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Welcome to Beyond the Table, the reflective podcast for high-achieving women who are ready to move from overwhelm and burnout to balance, clarity, and a life that actually feels good.
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I'm your host, Adrienne Maxwell, licensed massage therapist, Reiki Master Teacher, and owner of One Healing Touch Reiki and Massage for Women in North Charleston, South Carolina.
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Let's get into today's episode.
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Welcome to another mindset lesson.
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Before we begin, let's take a moment to arrive in this space.
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Unclench your jaw, allow your shoulders to soften and relax, and maybe even gently roll your shoulders a couple times.
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Shake out any of the tension that you might be holding.
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Take a slow deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth.
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And again, deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth.
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Deep breath in and exhale.
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Perfect.
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At first it's subtle.
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You feel more tired than usual, you need more time to recover from things that never used to affect you.
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Your focus isn't as sharp, your patience is thinner.
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So you adjust.
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You drink more coffee, you try to get more sleep, you tell yourself it's just a busy season.
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But then your body gets louder.
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Tension doesn't go away.
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Exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix.
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A resistance to things you used to handle with ease.
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And suddenly, it's not something you can push through anymore.
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Your body is saying no.
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And your mind doesn't know what to do with that.
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Because on paper, your life makes sense.
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The responsibilities are still valid, the expectations are still there.
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So now you're caught in between a life that still requires you to show up and a body that no longer is willing to carry it in the same way.
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If that tension feels familiar, just acknowledge it for a moment.
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In today's episode of Beyond the Table, we're talking about what it means when your body starts saying no and how to respond without feeling like everything has to fall apart.
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Let's get into it.
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This is one of the most disorienting experiences because you're not just someone who quits when things get hard.
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You've built your life on being consistent, reliable, capable, so when your body starts resisting, it doesn't feel like a signal, it feels like a problem.
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Something to fix, something to override, something to get back under control.
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So you push.
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You try to recreate your old capacity, you tighten your routines, you tell yourself you just need to get back on track.
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But the harder you push, the more your body pulls back.
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And as you hear that, notice if there's anything in your life where that pattern is showing up right now.
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And that's the moment most people miss because this isn't your body failing you, it's your body refusing to continue in a way that's no longer sustainable.
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When your body says no, it's not always dramatic.
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It doesn't always look like a full shutdown.
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Sometimes it looks like procrastination that doesn't make sense, avoidance of things you used to handle easily, constant fatigue, low-grade anxiety or irritability, a lack of desire to engage even with the things you care about.
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And as you hear those, notice which one stands out.
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And because these symptoms aren't extreme, you minimize them.
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You tell yourself it's not that bad.
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I can handle this, I just need to get it together.
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But your body isn't trying to sabotage you, it's communicating.
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And here's the reframe: your body's know is often protecting you from a long-term breakdown.
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It's creating resistance now so you don't completely collapse later.
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The problem is we've been trained to trust our minds over our bodies.
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So when the two conflict, we override the body until we can't anymore.
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So what do you actually do when your body starts saying no?
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Not in theory, but in real life, when things need to get done.
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Let's make it practical.
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Number one, stop trying to return to your old capacity.
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This is the first shift because a lot of struggle comes from trying to get back to who you were before this started.
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But your body isn't asking to go backwards, it's needing to adjust forward.
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What worked before may not be what works now, and forcing it will keep you stuck in a cycle.
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What would it look like to work with where you are now instead of where you think you should be?
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Number two, identify where the resistance is strongest.
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Your body doesn't say no to everything equally.
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There are specific areas where the resistance is louder.
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Pay attention to that.
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Is it your workload, certain relationships, constant availability, unrealistic expectations?
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Your body is pointing somewhere specific.
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Follow that.
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You don't need to figure out everything, just notice where the signal is strongest.
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Number three, reduce pressure before increasing discipline.
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When things feel off, your instinct might be to tighten things.
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More structure, more effort, more control.
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But if your system is already overwhelmed, more pressure won't create stability.
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It creates shutdown.
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Instead, ask, where can I lower the demand?
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Even slightly.
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Honoring small signals, not just big ones.
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Consistency here matters more than intensity.
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Small moments of listening start to rebuild that trust.
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And number five, let know inform your boundaries.
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Your body resists in data.
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It tells you where something needs to change.
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And that change often shows up as a boundary, time boundaries, energy boundaries, access boundaries, not all at once, but one at a time.
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So before we move on, just pause for a second.
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Out of everything we just walked through, where is your body most clearly saying no right now?
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And that point is where you start.
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What if your body isn't working against you but trying to bring you back into alignment, balance?
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What if this resistance you're feeling is actually a form of intelligence, a course correction, a recalibration, if you will?
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Because the truth is you can only override your body for so long before it decides for you.
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So maybe this isn't the moment to push harder.
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Maybe it's the moment to listen differently.
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So here's what I want to leave with you.
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Where in your body are you already saying no?
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And what would it look like to respect that signal, even just a little bit more this week?
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You don't have to change everything, but you do have to start listening because your body will keep speaking until you do.
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Before you go, go ahead and take one more grounding breath in and exhale and let this be enough for today.
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Well, that's it for this episode.
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If you enjoyed it, share it with the woman who needs it and subscribe so you never miss one.
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When you're ready to take this work beyond the podcast, I'm at One Healing Touch Reiki and Massage for Women in North Charleston, South Carolina.
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Take care of yourself, not as a reward, but as a practice.
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And I'll see you beyond the table.