trying” is itself a strategy. It’s nuanced. It doesn’t promise outcomes. It just says: I’ll do my best. And the truth is, there’s an intelligence moving through the world creating conditions we can’t control. Each person is responsible for themselves. You can try, but you can’t predict or control their response.
That is the beauty of relationship. That’s why the phoenix inspires me—it’s constant evolution. Ego death after ego death, identity crisis after identity crisis. Parts of you die—parts that gave you validation or value—and you rebirth again.
For me, my identity was being good at fixing. But sometimes things don’t need fixing; they just need tending, love, compassion, safety. I used to picture “digging out the rotten part” of myself. I don’t do that anymore. There’s a gentler way, which has led to less self-shaming, less depression, fewer trauma responses, more authenticity, more trust in myself and my intuition.
I went from vacillating between fight-flight-freeze-fawn to a steadier nervous system. From loud negative mind chatter to: “Oh, that’s programming. That’s your American individualism, your colonizer mindset. That’s your body needing sleep. That’s you trusting someone else over your intuition.” Seeing it clearly.
This has created a beautiful life. Am I “healed”? Probably not. I hope to always have mentors and guides. But I’m always seeking support to see my blind spots, to resource myself, to keep evolving.
If you feel ready for your own inner transformation, I’d be honored to support you. Your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive. You can still book a Somatic Soul Session (a 60-minute one-on-one) through the end of January at $299. We can focus on a sticking point, do coaching, somatic healing, visualization—whatever you need.
Remember: dominant culture will tell you there’s no time, that you don’t deserve healing, that it’s selfish or irresponsible financially. As someone who’s prioritized healing for two decades, I can say: the only investments I’ve never regretted are those tending to my mind, body, and soul. They change everything. They give clarity, calm, and control no matter what. Because you know who you are. You know your tendencies, your mind’s patterns, how to tend to your body. You don’t freak out at mistakes or setbacks. You keep building what you want, inside and out.
Knowing yourself, having the resilience to honor her, changes every relationship and your mental health. And I know I could never have gotten here with therapy alone. I needed to go deeper, to tend the roots, prune the old, grow new shoots.
It has been such a gift, a joy, a pleasure. And I’d love to invite you to give it to yourself.
Thanks for sharing tea with me. If you love this podcast or find value in it, please give it a five-star rating on Apple. Share it with a fellow Phoenix going through her unlearning so she can rise. I’ll see you in a couple weeks. Thanks. Bye.
Matrescence: Does becoming a mother change… everything? with Jessie Harrold
The transition into motherhood reshapes not just our roles, but our very beings. In this episode, Gervase Kolmos sits down with Jessie Harrold, author of Mothershift, to explore the transformative journey known as matrescence. Jessie shares her insights on how becoming a mother can be both a radical shift and a rite of passage filled with growth, challenges, and deep self-discovery. Together, they discuss the complexities of identity shifts, societal expectations, and the importance of holding space for both the beauty and the struggle of parenting.
Keep listening as Gervase and Jessie cover the balance between rejecting and emulating our own upbringing, explore how motherhood pushes us to hold paradoxes and embrace nuance, and discuss how it transforms not only how we parent but also how we grow as individuals.
The transition into motherhood reshapes not just our roles, but our very beings. In this episode, Gervase Kolmos sits down with Jessie Harrold, author of Mothershift, to explore the transformative journey known as matrescence. Jessie shares her insights on how becoming a mother can be both a radical shift and a rite of passage filled with growth, challenges, and deep self-discovery. Together, they discuss the complexities of identity shifts, societal expectations, and the importance of holding space for both the beauty and the struggle of parenting.
Keep listening as Gervase and Jessie cover the balance between rejecting and emulating our own upbringing, explore how motherhood pushes us to hold paradoxes and embrace nuance, and discuss how it transforms not only how we parent but also how we grow as individuals.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The meaning and transformative power of matrescense
The importance of holding complexity and paradox in motherhood
The need for and challenges of finding community and support in modern motherhood
How your upbringing can leave you swinging between breaking cycles and repeating them
Why self-compassion is a must in the matrescence journey
The value of finding balance and what's right for you in motherhood versus societal norms
Connect with Jessie Harrold
Instagram | @jessie.es.harrold:
Website | https://www.jessieharrold.com/
New! Special Rate: drop into your own unique body wisdom with a Somatic Soul Session:
For the first time ever, current, past and new clients can enjoy a 60-minute session with Gervase to set intentions for the New Year, get clear and focused when you feel stuck and overwhelmed, or address any persistent problems that keep recurring.
