Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

At 13 years old, Renee Maxine Haas picked her career from a career-week aptitude test, choosing computers because it looked secure. She built her whole life around that early decision, earning a computer science degree and rising to a senior role as a software engineer and web developer. It worked for a long time, until the mountaintop she had spent two decades climbing toward stopped feeling like anywhere she actually wanted to be.

The turning point did not arrive as a plan. It showed up during an ordinary dog-sitting walk along a stream in Colorado, when a half-joking thought refused to leave her alone: What if I just quit my job and traveled the world?

She sat with the idea for two days, worked through the practical questions, and said yes. Renee left her career, her routines, and the identity she had used to measure her life. She spent the next two years traveling solo through nearly 50 countries.

In this conversation with host Sandy Davis, Renee talks about what happened once the thrill of travel wore off and the discomfort she left home to escape found her anyway, in a hostel bunk bed and on a rainy day in a chalet in Italy.

Renee and Sandy explore the difference between intuition, fear, and the ego’s need for control. They discuss a visit to Croatia’s Museum of Broken Relationships that forced Renee to confront resentment from a past relationship, why coming home was harder than leaving, and the question from well-meaning family and friends that became her biggest trigger.

They also talk about how cultures like Uruguay and Copenhagen reshaped Renee’s definition of success and what it took to turn two years of travel into her debut memoir.

Renee Maxine Haas is a writer, speaker, and host of the Effing and Audacity podcast. Her debut memoir, The Fog and the Flow, chronicles the two years she spent traveling solo through nearly 50 countries. It is available now on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle.

WHAT YOU WILL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE

Renee explains why she chose a career in computers at 13 and what twenty years inside that choice actually felt like.

She describes the ordinary walk in Colorado where a joke about quitting her job turned into a life-changing decision.

She talks about what her body and mind experienced once the excitement of travel wore off around the six-month mark.

She unpacks the meaning behind The Fog and the Flow and what it means to move with life instead of forcing it.

She shares how a visit to Croatia’s Museum of Broken Relationships forced her to examine a past relationship she was still resenting.

She talks candidly about why coming home was harder than leaving and the question that became her biggest trigger.

She reflects on how seeing other cultures value time and community over possessions changed her definition of success.

She shares the hardest truth she had to put on paper and what she would tell the version of herself who was still in the fog.

CONNECT WITH RENEE MAXINE HAAS

Website: https://ReneeMaxineHaas.com

Book: The Fog and the Flow, available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle

ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN

Elevate Within is a podcast and conversation platform for high-achieving women navigating burnout, anxiety, grief, identity changes, leadership, and reinvention.

We connect what women are experiencing personally with how it affects their wellbeing, work, relationships, and leadership.

CONNECT WITH ELEVATE WITHIN

Substack: https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

Website: https://elevateopsadvisory.com

Leadership Advisory by Elevate Within: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-davis-abb21236/

If this conversation resonated, please follow, subscribe, and share it with another woman who may need it today.

⭐ APPLE PODCAST LISTENERS

If this episode resonated with you, a rating or review would mean everything. It helps Elevate Within reach more women who may need this conversation right now.

Mental health access, therapy costs, culturally responsive care, and therapist burnout with bilingual clinical social worker Madeline Maldonado, LCSW-R.

We often talk about asking for help as though it is the hardest part. But what happens after someone finally asks?

What happens when a family cannot afford an evaluation for their child, is placed on a waiting list for months, or cannot find a therapist who speaks their language or understands their culture?

Madeline has spent 26 years working on every side of that reality.

The daughter of Dominican immigrants, she grew up in Washington Heights learning about care behind the counter of her father’s bodega. Her father gave neighbors credit, sold three eggs when someone could not afford a dozen, and taught her to talk to everybody.

Madeline originally planned to become an engineer. An internship supervisor told her that people were her thing, and volunteering with patients in Bellevue Hospital’s HIV/AIDS unit confirmed that social work was her calling.

In this conversation, Sandy Davis and Madeline discuss how collective crises changed who needs mental health care and why temporary emergency funding continues to run out. They explore the stigma and generational mistrust affecting Black and Latino communities, the cost of therapy and high insurance deductibles, barriers facing future therapists of color, and the burnout experienced by professionals carrying the emotional weight of this work.

