Today’s episode was not on the schedule.

It’s not the usual Reclaim style episode with one practical tip for one specific situation.

Or maybe it is?

It’s me, riffing on a theme that goes something like ‘let’s put all the rage and despair and existential angst from the most recent enshittifications firmly back where they belong - on the heads of those who are pushing hard for the repression of women'.

I mention that I’m taking some action, but I haven’t shared the explicit HOW of that action, because it’s an experiment and not yet ripe or ready for teaching. That’s likely to happen in June, so stay tuned.

In the meantime if you’re looking for something practical, do check out past episodes.

And if you’re curious about the Courage & Trust article I wrote a few weeks ago, you’ll find it here:

Back on script in two weeks’ time - see you then!

______________________

Thanks for reading Wreaking More Joy! If you know a woman who’s not feeling sovereign and powerful right now, please consider sharing this with her.

Wreaking More Joy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Hello, and welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Reclaim, we’re digging into the nuts and bolts, the practical solutions, as we continue exploring how women can disrupt outdated BS in our heads and rekindle the romance with our purpose, especially in our working lives.

Last week we talked about cui bono, the question of who benefits from any given rule rattling around in your head.

Today I want to zoom in on one specific word that the brain weasels absolutely love to use when seeking to impose an old rule, because it is one of their most effective tools. And then I’m going to give you the simplest possible antidote.

It’s the word ‘should’.

I’ll use my own example here, because it’s one I find a bit embarrassing, which is usually a sign it’s worth sharing.

I love the people on my email list. I genuinely do. They are curious, thoughtful, purpose-driven women who have chosen to invite me into their inbox, and that is not something I take lightly. Staying connected with them matters to me. It’s something I actively want to do.

So you would think that writing an email to my list would feel enjoyable. Natural. Easy. Letter to a friend easy.

BUT - because my email list is also part of my working life, the brain weasels regularly show up with “Janette, you should write an email to my list”.

And as soon as that happens, the whole thing immediately takes on the energy of duty and obligation. Letter to a friend becomes homework. It becomes imbued with a particular kind of flatness, that mild resistance, that sense of ‘ugh, I’ll get to it’.

Which makes absolutely no sense, given how much I genuinely want to do it.

And that right there is the tell.

When ‘should’ shows up, it doesn’t matter how much you actually want the thing. It flattens everything. It turns desire into obligation. It takes something alive and makes it feel like a chore as dull as tax prep

Here’s what ‘should’ actually does in your brain.

It creates an internal boss - not a kind one or a fair one, but the mean kind we talked about in an earlier episode.

It’s a curt, dictatorial presence that has decided in advance what the appropriate standard is; and usually its voice is rich with a snarky, implied sense of ‘not good enough yet’.

It doesn’t ask what you want. It doesn’t ask what’s realistic. It doesn’t ask what you need in order to actually do the thing well. It just issues the directive and stands there, arms folded, judging.

‘Should’ shows up in every area of life, but it has a particularly strident presence in our relationship with our work.

* I should get that email out

* I should call that client

* I should have set up that pension fund

* I should be doing more marketing

* I should have figured this out by now (double ouch)

Notice the energy of that list. Notice how it lands in your body. That heaviness, the sense of being a little (or a lot) behind, of failing a standard, of not quite measuring up.

It’s not inspiring and it’s not helpful self-reflection.

’Should’ is the brain weasels, running a very effective programme of control, and you deserve better than that.

You might be tempted at this point to go looking for the deeper cause. To ask: why do I resist this thing? What unresolved issue is at play here? Is there some old pattern I need to excavate and examine?

Last episode we talked about the more efficient shortcut; when you notice a rule in your head, ask ‘cui bono’ - who benefits? And if it’s not you, disrupt the rule.

This week, there’s an even more efficient shortcut which can unlock ‘should’ around any topic at all.

Replace it with ‘could’.

That’s it. One word. A single swap.

And the same goes for ‘ought to’ and ‘need to’, because they’re the same thing in different shoes. Swap those too.

For example: ‘I should write an email to my list’ becomes ‘I could write an email to my list’.

And suddenly, a whole set of possibilities opens up.

I could write it today, at the good coffee shop, where I know I do my best thinking

I could dictate a rough draft into my phone on a walk and clean it up later

I could write a shorter one than usual, because my 80% is more than good enough

I could decide that this week, it’s simply not the priority, and come back to it next week without self-punishment

I could do it because I genuinely want to stay connected with these people I love

I could write a letter to my friends

Feel the difference? The energy lifts. Different options appear. The internal boss uncrosses her arms.

‘Should’ is a closed door. It tells you that you are failing some weird pre-existing standard you didn’t set and weren’t consulted on.

‘Could’ is an open door. It tells you that you have actual choices.

Could means: you could do it the easy way, the imperfect way, the way that actually suits how you work

Could means: you could delegate it, barter for help, ask someone a favour

Could means: you could decide it genuinely isn’t a priority right now, and put it down without guilt

Could means: you could choose to reframe it and change how you feel about it, so the drudgery becomes fun.

Do it. Delegate it. Ditch it. Dance with it.

‘Could’ means it is always, always your choice.

Obligation, out. Pressure, farewell. Your sovereignty, back where it belongs.

I said this was simple, and it is. That’s not the same as easy.

Our brains are absolutely marinated in ‘should’.

It is everywhere: in advertising, in the news, in social media, in the voices of people who love us and are just passing on what was passed to them. So the rewiring takes practice, patience, and a great deal of self-compassion.

Here is how to start.

Start noticing the ‘shoulds’ in your head.

You don’t have to change or fix anything immediately. That act of noticing alone starts to create a tiny gap between you and the word. And in that gap is where your power lives.

Play with the swap. Idly speculate on what it would feel like to swap ‘should’ with ‘could’. Sit with the ‘could’ version and see how it feels: exciting? weird? confusing because you don’t know what comes next? scary because it’s new?

There’s no right or wrong response, and you do get to keep the ‘should’ if you need to. You’re just playing and stretching a little.

Some ‘shoulds’ will cave almost immediately, creating an instant feeling of liberation.

Others have been there a long time and will take more patience. Be gentle with yourself either way.

And if the brain weasels pipe up and tell you that you’re just making excuses, that the standard exists for a reason, this is self-indulgent - remember last week we talked about cui bono.

Run that question again. Who benefits from you staying devoted to this particular ‘should’? Is it you? Community? The system?

Not all ‘shoulds’ are the enemy.

‘I should pay my tax on time’ is actually a good friend, even if it does seem annoying. So is ‘I should stop at this red light’.

The ‘shoulds’ worth examining are the ones that leave you feeling smaller, behind, or not quite enough.

If you’d like a journal prompt alongside this: write down three shoulds that are currently living in your head about your work. Swap each one to ‘could’. Then write down what becomes possible when you use the ‘could’ version. Notice what changes.

And if you find that the ‘shoulds’ are very loud and very resistant, and the swap isn’t quite enough on its own, that’s not a sign you’re broken.

It might be a sign there’s something more specific underneath that’s worth looking at. That’s exactly the kind of thing I love to explore together in the safe space of a coaching container - you can find out more at janettedalgliesh.com/rekindle-coaching.

Next week, we are talking about invisible work, and specifically why praising women for doing it quietly and without asking for credit is not actually a compliment, it is celebrating self-erasure. And it is time we talked about it.

