In today's episode of Calm AF, we're diving deep into one of the most harmful modern mindsets: the belief that you have to fix yourself before you can enjoy your life. If you've ever felt like you need to check off a to-do list before you're allowed to relax or be happy — this episode is your reminder to stop fixing yourself to be happy.

Inspired by a love letter from my private podcast, this "spiel" explores why you don't need to earn joy, peace, or worthiness. You're not a project — you're a human being living a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And that means you deserve to love your life right now, not after the next goal, hack, or habit tracker.

🧠 What You'll Learn:

• Why constant self-improvement can actually keep you stuck

• The difference between desire-based transformation and shame-driven change

• How to stop treating your life like a never-ending project

• The truth about the to-do list that never ends

• How to actually enjoy your life — while still growing and evolving

•  

💌 Subscribe to Daily Love Letters:

Get a mindset reset every morning — no extra effort, no fixing required. ➡️ Subscribe here

Get Daily Reminders to rewire your nervous system and mindset patterns.

You say you want peace. You say you're ready to stop overthinking, people-pleasing, and spinning out.

So why does your brain keep dragging you back into suffering — even when life gives you a moment to breathe?

In this episode, we're talking about the ways we argue against our own peace — and how we fight harder to stay stuck than to change.

You'll learn why familiar thoughts like:

• "I'm not good enough."

• "Life's harder for me."

• "People always let me down."

…feel so true — and how to stop identifying with them.

We'll talk about:

• Why your brain clings to old suffering stories — even when they hurt

• How to recognize when you're defending pain instead of choosing peace

• A nervous system practice to shift out of mental spiraling

• Tools to build evidence for your peaceful, grounded identity — one thought at a time

Because your peace doesn't begin when life gets easier — it begins when you stop fighting for your suffering.

Get Daily Reminders delivered to your inbox every day. Because change doesn't happen because you want it to. It happens becuase you choose yourself. Every single day. 

Why does your brain keep pulling you back into the same thought loops — even when you want to change? In this episode, I'm breaking down the real science of neural pathway rewiring, and why motivation isn't the answer.

You'll learn:

• Why your brain defaults to familiar (not better) pathways

• A simple, effective way to rewire old patterns

• What to do in the moment when you catch yourself thinking the old story

• Why reminders and repetition are the keys to lasting change

• How long it really takes to shift your brain's default setting

This isn't about willpower — it's about working with your brain, not against it.

Want Daily Reminders While You Rewire?

Get daily love letters here.

 

Get free daily reminders

Feeling mentally and emotionally drained but convinced you have to keep pushing through?

This episode is for you.

If you're running on fumes but your instinct is to try harder, work longer, and push more - you might be doing exactly what's keeping you stuck. In this episode, I share the story of a high-achieving client who was beating her head against a brick wall until she learned the power of pressing pause.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• The difference between inevitable pain and optional suffering
• Why "trying harder" often makes everything worse
• How one client found the door she'd been missing by stopping her run toward the wall
• Why clarity comes from pause, not force
• The simple practice that can shift everything this week

This isn't about giving up on your goals - it's about getting out of your own way so you can actually reach them.

Ready to stop running into brick walls? Get daily love letters every day in September that remind you there's another way. These aren't another thing for your to-do list - they're one-minute reminders that you don't have to do life the hard way.

SHARE THIS EPISODE

Know someone who's been pushing too hard? Share this episode with them.

Get September daily love letters 

What if everything you've been told about productivity is backwards? What if the secret to achieving your goals isn't more discipline, but more joy?

In this episode, I share the story of my most reluctant client who finally agreed to choose the "fun bucket" - and accidentally became more productive than she'd ever been. You'll discover why white-knuckling your way through goals leads to burnout, and how prioritizing fun creates lasting change instead of temporary fixes.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why every client avoided the "fun bucket" (and why you probably would too)
• The real reason discipline-based approaches fail long-term
• How I stopped needing a donut as my only source of joy
• Why fun and hard work aren't mutually exclusive - they're partners
• The restrict-binge cycle that happens with joy (and how to find balance)
• How to rewire your brain to see fun as fuel, not reward

This isn't about being less serious about your goals - it's about being more strategic. When you fuel up with joy instead of discipline, everything else becomes easier.

