Latest / Hustle Rebels: Burnout Recovery for Over-Achievers / Why You Can’t Tell If It’s Intuition or Anxiety (And It’s Exhausting)

Transcript

Why You Can’t Tell If It’s Intuition or Anxiety (And It’s Exhausting) · Hustle Rebels: Burnout Recovery for Over-Achievers

• 0:00
  Speaker: Hello, and welcome to the weekly recharge.
• 0:02
  Speaker: I'm Renae, founder of Wayward Wellness Coaching.
• 0:05
  Speaker: And if you stumbled across this bonus episode from my Hustle Rebels podcast, I want to officially welcome you and invite you to subscribe to my newsletter, The Weekly Recharge.
• 0:16
  Speaker: It comes out every Wednesday, and I'll have the link in the show notes.
• 0:19
  Speaker: Alrighty.
• 0:20
  Speaker: Now that that's handled, let's get into it.
• 0:23
  Speaker: Sometimes the biggest shifts in our lives don't come from dramatic moments.
• 0:28
  Speaker: They show up in the quiet everyday choices that we make without even realizing why.
• 0:34
  Speaker: Here's what we'll cover this week.
• 0:36
  Speaker: How anxiety quietly disguises itself as logical decision making, why your nervous system naturally chooses comfort and predictability, the subtle difference between anxiety-driven decisions and intuitive ones, the version of yourself your nervous system might be calling back, and a simple nervous system awareness challenge that you could try out this week.
• 1:00
  Speaker: This week I kept going back and forth about what I wanted to write about, and nothing really landed.
• 1:06
  Speaker: Then, during a meditation, something popped up that made me stop for a second.
• 1:11
  Speaker: Lately, a lot of my decisions have been coming from anxiety, not intuition.
• 1:17
  Speaker: It was incredibly subtle and evolved over the years.
• 1:21
  Speaker: It looks like completely reasonable decisions.
• 1:24
  Speaker: Just masked as maturing.
• 1:28
  Speaker: Which honestly makes it harder to notice.
• 1:30
  Speaker: Because it looks like this.
• 1:32
  Speaker: Deciding not to go to boxing because my back has been sore.
• 1:36
  Speaker: And besides, that's two hours that I could be working on something anyway.
• 1:40
  Speaker: Or having a drink at a gig, even though I already made the decision to stop doing that.
• 1:45
  Speaker: It actually makes it harder for me to hear the tone clearly and it loosens my voice in a way that weakens my performance.
• 1:52
  Speaker: But everything is chaotic, we are running late, Nick's flustered, the room feels tense, so I tell myself one drink will just calm my nerves.
• 2:00
  Speaker: Or something small, like deciding I'll just upgrade my seat on a flight because there's an extra leg room one open, even though I told myself before, wherever my seat ended up, I would sit there and trust the opportunity to connect with someone.
• 2:15
  Speaker: None of these are huge decisions, but they all have one thing in common.
• 2:19
  Speaker: Every single time, I override my intuition.
• 2:24
  Speaker: Anxiety is persuasive, and the nervous system loves comfort and predictability.
• 2:30
  Speaker: So when anxiety shows up, the brain starts building perfectly logical arguments for choices that feel safer.
• 2:39
  Speaker: But intuition usually asks something different.
• 2:42
  Speaker: It asks you to lean into growth, to stay open, to connect, because that's where the real opportunities live.
• 2:50
  Speaker: So I asked myself, did I mature or did I lose a piece of myself to conditioning?
• 2:57
  Speaker: And if I'm being honest, I used to listen to my intuition all of the time.
• 3:02
  Speaker: Back when I was younger, I just called it being adventurous, but the truth is I was just trusting my instincts.
• 3:08
  Speaker: I'd randomly decide to drive 13 hours down to Nashville for the weekend with my violin and busk on the streets for gas money.
• 3:15
  Speaker: Who cares if I hit a little snow along the way and slept in my car at the gas station?
• 3:19
  Speaker: Did I tell anyone I was doing that?
• 3:22
