Feeling Behind in Life? Why Expectation Traps Keep You Stuck (& How to Break Free for Good)

🎙️ Feeling Behind in Life? Trapped in Expectation Overdrive? This Episode Is Your Wake-Up Call.

Do you feel like you missed the universal memo on how to be a fully functioning adult? Like you should already have the dream job, the relationship, the confidence—but instead, you're stuck feeling behind and burnt out?

You're not failing. You're evolving. And in this episode of Embody This – The No B.S. Healing Podcast, host Lauren Michelle Jewel takes you on a raw, relatable journey through the pressure loops we get trapped in, why “feeling behind” is a nervous system response, and how to finally break free from the addiction to expectations, perfectionism, and overachieving.

Inside this powerful episode, we unpack:

🔥 Why you’re not behind—you’re in a survival loop
 🧠 How your nervous system interprets unmet expectations as danger
 🎯 The sneaky addiction to pressure and control (and how to spot it)
 🥵 Why your body crashes even when you “do everything right”
 💡 The difference between doing more vs. being more
🌀 How to move from expectation → expansion, and start living in flow
💥 Nutritional, somatic, and spiritual tools to regulate your nervous system, replenish stress-depleted nutrients, and reconnect with your body

This is your permission slip to stop gripping and start trusting. Whether you're healing from burnout, navigating a life pivot, or tired of living in anxiety mode, this episode will remind you: you're not stuck—you’re being redirected.

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🎙️ Podcast Hashtag → #EmbodyThisPodcast

💬 DM me on Instagram and tell me what resonated most with you from this episode.
📣 Share the show and tag me so more women can reclaim their body, identity, and f*cking life.

⚠️ Disclaimer:

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace professional medical advice or mental health care. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making any changes to your health practices.