Madeline also shares how a mission trip to a women’s prison and a girls’ orphanage in the Dominican Republic inspired the Minette Foundation. The Foundation helps fund affordable therapy, autism evaluations, essential supplies, and practical support for individuals and families facing financial or systemic barriers.

Madeline’s message for the person who has been strong for everyone else is simple:

Take care of your mental health. You matter. We are not meant to do life alone. Healing happens in community.

This episode includes brief discussion of suicide, self-harm, substance use, and trauma. If you or someone you know needs immediate emotional support in the United States, call or text 988 or visit https://988lifeline.org.

ABOUT MADELINE

Madeline Maldonado, LCSW-R, is President and Founder of Madeline Maldonado LCSW Consulting P.C., Chief Clinical Officer and Co-Founder of Minette LCSW Psychotherapy Services PLLC, and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Minette Foundation.

CONNECT WITH MADELINE

Minette Foundation:
https://www.minettefoundation.org

Minette LCSW Psychotherapy Services:
https://www.minettepsychotherapy.com

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/madelinemaldonado_lcsw/

The Minette Foundation Gala will take place Friday, November 13, 2026, at Villa Barone Manor in the Bronx, New York.

ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN Elevate Within is a podcast and conversation platform for high-achieving women navigating burnout, anxiety, grief, identity changes, leadership, and reinvention. We connect what women are experiencing personally with how it affects their wellbeing, work, relationships, and leadership.

CONNECT WITH ELEVATE WITHIN

YouTube: @ElevateWithinAlways

Substack: substack.com/@elevatewithin

Website: elevateopsadvisory.com

Leadership Advisory by Elevate Within: [email protected] 

Subscribe to Elevate Within with Sandy Davis and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

⭐ APPLE PODCAST LISTENERS If this resonated with you, a rating or review would mean everything. It helps Elevate Within reach more women who may need this conversation right now.

And if no one told you they loved you today, I love you.

#MentalHealthAccess #CulturallyResponsiveCare #TherapistBurnout #CommunityHealing #ElevateWithin

Cold water, familiar scents, music, laughter, and a worry box are some of the real tools Sandy Davis, Claudia J. Cuevas, LMFT, and Taína Galarza, LMSW, use when anxiety begins taking over.

In Part 1, they discussed how anxiety can show up physically through chest tightness, shaking hands, stomach issues, brain fog, sleeplessness, unexpected tears, and decision fatigue.

In Part 2, Building Your Anxiety Toolkit, they move from recognizing anxiety to discussing practical ways to respond when it begins taking over your thoughts, body, and decisions.

Claudia walks through the items she carries in her personal self-care toolkit, including strong mint, aromatherapy, electrolytes, cold packs, and other sensory supports.

Sandy shares how cold water, familiar scents, verbal reassurance, humor, nostalgia, and movies that remind her of home help her feel grounded.

Taína discusses why sound, community, intentional touch, somatic practices, and paying attention to where anxiety lives in the body may help create relief and a greater sense of safety.

These tools are not intended to pretend the problem has disappeared. Their purpose is to create enough space to interrupt the spiral, reconnect with the present, and make decisions from a steadier place instead of survival mode.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• How to build a personal anxiety or self-care toolkit
• Why grounding can help you respond differently
• How anxiety affects judgment and makes everything feel urgent
• Using scent, sound, touch, taste, temperature, and movement
• Cold water, familiar scents, music, laughter, and nostalgia
• Verbal reassurance and speaking safety out loud
• The difference between knowing you are safe and feeling safe
• Somatic practices and intentional touch
• Meeting your physiological needs
• Claudia’s pocket pharmacy
• The worry box and giving your worries somewhere to rest overnight
• Why isolation and shame can intensify anxiety
• Reaching out without apologizing for needing another person
• Why strong, high-achieving women still need safe places to be honest

The group also discusses the pressure many women experience to keep functioning through discomfort, remain approachable, and continue supporting everyone else without acknowledging their own needs.

Anxiety can make us feel isolated or ashamed. It can convince us that we should be able to push through alone. This conversation is a reminder that asking for help does not erase your strength.