Until then, take care of yourself, shiny one, and go wreak some joy.

Hello, and welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Reclaim, we’re digging into the nuts and bolts, the practical solutions, as we continue exploring how women can disrupt outdated BS in our heads and rekindle the romance with our purpose, especially in our working lives.

Today I want to start with a client story, told with permission. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, which very much includes my client.

We’d been working together for a few weeks when she came to a session in a really distressed state. She’d had a bad day, and when she told me what had happened, I could see why.

She’d been at the park with her family. At one point she’d asked her husband to watch their two small kids while she went to get ice-creams. No big deal.

She came back to find her little ones on the big kids’ climbing frame, way up in the air, the one they were definitely not allowed on. And her husband was looking at his phone.

She lost her shit. Yelled at him, yelled at the kids, the whole nine yards.

By the time we spoke, she’d sorted things out with the family.

Turned out the phone had been an urgent text from her husband’s workplace, not doomscrolling or gaming. It was an error of judgement, for sure, but he’d been momentarily distracted, not checked out.

The kids were fine, everyone was safe, but she was still visibly upset.

When we dug deeper, she said: “I’m just so mad at myself; I should have been able to regulate my emotions better.”

Oh, honey.

No.

Of course it’s hard when you’re doing your best to practise gentle parenting and non-violent communication.

But we are all, also, human animals with a nervous system capable of hijacking every internal resource when danger seems immediate and potentially lethal.

That reaction, the yelling, the fear, the fury, was a perfectly reasonable response to the situation.

Her kids, potentially in danger. Her partner, apparently oblivious. Her nervous system did exactly what an animal’s nervous system is supposed to do when it perceives a threat to its offspring.

The thing that brought her to tears wasn’t the incident. It was the feeling that she’d broken a rule. Done something wrong. That her strong emotional response was the problem.

And I want to use that story to introduce you to one of the most powerful questions I know.

It comes from the Latin: cui bono?

Who benefits?

It’s a question prosecutors use, and historians, and authors of detective fiction, and anyone who wants to understand why a particular rule or system exists. You follow the benefit, and it tells you a great deal about who made the rule, and why.

It can be tempting to ask ‘who taught me this?’ but honestly, that’s not always the most efficient answer, because it leads to an almost endless series of ‘and who taught THEM?’ questions.

Cui bono cuts to the chase.

So let’s apply it here.

The rule my client was applying to herself: strong emotional responses are a failure of self-control, especially in women.

Cui bono? Who benefits from women believing that?

Not my client. Not her kids. Not even her husband, who was so startled by her reaction in that moment, you can guarantee he’ll do things differently next time.

The one who benefits from women keeping their anger locked in a dungeon is the system that is frightened of women’s anger.

Women’s anger, when it’s given appropriate expression, is data, a warning a signal.

It is fuel, the spark with the power to disrupt the status quo.

And there are systems, and people within those systems, who have a vested interest in keeping that power suppressed.

In this situation, who benefits from the rule “women must not get angry” is the status quo.

Not her. The system.

Now, I want to be clear about something, because this is not a call to throw out every rule you’ve ever been given.

When you ask “cui bono?”, the answer is ultimately almost always ‘the system’ when you go deep enough.

And that doesn’t always mean every rule is a bad thing.

There are three kinds of answers you’ll find when you ask cui bono.

The first: sometimes the rule benefits you directly. “Stop at a red light” is a rule, and when you follow it, you are absolutely one of the beneficiaries. So are your passengers, and all the other drivers and pedestrians around you. So is the system. Everyone’s safety matters. Keep that rule.

The second: sometimes the rule doesn’t benefit you personally, but it benefits your community, and you’re glad of that. I pay tax, and I do it gladly, because I like living in a society that funds schools and aged care centres and healthcare and libraries and roads I may never drive down. The benefit isn’t mine alone, but I’m choosing to participate with my eyes open. I don’t just tolerate it, I celebrate it. When the answer to cui bono? is ‘community’ it’s nuanced and worth pondering.

The third, and the one we’re focused on today: sometimes the rule harms you, and the primary beneficiary is a system that has an interest in keeping you controlled, compliant, and quiet. The “rule” that women must never be too loud, too angry, too ambitious, too much; the “rule” that you should be grateful for what you have and not ask for more; the “rule” that your needs come last.

Those are the ones that deserve some disruption and a little wiggle room.

The tool for looking at them is the same in every case: cui bono? Who actually benefits from me following this rule?

And is that a benefit I want to continue contributing to?

Here’s the thing about asking this question: it doesn’t automatically tell you what to do. It gives you information. And what you do with that information is your choice.

That is the whole point.

You are not a victim of the rules that were handed to you. You are also not obliged to comply with all of them for the rest of your life, simply because someone, somewhere, decided they were correct.

You are a sovereign human being, with the capacity to look at any rule, ask who benefits, and make a genuinely informed choice about how you respond.

My client didn’t need to try and suppress her emotions; nor did she need to condemn herself for them. She just needed to step back from the rule and see clearly who benefited from her belief that her anger was the problem.

And that opened up a completely different set of questions to work with: what did she actually need from her husband going forward? What could they work on together so she felt she could trust him in the future? What did the kids need, to understand about safety? What did she herself need that might be useful next time, for handling the aftermath of a scary moment?

Real questions. Useful questions. Questions with answers that actually served her.

That’s what happens when you ask cui bono and let the answer inform your choices, rather than simply absorbing the rule and turning it inward as self-criticism.

So here is your practice for this week. It’s a simple one, but don’t underestimate it.

When you notice yourself feeling that particular flavour of self-criticism, the one that sounds like “I should have…” or “a person like me ought to be able to…” or “what is wrong with me, why can’t I just…”, pause.

And ask: cui bono? Who actually benefits from me believing this about myself?

If the honest answer is “I do”, great. Keep the standard, and keep your eyes open.

If the honest answer is “my community does, and I’m okay with that”, also fine. That’s a choice made in full awareness.

But if the honest answer is “the system does, and I don’t”, then you have just spotted a brain weasel working on behalf of something that is not your friend. And you can start to make a different choice.

You don’t have to dismantle it all at once. Just look at it. Name it. Ask the question. That act alone starts to loosen the grip.

And if you’d like a journal prompt alongside this: think of one rule about how you ‘should’ behave in your working life, one that makes you feel a bit small or a bit wrong when you think about it.

Ask: cui bono? Who benefits, really?

You don’t have to do anything with the answer yet; just let yourself see it clearly.

If you’re finding that some of these rules feel very stubborn and very deeply installed, please know that’s not a sign you’re broken. It’s a sign the grooming went deep. Looking at it honestly is a genuinely brave thing to do. Take it gently, and bring a lot of self-compassion to the process.

Next week, we’re staying with this territory, because there’s one specific word that the brain weasels absolutely love to deploy, and once you know how to spot it, you’ll see it everywhere. And I’ve got a delightfully simple tool for defusing it.

Until then, take care of yourself, gorgeous one, and go wreak some joy.

Hello, and welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Reclaim, we’re digging into the nuts and bolts, the practical solutions, as we continue exploring how women can rekindle the romance with our purpose, our joy, and our personal power — especially in our working lives.

Today I want to tell you about the worst professional decision I ever made.

