This one is for the woman who has done “all the things.”

You’ve gone to therapy. You’re reading the books. You’re listening to the podcasts (have you binged the Unf*ck Your Relationships podcast yet? I hear that bitch knows her shit). You’re meditating and doing breathwork and taking walks…and you’re not getting anywhere.

You’re still self-sabotaging. You’re still overthinking every text. You’re still afraid of conflict. You’re still feeling stuck in your life or in your relationships. But why? If you’re doing all the work, why isn’t it working?

All of the Work, None of the Progress

So. Let’s review.

You’ve read all the books. You’ve journaled. You’ve done EFT tapping. You’ve done breathwork, therapy, meditation…you name it, you’ve done it.

So why are you still struggling, even though you’ve done all the work?

Because mindset work and therapy aren’t actually enough.

Because even if you are intellectually aware of your wounds and your patterns, you’re still reacting to them emotionally. You’re aware of them, but they haven’t actually been healed at the root.

There’s more you need to do in order to open your heart and begin feeling that juicy aliveness again. But not a lot of people realize that.

The archetype of the woman who’s self-aware but stuck is something I see all the time. You are not alone. But if you want to get out of this rut, it’s going to require a different kind of shift…

The Therapy Coaster

This disconnect between awareness and response is why people will loop in therapy for years and years and years.

They’re not solving anything; they’re just talking about their problems and their patterns.

Now, those things 100% matter. Awareness of where these patterns stem from is a big piece of the puzzle. But if it’s been years and you’re still in that loop, it’s because you are intellectualizing the wound rather than going into what you feel around it.

This is why some people can talk about trauma with almost no emotional response.  Sometimes it’s because you’ve actually integrated the trauma, but more often than not, it’s because you’ve actually entirely disconnected from the feeling of it, and you’ve gone into your logical mind instead to try and make sense of it or try to disassociate from it.

You can talk about where it came from, but you’re not feeling the somatic responses. You’re not actually feeling the wound. So instead of healing, it keeps coming up over and over and over.

This is how you can get into situations where you think you’re doing well when you’re single, but when you get into a relationship, you fall apart…because the relationship forces you to feel the wound you were able to intellectualize before.

Living Trigger-Free

This pattern of being fine as long as you’re single and then falling apart right when you get into a relationship? It’s very common, and here’s why:

When you’re single, nothing’s there to trigger you.

When you’re alone, everything is exactly the way you want it. No one’s making noise. No one’s bothering you when you don’t want to be bothered. You’re not waiting for anyone to text you back. You’re not wondering if someone is going to commit to you or not. Nothing is triggering your wounds.

But when you get into a relationship, your wounds are immediately triggered. Your inner child takes the cue and starts running the show, and your adult self thinks you can mindset your way out of it.

You’re sitting there trying to engage in positive thinking and affirmations and journaling, and doing a million fucking journal prompts on how to get to the root of the thing, and it doesn’t actually matter. It doesn’t change what’s happening inside you.

There is a famous quote by Carl Yung: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will continue to call it fate.”

This is why, when we start going shadow work, we want to agitate all your shit to come to the surface. That way, we can make it conscious, and you can actually start to work at it instead of talking about it.

Embodiment is NECESSARY

Ultimately, awareness without embodiment is just a game of fucking mental gymnastics. It will not work. It will not help you make progress.

Honestly, it’s more or less mental masturbation. People are out here getting off on their wounds over and over and over, and they may even become addicted to their own wounds because they find comfort in chaos. They find comfort in discomfort.

Try that on. Ask yourself: “Am I actually comfortable with chaos? Am I comfortable with discomfort?”

And maybe even dive a little deeper: are you actually unconsciously comfortable with being dysregulated all the time? 

Nervous system dysregulation is why you keep freezing in a hard conversation, or you get really defensive if someone offers you a piece of feedback. It’s also why you sabotage when love gets good and start picking a fight or picking out reasons the relationship isn’t working because you’re “bored.”

It might not be a conscious decision, but you feel too safe. You feel too bored. So instead, you start stirring shit up.

Nervous system dysregulation is also why you feel you can’t receive without feeling like you’re now indebted to this person, and why you feel off when life looks good on paper.

You know why?

Because you can’t outthink trauma.

Louder for the people in the back: you cannot outthink trauma. Trauma lives in the body, which is why embodiment is so important.

This work is not just about writing affirmations or journaling or understanding why you are the way that you are.

Mindset work is important, but it has to be paired with embodiment to actually create progress.

Choose Differently

I’d say about 60% of the women who joined the most recent round of my signature shadow work program, The Connected Woman, said that they have been listening to this podcast for years…but they keep doing the same things over and over again, even though they’re aware of their patterns.

Why? Because there’s no embodiment. You’ve done all the mindset things, but your nervous system is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You’ve heard me say the phrase “Clock it, own it, clean it up” in regard to patterns before. In case you don’t know what that means:

Clocking a pattern: becoming aware of the pattern and acknowledging it.

Owning the pattern: taking responsibility for that pattern. Admitting you are choosing to continue to follow that pattern.

Cleaning up the pattern: Choosing to do something different.

That last step is where people get stuck: cleaning it up and choosing differently.

You can tell me all the live-long day about how you deserve a great relationship. But if you continue to go back to that emotionally unavailable fuckwit…sorry, that’s not in alignment with someone who believes that they’re worthy and deserving of healthy love.

If you want to go on this healing journey, you’re going to actually have to do things differently. You’re going to have to actually embody the woman that you want to become.

When I started to embody a real sense of worthiness, my business took off. My love life took off. My friendships took off. My relationship with my body took off. Everything started to fall into place. Years later, I now feel that way times a hundred.

I feel so content in the woman that I am and the woman that I’m becoming…and that experience is available for you, as well. But that did not happen until I started doing embodiment.

This is where The Experience comes in.

If you don’t know, The Experience is my twelve-month group mentoring program.

This is not another information dump. This is not another course that you forget to log into.

This is a mentorship. This is a full-body identity recalibration. This is the integration that you have been fucking craving. It is my highest-level container.

We have three calls a month: an embodiment session, a group coaching call, and a mystery call.

That could be a guest speaker, a workshop, or whatever I’m sensing the group needs.

The Experience is where we’re doing deep nervous system rewiring and shadow integration. You’re getting real-time support and real-time reflections, truth bombs, and embodiment practices to rewire who you are at your very core. To come home to yourself. To remember who you are.

The women in The Experience show the fuck up. They walk into rooms like they fucking own them. They attract secure, loving partners without having to chase. They lead in life and business without burning out or bending over backwards.

So if you read through this and thought, “Holy fuck, she’s in my head,” I am. I am because I was you…and I created The Experience for women exactly like us.

If you’re ready to actually feel the confidence that you’ve been pretending to have, join us inside The Experience. I’ll see you there.  

WORK WITH MICHELLE: 

Join THE CONNECTED WOMAN, a shadow work course for the woman who is ready to break free from the anxious/avoidant dance in relationships and step into unfuckwithable confidence, security, and self-worth: https://michellepanning.com/the-connected-woman

Sign up for THE EXPERIENCE, an exclusive 12-month mentorship experience where you go all in on YOU (aka, you get direct access to me as a mentor, access to every offer I run over your year, and MORE): https://michellepanning.com/the-experience

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/michellepanning

Website: http://www.michellepanning.com