Ready to try the fun bucket approach? Get daily love letters all September long that remind you fun is the most efficient fuel you can put in your tank. These aren't another thing for your to-do list - they're daily permission slips to prioritize what makes everything else easier.

Get September Love Letters

Click here to get daily reminders every day in September.

September is my new year. The fresh start is so invigorating and exciting AND leads to one of the most COMMON traps we find ourselves in. This epsiode is for you if you're in any kind of new chapter moment - back to school, empty nesting, relationship changes, or just ready to stop earning your way to what matters most.

Key Takeaways

• Why September feels more like a new year than January (and why that fresh start energy can be tricky)
• The "old voice" that shows up during new chapters telling us to buckle down and get serious
• Why we achieve our way away from the thing we wanted to achieve our way to
• The difference between doubling down on what matters vs. buckling down on discipline
• How high achievers get trapped in earning their way to their own values
• What it looks like to be bombarded with reminders of what matters instead of what you're not doing enough of
• Why prioritizing joy, beauty, and connection isn't unproductive - it's fuel

Sometimes the most profound lessons come from the most unexpected places. When Bob Saget died, the tributes revealed something that completely shifted how I think about legacy—and it's probably going to change how you think about yours too.

Here's what I was expecting: Nice tributes. People saying kind things because that's what you do when someone dies.

Here's what actually happened: Story after story of exceptional kindness. Not just "he was nice"—he was exceptionally loving. He never ended conversations without saying "I love you" at least once. He was devastatingly demonstrative with his affection.

 I want people to say the same things about me.

What legacy do YOU want to leave behind?

Ready for more??

Private Podcast: From Hypervigilant Achiever to Calm AF High Performer

The simplest first step is the free, private podcast series. This 9-episode audio workshop lays the groundwork for the skills necessary to get regulated and stay regulated.

 The  Upgrade

You want to skip the struggle of DIY and get direct access to expertise? How high performer of you! The Upgrade is 90 days of guided transformation which includes a little bit of on-your-own-time work combined with direct access to me.

Every week, you'll get a focused lesson to keep you on track as you master nervous system regulation and emotional resilience. You also get coaching with me via Voxer—for quick, personalized coaching as life happens.

  Private 1:1 Coaching 

"I don't want to figure it out, I don't want to search for the answers. I want to skip past the line and get it directly from you." If that's you, YOU want private coaching. You are past needing to do things on your own, you want a seasoned expert by your side. This isn't about support in the margins. This is a full-access container for your biggest growth and boldest goals. And unless you're planning on me moving in with you, this is as close to me as it gets.

Click here to fill out the application

Your nervous system thinks calm will actually kill you. I know it sounds backwards, but here's what nobody tells you: when you finally get the calm, regulated life you've been working toward, your system goes into overdrive looking for new chaos to manage.

In this episode, I share my client Hannah's story—how she went from drowning in research about her neurodiverse marriage to creating the calm life she wanted, only to have her nervous system immediately start looking for new problems to solve (hello, jewelry business out of nowhere).

This is the most predictable part of nervous system rewiring, and exactly why I told Hannah to give me a full year. Not because she needed more tools or information—she needed time to retrain a system that had learned chaos equals survival.

What You'll Learn

• Why your nervous system equates hypervigilance with safety
• The pattern interrupt that changed everything for Hannah
• Why "giving it a year" isn't about learning more—it's about unlearning chaos addiction
• How to recognize when you're replacing old chaos with new chaos
• The deeper truth about what real transformation actually looks like

How To Change

This is exactly what we're doing in Calm AF Year: 52 weeks of retraining your nervous system to trust calm, creating an identity where it's safe to be successful without suffering, surrounded by people learning the same thing.