Get unstuck and tap into your body wisdom. On sale through January. Buy it now, use it any time this year: https://gervasekolmos.podia.com/f1c7c21a-5772-4222-bf65-7bac78672c33/buy
Follow Gervase
Connect with Gervase on Instagram: www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
Visit her website: www.gervasekolmos.com
Resources:
Matrescence: Does becoming a mother change… everything? with Jessie Harrold
Episode Full Transcript
Gervase: All right, loves, welcome back to the Modern Phoenix podcast. I am so excited to introduce you to Jessie Harreld. Thank you so much for your time, launching her new book, Mother Shift. Go buy it. It looks beautiful. I’m so excited to have a conversation about your work in the world with matrescence and mothers and your book. Motherhood is just a topic I’m infinitely hungry to learn about, to talk about, to explore from every angle. I heard you on Becca P. Estrelli’s podcast, who is one of my teachers, and I just thought: yes, that is a voice more people need to hear. So thank you so much for your time.
Jessie: Oh, thank you. That’s such a sweet introduction.
Gervase: You’re welcome. Let me just read your bio. Jessie Harreld is a coach and doula who has been supporting women through radical life transformations and other rites of passage for over 15 years. She works one-on-one with women and mothers, facilitates mentorship programs, women’s circles and rituals, and hosts retreats and nature-based experiences. Jessie is the author of Mother Shift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage and Project Body Love: My Quest to Love My Body and the Surprising Truth I Found Instead. She is also the host of the Becoming podcast. Jessie lives on the east coast of Canada where she mothers her two children, writes, and stewards the land. Beautiful.
So I feel really called today to ask you—I’ve been following your book launch and know you’ve been speaking to so many people about the book. I’d love to open up by asking you: how are you really?
Jessie: Thank you for asking. Well, let’s see. I feel like the book launch process has been a really both-and experience for me. People following along know that I’ve been writing this book, slash trying to get a deal for this book, for five years. It was a really long process. Really, my whole book-writing journey has been ten-plus years of wanting to put a book out into the world. My first book was self-published, and I realized after that that I wanted to experience what it was like to get a traditional publishing deal.
So I’m sitting with this question right now: what happens when a dream comes true? How does it feel? And how do I grapple with the times that it doesn’t feel like a dream come true? Because the reality is when you’re launching a book, it feels like a different kind of work. Day-to-day is still me making Kraft Dinner for my kids and doing more social media than I’m comfortable with. It’s interesting because we have this idea of what happens when a long-held dream comes to fruition, but the truth is: it looks a lot like every other day, especially in a complex life and a complex world. So how I really am is just sitting with all of that—enjoying the highs when they happen, when it really does feel like a cliché dream come true, and being compassionate with myself when it just feels like another rainy November day.
Gervase: Thank you so much for sharing that and being honest. I think it’s profoundly relatable to anybody listening, even if they haven’t launched a book. It reminds me of so many moments in my life and conversations with clients where you have the expectation of the thing and then the thing itself. What I hear in your navigating this is staying curious, which I’ve found so helpful in not attaching to: “I know what will happen when the dream comes true. All my problems will go away, life will be a fairy tale, and nothing will ever be challenging again.”
It’s relatable in every area of life. And weaving that into motherhood, I think about when I first became a mom. I’ve talked about this exhaustively, so I don’t want to be too redundant, but my transition into motherhood the first time was jolting. It was a dream come true, everything I ever wanted, beyond what I expected, and also more shattering and challenging than I had been prepared for. My kids are 11, 8, and 4 now, so I’m in a different season. The dream looks different. I look at my children often and want to be more attuned to the truth that this, too, is another dream come true.