Sometimes you do not need someone to solve the problem. You simply need another human being to sit beside you while you find your way back to yourself.

What belongs in your anxiety toolkit? Share this episode and let us know what helps you return to a grounded baseline.

BRING ELEVATE WITHIN TO YOUR COMMUNITY

Sandy Davis and Claudia J. Cuevas bring these conversations to women’s networks, professional organizations, employee communities, and local groups through workshops, webinars, facilitated conversations, and custom series.

They cover burnout, anxiety, grief, identity changes, boundaries, self-trust, reinvention, cultural pressure, and what it means to lead and succeed without losing yourself.

Programs are available virtually nationwide and in person throughout Greater Los Angeles Region, Orange County, Inland Empire and San Diego.

LEADERSHIP ADVISORY

Sandy Davis also provides private Leadership Advisory for leaders, owners, and decision-makers navigating underperformance, accountability, delegation, conflict, burnout, difficult client relationships, or a decision they are struggling to make.

She helps them understand what is driving the situation, determine what needs to change, and decide what to do next. A complimentary initial conversation is available.

CONNECT WITH ELEVATE WITHIN 

Substack: https://substack.com/@elevatewithin 

Website Sandy Davis: https://elevateopsadvisory.com 

LinkedIn: Sandra Davis [sandra-davis-abb21236] 

Website Claudia Cuevas, LMFT: https://claudiacuevas.com/ 

Connect with Taína Galarza: https://www.modernalchemix.com/ 

If this episode resonated with you, follow Elevate Within, share the conversation, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help more women discover the show.

Please note: This episode shares personal experiences and general educational information. It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, psychotherapy, or mental health treatment. Discussions of essential oils, cold exposure, electrolytes, and body-based practices reflect personal experiences and general information. Follow product instructions and consult a qualified professional regarding your individual health needs.

And if no one told you they loved you today, I love you.

“I’m great. I’m great.”

But inside, Sandy Davis was saying, “No, I’m not. Help me.”

Anxiety does not always begin with a racing thought. Sometimes it shows up as a tight chest, shaking hands, heart palpitations, stomach issues, sleeplessness, brain fog, unexpected tears, or the inability to make one more decision.

In Part 1 of this two-part Elevate Within conversation, Sandy is joined by co-host Claudia J. Cuevas, LMFT, and returning guest Taína Galarza, LMSW, to discuss what happens when anxiety moves beyond the mind and begins showing up in the body.

Sandy shares what happened when a health issue involving her dog, Rocco, became the final weight her nervous system could no longer quietly carry. Her chest tightened, her heart began racing, her hands started shaking, and brain fog made it nearly impossible to think or form a plan. By the following morning, a phone call to Taína released tears Sandy did not know she had been holding.

Claudia describes her own week of accumulating pressure involving work, family responsibilities, travel, car trouble, and concern for her dog. A simple question about picking up milk became the final drop in an already overflowing glass.

Taína reflects on chronic health concerns, the loss of her cat of more than 18 years, and the fear she experienced when an earthquake affected people she loves in Colombia.

Together, their stories reveal a central truth: anxiety is rarely about only one event. It is often an accumulation of responsibilities, losses, fears, and decisions carried for far too long.

In this episode:

• How anxiety can appear as chest tightness, shaking, heart palpitations, stomach issues, sleeplessness, brain fog, crying, and decision fatigue
• Why the final trigger is rarely the only cause of an anxious response
• How accumulated stress can overwhelm the nervous system
• The relationship between high achievement, survival mode, and burnout
• Why asking for support can feel so difficult
• How grief, caregiving, financial pressure, work demands, and uncertainty affect the body
• The pressure women, particularly women of color, may feel to remain strong and keep personal struggles hidden
• Claudia’s concept of “the burden of awareness”
• How social media and constant exposure to fear can intensify anxiety

This conversation is not about women being unable to handle hard things. It is about recognizing how much women have been conditioned to carry and what happens when the body finally says, “I cannot keep doing this the same way.”

Part 2, Building Your Anxiety Toolkit, airs Friday. Sandy, Claudia, and Taína will share practical tools they use when anxiety begins taking over their thoughts, bodies, and decisions.

