Dopamine Diaries

There’s a point where being capable stops feeling empowering and starts feeling heavy.

Today I’m talking with Rebecca, a law firm partner, a mom, and a woman who walked through one of the hardest years of her life while holding everything else together.

Rebecca didn’t shop, drink, overwork, or “self-regulate” because her life was chaotic, she did it because she believed she had no right to struggle after choosing success, motherhood, and partnership.

This episode unpacks how guilt and self-censorship quietly drive coping behaviors long before burnout shows up.

We’re unpacking why women with full lives often feel the least at peace, how motherhood changes the nervous system, and what it looks like to move from coping to actually feeling safe inside your life.

Check out Rebecca's Substack: https://rebecca262.substack.com/

Ready for HBA?  20% OFF

1-1 High Touch Coaching here. 

This isn't a meal prep episode. It's for everyone who's been eating chips for dinner and throwing away rotting groceries every single weekend.

In this very honest conversation, I'm breaking down how we went from spending $1,200+ per month on groceries that literally got thrown away to now spending under $1,000 with a fridge that's actually full, seven meals on rotation, and dinner that takes 30 minutes start to finish on autopilot.

I share the breaking point that finally changed everything (spoiler: it was impacting my relationship, my motherhood, my business, my ability to exercise, and my confidence as a coach), why I had to let go of trying to source the "best quality" foods, and the exact MFK Method I use now: microdecisions, making it fun as fuck, and setting up the kitchen for future me.

If you're spending hundreds on groceries but still piecing together snacks after bedtime... 

If you're tired of making dinner decisions at 5pm after a full day of chaos with a toddler on your hip... 

If you refuse to keep carrying the full mental load of this and you're ready for something that actually works for your season of life...

Stop trying to go all out. Stop acting like you need an apron on churning your own butter. This is plug and play, it's Lego stacking your meals, and it no longer feels like a fucking chore.

MFK: It motherfucking works.

HBA: https://www.mnmfitnessco.com/hba

I don't know if I'm gonna post this episode. It's gonna be messy. But holy fuck, I gotta get this out.

In this very raw, very honest conversation, I'm talking about why HBA is actually a hard sell. Because when you actually unlearn survival patterns to the point where you can't go back, it's not glamorous. And right now I'm grappling with wanting to go back to the disconnected, cutthroat version of me from a year ago, and my whole body is rejecting it.

I share why my career is a trauma response, what it's like after 16 months of unraveling to realize I literally cannot force myself backwards even though I'm trying, and the truth about healing that nobody in the nervous system space is talking about.

If you've been exhausting yourself doing surface level work and talking about your coping patterns but never actually getting out of them. 

If you keep rage quitting programs because you can't seem to change. 

If you want to understand what it actually takes to get past the point of any return.

This is the honest version. This is what unlearning survival patterns actually looks like. And it's a lot harder than anyone will tell you.

Some of you are gonna think I'm fucking crazy. Go for it.

HBA: https://www.mnmfitnessco.com/hba

Urgency isn’t my word for 2026, and if you’re feeling that too, this episode is for you.

In this very honest, slightly uncomfortable conversation, I’m talking about why 2026 is shaping up to be a maintenance year for me: refining instead of grinding, listening instead of forcing, and honoring the very signals I teach women to notice.

I share what it looks like to build something you love (hello, HBA), hit momentum, and then feel your body quietly tap you on the shoulder asking you to slow down, plus why that isn’t failure, backsliding, or “losing your edge.” It’s actually proof the work is working.

If you’re coming off a year that took everything you had…
If setting big shiny goals feels more exhausting than exciting…
If you’re high-functioning, self-aware, and still weirdly disconnected from what your body needs…

Consider this your permission slip for a maintenance year, and a reminder that sustainable success lives in the bridge between your brain and your body, not in blowing past both.

Happy 2026. Take a breath.

Grab HBA for 20% 

Let yourself be supported. I say it all the time, but holy fuck, you cannot possibly understand what that feels like until you just do it.

In this conversation, I'm sharing what happened when I finally hired support for my business after being a one-man show for five years. I talk about why it was so hard to do, the moment I was filling out a form that asked what's weighing on my mind and I literally couldn't find a problem, and why motherhood chaos feels completely different now.

I share what changed when I stopped believing I could do it better myself, why the discomfort of doing something for yourself as a mother is so short-lived, and what happens when you finally have the energetic bandwidth you've been missing.

If you know deep down there's something you want or need but it feels really bad to say out loud because you think it's taking away from your family. 

If you've been listening to this podcast for a year and still haven't done HBA (yes, I'm talking to you). 

If you believe that energy, money, time, and resources belong to your kids first and asking for support makes you less of a mother.

Be selfish. Your kids get a different parent when you're supported. And I'm kicking myself that I didn't give this version of me to my daughter sooner.

Take the first step.

Grab HBA at 20% off:

Okay, what the heck is the round table? I'll be honest, I almost talked myself out of recording this because I'm like, no, you're gonna be too passionate. You're gonna scare people away. But fuck, man, I'm so tired of these invisible business rules.

In this conversation, I'm breaking down the four pillars of the round table. I talk about why I'm creating the room I've always wanted to be in instead of trying to find it, how you can give HBA to your clients as part of your offer at no extra cost, and why supporting the human behind the business matters more than any system or strategy.