The challenge of motherhood is seeing that everything you wished for is here, if you’re one of the fortunate ones like me—and I don’t want to bypass that for women whose dreams didn’t come true. But when it does, it’s still: how do you stay with it? How do you hold the paradox that so much of it is not a dream? Recently I joked with a friend, I left the doctor’s office and said: “Do you mean to tell me we have walking pneumonia, pinworms, and rhinovirus at the same time?” As the words left my mouth I thought, you couldn’t make this shit up. Nobody would believe it. That’s what my motherhood is like lately.
So I don’t really know where I want to go with that, but I’m curious for you: how has this woven into your motherhood experience and your work with mothers?
Jessie: Yeah. I think what you’re speaking to is complexity—the idea that we can hold two truths at once. Motherhood can be incredibly rewarding, beautiful, dream-come-true-ish, and it can be incredibly challenging and depleting. We live and mother in a culture that is oppressive to mothers in many ways. The meta thing is that motherhood actually allows us, even nudges us, to hold complexity in ways most of our culture can’t. Our culture forces experiences into dichotomies. I catch myself doing it all the time.
But one of the powerful things that can happen in matrescence, our transition into motherhood, is this ability to hold complexity. In adult development psychology, that ability is a hallmark of maturity. We think of our kids’ milestones, but adults have milestones too. We now know we continue to grow and evolve into elder years. One hallmark of maturity is holding paradox. Research—even though it’s biased toward white American male business owners—shows about 70% of people hold a dichotomous worldview. They outsource their knowing, poll the world, and do what’s most socially acceptable.
The evolved stage is the ability to hold paradox, be interconnected, in-source knowing instead of outsourcing. That’s maturity. And I think matrescence, particularly when supported, catapults us into that maturity and evolution. That excites me—it poises us to be change agents in the world.
Gervase: Seventy percent. That fascinates me. I’ve been endlessly curious about what allows a person to hold complexity and nuance and feel safe doing it—to in-source their knowing instead of outside-in. I never thought of it as developmentally appropriate. That’s interesting, because I know older figures in my life who don’t have that and never will.
So—matrescence. Could you define it for us? And then talk about the ways motherhood grows us up and the reasons it might not? Because I feel deeply: wow, something has literally changed in me, I’m holding complexity, but I feel like an alien. Nobody else does. I want to go back to being like everybody else because it’s hard to explain. After defining matrescence, what are the paths—what grows a person up, or holds them back?
Jessie: Matrescence is a term coined in 1975 by social anthropologist Dr. Dana Raphael. She also coined the term doula. She described matrescence as the time of mother-becoming, a massive transformation biologically, psychologically, culturally, spiritually, economically. It impacts the whole ecosystem of our lives. Even that is countercultural, because we’re told motherhood shouldn’t change you—you should bounce back. Saying everything changes is radical.
I posit in my book and work that matrescence takes two to three years to traverse, very different than the six-week postpartum checkup or even the fourth trimester. It’s a change that changes everything.
Everyone who transitions into motherhood—even if not through carrying a baby biologically—goes through matrescence. I’m especially interested in the identity shift: Who am I now that I’m a mother? My mentor used to say: some people become moms (lowercase m). They have a baby. Others are undone and remade into Mothers (capital M).
We have agency, autonomy, and natural propensity. As a naturally introspective seeker, I was here for motherhood to undo me. Others hold strong values around not changing, around bouncing back, and maybe mother is not an identity they want to lead with. There’s nuance and spectrum there. I’m curious about those of us who want to see it as personal and spiritual growth.
Do we always choose growth? Not always. Some of us are dragged by our hair. That was me. Totally. Even though I had a doula talking about matrescence before anyone else, it wasn’t easy. In fact, research shows we can’t fully experience matrescence unless we face challenges. Those moments—like the doctor’s office story—make us.
So what makes the difference? Honestly, that’s the question at the heart of my work. If I had it fully answered, I wouldn’t have a job. Right now, the cultural awareness is growing—matrescence has a hashtag, people are talking about it. But my work is supporting mothers in understanding how it unfolds, not just that it happens. Giving them a map. That’s a big deal in whether or not we hear the call of transformation.