Many years ago, I was invited to join a project. I was in a room with the boss of the project, a very fancy investment guru and my life partner. All men, all looking at me with that particular brand of expectant energy that says “this is obviously a yes.”

And I knew in the very pit of my stomach, instantly, clearly, unmistakably, that it was not a yes.

My gut said NO. And I know you know what’s coming.

I said yes anyway.

I didn’t pause, I didn’t ask for time to think. I sat there with a NO shrieking from my belly, and performed the yes that the room required of me because after all: who am I to say no to something everybody else definitely wants?

That decision cost me three years of toxic professional relationships, chronic stress, and eventually a lawsuit (we came out the other side okay, but only just). And the whole time, I knew that I had ignored something important in that room: my own gut.

And I bet good money you knew how this story was going to end.

We’ve all either done it, or witnessed it, over and over again. It was people-pleasing in its most consequential and damaging form.

This was the kind that overrides your instincts so thoroughly, and so fast, that when you look back, it can feel like you said yes before you’ve even registered the no option.

People-pleasing is not a minor inconvenience. It is not an endearing quirk. It can lead to real, long-term harm to your health, your relationships, your work, and your sense of who you are.

And you know what else I’m going to say: people-pleasing is not a character flaw. It is not a personality type. It is not something you were born with - yes, even those of us born under a Libra Sun, the ones who are constantly told in every astrology magazine column that we are indecisive people pleasers. I have a whole ‘nother article on that, so if you’re Libran and you keep hearing that, you’ll want to go read it.

People pleasing is learned. Of course it is.

And it doesn’t usually start with the big, consequential stuff. It starts with the everyday, mild, socially-lubricating stuff, the “I’ll let you choose the restaurant” kind. That stuff seems relatively harmless (unless they know you’re wildly allergic and they insist on a lobster dinner) but it’s all part of the overarching framework, taken from the People-Pleasing groomers’ basic handbook.

Because people-pleasing is not an innate trait; it is grooming us to fit into a system where we exist largely for the convenience and entertainment of others (usually men).

Research shows clearly that in many ways, including in early childhood education, little boys are trained to notice their own needs and take action to have them filled, while little girls are taught to notice the needs of those around them, and to help them meet those needs.

It’s not always conscious on the part of the adults doing the teaching, but it’s real and measurable and observable.

We are praised for being thoughtful, considerate, accommodating, easy to get along with.

Boy are praised for being strong, tough, independent, bold, determined.

None of this is coming as a surprise, right?

But I’m using language which might seem provocative or extreme. But I don’t think it’s extreme to say that we are groomed: groomed to read the room without even realising we’re doing it, to sense when someone is uncomfortable and smooth it over, to anticipate what’s expected and deliver it, without being asked.

And the grooming gets reinforced at home, at school, in the workplace, in every system we move through. You’ll see it in every TV sitcom, in every Hollywood movie. You’ll read it in many bestselling novels where romance is at the core.

I don’t even really have to explain this to you.

You’ve probably even been the little girl who spoke her mind and got called bossy or difficult or cold, or selfish, or just plain “too much”. I know I was, until I learned my lesson and learned to shut up.

The rewards of approval, warmth and belonging go to the ones who adapt. And our brilliant human brains, those incredible safety-seeking organs, take note.

“Being agreeable is how I stay safe and connected. Accommodating others is how I belong. My needs can wait.”

And the brain weasels, those bitey little critters lurking in our heads, carrying all the voices of all the systems of oppression; they become expert at the art of the pre-emptive yes.

Before anyone even applies pressure, they’re already scanning the room for what’s expected, and moving your mouth accordingly.

That’s what happened to me in that room. My brain weasels had had decades of practice. They didn’t even need to consult me before blurting out a yes, and then holding me down until it was ‘too late to back out’.

The system LOVES it when my brain weasels trick me into complying.

After all, a woman who is perpetually monitoring the needs of others and suppressing her own is incredibly easy to exploit. She doesn’t ask for the pay rise, she doesn’t push back on the unreasonable request, she takes on more and more in an effort to keep the peace.

And if she wants things to change, she is told she ought to ‘lean in’, to become more aggressive, to become more predatory: to become those things that little boys are groomed for, even when her heart knows that’s not the answer either.

The system doesn’t need to do much reinforcing any more, because her own brain weasels are doing the work for free.

At this stage it would be easy to see ourselves as victims, but we are survivors and there is good news.

You didn’t create these brain weasel shenanigans, the unconscious grooming installed in your skull.

But they’re not innate, not inborn. They didn’t arrive with you on the planet - they were acquired in the process of growing up; they were learned. And they can be unlearned.

Here’s the good news.

Because it was learned, it can be unlearned; it can be brought to conscious awareness and reshaped so you are making choices from a place of autonomy and sovereignty, in your relationship to your working life and beyond.

You don’t have to amputate your capacity for attunement. Your ability to read a room, your sensitivity to others, your emotional and relational intelligence are all genuinely extraordinary qualities.

They are part of your genius and we’re not here to cut those out.

We just need to rebalance the original training and establish the habit of noticing your own signals first, and giving them priority that is at the very least equal to the priority we give the needs of those around us.

Those people might be our customers, our colleagues, our clients, our loved ones. We need to re-establish that gift we had in infanthood, the gift of knowing what we want and giving voice to it without fear.

That gut NO I felt back in that room was not a failure of instinct.

My instinct was working perfectly. What was missing was the habit of giving myself space, time and permission, to let that instinct count for something before I opened my mouth.

Making that shift isn’t an overnight thing, but it starts with something really simple that I’m calling the Body Vote.

It works like this. I would love for you to try it out.

The next time someone asks something of you, whether it’s a request, an invitation, a project, a favour; before you respond, take one single, gentle breath. Just one. And in that breath, drop your attention briefly into your body. Your gut, your chest, your throat.

You don’t have to do anything here except simply notice: is there a YES here? Does something in me soften, or lean forward?

Or is there a NO? A tightening, a sinking, a subtle bracing?

You don’t have to act on it immediately. I’m a great believer in the absence of rush in order to have things move faster (yes, I know it sounds weird but it works - think about the last time your car was stuck in mud and you knew to accelerate very gently to get traction so you could get out).

Depending on your relationship with the patterns of people-pleasing, you can start with this most gentle part: simply practising noticing. Get acquainted with the signal that’s been there all along, that you may have been trained to skip right past. Let it get louder every time you notice it. Bask in the realisation that actually, your signals have always been there, and now you’re taking action to boost them.

When it feels right (maybe the next day, maybe in a week’s time, maybe that first moment), when you’ve started to build that awareness, add in one powerful phrase “I’ll need to check on that and I’ll get back to you in 24 hours.”

Not “I’m not sure”, not an apology, not an excuse, not even “I need to think about it”.

I need to check on that and I’ll get back to you in 24 hours.

Unless you’re working in the ER, or you do instant-turnaround services of some kind, a 24 hour window is a reasonable timeframe. 24 hours is specific enough that it gives you plenty of time, and it also tells them there is a clear expectation of what’s reasonable.

You don’t have to explain who you’ll be checking with, or what you’ll be checking. Could be your calendar, your financial advisor, your toddler. It’s really your own Self you’re checking with, but the person making the ask doesn’t need to know that. You do not owe an explanation.

Just “I’ll need to check on that and get back to you”. Calm, clear, reasonable.