Transcript

0:01

Do you ever feel like you missed the universal memo on how to be a fully functioning adult? Like by now, you should have the career, the relationship, the confidence, the inner peace, but instead you feel like you're behind. Welcome to the Expectation Station, the place where we sit around waiting for our lives to match the timelines in our head. But what if I told you feeling behind isn't proof? You failed. It's proof you are evolving. Welcome to Embody this, the NO BS Healing podcast for women who are done playing small. I'm Lauren Michelle Jewel, a single sober business owning badass who has been humbled as hell by healing. But I'm not just someone who's lived it. I've studied it, coached it, and helped women walk through it for over seven years in mind, body health, gut brain science, and nervous system healing. I've worked with women who have tried everything, therapy, diets, supplements, self-help work, but still feel disconnected from their bodies, their health, and their truth. Because here's the thing, healing isn't a trend. It's not aesthetic. It's not an identity. Healing is embodied, and let me be real with you, it's hard as fuck and it's also rewarding as fuck. I know because I've lived it. I've been through the gut issues that made me feel like a stranger in my own body. Nervous system crashes that left me wired and exhausted identity breakups that shattered everything I thought I knew about myself. And along the way I realized something. Modern healing methods are failing us. Everything is compartmentalized. Go to therapy. They say, take the supplements, do the inner work, but no one teaches you how to actually integrate it. All this show is for you if you're ready to rethink healing. It's not about being perfect, being a wellness influencer or having a PhD in biohacking. It's about undoing, unlearning, and finally coming home to yourself. Quick disclaimer, this podcast is for educational purposes only. It's here to expand your mind, challenge old narratives, and empower you with knowledge. It's not a replacement for medical advice. Always consult a professional when making health decisions. Alright, let's be real for a second. You ever feel like by now you should already have it all together? Like you should be more successful, more in love, more secure, more at peace. Like you should have the body, the relationship, the dream job, the financial security, the confidence, all of it. And yet here you are feeling like you miss some universal adulting handbook. Welcome to the Expectation Station, the place where we sit around waiting for our lives to match timelines in our head. But what if I told you that feeling behind isn't proof that you failed? It's proof that you're evolving. Today I'm sharing my story of how expectations kept me trapped, how I was addicted to pressure, and how I finally broke free. And I'll tell you now, this episode might piss you off a little because I'm gonna challenge everything you thought you knew about success and healing, but it's also gonna liberate the fuck outta you. When I got sober, I felt so behind. I had spent years numbing out, avoiding and self-sabotaging, and when I finally cleaned up my life, I felt like I had to make up for lost time. So I did what I thought I was supposed to do. Lose weight, fix my mindset, heal my emotions, make more money, get an A plus in healing. I was doing all the things, but no matter how much I accomplished, I never actually felt like I was succeeding. There was always another level, always another goal, always something else to check off the list. And that constant feeling of not enough. It wasn't ambition, it wasn't discipline, it wasn't addiction to pressure, to proving, to control. I thought I was chasing success, but really I was running for myself. And that's the thing about expectations. They don't just create stress. They create pressure. They make us attach our worth to our outcome. And when things don't go the way we planned, Q disappointment, the accidental spirals, and feeling like we failed at life. See, I thought I had broken outta this cycle. I had done the work, I had the awareness, but then life gave me a real time test. I had just come back from a healing retreat in Georgia. It was powerful. 20 women coming together, breath work, deep, emotional release, good food, laughter, and moments of real connection. I went there to prepare myself, to regulate, to make space for what I thought was going to be the biggest moment in my career. The launch of my group program embodied. See, I had spent years building up this dream in my head. I told myself, this is it. This is the thing that's gonna change everything. This is the thing that's gonna allow me to finally leave the restaurant industry. This is the thing that's gonna make me the woman I've always dreamed of being, and I prepped hard for it. Building out the client portal, writing the sales pages, creating content automations, emails, juggling my full-time restaurant job while coaching my one-on-one clients on my days off. I poured hours, months, years into this, and then the doors opened for enrollment, and I waited. I kept my mindset in check, reminded myself that launches are about consistency, that people usually sign up at the end. I even used the very practices inside and body to keep my energy clean and clear, keep my nervous system steady. And still, before I left for my healing retreat, still no one had signed up. See, I had already planned this retreat, and in my mind it was going to be the space where I cleared any stagnant energy so I could show up and hold space for my group. I told myself to take a few days off from worrying about the