I use rites of passage theory to create that map. It allows us to talk about letting go of our former selves, grieving that self. You can’t do the growth without the grief. It’s necessary to contend with who we are no longer, what we’re stepping away from. There’s ambiguity—maybe your jeans don’t fit, and you don’t know if they’ll ever fit again. Are you grieving something gone or hoping it returns? That’s initiation into complexity.
Rites of passage theory also gives us a way to talk about liminal space—the in-between, the goo. No longer caterpillar, not yet butterfly. No longer not a mother, not yet fully embodied as a mother. It’s discomforting, especially in a culture of capitalism and patriarchy that tells us to be someone, to have goals, to be certain. Grief and liminality are countercultural. We don’t have the skills or the privilege, often, to be there. But it’s important for transformation.
So is matrescence automatic? No. But it’s low-hanging fruit. There’s so much potential if we take the call to be remade.
Gervais: I related to so much of that. My journey into motherhood—I’ve always been countercultural, curious. My goal was to fit in and be a mom (lowercase m). There’s so much fear when you have to give that up—your body, your job, your paycheck, your belonging, your beliefs. The fear drives so much unwillingness to let go. But the fear can be calmed with permission and naming the thing.
I often tell clients: that’s your internalized capitalism. White supremacy tells us this. Second-wave feminism tells us this. Notice the indoctrination. I don’t even mean “smash the patriarchy,” but naming the things that make you afraid to be who you are is settling. It gives safety to step into the goo. It requires trust in the process, trust in yourself, a support system. And yes, privilege.
Without support, how is a new mother supposed to meet her fear? How do you step into initiation without a village, without examples, without embodiment? I tell my clients: nobody’s doing this. Look around, find lighthouses. I hope I can be one for some women—not as a ta-da but as a fellow Phoenix, constantly evolving, constantly back in the goo.
Notice who we look to for strength and resilience. If it’s women performing, keeping it together, being patriarchy’s darlings—check, check, check—what does that do to our psyches and nervous systems? It tells us we don’t have permission. We don’t even have one example. Naming that it’s countercultural helps. Finding a woman who holds complexity—that alone is rare. Those are the voices I seek online.
And why was I so devoted to taking steps into the fire, into the goo? I told my partner: I don’t know what will happen, with career, child care, daily life. I just know I need to be here. I need to be with this. I’ve always been difficult that way. But for women without examples, how do you give them permission and safety to step into the goo?
Jessie: What you’re speaking to is belonging. Any time we ask “Who am I now?” we’re also asking “Where do I belong?” When we change, so does our ecosystem, so do our people. We need community, peers, elders—but it’s also a time of disrupted belonging. That paradox is tough.
In traditional rites of passage, the journey wasn’t complete until you were witnessed—“I see you. You’re different now. Welcome.” Without witnessing, we can traverse matrescence but still feel incomplete. Social media has become a place to be witnessed. It can be a lifeline, but it’s curated. Even raw posts are curated. So where do we get real complexity if we’re mostly in isolation?
You’re right: people crave normal. Normal says you belong. That’s primal. Our ancestors’ lives depended on belonging. So it feels scary to transform and risk stepping outside belonging.
And the fear is compounded by how we talk about postpartum challenges—through the lens of postpartum mood disorders. They’re common and underdiagnosed, but also sometimes overdiagnosed because we don’t have nuance. About 40% of mothers fall into the “worried well”—mothering is hard, and what they’re experiencing is normative. But now when we dance at the edge of grief, anger, ambivalence, we fear falling off the edge into pathology. We avoid grief and liminality. It’s protective, because if culture doesn’t have skills for grief, best avoid it.
This is nuanced. But our idea of normal has become distorted. Without social referencing, without peers to talk with, it’s hard to know if our experience is normal.
Gervase: So many good points. And yes, just a loving reminder to listeners: this is nuanced, not finite. Take what resonates, leave the rest. Be curious about how you experience yourself through matrescence.