Follow Elevate Within so you do not miss the continuation.

If this conversation resonated with you, share the episode and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help more women discover these conversations.

ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN

Elevate Within is a podcast and conversation platform for high-achieving women navigating burnout, anxiety, grief, identity changes, leadership, and reinvention. We connect what women are experiencing personally with how it affects their wellbeing, work, relationships, and leadership.

CONNECT WITH ELEVATE WITHIN:

💼 CONNECT WITH SANDY 

🌐 https://elevateopsadvisory.com

📎 LinkedIn: sandra-davis-abb21236/

Substack: https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

💼 CONNECT WITH CLAUDIA CUEVAS, LMFT 

🌐 https://claudiacuevas.com/ OR 

https://www.therapyforlatinx.com/united-states/mission-viejo/therapist/claudia-cuevas-146

💼 CONNECT WITH TAINA GALARZA, LMSW 

🌐  https://www.modernalchemix.com/ 

Please note: This episode shares personal experiences and general educational information. It is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or mental health treatment.

And if no one told you they loved you today, I love you.

Every Friday, Sandy Davis and co-host Claudia Cuevas, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, sit down for the Architecture of Reinvention Roundtable to go deeper into the themes from that week's guest conversation. This week they revisit Nicole Silverman's episode, a veteran and military spouse who has had to repeatedly leave behind homes, businesses, and versions of herself every time her family's orders moved them again.

Claudia names the theme underneath Nicole's story as grief, not only the grief of losing a person, but the grief of losing a home, a job, a business, or an identity again and again on a three to five year cycle. The conversation opens into how grief actually moves, more like a roller coaster than a checklist, and how culture shapes whether we are taught to fear death or to sit with it, including Claudia's memory of her grandmother telling her not to be afraid if she saw her own grandmother's spirit in the night.

Sandy meets that framework with one of the most personal stories she has shared on the show, losing both of her parents within thirty seven days of each other, the family conflict that followed, walking away from relatives who never showed up for her, and the layered grief of leaving a corporate career and the community that came with it. Sandy and Claudia land on the idea that grief and love go hand in hand, and close out Season One of Elevate Within by naming what the entire summer series was really about.

Claudia Cuevas is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and co-host of the Architecture of Reinvention Roundtable, joining Sandy Davis every Friday to bring a clinical and compassionate lens to that week's conversation.

What You Will Hear in This Episode

Sandy and Claudia recap Nicole Silverman's episode and thank her and her husband for their military service.

Claudia explains why she sees Nicole's repeated military moves as a recurring grief cycle rather than simply a logistics problem.

Claudia walks through the stages of grief and explains why they never move in a straight line.

Claudia shares a memory of her grandmother, Dia de los Muertos, and how growing up Mexican and Christian shaped her relationship with death.

Sandy opens up about losing both of her parents within thirty seven days of each other.

Sandy describes the family conflict at her father's funeral and the hard conversation she had with her grieving mother.

Sandy talks about a second layer of grief, including family estrangement, career burnout, and losing an entire professional community at once.

Sandy and Claudia discuss why you never fully get over grief, and instead learn to carry it, sometimes as a boulder and sometimes as a marble in your pocket.

They close out Season One of Elevate Within, reflect on how the series began, and share a first look at what is coming in Season Two.

Nicole Silverman served as an Army Intelligence Analyst with the 82nd Airborne Division and deployed to Afghanistan on a tour that stretched from 12 months to 15. She learned about the extension from the news rather than her own chain of command.

Leaving the military did not immediately give Nicole her identity back. As a military spouse moving every three to five years, she also faced repeated job rejection. Instead of continuing to wait for someone else to choose her, Nicole turned to entrepreneurship, creating Heritage Engravings and later A&F Automation.

In this final one-on-one conversation of The Architecture of Reinvention, Nicole and host Sandy Davis talk honestly about military life, marriage, motherhood, entrepreneurship, survival mode, and rebuilding your identity after years of conforming to what was expected of you.