launch and just be present right secretly, though, I was definitely hoping that the shifts happening inside of me would somehow create the shifts needed for people to walk through the doors of the program. So when I got home feeling like a changed woman and realized there was only one week left before the cards closed, my gut fucking sank. Girl, the thoughts started creeping in one by one. Should I stop posting about it? Is this annoying people? What does this mean about me? Do people even like my stuff? What else could I possibly say? But I told myself, Lauren, girl, just keep showing up. You're in the long game. Even though deep down I was really holding my breath. Then the morning after I sent the final email, the one that I had pre-scheduled to save time, it hit me. This isn't happening, not this time. And the truth is, is that Spirit had been telling me this all along. I had asked if I should keep pushing forward with embodied, and I got a clear no, but I wasn't ready to listen yet. I questioned if it was just my fear talking because how could I let go after all the effort I put in? How could I just walk away from something I'd been working on for years? But deep down, I knew I wasn't the same woman who had created this program. My motivations were different. They just weren't the same, and I was holding onto it. So tightly it was essentially suffocating me. Later that night, I broke down. I reached out to a few women from the retreat, and I spilled everything. How sad, frustrated, and disappointed I was. How I just didn't understand why. You know, those feelings, those nights, those moments, and then something unexpected happened. That moment of raw honesty cracked open something inside the container with other women. Suddenly we were all sharing the parts of ourselves. We usually keep hidden. It was messy, it was emotional, and it was really healing. But that night I realized something. If I had kept it all inside like I normally did, I probably would've convinced myself that I was a failure, that I wasn't good enough, and that I had done something wrong and I needed to fix it. But that's not the truth. It just is what it is. And this is business. It's not personal, but damn. Does it show you exactly where healing needs to happen? And maybe you've felt this too. Maybe you've poured your heart into something, a launch, a relationship, a career move, a diet. And when it didn't pan out the way you envisioned, you immediately turned inward. You blamed yourself, you questioned everything, and you thought. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this. Maybe you sent that risky text, the one where you finally spoke your truth only to be met with silence, and suddenly all your confidence evaporated, and you wondered if you should have kept it quiet. Maybe you've been working on yourself, healing, growing, doing all the damn things, and yet you still find yourself in the same cycles, feeling like you miss the how to get my life together. Manuel. Yeah, girl, I feel you. And that's the mind fuck, right? Because when something doesn't work out the way we wanted it, we don't just feel disappointed, we feel unworthy. Like somehow the thing we wanted to find our value, like if it had just gone differently, then we would be enough. But here's what I know now, that job you didn't get, it's not proof that you weren't good enough, the relationship that ended, it's not proof that you're unlovable, the thing that you put out into the world that didn't land. It's not proof that you're failing. It's just proof that life has other plans for you. And the more you resist that truth, the more you fight, grip and force, the more suffering you create for yourself. Because what if it's not rejection? What if it's redirection? See, a few days later, my mentor called to check in on me. She told me, Lauren, you need to hold a funeral for embodied. Guys, I legit cackled. Like I remember being like, oh, just another Monday holding a funeral for my dreams and tuning into the Akashic records. But the truth is, she was right. She told me to let it go, literally to honor the end of this chapter and make space for something bigger. And she was right again because I had outgrown this dream. But I needed to live through it in order to see that. So I did. I made some zesty plant medicine tea. I dropped into a meditation and I asked spirit, what's next? And what I heard was palpable. It's time to use your voice. Now what's wild is that all week long at the retreat, women had been telling me, you should start a podcast, Lauren. You have so much wisdom to share. Like legit, my nickname was the wise one. You literally embody this work. They would say. And I had brushed it off, right? I just played it off like, yeah, yeah, whatever. But after the fifth time of someone who told me to start a podcast, something started to shift. I stopped brushing it off and I actually let myself hear it, and then the final sign came. One of the women from the retreat had messaged me after listening to a podcast I'd been featured on. It was a conversation where I shared my raw, cathartic, emotional release experience in Georgia, and she reminded me of that moment, the breath work, the deep release, and the way that my mentor and my spiritual healer worked on me and cracked something open. And then she said, if you need a sign about starting a podcast, this is it. Start one. So I made the decision right then and there. I'm starting a fucking podcast. I had spent two years gripping onto the dream of embodied, like my life depended on it. But when I finally let go, when I stopped forcing, stopped pushing, I could actually hear what Spirit had been trying to tell me