I was thinking, with over- and under-diagnosed postpartum disorders, and the fear of being the “depressed mother” or “angry mother”—what I’m seeing is mothers living in fear not just of being depressed but of being like their mothers. The mantra is: I can’t be like my mother. I can’t be angry, depressed, let myself go, not fit into jeans, go back to work, be absent, whatever her mistake was. That narrow focus is dehumanizing. It denies younger mothers their own lived experience. I’m curious if you’ve seen this and how you meet it.
Jessie: Yes. There’s a whole section in my book on this. It’s one of those things nobody tells you will happen: the complexity around your relationship with how you were mothered. Our mothers’ generation mothered under different cultural oppressions. They did their best to survive in a world even less aware of patriarchy, capitalism, etc. That shaped us.
Then in our matrescence, we grapple: what gifts will I pass on, what needs healing? There’s never a time we compare ourselves more to our mothers. Never a time when expectations of our mothers—or of being mothered as we mother—are higher. It’s a lot to contend with.
You’re right: the finger-pointing and pathologizing adds pressure. A new cultural paradigm is “cycle breaking.” Search the hashtag—everyone’s a cycle breaker. And yes, I’m doing it too. But white wellness culture has taken it to an extreme. If you holler at your kid in Walmart, you’re “doing it wrong.” It’s become another tight, narrow, complexity-free zone.
We need compassion for ourselves when we’re not breaking cycles—when we’re perpetuating things, just being human. The hidden work of matrescence is learning to mother ourselves. When we can do that, we can release our mothers, let them be human. They did the best they could. Most weren’t trying to harm anyone. Culture shaped them. Healing the mother wound is freeing them to be human—and freeing ourselves to be human.
Gervase: Yes. And it’s liberating. Second-wave feminism told us we could be it all, do it all. Thank you, feminism. But now I just see women asking: can I just be human, even for a moment? Otherwise it’s pushing, performing, and when you inevitably yell at your kid, it’s shame and blame. Hyper-fixation on fixing, finger-pointing, being perfect. Exhausting, dehumanizing.
I don’t think that’s the assignment. The more conversations I have, the more I wonder: what if just being human is enough? Who made the rules that we have to be perfect? And we’re not even inheriting them from lived experience or elders in circle—it’s from social media, therapists on YouTube. Helpful, but incomplete. We need to bring it into our bodies, our lived experience, and give ourselves grace. Maybe not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe wear jeans sometimes, but selectively. Not all or nothing. Something in the middle.
Jessie: Yes. One of the things I talk about in the book with cycle breaking is that we tend to swing the pendulum: “Not like that,” so we do the exact opposite. That’s also distorted. The real work is finding the middle. Now, 13 years into parenting, I see lots my parents did that was awesome, worth keeping. I also see ways I judged my mother early on—things I swore I’d never do—that I have done, because life. Because human.
There’s beauty in the middle. And ultimately the middle is what’s right for you.
Gervase: A hundred percent. And knowing yourself is how you know you’re there.
Jessie: Totally.
Gervase: Thank you so much for sharing your brilliance and wisdom with us today. I deeply enjoyed this conversation. Before I invite you to share how people can keep in touch and buy your book, I want to acknowledge you. There are not many mothers who feel like elders—not to age you, but who carry lived wisdom. Online or in person, it’s rare. After one hour with you and listening to you elsewhere, that’s how it feels to be in your presence. Thank you for bringing that wisdom, humanity, and complexity.
Jessie: Thank you. That’s so lovely to hear.
Gervase: Everybody, go buy Mother Shift. Tell us where we can get it and how else to support your work.
Jessie: Sure. Mother Shift: Reclaiming Motherhood as a Rite of Passage is available anywhere. It’s also an audiobook, because you can’t keep books when you’re parenting kids. That’s my number one way of consuming content.
Gervase: Ditto.
Jessie: Other ways to find me: my website is jessieherald.com. I write a monthly newsletter that people love—it’s called Imaginalia. It’s like a little zine, kind of harkens back to 1990s feminism. And I’m on Instagram at jessie.es.herald.
Gervase: Amazing. We’ll put all that in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time, Jessie, and I can’t wait to check out the book.
Jessie: Thank you so much.