Nicole also shares how she recognizes when she is beginning to spiral, the real tools she uses to pull herself back, and why having one person you can text “spiral” can matter more than having all the answers.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Rebuilding your identity after military service
• The career challenges military spouses face
• Turning job rejection into entrepreneurship
• Marriage, deployment, and constant change
• Recognizing and interrupting a spiral
• Letting go of survival mode and prioritizing what matters most

CONNECT WITH NICOLE:

A&F Automation:
https://www.afautomation.tech

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-h-silverman

⭐ If this resonated, please leave a rating or review, it helps reach more women who need this conversation. 

🎙️ ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN Elevate Within is a podcast and community for high-achieving women navigating the messy middle — the space between who you were and who you're becoming.

🎧 SUBSCRIBE & NEVER MISS AN EPISODE 

🎵 Spotify: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

🍎 Apple Podcasts: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis 

▶️ YouTube: Elevate Within Always 

📻 Amazon Music: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📻 iHeart Radio: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

⭐ APPLE PODCAST LISTENERS If this resonated with you, a rating or review would mean everything. It helps Elevate Within reach more women who may need this conversation right now.

📖 GO DEEPER ON SUBSTACK Weekly essays and honest conversations about burnout, grief, reinvention, resilience, healing, and the messy middle.

🔓 Free subscribers — full access to all public content 

🔐 Paid subscribers — bonus essays, early access to upcoming series, behind-the-scenes recordings, and direct community engagement

👉 https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

💼 CONNECT WITH SANDY 

📎 LinkedIn: Sandra Davis 

🌐 Leadership Advisory Services / Fractional Operations Services ElevateOpsAdvisory.com

💼 CONNECT WITH CLAUDIA CUEVAS, LMFT 

🌐 https://claudiacuevas.com/ OR 

https://www.therapyforlatinx.com/united-states/mission-viejo/therapist/claudia-cuevas-146

Every Friday, host Sandy Davis and co-host Claudia Cuevas, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, sit down for the Architecture of Reinvention Roundtable to go deeper into the themes from that week's guest conversation.

This week, following Tristan Stawicki's episode, Claudia delivers the therapy modalities breakdown she promised listeners the week before. She covers cognitive behavioral therapy, best for anxiety and unhelpful thought patterns, acceptance and commitment therapy, best for chronic pain and life transitions, and dialectical behavior therapy, built for emotional regulation. She also gives a clear, myth busting explanation of the real difference between bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

They also cover EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which Tristan used in her own healing, and somatic therapy, along with a candid look at spiritual and alternative modalities including shamanic practice, reiki, sage, and astrology, and how to know if any of it is right for you. Tristan Stawicki's episode centered on the moment she stood in New York's financial district, looked out at the Statue of Liberty after a major professional win, and felt absolutely nothing, the beginning of a years long healing journey.

What You Will Hear in This Episode

Cognitive behavioral therapy, best for anxiety, panic disorder, and unhelpful thought patterns.

Acceptance and commitment therapy, best for chronic pain, resistant anxiety, and life transitions.

Dialectical behavior therapy, built for emotional regulation.

Bipolar disorder versus borderline personality disorder, the real difference, explained without the myths.

EMDR, explained simply, how your brain files away trauma like a stuck computer file.

Somatic therapy, and why some trauma lives in the body before it ever lives in memory.

Shamanic practice, reiki, sage, and other alternative modalities, and how to know what is right for you.

How to find a therapist trained in the modality you actually need.

⭐ If this resonated, please leave a rating or review, it helps reach more women who need this conversation. 

🎙️ ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN Elevate Within is a podcast and community for high-achieving women navigating the messy middle — the space between who you were and who you're becoming.

🎧 SUBSCRIBE & NEVER MISS AN EPISODE 

🎵 Spotify: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

🍎 Apple Podcasts: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis 

▶️ YouTube: Elevate Within Always 

📻 Amazon Music: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📻 iHeart Radio: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📖 Substack: https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

⭐ APPLE PODCAST LISTENERS If this resonated with you, a rating or review would mean everything. It helps Elevate Within reach more women who may need this conversation right now.

📖 GO DEEPER ON SUBSTACK Weekly essays and honest conversations about burnout, grief, reinvention, resilience, healing, and the messy middle.