all along. It wasn't rejection, it was redirection. And this is exactly what I mean when I say expectations aren't just about what we want. They shape how we move, how we stress, and how we react to life. They make us grips so tight that we block ourselves from receiving what we actually need. So where are you gripping? What are you convincing yourself? That you have to hit some specific milestone to be successful, to be happy, to be worthy. Now if you know anything about me, you know I live for bringing together the tangible with the tangible. I love bridging the gap between the scene and the unseen, between the energetic and the biological. So all you heady gals can finally understand exactly why this happens, what's really going on inside that beautiful, brilliant brain and body of yours, and most importantly, how to break free from it. So let's get into it. Why does this happen? Why do we hold onto expectations? Why do we hold on so tight? Even when something isn't working? Why do we grip onto expectations so hard that we literally make ourselves suffer? It's not a mindset thing. It's not just old programming, it's biology. It is your nervous system trying to keep you safe. Let me break it down for you. Okay. Your brain has one job above all else survival. It does not care if you are happy. It does not care if you are fulfilled. It cares about keeping you alive. And to do that, it relies on patterns, familiarity, and predictability. So when you attach to an expectation, whether it's the dream job, the perfect body, the perfect relationship, or the right timeline for your life. Your nervous system registers that expectation as your safety zone. Your brain doesn't see it as a goal. It sees it as a requirement for survival. So when things don't go the way you expected, your body reacts the same way it would to a real threat. It goes into survival mode. Cortisol spikes your body floods with stress hormone preparing you for danger. Your breath shortens, your muscles tense, and you get wired and restless, or you completely shut down. You spiral into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. You overwork, you overthink. You completely avoid. Your digestion, sleep and hormones get thrown off because your body literally thinks you're under attack. This is why you feel that gut drop panic when things don't go as planned. It's not just disappointment. It is your body responding as if you're about to die, and this is where the addiction loop starts. Most people think addiction is just about substances, but addiction is really about repetition. So think of your brain like an 88 key piano. You have limitless potential, infinite possibilities, an entire range of notes to play, and yet most of us are just hitting the same five damn keys over and over again, expecting a different result. We think the same thoughts, feel the same emotions, do the same things every morning. Wake up, scroll, drink coffee, stress about the day. We take the same route to work, see the same people, have the same small talk replay, the same resentments in our head. By lunchtime, we eat the same foods, we react to the same triggers, and we pick the same TV shows scrolling through the same accounts right before bed. And guess what? We wake up and we do it all over again. And then we wonder why nothing has changed this is the definition of insanity. And addiction because before addiction becomes physical, it starts in the mind and your mind. Job isn't to expand and reach your dreams. Its job is to keep you safe, to keep you alive, and that means keep you the same, so your brain clings to what is familiar, even if it's making you miserable, because it perceives it as safer than the unknown. So if you've spent your whole life believing that success looks a certain way, or that your worth is tied to your productivity, or that love means proving yourself over and over again, then breaking free from that girl, that's gonna feel like death. This is why you keep repeating the same patterns. Whether it's overworking people pleasing procrastinating, avoiding numbing out, or chasing validation. It's why you reach for your phone. The second you feel uncomfortable. It's why you stay in jobs, relationships, and habits that drain you. It is why even when you know you need rest, you can't actually let yourself rest because the truth is your nervous system isn't wired for freedom. It is wired for familiarity. It's wired for the old you, the one who believes you have to prove yourself, the one who ties her worth to expectations and the one who only feels safe in doing. But here's what I need you to hear. You are not your patterns. You are not your past and you are not your survival responses. Your brain isn't a fixed blueprint. It's a living adaptable system, and just like it learned to repeat the same five keys over and over again, it can learn to play an entirely new song. This is neuroplasticity. The brain's ability to rewire itself through intentional, conscious repetition. Every time you choose a new response, a new thought, a new way of moving through the world, you are literally reshaping your brain. So when you stop over explaining yourself just to be liked, you're rewiring self-trust. When you pause before reacting out of fear, you're building a new stress response. And when you finally put down your phone instead of numbing out, well, you're breaking the addiction to distraction. And don't get it twisted at first. It's uncomfortable. It feels unnatural because your nervous system craves the old loops. But the more you repeat the new way of being, the stronger those neural pathways become until one day you wake up. And the new way isn't something you