That phrase gives you time for your body’s vote to get solid before the people-pleasing brain weasels try to cast the deciding ballot.

This is not about always saying no and never saying yes. You’re not going to become an overnight a-hole.

This is about restoring that sense of ‘hey, I get to decide my answer based on what I actually want’.

Your response is always going to be somewhat context oriented, obviously.

When my husband texts to say ‘hey, want to go to the Greek place after work tonight?’ I don’t ask for a 24 hour turnaround. I say yes, because a) the food’s awesome and b) I don’t have to cook and c) I like spending time with him.

No brainer.

But I’m an introvert and I don’t do well on unplanned social engagements at short notice, so if a distant acquaintance or a former colleague from my old day job does the same, I’m asking for the turnaround. I need the space to set parameters of when, where and what. Coffee? Sure. Clubbing? Nope.

You’ll probably still have moments when you say yes, when your gut says no.

I still do it sometimes, though far less than I used to.

The key here is to celebrate full-out when you claim your preferred position on something, and be gentle with yourself when it feels like the people-pleasing won out.

You’re retraining something that runs very, very deep.

You are choosing to show up for yourself the way you’ve spent a lifetime showing up for everyone else, and that’s unfamiliar territory.

There’s one more thing.

We know that the brain and nervous system can interpret ‘unfamiliar’ as ‘wrong’ or even ‘dangerous’, so you’ll also need lots of self-compassion to go into the mix.

And if your ‘no’ is going to make things literally unsafe for you, I hope you will move slowly and reach out for support in whatever way is available to you.

If this is landing somewhere deep for you, if you’re recognising a pattern that feels bigger than “I just need to do a bit of rewiring to silence the brain weasels”, this is exactly the kind of thing I love to explore.

I’d love for you to subscribe to my Substack if you’re not already, and if you’d like to grab one of my free resources to take a deeper dive, come check out my freebies page - https://www.janettedalgliesh.com/free-stuff

Next week, we’re looking at what I think is one of the most useful questions you can ask when you think a brain weasel might be at play and you’re not sure. It’s short, it’s deceptively simple, and once you have it, you’ll use it everywhere.

Until then, take good care of yourself, shiny one, and let’s go wreak some joy.

The Perfectionism Trap

Tagline: your impossible standards are a survival strategy, not a personality flaw

Hello, and welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Reclaim, we’re digging into the nuts and bolts, the practical solutions, as we continue exploring how women can rekindle the romance with our purpose, our joy, and our personal power — especially in our working lives and especially in a chaotic world that can feel so unsafe.

In today’s episode I want to talk about perfectionism; that old familiar trope that makes us all roll our eyes at the familiarity and the frustration of it. I’m going to share a story, and I bet you can relate with at least some of it.

Over a decade ago, I was invited to give a keynote presentation for a small but pretty high-level businesswomen’s networking group in Melbourne.

It felt like a Major Opportunity, capital M capital O, so you can probably already imagine the energy I brought to preparing for it.

Impeccable notes, inspired handouts, and a slideshow that was a work of art - no ‘death by powerpoint’ on my watch, thank you very much.

I caught the train down from my home in the country, and being a dedicated perfectionist, I used every minute of that train trip to work on my laptop: polishing things, tweaking things, making everything just a little bit better.

I arrived at the venue early, because that’s what prepared, professional people do, and I walked in to discover that the entire audio-visual setup had fallen over.

Not just the AV; the power supply for the whole venue.

No microphone, no way to project my beautifully crafted, video-enhanced slideshow.

And, of course, no notes on my laptop because I had completely flattened the battery doing all that polishing on the train.

They didn’t even have lighting, so the entire event had to move outside to a space where at least the venue could provide some hastily catered-in snacks with coffee, and the basic necessities of life.

In this far more informal setting, less TED talk and more “Saturday afternoon at the pub”, I stood up in front of this group of professional, accomplished businesswomen and just spoke off the cuff.

Because here’s the thing: I do actually know my stuff, just like I bet you do too. 

Thanks to a twenty year career as a professional performer, I’ve had plenty of practice at being thrown in the deep end and thinking on my feet; so that’s what I did.

It was looser and more conversational than I’d planned. It wasn’t what I had prepared. I forgot some essential parts, and got drawn into rabbit holes I didn’t plan on.

And they loved it all.

The feedback was warm, the conversations afterwards were rich, and more than one person told me it was one of the best sessions the group had hosted.

All of that work, all of that preparation, all those hours on the train making it more perfect, and the version that actually landed was me at 80 percent: unprepared, battery-flat, notes-free, bits missing, extemporising from my heart.

That day I learned two important things:

One: my 80% is more than enough, and sometimes it’s even better that my ‘best’.

Two: sometimes perfectionism will literally kill your battery and sabotage your stuff.

These days I do travel with a power pack and a laptop with significantly more battery life, because I do not love that much of the unexpected!

But that lesson stayed with me.

And I want to explore a story about perfectionism that we’ve been sold, that may not be true.

Perfectionism is not a character flaw, or a form of self-sabotage, or a sign that you’re doing it wrong or you’re broken.

It’s a well-designed survival strategy.

It emerged in the moments where your nervous system learned that mistakes could be used as evidence against you.

For a lot of women, that isn’t a metaphorical moment; it is literal. 

We’ve all entered workplaces, professions, industries, and systems where one error could be cited as proof that the doubters were right, that maybe people like us shouldn’t be here after all.

The brain weasels — those delightful little creatures I talked about in Season 1 — are designed to scan for threat. 

And in environments where being less-than-perfect carries a real, measurable cost, the brain weasel logic is pretty sound: if I make this perfect, I cannot be criticised. If I cannot be criticised, I cannot be dismissed. 

Perfectionism becomes the price of the ticket to get into and STAY in the system.

And of course, the threat from which your nervous system was originally protecting you has most likely changed. You might be in a much safer environment now. You might be working for yourself, or with people who genuinely support you, or in a context where mistakes are actually fine and no one is keeping score.

But the perfectionism brain weasels don’t know that. 

They’re still in the old environment, still scanning for danger, still insisting that 95% isn’t enough. That you need to stay on that train, working on the laptop, making it better, even as the battery ticks toward zero.

And brain weasels are sneaky lil’ critters.

They’ll disguise perfectionism to look like being conscientious, or having high standards, or even “professionalism”. 

Nobody ever taps you on the shoulder and says ‘hey, that survival strategy is hurting you and you could have half-arsed this and it would have been fine.’ 

They’re more likely to say ‘wow, you’re so thorough’, while the perfectionism brain weasels bask in the sunshine of approval.

So it persists. 

And it costs you, not just in hours and exhaustion (though it costs you those too), but in joy. 

Yes, we have joy in doing a good job. Yes, there is such a thing as the joy of excellence. 

But there is very little joy available in an ongoing, endless pursuit of being good enough to be safe, because the goalpost of ‘safe’ keeps moving.

When is it perfect enough? Never.

When can I relax? Not yet.

What do we actually do about this?

I want to invite you to something I call the ‘Close Enough for Jazz’ practice. 

Step 1

Choose one piece of work you have been sitting on for a while. It could be something you’ve been over-working, over-polishing, or just not sending because it’s not quite right yet. Or it could be something you’re halfway through making, and you have a vision for the perfect version of it that seems a really long way off. 

