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When life finally calms down, does your brain immediately ask, “Okay, but what’s about to go wrong?”
In this episode of Life Coaches Unfiltered, Desiree and Michelle dive into hypervigilance and what it feels like.
Living on constant high alert, always waiting for the other shoe to drop and how it shows up for stressed, burned-out women in midlife.
From obsessing over germs after COVID to mentally rehearsing every worst‑case scenario in your business, relationships, and health, they talk about how hypervigilance is often a learned survival response from grief, illness, trauma, caregiving, and years of chronic stress, not a personal flaw.
You’ll hear real stories about how COVID impacted Desiree and her fear of germs, backseat driving with a fear of car accidents, and always choosing the restaurant seat that faces the door.
The coaches unpack the difference between healthy intuition and hypervigilance, why your nervous system may still act as if the emergency is happening long after the crisis is over, and how mirror neurons mean your dysregulated state can spread. The good news? Calm is also contagious.
They also share practical tools to gently work with hypervigilance instead of shaming yourself for it.
In this episode, we talk about:
- What hypervigilance actually is (and why it’s more than “just anxiety”)
- How hypervigilance develops after grief, illness, caregiving, chaotic childhoods, or repeated life disruptions
- Signs you’re living on high alert: can’t relax when it’s quiet, always scanning for danger, exhausted but unable to shut your brain off
- The difference between intuition (calm, grounded, clear) and hypervigilance (urgent, loud, repetitive)
- How hypervigilance strains sleep, health, and relationships—and why partners can feel criticized or micromanaged
- Small, nervous‑system‑friendly practices to start feeling safer in your own body
If you're a midlife woman, who's tired of being "on all the time", sleeping with one eye open (figuratively & literally), this episode is for you.
Desiree, compassionate Grief Mentor & Coach. Helping midlife humans learn and grow from grief & loss.
Book a free Connection call with Desiree
Support the show
***** Connect with the Coaches *****
Michelle Hibbert
Doree O’Neal
Desiree Doucet
Do you have any questions you'd like the coaches to answer? Awesome - we'd love to hear from you! You can submit questions via this form and we'll answer them in a future episode: https://forms.gle/QMPqRrvhvkzezPRn6
Intro & Outro background music provided by: Bliss by Luke Bergs | / bergscloud Creative Commons - Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/
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By Life CoachesSend a text
When life finally calms down, does your brain immediately ask, “Okay, but what’s about to go wrong?”
In this episode of Life Coaches Unfiltered, Desiree and Michelle dive into hypervigilance and what it feels like.
Living on constant high alert, always waiting for the other shoe to drop and how it shows up for stressed, burned-out women in midlife.
From obsessing over germs after COVID to mentally rehearsing every worst‑case scenario in your business, relationships, and health, they talk about how hypervigilance is often a learned survival response from grief, illness, trauma, caregiving, and years of chronic stress, not a personal flaw.
You’ll hear real stories about how COVID impacted Desiree and her fear of germs, backseat driving with a fear of car accidents, and always choosing the restaurant seat that faces the door.
The coaches unpack the difference between healthy intuition and hypervigilance, why your nervous system may still act as if the emergency is happening long after the crisis is over, and how mirror neurons mean your dysregulated state can spread. The good news? Calm is also contagious.
They also share practical tools to gently work with hypervigilance instead of shaming yourself for it.
In this episode, we talk about:
- What hypervigilance actually is (and why it’s more than “just anxiety”)
- How hypervigilance develops after grief, illness, caregiving, chaotic childhoods, or repeated life disruptions
- Signs you’re living on high alert: can’t relax when it’s quiet, always scanning for danger, exhausted but unable to shut your brain off
- The difference between intuition (calm, grounded, clear) and hypervigilance (urgent, loud, repetitive)
- How hypervigilance strains sleep, health, and relationships—and why partners can feel criticized or micromanaged
- Small, nervous‑system‑friendly practices to start feeling safer in your own body
If you're a midlife woman, who's tired of being "on all the time", sleeping with one eye open (figuratively & literally), this episode is for you.
Desiree, compassionate Grief Mentor & Coach. Helping midlife humans learn and grow from grief & loss.
Book a free Connection call with Desiree
Support the show
***** Connect with the Coaches *****
Michelle Hibbert
Doree O’Neal
Desiree Doucet
Do you have any questions you'd like the coaches to answer? Awesome - we'd love to hear from you! You can submit questions via this form and we'll answer them in a future episode: https://forms.gle/QMPqRrvhvkzezPRn6
Intro & Outro background music provided by: Bliss by Luke Bergs | / bergscloud Creative Commons - Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/