have to force. It's just who you are. This is why healing isn't about knowing better. It's about being different. It's about embodying the new pattern until it becomes second nature. Because if your brain can be wired for survival, well, it can be wired for expansion and that's what we're doing here. So how do we break free? How do we rewire a nervous system so that we stop reacting to life? Like we're constantly in danger? Well, we have to shift from expectation to expansion. See, expectation is rigid. It says this has to happen, or I'll fail, and expansion is open. It says, I trust that whatever happens is leading me somewhere even better. Expectation keeps you in anxiety. Expansion lets you breathe again. Expectation keeps you gripping. Expansion teaches you to flow. Expectation creates resistance. Expansion creates possibility. And here's the thing, healing isn't just about what you do, it's about who you become. And your nervous system needs proof that it's safe to let go, safe to trust, and safe to slow down. So here's how we start rewiring it, not just mentally, but physically and biologically, because living in a state of constant pressure and expectation isn't just exhausting. It's disruptive. It rewires your body for stress, keeping you stuck in survival mode, inflamed and dysregulated. And ironically, the more you focus on healing as something to fix, the more pressure you create, the more you reinforce the belief that something is wrong with you. But healing isn't about fixing. It's about connecting. Connecting with your body so it learns to feel safe again, connecting with your environment so that you stop living in hypervigilance. Connecting with your mind so you recognize the patterns before they take over. Connecting with the people around you so you don't isolate in your own suffering. Remember, healing isn't the goal. It's actually a side effect of connection and this, this is how we start rebuilding that connection one step at a time. All right, let's talk about getting your nervous system out of survival mode. Because if your body is stuck in stress, your mind is gonna stay strapped and not enoughness. You know the feeling waking up already anxious already behind before the day even starts. Your digestion feels off, your hormones feel like a mess. And no matter how much you try to calm down, your body is on a fucking edge. And here's the thing, this isn't just mental. Your body is biologically stuck in a stress loop. So let's talk about how we actually pull you out of this physically, nutritionally, and neurologically. First, let's stabilize blood sugar because it's more controlling than you really think. So most people don't realize how much blood sugar impacts anxiety, mood, and overall nervous system regulation. But when your blood sugar is spiking and crashing all day, your body thinks it's in danger. It responds with a flood of cortisol, adrenaline, and stress hormones. Keeping you wired, anxious, and completely dysregulated. So if you're waking up in the morning and immediately reaching for a carb heavy breakfast, just coffee, or nothing at all, you're setting yourself up for a cortisol rollercoaster instead. Here's what actually helps start your day with protein and healthy fats. Think eggs, avocado, chia pudding, or a protein smoothie with fiber and fat. Do not skip meals under eating, puts your body into scarcity mode and makes it release even more stress hormone. And if you're running on caffeine on an empty stomach, that's a straight shot of cortisol to the brain. So try eating first before that morning, coffee or caffeine, whatever you like. Your blood sugar sets the tone for your entire day. Balance that and your nervous system has one less reason to panic next. Let's talk about gut health because your gut and brain are always talking. See, your gut and your brain are in a constant back and forth conversation. And if your gut is inflamed, overwhelmed, or depleted, your nervous system feels it. You know that gut feeling when something feels off that's real. And when your gut is struggling, your mood focus and even anxiety levels take a hit. So how do we support it? Well, you can start by adding fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and coconut yogurt to your feed. Beneficial gut bacteria reduce inflammatory foods, especially ultra processed foods and oils like can oil, soybean, and sunflower oil. These rec gut integrity consider getting L-glutamine and amino acid that helps repair the gut lining and supports mood stability. And just know that your gut is your second brain and it's part of your nervous system, so take care of it, and your whole body will feel the shift even deeper. I highly recommend you reaching out to me to set up a call because a lot of times we may have a fungus or parasites or a gut imbalance, which is causing a lot of our mental health issues, and it keeps our nervous system dysregulated. Finally, let's talk about supporting your stress responses with nutrients that your body is burning through. So stress is doing a lot to your body because if you've been feeling exhausted, foggy, anxious, or just not yourself, it's not just in your head. Stress is not just an emotional experience. It's actually a very physical experience that drains you. It depletes key nutrients that your brain and your body need to function, and if you don't replenish them well, you stay stuck in survival mode no matter how much mindset work you do. So if you've been running on pressure perfectionism, or burnout for months or years, even decades, this is for you. So let's get into what stress steals from you and how to get it back. If you've been feeling anxious wired, but