  Speaker: Absolutely not.
• 3:23
  Speaker: And yes, one time I ran over a nail and had to call my parents for money for a tire and a hotel before heading off to see my sister in Virginia.
• 3:32
  Speaker: At least now I can afford the tire in a hotel myself.
• 3:35
  Speaker: But back then I had to be resilient.
• 3:38
  Speaker: I had to be resourceful.
• 3:40
  Speaker: There wasn't an option to just spend money to make things easier.
• 3:43
  Speaker: So I trusted my gut.
• 3:45
  Speaker: And honestly, some of the best experiences of my life came from those decisions.
• 3:50
  Speaker: Somewhere along the way, though, I was conditioned to believe that version of myself was just young and reckless.
• 3:56
  Speaker: Well, I can agree that it was a little reckless, but I also convinced myself that being in my 30s meant being more calculated, more controlled, and more practical.
• 4:08
  Speaker: But lately my nervous system has been calling that version of me back.
• 4:12
  Speaker: The one who trusted her intuition.
• 4:15
  Speaker: The one who knew that growth doesn't usually happen in a perfectly controlled environment.
• 4:20
  Speaker: The one who understood that connection and opportunity often show up when you stop trying to engineer every possible outcome.
• 4:29
  Speaker: At the end of March, I'm going to a conference, and for the first time in a while, I'm leaning back into that version of myself.
• 4:36
  Speaker: I'm flying in a day early, and I don't have the hotel figured out yet.
• 4:41
  Speaker: For the one day, let's not go crazy.
• 4:43
  Speaker: The rest of the trip is well planned.
• 4:45
  Speaker: And the current old version of Renee would be making plans right now to make sure I would have an answer for Nick on deck for where I'll be staying, because in order to cure my anxiety, I need to cure his anxiety, therefore I'd be making a decision from anxiety.
• 5:00
  Speaker: So you get the cycle.
• 5:02
  Speaker: But honestly, worst case scenario, I'll just find one that night, like I used to.
• 5:08
  Speaker: And if I told you the full story of how I ended up moving to Massachusetts, you'd probably think I was crazy too.
• 5:14
  Speaker: But maybe that's the point.
• 5:16
  Speaker: Sometimes the version of yourself your nervous system is asking you to become again is someone you've already been.
• 5:23
  Speaker: So here's this week's nervous system challenge.
• 5:26
  Speaker: For the next few days, try something simple.
• 5:28
  Speaker: When you're making a decision, pause and ask yourself one question.
• 5:33
  Speaker: Is this decision coming from intuition or anxiety?
• 5:37
  Speaker: Anxiety usually pulls you toward comfort, control, and avoidance.
• 5:42
  Speaker: Intuition usually nudges you toward growth, curiosity, and connection.
• 5:48
  Speaker: The trick isn't forcing anything.
• 5:50
  Speaker: It's simply just noticing.
• 5:52
  Speaker: Because the more you listen to intuition, the quieter anxiety tends to get.
• 5:57
  Speaker: And this week on Hustle Rebels Podcast.
• 5:59
  Speaker: So if this topic resonated, you can head over to my Hustle Rebels podcast to catch the latest episode.
• 6:05
  Speaker: Last week's episode dug into how invisible effort and recognition actually regulate the nervous system more than people realize.
• 6:13
  Speaker: And if you're in leadership, why this is incredibly important for a functioning workplace environment.
• 6:19
  Speaker: Thursday's episode continues this conversation with Steve Besson, where we talk about the invisible injury in high pressure professions and the importance of treating it just like visible injury.
• 6:31
  Speaker: The link is in the newsletter where you can listen to the latest episode.
• 6:35
  Speaker: As always, I appreciate you guys and I'm always here if you have any questions or even want to chat.
• 6:40
  Speaker: Share the weekly recharge with a friend so they can be regulated just like you.
• 6:45
  Speaker: See you guys next week.