Enrollment opens August 11th.

Join the Interest List. Details coming soon.

 

Ready for more??

Private Podcast: From Hypervigilant Achiever to Calm AF High Performer

The simplest first step is the free, private podcast series. This 9-episode audio workshop lays the groundwork for the skills necessary to get regulated and stay regulated.

 The  Upgrade

You want to skip the struggle of DIY and get direct access to expertise? How high performer of you! The Upgrade is 90 days of guided transformation which includes a little bit of on-your-own-time work combined with direct access to me.

Every week, you'll get a focused lesson to keep you on track as you master nervous system regulation and emotional resilience. You also get coaching with me via Voxer—for quick, personalized coaching as life happens.

  Private 1:1 Coaching 

"I don't want to figure it out, I don't want to search for the answers. I want to skip past the line and get it directly from you." If that's you, YOU want private coaching. You are past needing to do things on your own, you want a seasoned expert by your side. This isn't about support in the margins. This is a full-access container for your biggest growth and boldest goals. And unless you're planning on me moving in with you, this is as close to me as it gets.

Click here to fill out the application

Calm AF Year is a year-long experiment to see what happens when you LET your life change instead of trying hard to change your life. 

Enrollment opens August 11th. Get on the interest list here.

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Susan, one of my Calm AF clients who's been showing up relentlessly to create a life that she LOVES to live. While Part 1 was about intentions and her initial breakthrough with her Future Self, this episode dives into the practical magic that happens when you actually START LIVING these tools.

Susan shares her biggest shifts, including:

• How "Nervous System First" became her internal mantra
• Understanding the Calm AF scale and why hyper/hypo vigilance isn't a personality flaw
• The rubber band theory that will change how you think about setbacks forever
• Why feelings only last 90 seconds (but the stories can last a lifetime)
• The purple car theory in action - and how it completely transformed her 30-year marriage

This isn't theoretical bullshit. This is what it actually looks like when someone stops making everything so complicated and starts trusting the process.

 

Resources:

Private Podcast: From Hypervigilant Achiever to Calm AF High Performer

The simplest first step is the free, private podcast series. This 9-episode audio workshop lays the groundwork for the skills necessary to get regulated and stay regulated.

 The  Upgrade

You want to skip the struggle of DIY and get direct access to expertise? How high performer of you! The Upgrade is 90 days of guided transformation which includes a little bit of on-your-own-time work combined with direct access to me.

Every week, you'll get a focused lesson to keep you on track as you master nervous system regulation and emotional resilience. You also get coaching with me via Voxer—for quick, personalized coaching as life happens.

 Private 1:1 Coaching 

"I don't want to figure it out, I don't want to search for the answers. I want to skip past the line and get it directly from you." If that's you, YOU want private coaching. You are past needing to do things on your own, you want a seasoned expert by your side. This isn't about support in the margins. This is a full-access container for your biggest growth and boldest goals. And unless you're planning on me moving in with you, this is as close to me as it gets.

 

 

In episode 329, Susan shared one of her favorite questions I've ever asked her.

"SO WHAT?" Which is a good thing because "So What?" is one of my very favorite questions to ask my clients.

Not only does it shake them out of their spin a little bit, it also helps them see the situation for what it usually is: SIMPLE.

In this bonus episode, I share a recent story of a client who got cast as the "Keeper of the Peace" in her husband's family and the beautiful (if not uncomfortable) moment when this simple 2-word question broke her brain in the best possible way.

What You'll Learn

• Why "scary" and "complicated" are two completely different things
• The difference between feeling your feelings and making sh*t harder than it needs to be
• Why other people's inability to handle their own emotions is NOT your emergency
• How to stop being everyone's emotional support animal
• The power of "So what?" as a life-changing question