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

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• 📲 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.

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

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Follow Gervase

• Connect with Gervase on Instagram to get her best scroll-stopping insights: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos

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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):

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. “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.

5. 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.

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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.

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

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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 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

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*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.