Ask yourself, honestly: at what percentage point does this become useful to the person I’m making it for?

Not perfect or flawless, or polished within an inch of its life. Not the version you would produce if you had infinite time, infinite capacity and no other calls on your attention. 

Just actually, functionally useful. 

What percentage does it need to be at, for the person receiving it to get real value from it?

Step 2

Ship it at that percentage.

Step 3

This is the important bit: notice what actually happened and write that down.

Did the world end? Did you lose the client? Did someone send you a strongly worded email about the one thing you hadn’t quite finished?

Mostly, the answer is no. Mostly, what happens is what happened to me in that outside space with the snacks and the flat laptop: it lands just fine. Sometimes it even lands better.

Write that outcome down, because that outcome is evidence and evidence is what builds genuine self-trust over time, which is a thing we are going to talk about more, this season.

And if you’d like a journal prompt to play with, here it is: when did I first learn that my mistakes could be used against me? What was the context? What would it mean if I could go back with everything I’ve learned since then, all my maturity and skill and my confidence, and tell that girl that her 80% is more than enough?

I do love to provide excellence; that hasn’t changed.

And also: my 80% is pretty darn good.

I bet yours is too.

Meanwhile - if you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to take a deeper dive into wreaking more joy in your working life, come visit my website at www.janettedalgliesh.com

That’s it for Episode 2 of Season 2. Next week we’re talking about people-pleasing and why it, too, is not a character flaw but the result of some gnarly grooming we’ve all been exposed to.

Until then, take care of yourself, remember to charge your laptop, and go wreak some joy.

Hello, and welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Reclaim, we’re digging into the nuts and bolts, the practical solutions, as we continue exploring how women can rekindle the romance with our purpose, our joy, and our personal power — especially in our working lives.

Today, we are talking about the worst boss most of us have ever had: the one who lives rent-free inside our own skulls.

I don’t know if you can relate, but a few years ago, I was doing one of my regular reviews. 

You know the kind of thing: assessing goals, evaluating progress, looking at what worked and what didn’t. 

I was doing my best to view it all as data, since that’s what my business coach advised, and at the surface of my brain, I could do that. 

But writhing and wriggling underneath, there was a chorus of brain weasel voices, building in volume, saying things that ranged from passive-aggressive through to downright mean.

Things like: Didn't follow through on that thing AGAIN. Took too long on the other thing. Should have started that project earlier. Stupid mistakes. Why didn’t you do it THIS way? How could you possibly miss THAT bit? If only you were braver / smarter / more reliable. I can’t trust to you get anything right. 

And finally, a crescendo into the full chorus screaming NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

It read like my old school reports. “Janette could do better if she applied herself more diligently”.

But it sounded like voices with THAT tone. You know the one: mean, mocking, denigrating, dismissive.

And here’s the thing that probably won’t surprise you. I nodded along, mentally, and girded my loins to jump back into the fray.  Yep, fair enough, noted, I’ll be sure to try harder this time.

Ugh.

If you can relate, let me ask you something, and I want you to notice what happens in your body when I ask it.

If you worked for an actual boss who spoke to you the way your own brain speaks to you on a bad day, would you want to keep working for her? Or would you want to tell her to shove her projects where the sun don’t shine?

On that occasion, it took me a full two days and a conversation with a colleague, to come to my senses and realize that holy cow, I needed to talk to my union organiser.

I don’t have an ACTUAL union organiser, because tiny business owners don’t. 

But back in the day, I used to BE a union rep and organiser. For over a decade, I literally sat across the table from employers who spoke to their hardworking, loyal staff, in exactly that tone, and I told them NO. 

I know exactly how damaging it is, and I’ve been the one to intercede and make a stand against that kind of bullying.

But from myself? I'd been accepting that mean CEO in my head without question, for years.

And the really cringey part, the part I don't love admitting, is that the language was specific. 

It had all the hallmarks of every toxic boss I'd ever encountered. The contemptuous tone. The focus on what wasn't done. The baseline assumption that the standard was obvious and reasonable, even though nobody had ever actually told me what the standard was.

Sound familiar?

I’m so sorry if that’s been true for you, but there is good news.

These mean internal voices, the bad boss brain weasels, come from a learned management style. They are not a personality trait that needs fixing, and you are not broken.

This is not you 'being a perfectionist', and it’s not a flaw to fix (and by the way, next week I’ll be exploring the perfectionism trap, and I think you’re gonna like it).

This is a learned adaptation to conditional environments. It is your brain trying to keep you safe by helping you to comply in advance.

“If I can correct Janette now, then she’s less likely to get into actual trouble in the future, so I better keep her in line”.

The language itself is your brain recycling the language to which it has been exposed, again and again and again.

If you’re like most people, it’s been rare to have a boss who operates from true compassion, inclusivity, kindness and a sense of collaboration.

And of course, it goes way back beyond your bosses.

It’s your schoolteachers and the education system itself: everything measured against an increasingly difficult standard, often set by those whose focus is ‘how productive is this human?’ rather than ‘how can I support this human to be more fully rounded, a better critical thinker, more creative and more in tune with her own genius?’

It’s often familial and ancestral: your immediate family reiterating what they learned from their parents, and so on down through the generations.

It’s cultural and institutional, woven into all the systems around us which use criticism and shame as the go-to methods to control and to create so-called ‘improvement’. There are very few human brains which respond positively to the weight of being pushed in this way (they do exist, but they’re rare!)

Your brain witnessed all those systems at play, it saw that environment, it assessed the rules, and it started applying them internally — before anyone else could.

You internalised the mean boss, so you could beat them to the punch. And your brain thought it was doing you a favour, bless its little cotton socks.

And the system loves it when you do that!

A woman who’s constantly monitoring her own performance and finding herself lacking is easy to exploit and control.

She doesn't ask for the pay rise, she doesn't set the boundary, she takes on more and more in an effort to prove herself.

The system doesn't need to send you regular memos. Every time your brain does this crap, it is being an efficient internal supervisor, following the rules of the system to keep you in check, to keep you ‘well-behaved’.

Those brain weasels are doing a grand job, on behalf of the system, and that’s a shitty realisation.

BUT we know how this works.

You are not the victim here. When we can name the monster, we can tame it.

When you remember that it’s all learned, you can question the voices.

Are these so-called ‘standards’ useful? Is this self-judgement serving me, really? Is the meanness helping me be more creative, better at problem solving, more agile in my thinking? 

I know the brain weasels might have good intentions, but are they even remotely helpful?

I’m gonna be honest: the answer is almost always ‘hell no!’

And the good news is, you don’t have to let the brain weasels and their sneaky, bitey teeth keep doing this BS.

They’ve been there a long time, so they’re unlikely to go silent tomorrow.

But when the chorus starts up, you have a choice.

You can watch them running around screeching. Then you can invite them to take a seat at the back of the bus, and remind them that YOU are in the driver’s seat.

Here’s a fun exercise that can make this process easier.

(I say ‘fun’, but the first part MIGHT be a bit uncomfortable, so you should probably bring a delicious beverage and maybe a snack)

Step 1: Write a performance review of yourself and your work over the past (say) month, using the ‘voice’ of the nastiest, stupidest, most incompetent and arrogant boss or schoolteacher you’ve ever had. Keep it brief, no more than one paragraph. Focus on all the things you didn’t get to, the things that ‘went wrong’, the missteps, the mistakes, the shortcomings.. It may bring tears to your eyes; but also, it will most likely start sounding utterly ridiculous as you haul it into the sunshine. And don’t fret, we’re not staying here - the aim is simply to do a snapshot of this meanness and drag it out into light of day so we can see just how absurd it is. 