🔓 Free subscribers — full access to all public content 

🔐 Paid subscribers — bonus essays, early access to upcoming series, behind-the-scenes recordings, and direct community engagement

👉 https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

💼 CONNECT WITH SANDY 

📎 LinkedIn: Sandra Davis 

🌐 Leadership Advisory Services / Fractional Operations Services ElevateOpsAdvisory.com

💼 CONNECT WITH CLAUDIA CUEVAS, LMFT 

🌐 https://claudiacuevas.com/ OR 

https://www.therapyforlatinx.com/united-states/mission-viejo/therapist/claudia-cuevas-146

What do you do when you’ve achieved everything you set out to build and you feel nothing? 

Tristen Stawicki was leading global teams and presenting to major clients when she sat down after the biggest success of her career, looked at the Statue of Liberty through a New York window, and felt completely numb. That moment was not a failure. It was the signal she had been training herself to ignore. 

In this episode of Elevate Within’s Architecture of Reinvention: The Art of Unbecoming summer series, Tristen executive coach, Reiki master, certified shaman, and fractional product executive shares the layered healing journey that followed. Four years of EMDR therapy, every single week. Acupuncture. Reiki certification. And eventually, shamanism, studied under a master who had never taken another student.

She did not approach any of it with blind faith. She approached it like a scientist: testing, documenting, discerning. And that combination of rigor and openness is what she now brings to the high-achieving women she coaches through their own reinvention. 

This conversation is for the woman who is still performing on the outside and feeling hollow on the inside. The one who knows something has to change but cannot yet name what it is. 

What You’ll Hear in This Episode 

Why numbness not exhaustion is often the real signal of burnout in high-achieving women.

The case for a layered approach to healing: why one modality is never the whole answer.

How to bring discernment to spiritual practice so you build genuine trust, not dependency.

What it means to stop outsourcing your power to coaches, podcasts, or anyone outside yourself.

The non-negotiables practice Tristen uses to prevent burning out on her own business.

One immediate, grounded practice to reconnect with your inner knowing today.

⭐ If this resonated, please leave a rating or review, it helps reach more women who need this conversation. 

🎙️ ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN Elevate Within is a podcast and community for high-achieving women navigating the messy middle — the space between who you were and who you're becoming.

🎧 SUBSCRIBE & NEVER MISS AN EPISODE 

🎵 Spotify: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

🍎 Apple Podcasts: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis 

▶️ YouTube: Elevate Within Always 

📻 Amazon Music: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📻 iHeart Radio: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📖 Substack: https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

⭐ APPLE PODCAST LISTENERS If this resonated with you, a rating or review would mean everything. It helps Elevate Within reach more women who may need this conversation right now.

📖 GO DEEPER ON SUBSTACK Weekly essays and honest conversations about burnout, grief, reinvention, resilience, healing, and the messy middle.

🔓 Free subscribers — full access to all public content 

🔐 Paid subscribers — bonus essays, early access to upcoming series, behind-the-scenes recordings, and direct community engagement

👉 https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

💼 CONNECT WITH SANDY 

📎 LinkedIn: Sandra Davis 

🌐 Leadership Advisory Services / Fractional Operations Services ElevateOpsAdvisory.com

💼 CONNECT WITH CLAUDIA CUEVAS, LMFT 

🌐 https://claudiacuevas.com/ OR 

https://www.therapyforlatinx.com/united-states/mission-viejo/therapist/claudia-cuevas-146

Connect with Tristen Stawicki

Website and coaching: musingsandmodalities.com

Podcast: Musings and Modalities

How to Reach Sandy

Email Sandy directly at [email protected] to ask a question or book a private Leadership Fit Conversation. A single advisory session is 450 dollars. The four session Leadership Advisory engagement is 1800 dollars. Leadership Advisory provides non-clinical advisory services. This is not therapy, counseling, or mental health treatment, and is not a substitute for licensed clinical care.

Full Episode Description

Sometimes what looks like a time problem is not a time problem. It is a leadership pattern. In this bonus episode of Elevate Within, host Sandy Davis officially introduces Leadership Advisory by Elevate Within, private advisory work for founders and senior leaders who built capable teams and still find every important decision landing back on their desk.