tired or struggling to sleep at night, you're probably low in magnesium. Magnesium is your nervous system's brake pedal. It literally tells your body when to feel safe and to relax. But when you're stressed, you burn through it like crazy. And when your magnesium levels drop, your muscles tighten, your brain speeds up and your sleep goes out the window to replenish it. You want to eat more dark leafy greens, pumpkin seeds, almonds, cow, cow, avocados, bananas, and wild caught salmon. You can also supplement with magnesium glycinate, which is best for calming the nervous system and sleep and doesn't clear you out like most magnesiums do. The next one is B vitamins. So B vitamins are like the fuel for your brain and adrenals. They help regulate energy, mood and stress, resilience. But when you're constantly pushing yourself, working late, skipping meals, running on caffeine, your body burns through them fast and low. B vitamin can make you feel foggy, fatigued, moody, and like you're constantly running on empty. So we can replenish them by eating more grass fed meats, eggs, dairy, wild caught fish, lentils, leafy greens, and nutritional yeast. Take a B complex supplement, especially if you're plant-based or feeling mentally drained. Vitamin C. So your adrenal glands actually store the highest concentration of vitamin C in your body, and when you're under stress, they burn through them like wildfire. If you've been getting sicko often feeling run down, or just noticing that you don't bounce back like you used to, your body might be running low on vitamin C. So we can replenish this by eating more citrus, fruits, bell peppers, kiwi strawberries, broccoli, or cameo camo, and you can supplement with vitamin C, especially during high stress periods. I highly recommend just taking extra. Now zinc is another nutrient that gets depleted by chronic stress, and when that happens, your immune system weakens, your skin breaks out, and your mood can tank. It's like your body's protective shield, but stress punches holes in it leaving you more vulnerable to everything from colds to anxiety. You can replenish this by eating more oysters, grass fed beef, pumpkin seeds, lentils, chickpeas, and nuts. I would highly recommend supplementing with zinc if you are dealing with chronic stress, frequent sickness, or skin issues. If you feel like your brain is foggy, unfocused, or stuck in overdrive, you might be low in omega threes. Omega threes are anti-inflammatory powerhouses that support brain health, mood stability, and stress resilience. But when you're under chronic stress, your body burns through them. So we want to eat more wild caught salmon, sardines, walnuts, flax seeds and chia seeds. And you can also take an Omega-3 supplements, but look for one high-end DHA and EPA for brain support. If you've ever felt totally drained, dizzy, or lightheaded when you're under stress, that's because your body dumps out potassium and sodium when cortisol is high. These two minerals help regulate hydration, nerve signaling, and adrenal function. When they're depleted, you feel weak, fatigued, and like your energy is crashing constantly. So we wanna replenish them by eating more potassium rich foods like bananas, avocado, coconut water, and white beans. And don't be afraid of salt. So Celtic sea salt or Himalayan pink salt can help replenish sodium levels. And you can also try drinking bone broth for natural source of electrolytes, or just getting a really nice form of electrolyte, uh, powder. I always drink some in the morning. Um, and halfway through the day, minerals changed the game for me once I started upping them. Iron is another nutrient that stress can mess with because when cortisol is high, your body doesn't absorb iron well. And when iron is low, you feel exhausted, weak, and mentally drained. No matter how much you sleep, you get right. So you want to eat more grass fed meat, liver, spinach, lentils, dark chocolate. Yes. Really? Um, but if you need to supplement one iron, I would check your levels first because too much iron isn't good either. And sometimes there can be other things going on. Underneath all of this now, if you feel like stress is running your life. One of my number one recommendations would be adaptogens because they can be a game changer. They literally help regulate cortisol, balance, adrenal function, and make your body more resilient. They are true medicine, so adaptogens adapt to your body. So for example. Different adaptogens work with your body with whatever it needs. It's like a type of mushroom implant medicine that can go into your body and it's so intelligent, it will give you what you need. So some of the best ones would be like ashwagandha, which I'm sure you've heard of before. This lowers cortisol and reduces anxiety. Rhodiola, which increases energy and mental clarity. Holy basil or tulsi. This supports mood and stress recovery. I highly, highly recommend it. Rishi Mushroom, which is my favorite for gut support and immune system and reducing inflammation. So you wanna take them either in teas, tinctures, or there's a couple of companies that I highly recommend you get'em from. I will put this in the show notes and. If you've been feeling drained, overwhelmed, or stuck in fight or flight, your body isn't broken. I really want you to realize this. It's just depleted and no amount of mindset work is going to shift this if your nervous system doesn't feel safe. So if you have nutrient deficiencies, if your gut is imbalanced and you are constantly in a state of pressure and control, what's most likely happened is that. State of control. That state of judgment, that state of perfectionism, that state of stress