Step 2: You guessed it. Same period, same you, same shortcomings; but this time, write it as the most compassionate, fair-minded boss or teacher you can imagine. Maybe it’s someone you actually worked with once, someone whose kindness always seemed kind of absurd (she’s way too lenient!). Maybe it’s someone you heard of from a friend, the boss you envied for years because they were so patient. Imagine the boss who absolutely KNOWS that you were doing your best, and that the so-called ‘shortcomings’ were evidence that you’re a human juggling multiple moving parts, trying new things, still learning stuff. Imagine the boss who embraces your messy, flawed humanity because she knows that’s how you get better at doing your stuff, and because she rejects the toxicity of the systems around you both.

Step 3: Reread both versions and notice how you feel. Notice the gap between them. That gap is the distance between how the system trained you to see yourself, and how you could actually choose to be. It’s the distance between misery and the potential for joy. Not because that second ‘boss’ doesn’t care about your excellence, but because she knows that being mean is going to stifle your excellence. She knows that compassion for you is actually the best motivator. And she wants your excellence and your joy.

Step 4: Take a deep breath and imagine that your inner boss is open to embracing change. Imagine that your inner CEO is open to possibly becoming more like a boss who feels supportive, a boss who believes in you, a boss who has your back. 

I’d love to know how this exercise landed for you: share in the comments (and if you need help, ask - we can brainstorm together)

I want to leave you with one thought.

The fact that you have a harsh internal boss does not mean you are harsh. It does not mean you lack self-awareness or self-compassion or the ability to change.

It means you were smart enough to survive the environments you were in. You adapted, brilliantly, because you have a genius human brain and they are incredibly skilled at this kind of work.

It just means that now, you're in a different environment, an environment where you get to choose the management style.

If the two-version review lands for you, go do it. Come back and tell me what you notice in the comments.

And if this is connecting to something bigger, if you're sitting here going yes, but I've been carrying this for a while, and I think I need more than a journal prompt, then that's exactly what a Strategic StarMap Session with me is for.

It's a 90-minute one-to-one, where we look at your star chart, your actual inborn gifts, and the specific ways the system has been getting in your way; and we build a practical, strategic plan for what comes next.

Thanks for being here. I'll see you next week.

Meanwhile, go wreak some joy!

All the details and an invitation to Season 2, Reclaim.

Where Rekindle was a 'set the scene' kind of introduction to concepts and ideas, Reclaim will be a more nuts and bolts exploration of the specific aggravations, issues and solutions for women whose joy in their purpose has dimmed.

If you have a specific idea or issue or topic you'd like me to explore, let me know!

Thanks for tuning in.

Welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Rekindle, we’re exploring how women can rekindle the romance with our purpose, our joy, and our personal power — especially in our working lives.

If you’ve been here from the beginning — or even if you’ve joined partway through — I want to begin this final episode of Season 1 with gratitude.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank you for your willingness to question the stories you’ve been taught about work, worth, effort, and what it means to live a meaningful life as a woman of purpose.

This first season was never about fixing you, because you’re not broken.

It was never about becoming more productive, more impressive, or more palatable.

It was about remembering something essential; something many of us were trained to abandon very early on.

On the surface, Rekindle has been about women’s working lives.

But underneath that, it has always been about this question:

How do women tap into the joy of contributing and fulfilling our purpose without sacrificing ourselves in the process?

Because most of us were taught a very specific equation:

* Contribution equals depletion.

* Meaningful work equals exhaustion.

* Caring deeply means burning yourself out.

And if you believed that was the price of making a difference, I want you to hear this clearly: that model is broken.

We began by naming the quiet ache that so many women carry; that moment when your work still matters, but no longer feeds you.

Not because you’re ungrateful.

Not because you’ve failed.

But because something inside you is asking for a more sustainable relationship with your purpose.

We explored why women feel we have to work twice as hard: not as a confidence issue, but as a historical inheritance carried in the nervous system.

We talked about what happens when the brain thinks your career is a survival situation, and how “prove-it mode” is not a flaw, but a learned response.

We reclaimed Saturn; not as punishment, but as the one who teaches us structure, pacing, and the radical importance of celebrating the path, not just the destination.

We invited Jupiter; the great expander, who helps us imagine futures our brains can’t predict from the past, and reminds us that innovation doesn’t come from playing it safe.

We met Venus, who restores our right to name desire — even impossible desire — without shame or justification.

We honoured Mars, not as hustle or force, but as clean, self-trusting action.

We spoke about the Sun, the Solar Principle of individuation, the persistent pull toward becoming who you actually are.

And we balanced that with the Moon, who reminds us that we are relational beings, longing for belonging, care, and connection.

Together, these forces all tell a very different story about what meaningful work can look like.

Most women were taught to focus on being competent, useful, resilient.

We were taught to endure and to tolerate the discomfort of fitting into the system that wasn’t built for us.

But if we want to contribute at full volume over the long term, not in short, heroic bursts followed by collapse, joy is not optional.

Joy is what keeps the nervous system regulated.

Joy is what allows creativity to flow.

Joy is what restores perspective.

Joy is what prevents bitterness from taking root.

Joy is what makes leadership sustainable.

A woman devoted to having joy in her life is not frivolous; she is strategic.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: many systems benefit when women are tired, self-doubting, and disconnected from pleasure.

Joy is not a reward for doing everything right.

It is nervous-system information.

It tells the body “You are safe enough to expand.”

And expansion is where innovation, leadership, courage, and meaningful change live.

This is why joy has always been political and, in women’s hands, why it has been dangerous.

Joy says ‘my state of being is not dependent upon what those in power have decided for me’.

Joy can co-exist with grief and exhaustion and anxiety, not as a band-aid to cover up the rot of suffering, but as an act of grace for ourselves, a form of self-replenishment and a fuel for the long work of actual change.

And here is something I want to say explicitly, because it’s easy to miss:

Joy is not something you either have or don’t have, and it’s not a reward or an afterthought.

Joy is not toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing.

It is an essential skill we build through discipline.

Like any skill, it requires practice, attention, willingness to explore new ways, and devotion.

And joy can become a fierce component of getting through tough times.

I first learned this vicariously from my parents, relating stories of how they found and made joy, as teenagers in very different parts of England, enduring the Blitz and the nightly bombing raids and the strange terror of the shelters.

I learned it in the 1980s, sitting in an impromptu cèilidh with my future in-laws and their neighbours, in a back street of Belfast with helicopters overhead and young armed British soldiers in the street, sharing the laughter and applause as my sweetie and I contributed a Bob Dylan protest song to the mix.

I learned it while turning the twice daily bomb checks in Harrods into a creative, competitive game of ‘how can we do this without letting the customers catch us at it?’

I learned it at my beloved father’s deathbed, as family gathered to share - with him and with each other - memories and stories of love and laughter, to the point I thought we might get barred from the hospital for being too loud (we weren’t).

I’ve learned it sitting at the feet of Black women, and women from the queer community, and women living with disability and chronic illness, whose relentless devotion to joy is not a denial of suffering, but an essential part of thriving.