Drawing on more than 25 years in operations and leadership, Sandy explains why this pattern usually forms because a leader was good at leading, not bad at it, and why generic advice like delegate more or set better boundaries rarely sticks on its own. She introduces the Founder Within Framework, a four session process built around Identify, Map, Redesign, and Reinforce, and explains what clients leave with, a personalized Leadership Operating Blueprint built around how they actually make decisions, delegate, and lead.

Sandy is also direct about who this work is for, and who it is not limited to. Leadership Advisory is built for any founder or senior leader carrying more than they should, regardless of gender. Sandy Davis is the founder of Elevate Operations Advisory and the creator and host of Elevate Within.

What You Will Hear in This Episode

Sandy explains why a time problem is so often a leadership pattern in disguise.

She describes the trap of becoming the fixer, the person a team can always count on.

She walks through the Founder Within Framework: Identify, Map, Redesign, and Reinforce.

She explains what a Leadership Operating Blueprint is and why it is built around each client individually.

She defines who Leadership Advisory is for, and clarifies it is not limited to women.

She shares pricing and how to book a Leadership Fit Conversation.

🎙️ ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN Elevate Within is a podcast and community for high achieving women navigating the messy middle, the space between who you were and who you're becoming.

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-davis-abb21236/

Elevate Ops Advisory https://elevateopsadvisory.com/ 

Every Friday, host Sandy Davis and co-host Claudia Cuevas, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, sit down for the Architecture of Reinvention Roundtable to go deeper into the themes from that week's guest conversation.

This week, following Callie Greenberg's episode, Sandy and Claudia unpack one of the most vulnerable conversations in the series, covering a delayed endometriosis diagnosis, infertility, chronic pain dismissed for years by doctors, and a covert narcissistic marriage that mirrored the same gaslighting Callie experienced in medicine. Claudia breaks down the calculated cycle of abuse and love bombing, and why chronic trauma changes brain chemistry in ways that make traditional talk therapy feel impossible for some survivors, and why alternative modalities like somatic work exist alongside it, not instead of it.

Sandy also opens up about her own trauma response live on air, the trembling voice and dry mouth that showed up the first time she spoke publicly about her own childhood, and what it means to be the woman everyone assumes is simply wise, when the truth is she is carrying decades of unprocessed pain underneath the composure.

What You Will Hear in This Episode

The calculated cycle of abuse and love bombing, explained.

How Callie was gaslit by doctors and gaslit at home, at the same time.

Why chronic trauma rewires the brain toward survival mode, and away from talk therapy.

Alternative modalities, including somatic work, ketamine, and psychedelics, and why they work alongside talk therapy, not instead of it.

The neuroscience of a panic attack, and why the brain works so hard to prevent the next one.

Sandy's own trauma response live on the Raw Onion podcast.

How to start the conversation with a therapist when you do not know where to begin.

⭐ If this resonated, please leave a rating or review, it helps reach more women who need this conversation. 

🎙️ ABOUT ELEVATE WITHIN Elevate Within is a podcast and community for high-achieving women navigating the messy middle — the space between who you were and who you're becoming.

🎧 SUBSCRIBE & NEVER MISS AN EPISODE 

🎵 Spotify: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

🍎 Apple Podcasts: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis 

▶️ YouTube: Elevate Within Always 

📻 Amazon Music: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📻 iHeart Radio: Elevate Within with Sandy Davis

📖 Substack: https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

⭐ APPLE PODCAST LISTENERS If this resonated with you, a rating or review would mean everything. It helps Elevate Within reach more women who may need this conversation right now.

📖 GO DEEPER ON SUBSTACK Weekly essays and honest conversations about burnout, grief, reinvention, resilience, healing, and the messy middle.

🔓 Free subscribers — full access to all public content 

🔐 Paid subscribers — bonus essays, early access to upcoming series, behind-the-scenes recordings, and direct community engagement

👉 https://substack.com/@elevatewithin

💼 CONNECT WITH SANDY 

📎 LinkedIn: Sandra Davis 

🌐 Leadership Advisory Services / Fractional Operations Services ElevateOpsAdvisory.com

💼 CONNECT WITH CLAUDIA CUEVAS, LMFT 

🌐 https://claudiacuevas.com/ OR 

https://www.therapyforlatinx.com/united-states/mission-viejo/therapist/claudia-cuevas-146