I share the story of spending more than half of my coaching career kind of hating the gig, dreading client conversations and Instagram and fucking everything because I wasn't supported, and what changed when I finally figured out the right combination.

If you've done a lot of programs and all it's ever been is more information that you feel disconnected from. 

If you're burning yourself out just to keep things where they're at. 

If you don't give a fuck what systems or strategies you think you need in 2026 because deep down you know that if you, the business owner, are not being supported, your strategy will fall flat within the first couple months like it has year after year.

I'm creating the room I wanted to find all of these years. And I really, really hope you join it.

Dm me on IG (Kate.liz.h) for details.

HBA: https://www.mnmfitnessco.com/hba

Today’s episode is one of my favorites, because you’re about to hear from Christine, a VP of Operations who leads a team of 300 people across the United States… and still found herself stuck in the same survival patterns so many high-achieving women do:

running on autopilot, feeling on 24/7, & drowning in self awareness but unable to change.

Inside this episode, Christine shares:

What it’s really like managing hundreds of employees while trying to regulate your own nervous system
Spoiler: she thought she was “high strung”, turns out she was just stuck in survival mode.

The moment she realized she’d been living on autopilot
Checking boxes, multitasking, hitting metrics… yet feeling disconnected from herself, her partner, and her team.

How tiny daily lifelines inside HBA shifted her out of spirals in seconds
She describes one of the tools as “brain floss” (and I will never get over that).

Why self-awareness alone wasn’t helping her
So many women can explain their patterns, but HBA finally gave her the tools to interrupt them.

How HBA made her a more grounded leader
She now walks the floor with intentional presence, takes real lunch breaks (!!!!!), and holds space without feeling drained.

Why she did HBA twice… and why the second round hit even deeper
Different season, different growth. Same nervous system magic.

What she'd tell any woman on the fence about joining
Her words, not mine: “Do not deny yourself the opportunity to feel your best. This is the one thing that actually tipped the scale.”

Ready for HBA?  20% off HERE.

I'm feeling it right now. We're gonna quickly throw it on the podcast because I want women to know that it's possible.

In this conversation, I'm sharing what one of my one-on-one clients said to me after six months of working together. I talk about the trap every working mom falls into, why we're trying to take a top-down approach to a bottom-up problem, and the secret to actually having energy for your career instead of operating at negative 3% battery charge.

I share why routines are rigid and require perfection we ain't got to give, what happens when you learn the act of presence in tiny manageable rhythmic chunks, and what it looks like when you catch the zero to a hundred snap moments and respond with what you need instead of impulsively reacting on your kids.

If you're extremely self-aware and when you're spiraling you know exactly what's going on but you can't seem to snap out of it. 

If you've been talking yourself out of support every which way you fucking can. 

If you struggle to justify doing things for yourself because it's always more justified giving that to your kids.

Think about what would change for them and how it would impact their experience of you when you are supported.

Want a full list of mental buffers I call The Transitions Toolkit?  Grab them for FREE in Healthy B*tches Anonymous

Healthy B*tches Anonymous 20% OFF 

Dm me on IG

I've had this conversation no less than six times this week already. And because of that, I was like, okay, this is also something I used to struggle with, and sometimes I still struggle with it. So I think it's worth bringing it on the podcast.

In this conversation, I'm talking about when we find ourselves eating more than what we actually need and using food to cope. I share the bodyguard analogy that changed everything for me (think Taylor Swift and her long-term bodyguard), why yelling at your nervous system for doing its job keeps you stuck in the exact pattern you're trying to break, and the mistake people make when they try to change coping habits.

I talk about what actually needs to happen when the stress eating is going on, why your bodyguard decides what is safe and what is threatening off of sensations alone, and what shifted for me when I stopped beating myself up for it.

If you're aware of it happening but you can't stop yourself from doing it. 

If you're trying to willpower or discipline yourself into not snacking but it's making it worse. 

If you know so much but can't implement any of it (yeah, I'm talking to you intellectualizers).

Maybe the place you need to start is to stop beating yourself and your nervous system up for simply doing its job. And maybe you need to learn how to send a different signal.

HBA: https://www.mnmfitnessco.com/hba

If you follow me on Instagram, you may or may not have seen this. But I shared yesterday that I was going to record a podcast about a specific topic.

And that topic is the conundrum that happens when something is not going the way you want it to in your business or career, and how it compounds into the beliefs you have about who you are as a parent, as a wife, as a friend.

In this conversation, I'm talking about your inability to feel safe in the dips and why the ebbs and flows of work leak into what you think your value is at home.

I share my story of dismantling my entire business when I got pregnant, the cycle of being aware of what's happening but not being able to do anything to come out of it, and what somatic safety actually is.

If you get stuck in these cycles and don't know how to meet yourself within them. If people keep telling you to be a more present parent but nobody is actually saying how. If you logically know what you need to do but you can't get yourself physically to do it.

It's not a mindset problem. It's a body problem.

And if you have all this self-awareness without somatic safety, it's kind of like having a PhD in drowning. You can name what's happening very well, but you still can't breathe.

HBA: https://www.mnmfitnessco.com/hba