In many ways, I’ve been learning it every day of my life. Joy is a work in progress, I’ll never get it done, and I’m getting better at it all the time.

Joy is an act of political resistance AND a skill for healing AND a nuanced experience that we cannot dictate or describe for each other, because joy is so exquisitely personal.

Rekindling the romance with your purpose in the world does not mean quitting everything, instantly finding the perfect job, or forcing joy into every minute of every day

It means fully accepting your whole emotional landscape, without shame or guilt for how you feel

It means developing a relationship with joy that you can rely on

It means noticing when your work stops feeding you, and responding with compassion not punishment or self-abandonment

And it means shaping your purpose in ways that honour your humanity

Rekindling is not a moment.

It is a decision, and a commitment - and it should also be a delightful spark of possibility that has part of you thinking ‘ooooooh, I wonder what could happen next??’

This is the end of Season 1, Rekindle, but not the end of Wreaking More Joy.

This podcast and Substack will continue to explore women’s relationships with purpose, power, joy, and work, with as much depth, nuance, and tenderness as I can muster.

But for now, I want to leave you with this:

* You do not have to earn your right to exist in your work; you already have it, by existing

* You do not have to bleed to be valuable.

* You do not have to choose between contribution and joy

And if no one has told you this lately please remember that what you are doing matters, who you are matters, and you are allowed to let it feel good.

Thank you for walking this season with me.

It’s been an honour.

Until next time, please be gentle with yourself, practice joy like the discipline it is, and keep wreaking more of it out in the world.

Welcome back to *Wreaking More Joy*.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Rekindle, we’re exploring how women can rekindle the romance with our purpose, our joy, and our personal power — especially in our working lives.

Today, I want to talk about something very tender, and very human.

That deep longing most of us carry: the longing to contribute, to be useful, to matter.

Not in an abstract way, but in a way that feels solid and physical and three dimensional. A way that feels real in the body.

But oh, how easily that longing becomes tangled up with our sense of worthiness, especially when we can’t see clear, measurable evidence of the good we’re doing in the red hot moment.

I want to start with something a client said to me recently. She was reflecting on her work, work she genuinely cares about, and she said: “I can’t see direct results of what my work does for others, so my brain weasels make up stories about that, to invent the old certainty story that I’m not enough.”

If that made something tighten in your chest, you’re not alone.

Your brain loves certainty, as does mine, as do all human brains.

Human brains also abhor a vacuum. They cannot STAND not knowing the details. Look at how quickly various different theories spring up, any time there’s a mystery to be solved.

Human brains are story-making machines, which cannot stand an incomplete narrative. When someone is late getting home, or we notice a scowl on a friend’s face, or there’s a strange noise in the street, we instantly start theorising about what’s happening - we can’t NOT do it.

So when we can’t see our impact clearly, our brains fill in the gaps with stories, and thanks to all the systemic stuff we’ve already talked about, those stories are often ridiculously harsh ones we wouldn’t dream of making up about someone we loved. Or even someone we liked!

Those are the brain weasel voices, the stories that go something like:

* If my contribution had mattered, I’d know about it

* If I were doing enough, I’d see proof

* If I were really contributing, someone would tell me

* The silence about my contribution means nobody saw it / nobody benefited / it wasn’t valuable / my best efforts are kind of s**t

This is where our inborn and beautiful longing to contribute gets quietly but devastatingly twisted into a demand to prove our worth.

Not imposed from outside, but stabbing at us from within.

In our last episode, we talked about the Solar Principle and, you guessed it, this week I want to talk about its opposite number and its closest partner, the Lunar Principle.

The Moon, in astrology and myth, represents our yearning for the feelings of connection, belonging, emotional resonance, being held in relationship

Moon relates to our desire to feel like we’ve come home - to ourselves, as well as within our lives.

Moon asks questions like

* Am I connected?

* Do I matter to others?

* Am I felt by those I seek to connect with?

That yearning is not a flaw, and it does not indicate weakness.

It’s ancient, relational, deeply human and - let’s face it - from an evolutionary standpoint absolutely essential.

But when our Moon feels unheard, when our emotional needs go unmet or worse, unacknowledged, they can get distorted.

We start asking:

* Am I even useful enough to deserve belonging?

* Am I contributing enough to be worthy of care?

* If I disappear, would anyone even notice?

Oh, my heart. That is such a very heavy burden to place on your work.

And as we know, the systems within which we do our work tell us over and over that only the strongest survive, that it’s all about fighting off the competition, that if we let even a tiny chink of vulnerability be visible, we’ll be torn apart by wolves.

No wonder it can all start to feel joyless and achingly vulnerable.

Last episode we talked about the Solar Principle, which pulls us towards individuation, becoming who we actually are, trusting our inner compass, being the authority in our own lives.

How can that feisty energy of autonomy coexist with our yearning for connection?

How do the Solar and Lunar Principles work together, rather than cancelling each other out?

The Solar Principle reminds us that our worth is not up for debate.

It reminds you that you exist to express who you are, not to earn permission.

And that means you can show up for connection as your own true, full self.

The Lunar Principle opens the door to heart-to-heart connections where we can feel supported, WHEN we get picky with those connections.

Because if we engage only Sun, without the Moon, we risk becoming isolated.

And if we engage only Moon, without the Sun, we risk erasing ourselves in order to belong.

Our work is to hold both: to be connected AND individuated, to belong without abandoning ourselves.

And to contribute without our worth becoming conditional upon visible results and outcomes.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn — and honestly, I’m still learning it — is this:

I will never, ever know all of the good I do in the world.

Never.

Not because it doesn’t exist, but because that’s how the ripple effect works, and I have to trust it.

You have NO idea about the impact you’ve had.

I know your brain is full of stories that it had to make up, to fill the vacuum of not knowing. But if you’re still listening or reading this, I know that:

A conversation you had five years ago might have been overheard by someone whose entire trajectory of life was changed by it, and you’ll never know.

A sentence you wrote might have landed at exactly the right moment for someone you’ll never meet, someone you have no idea even exists.

A boundary you upheld a decade ago was witnessed by another woman, and gave her permission to set her own, and you’ve no clue.

You won’t be there to witness every contribution you make.

The human ego, which craves validation and feedback, hates this.

But your soul and your heart both understand it completely.

At some point, you have to let your good flow outward into the world, without demanding receipts.

Which brings me to the important topic of showing up in a chaotic world, when it all feels like too much.

It’s true that I’m probably more mouthy than a lot of my peers, when it comes to speaking out about things like politics and activism. From the outside, it might look like I do a lot.

But I’m also limited, by location, by health, by age and capacity.

There are things I simply can’t do anymore, like marching in the streets of Melbourne the way I did when I lived there and had a younger body.

And that is okay.

Because real change and activism very rarely depend on one heroic individual, despite all the Hollywood myths. We won’t be saved by the Pale Rider or the Magnificent Seven.

Change and activism are a tapestry, a rich weaving together of many, many threads of all kinds of sizes and colours.

In fact, in many spiritual and magical traditions, altar cloths are made from multi-coloured or embroidered or layered fabrics, for this reason.

Each piece brings something different. No single thread carries the whole meaning on its own.

This is how collective change works too.

Your strand matters, even if it’s quiet, even if it feels invisible, even if it doesn’t look like anyone else’s.