has led to physical imbalances within your body, which then bidirectionally creates more stress in your mind. So the nervous system works bidirectionally along with the gut. So we must work on the biological and the physical aspect first, while also working with the physical body. So before you try to push through and force motivation or wonder why you still feel stuck, ask yourself, have I actually replenished what stress has burned through? So start with eating in a way that stabilizes your nervous system. Remember, balance your blood sugar, nourish your gut, get your minerals in, replenish what stress is stealing from you magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, and omegas. Support your body with adaptogens if needed, especially if you feel wired and tired all the time. Because the truth is your body wants to heal, but it needs the right tools to do it. And of course the next one up is breath work. So try this right now, the four by eight breath work method. You wanna inhale through your nose for four seconds. And hold for seven, and then exhale through your mouth for eight seconds. Now do it again. Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. And breathe out for eight. Let your shoulders drop and let your belly soften. You can do that as many times as you want. I usually do it for at least four or five rounds, and that's where I get the real shift. We have the ability to shift our state at any time through our nervous system, through our breath. So your nervous system needs to experience safety in the present moment before it can stop obsessing over the future. So if you're overthinking, if you're feeling really down on yourself, practice the four by seven by eight breath work. And then once you've changed your state, you can make a new decision on what you wanna do. So the next time you feel that panic, when you feel behind, when you feel pressure, kick in pause. Ask yourself, what expectation am I gripping onto right now? Where did it come from? Is it even mine? So what I want you to do is write down all the things you think you quote unquote should be doing, because those are all expectations. They're illusions that you've been carrying. And most of the time they were never even yours to begin with. They come from society, family, outdated paradigms, conditioning that taught you that your worth is tied to doing, proving and achieving. And if you wanna break the cycle, you have to make space for something new. So breathe, meditate, but not to escape, but to witness yourself. Sit in silence even when it's uncomfortable. Notice when your mind tries to pull you back into old patterns and choose differently because this is how you stop repeating the past and actually create your future. It's why your best ideas don't come when you're forcing them. They come when you're in the shower on a walk, or when you finally exhale, think about it.'cause your brain isn't a machine. It's an adaptive, creative system that needs space to form new connections to a wire, to rewire, to integrate. And if you're constantly filling every gap with noise, distractions, and tasks. You're keeping yourself stuck in the very loop you're trying to break free from. Step three, we're gonna be shifting from doing to being, this is the spiritual and energetic shift that we'll be making. Now, most people don't struggle with change because they don't know what to do. They struggle because they're doing too much. When you've been living in survival mode, pushing, proving, forcing your brain and body don't trust illness, you've been conditioned to believe that more effort equals better results. More books, more therapy, more trying to figure it all the fuck out, right? But real transformation, it doesn't happen when you're gripping. It happens in the pause. So the real question is are you gonna keep running in circles, gripping onto control over efforting your way through healing? Or are you ready to spiral upwards to expand into the unknown, to trust that healing isn't about doing more, but about unbecoming the conditioned version of you and reconnecting with your authentic self? Because here's what I've learned, the version of me who actually receives everything she desires. She's not fucking gripping, she's not proving, she's not exhausting herself, trying to force things into place. She moves from a place of trust. She moves from her body, not just her mind. She moves from knowing that everything meant for her will find her without force. And this is exactly what happened when I let go of embodied. See, the second you start thinking in terms of success or failure, you've already lost the game. Because your mind is shaping your entire experience. If you expect the worst, you'll find evidence of it. If you expect perfection, you'll always be disappointed. But if you expect growth, if you expect expansion, if you expect that every ending is actually a beginning in disguise, then suddenly you stop living in resistance. You stop gripping and you start living in flow. So here's my question for you. What expectations are you finally ready to let go of? What's one thing you've been gripping on to so hard that you haven't even noticed? It's suffocating. You DM me right now and tell me, let's have a conversation. Because healing isn't about doing it alone. It's about evolving together. Community truly is the medicine. And if this episode cracks something open in you, share it. Tag me on Instagram at Lauren Michelle Jewel, and let's get this message to the women who need it.'cause you're not behind. You are exactly where you're meant to be. This is embody this the no BS Healing podcast. Until next time, trust the process girl.