Ep. 336: Learn to Tolerate Ease: How Compassion Softened What Pressure Never Could

I want to talk today about something I’ve been slowly realizing over the past few years, and very clearly realizing over the past few days.

Before I begin, I want to invite you to arrive here with me for just a moment.

If it feels okay, notice where you’re sitting.
Notice your feet on the floor, or your back against a chair, or the weight of your body where it’s supported.

Nothing needs to change.
You don’t need to calm down.
Just notice that you’re here.

That’s enough to begin.

So here’s what I want to talk about – 

It’s about how much I was doing.
Why I was doing it.
And what all of that effort was actually doing to me.

This isn’t an episode about productivity.
It’s not about manifesting, or mindset, or optimizing your nervous system.

It’s about what happens when you finally realize that you’ve been treating yourself like you’re in trouble.

A couple of years ago, I overheard someone say something that stopped me in my tracks. They said, “I’ve been treating myself like a project.”

And I remember thinking, oh my God. I’ve been treating myself like I’m a fucking project.

Not a person.
Not a human being with seasons, limits, emotions, and a body that holds history.
A project.

Something to improve.
Something to manage.
Something to get right.

That sentence cracked something open for me, even though I didn’t fully understand it at the time.

After that, I started resting more. Slowly. Intentionally.

I scheduled an hour every day for lunch, and most days I spent that hour lying on the couch, watching Hallmark movies or reading something comforting. 

Even though I stopped coaching on weekends at the end of 2023, I’d still been creating my podcast on weekends. And then of course there was all the  weekend mental work about my business. So I stopped working on weekends entirely.

Even that took practice. Even that felt rebellious at first.

And yet, despite all of that external rest, something inside me was still working very hard.

I was still thinking.
Still evaluating.
Still monitoring myself.

Still wondering if I was doing enough, healing enough, regulating enough, trusting enough.

Over time, I kept letting go of more on the outside.

More obligations.
More pushing.
More forcing.

But recently, I realized something that surprised me.

Even though I had been doing less externally, internally I was still treating myself like I was failing.

I had a lot of practices. Nervous system practices. Spiritual practices. Recovery readings. Gratitude lists. Affirmations.

None of them were wrong. Many of them had genuinely supported me at different points in my life.

But taken together, and taken unconsciously, they created an internal atmosphere of evaluation.

Instead of asking, “What do I need today?”
I was subconsciously asking, “Am I okay yet?”
“Am I calm enough?”
“Am I aligned enough?”
“Is this working yet?”

BTW – the implicit answer was NO

And underneath all of those questions was a belief I didn’t know I was carrying.

If I were doing things right, my life would look different.

That belief is subtle, but it’s powerful.

It turns uncertainty into evidence.
It turns timing into judgment.
It turns rest into something you have to justify.

It quietly says, if things aren’t improving, you must be missing something.

What I finally saw was this.

I wasn’t using my practices to support myself.
I was using them to correct myself.

I was still trying to get myself into a state that felt acceptable.

And that distinction matters.

One of the biggest shifts for me came when I started looking at avoidance differently.

For a long time, I interpreted avoidance as self-sabotage.

If I didn’t want to do something, if I felt frozen, if I procrastinated, I assumed something was wrong with me.

I assumed I needed more discipline.
More motivation.
More insight.

But I started to see something else.

I realized that a lot of what I had been calling self-sabotage was actually my nervous system trying to prevent future harm.

It wasn’t laziness.
It wasn’t irresponsibility.
It wasn’t a character flaw.

It was protection.

When things felt uncertain, especially around money or the future, my system wasn’t predicting disaster.

It was saying, this feels dangerous, please slow down.

That was a huge reframe for me.

I stopped arguing with fear.

Instead, I started saying something very simple when my mind would catastrophize or start scheming.

I would say, this is fear, not a forecast.

Fear is a sensation.
Fear is information.
Fear is not prophecy.

I gave fear a job, with time limits.

Its job was to alert me if I was actually unsafe.
Its job was not to solve my life.
Its job was not to run my thoughts.
Its job was not to demand certainty.

And when I did that, something softened.

I also began to notice something else.

A low-level sense of foreboding in my body.

Not panic.
Not a clear fear.
Just a hum. A vigilance. A watchfulness.

Almost like I was bracing for something unnamed.

What I realized is that discomfort does not equal danger.

Feeling unsettled does not mean something terrible is coming.

Sometimes discomfort means something old is being felt for the first time.

Sometimes it means you’re no longer overriding your body.

That realization brought a kind of existential relief I didn’t know I was missing.

Another moment shifted everything for me.

I pictured my future self.

Older.
White hair.
Calm.
Steady.

And I realized, I have an elder.

Not someday.
Now.

There was a felt sense that I’m not alone inside time.

I wasn’t just the one inside the struggle.

I’m also the one who survives it.

Something softened in the relational field.

Not outside of me.
Inside.

This elder doesn’t promise outcomes.

She doesn’t say everything will work out.

She contextualizes.

She says, given the circumstances, this response is actually remarkable.

She reminds me that I’m not behind.
I’m not broken.
I’m not in trouble.

And that mattered more than any plan.

What I began to understand is this.

Shame isn’t released by arguing with it.

Shame isn’t released by positive thinking or forcing reassurance.

Shame is released when something that used to live wordlessly in my body is finally met with language, compassion, and boundaries. (thank you chatgpt for giving me the language to name that)

For a long time, my body held vigilance without words.

And when something lives wordlessly in the body, it runs the system.

It drives behavior.
It drives urgency.
It drives self-attack.

When it’s named, when it’s contextualized, when it’s met with kindness, it no longer has to scream.

That’s what changed.

In the past few days, I’ve been reading more for pleasure.

I’ve been working on a puzzle while listening to audiobooks.

I’ve been listening to podcasts about the Hallmark Channel instead of podcasts about personal development.

I’ve taken down notes around my house reminding me to grow, improve, or remember something important.

I started watching a Hallmark series that has thirteen seasons, and I’m genuinely excited knowing there’sno urgency to finish.

That told me something important.

My system isn’t asking to be optimized.

It’s asking to be soothed.

I’m no longer asking whether I’m doing enough.

I’m asking whether I feel safe enough to inhabit my own life.

And here’s what I want to leave you with.

If you’re listening to this and realizing you’ve been treating yourself like a project, or like you’re in trouble, I want you to hear this.

You’re not failing at ease.

You’re learning to tolerate it. Just like me.

You’re not broken.

You’re adapting.just like me

And what matters most isn’t that everything resolves quickly.

What matters is that you’re now bringing language, compassion, and boundaries to something that used to live wordlessly, alone inside your body.

That’s how shame actually releases.

Not through effort.
Not through fixing.
But through context.

That’s not time off.

That’s time in.

And that’s where real change actually happens.