The Lunar Principle reminds us we are part of something larger.

The Solar Principle reminds us we bring something uniquely ours.

Both are true, both are needed, and having them in balance is the most exquisite source of joy.

So if you find yourself thinking “I’m not doing enough” or “I can’t see the impact” or “Maybe I’m not that important”, try this instead:

What if my contribution is real, even when it’s unmeasurable?*

What if my worth doesn’t depend on being constantly visible?*

What if connection and individuation can - in fact must - coexist as brilliant partners?*

That’s not spiritual bypassing, that’s nervous system wisdom.

If you’ve been undervaluing your contribution, f your longing to be useful has become tangled with self-doubt, if your brain weasels keep demanding proof that you matter, then please hear this:

You are allowed to belong and to become.

You are allowed to contribute without overextending.

You are allowed to trust that your good flows outward, especially when you can’t see where the ripples land.

That balance between Sun and Moon is not something you perfect; it’s something you practice, just by living life and being open to both.

Thank you for spending this time with me.

Until next time, be gentle with yourself, and trust that your presence counts. Because it does!

Welcome back to Wreaking More Joy.

I’m Janette Dalgliesh, and in this season, Rekindle, we’re exploring how women can rekindle the romance with our purpose, our joy, and our personal power — especially in our working lives.

We are always being told that creating change means “getting out of our comfort zone“ but I don’t know about you: every time I hear that bit of advice, I can NOT stop my eyes from doing a full on, teenage-Janette sized eyeroll.

Ugh.

Don’t tell me it has to get harder before it gets easier. I’ve had decades of being uncomfortable in one way or another, don’t tell me I have to tolerate MORE of it.

Well, I’m always a fan of noticing when something feels blech or irritating, and then slowing everything the fuck down, because that’s often where the untangling and the witnessing and the healing can occur.

This whole ‘get out of your comfort zone’ concept is both deeply flawed and pointing toward something real.

Let’s start with the flawed part.

95% of the time, “get out of your comfort zone” in the mouth of a mentor, a teacher, an advisor or a boss means “twist yourself into a pretzel, so you can do things more like I would, or more like the systems says we should, cuz that’s the only way I know how to do it”.

More like a man would do it, more like an extrovert would do it, more like an able-bodied person would do it, more like a white person would do it.

In other words, get out of the comfort zone means override your instincts, ignore your body, fit into the existing system.

Partly because it makes me, the speaker, more comfortable when I can ignore how the system may not fit you; and also, importantly, because it allows the system itself to remain unchanged.

We’ve already talked in this season about what it does to women, to operate inside systems that were never designed with us in mind, so I won’t rehash that here (you’ll find it in episode 1)

Instead, I want to talk about the 5% of solid gold truth that this phrase also encompasses.

Because there is a kind of discomfort that is not only necessary; it’s catalytic.

If you are a woman engaged in work that fulfils your purpose, work you get to choose, then you are a trailblazer.

You’re a trailblazer whether you think you are or not. You’re a trailblazer individually, and also generationally.

Depending on your age, location, and heritage, it’s very likely that your grandmother could not pursue her purpose with the freedoms you have. In many cases, even your mother couldn’t.

I don’t have kids, but my brothers do. And let me tell you, those twenty-something nieces of mine are able to imagine careers and live lives that simply weren’t available to me at the same age, and I love that for them.

And any woman pursuing a chosen path is still blazing a trail, because your own path is unique and has never existed before, and will never exist again.

Joseph Campbell, a student of father of psychology Carl Jung, once said: “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”

That’s a lot of pressure for any human of any kind. And it’s even more so for those of us moving through terra incognita, through the unknown lands where there are, relatively speaking, so few who have carved out their paths before us.

No wonder trailblazing is uncomfortable.

Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because you’re moving beyond what has already been normalised.

This trailblazing is an inherent part of the process of individuation, the lifelong process of becoming one’s true self.

Not the self you were rewarded for, not the self that kept you safe, but the self that is uniquely and truthfully yours.

And here’s the part that often gets missed:

Individuation isn’t about discipline or willpower; it’s about yearning.

That yearning shows up as a kind of restlessness, the feeling that you’re meant for something more aligned, the bubbling up of something that wants to evolve within you, the restlessness that says ‘this way of being, this work I’m doing, feels too small or too restricted or not satisfying enough!’

In astrology, this yearning is described as the Solar Principle at work.

The Sun, as a planetary ally, represents our own longing for full authentic self-expression, in every part of our lives.

It’s the force that pulls you forward toward your own becoming.

It is not satisfied with survival or soothed by familiarity.

It creates a spark of inspiration or irritation in you, that makes stagnation unbearable.

It whispers to you, there is meant to be more to your life than this.

This is why growth often begins as irritation, boredom, or dissatisfaction, rather than clarity.

But the Sun doesn’t hand you a step-by-step plan.

It pulls you out of certainty and into the unknown (because remember, the path is not laid out before you).

And certainty (even the harmful certainties of misery, anxiety or resentment) is something our brains and nervous systems cling to fiercely.

Certainty feels safe, predictable, risk free, familiar.

Your nervous system doesn’t care whether that certainty is nourishing or harmful.

A job you hate but that is familiar? Certainty.

Staying small because it’s predictable? Certainty.

Hiding your ideas so you won’t be criticised? Certainty.

The pull of the Solar Principle disrupts this.

It introduces uncertainty, and uncertainty activates the nervous system in ways that IT will interpret as discomfort.

For this kind of discomfort, it’s not a sign you’re doing something wrong; it’s a sign you’re loosening an old tether.

So how do we tell the difference between discomfort that is asking us to grow, and discomfort that is asking us to betray ourselves?

Here are the considerations I find most helpful in making this assessment. You may have your own, or you may like to borrow these.

Am I questioning rules that no longer make sense, or am I giving power to the irrelevant rules somebody else made up - by complying with them or rebelling against them?

Am I doing the important work of healing unprocessed trauma, or am I overriding my body’s messages and pushing on through?

Am I becoming more visible in my truth, or am I contorting myself for imagined approval or safety?

Am I claiming agency in my own life, or am I abandoning my values?

Am I standing in my strength, or am I erasing my own needs?

Am I contributing to the world in ways I love, or am I trying to prove that I’m worthy of being here?

I’ve become very practiced at this piece, and I know how to tolerate uncertainty without rushing to avoid or collapse from it.

The Solar Principle does not ask for self-sacrifice, it asks for self-recognition.

It doesn’t say “push harder”, it says, *come closer to who you actually are.*

And yes that will most likely stretch your comfort zone, in thoroughly beneficial ways; and in ways that don’t require rush or punishment.

So if you notice yourself restless, dissatisfied, or quietly yearning for something that doesn’t yet have a name, please don’t ask “what’s wrong with me?”, because it’s highly likely that nothing is ‘wrong with you’.

Instead, try asking “what is pulling me forward?”

The Sun doesn’t explain itself, it doesn’t negotiate with outdated systems and it doesn’t try to fit into the system.

It simply rises, and radiates forth its own most glorious self.

Even during an eclipse. Even on the darkest cloudy day.

And in doing so, it brings life and it makes growth inevitable.

Thank you for being here with me.

I’ll see you in the next episode of *Wreaking More Joy*.

Until then, trust the pull, even if you can’t yet see the path.