Enter Rocky Road

Her friend arrived with her dad, rang the doorbell, and our little cocker spaniel, Rocky Road, started barking like crazy.

I could tell right away she wasn't just unsure about him.

She was terrified.

I promised her I was holding his collar, and eyes wide, she skirted around the door frame and zipped upstairs with my daughter.

Rocky, being the social butterfly he is, needed to know who was here.

So he ran right up after them and parked himself outside the bedroom door, still barking.

(I know. He could probably use some training.)

A little while later, my daughter called over the balcony, "Can you hold Rocky so we can come down? We want to get a Poppi!"

"Yep! I'll take him outside!" I called back.

And I watched her friend watch us through the window, making sure Rocky really was out there and she was safe.

Round two

Later that week, she came over again.

Apparently there was a part two they wanted to get started on.

As she walked through the front door, Tyler reminded her, "You said you'd try to pet him!"

I told Tyler she didn't have to if she wasn't comfortable, and her friend looked relieved.

"Maybe later," she said, and they scurried upstairs.

Then another shout over the balcony.

"Mom, are you holding him? We want a snack."

"Yes! I've got him," I said, Rocky in my lap.

"Can I hold your hand?"

This time Tyler's friend came closer, but her fists were clenched and she looked almost frozen in place.

"Go ahead, pet him," Ty said.

"Ah, I can't do it. Can I hold your hand, Tyler?"

So Tyler held out her hand, her friend laid hers on top, and together they reached down to pet Rocky.

"He's so soft!" her friend said.

She relaxed a little, and Tyler showed her how to pet the top of his head and down his back.

"Can you hold my hand again?" she asked.

And they did it again, Tyler's hand guiding hers.

Why it worked

This is titrated (small steps) co-regulation (two nervous systems).

Tyler's friend got to take one small step, then another, while borrowing Tyler's calm (regulation).

Could she have gotten there on her own?
Maybe.

But it would have taken a lot of tries, and overriding the part of her that was trying to keep her safe.

More likely, it would have just become the pattern.

I hold the dog. She runs upstairs.

Every single visit.

The part we get backwards

(You've probably figured out this isn't really about the dog.)

You're Tyler's friend.

You do hard things all day long.
You make the big calls.
You lead the team.

But there's one reaction you can't seem to change, no matter what you do.

Maybe it's snapping at your team or your kids when you're stretched thin.

Saying yes when you meant no.

Or feeling guilty every time you try to sit still on a Sunday.

You've read the books.
You know exactly what you're doing while you're doing it.

And you still run upstairs.
Metaphorically, of course.

There's nothing wrong with you.
That reaction makes sense.

But it won't change because you push harder on it or try to force yourself out of it.

It changes faster (and creates safety) with someone you trust standing next to you, calm, holding the dog.

That's what Tyler's friend figured out.

She asked for a hand.
Bam! Breakthrough.

So here's my question for you this week:
What are you still trying to do, all on your own, without asking for a hand?

Keri

PS. My goal this season is pretty simple. Help more women stop doing the hardest parts of their lives alone, and be the hand they get to hold while they do it. We opened 4 spots in Apex Leadership Advisory this month, where we work on the woman behind the business. Bonus: each of the 4 starts with a private 60-minute session with me before her first group call. Vibe check required. Comment "APEX" and let's see if it's a fit.

Podcast Feature:

Why High-Achieving Women Are Still Not Healing Despite “Doing the Work” And What Actually Works with Monica Yates

Keri Ford joins Monica to talk about why high-achieving women burn out despite all the healing tools, and what truly makes a difference.

Listen Here

In college, I was one of only four students out of 5,500 to graduate with my major.

On paper, it sounds impressive. Proof that I could outlast anyone. And sometimes I still like saying it, because I worked hard for that degree.

But what I really graduated with was fifteen extra pounds, walking pneumonia my last semester, an eating disorder, and anxiety braided into my nervous system. I carried those same habits into the workforce, where my identity became tied to running with my hair on fire.

I believed what was rewarded: you only get out what you put in.

This was before Blackberries. Back when actual face time mattered.

Who could be in the office latest.
Who would give up their weekend.
Who skipped dinner to get ahead.
Who added one more certificate to the stack.

So I gave everything.

The problem is that belief will build you.
And then it will break you.

Because what happens when you finally hit a wall?
What happens when persistence itself becomes the very thing that undoes you?

The Allure of Endless Drive

Culturally, we worship the woman who never quits.

She is the poster child of resilience. She outworks everyone else, and we hand her the microphone as proof of what is possible.

But what we rarely admit is what it costs.

Arianna Huffington collapsed from exhaustion in her office in 2007, breaking her cheekbone, an incident she later described as the wake-up call, that led her to write The Sleep Revolution and launch Thrive Global.¹

Marissa Mayer has spoken about working 130-hour weeks during her early years at Google, pulling all-nighters and sleeping at her desk.² She later admitted the personal cost of such extreme hours.

Each of these women was celebrated for her relentless drive. Each eventually had to reckon with her limits.

The body always keeps score, even when the world is still applauding.

And if we are honest, there is some deep place, maybe even wound, within us that really likes the applause.

The Problem with “Limitless”

This is why I’ve grown wary of the word limitless.

I even built an entire free training around it. I called it Limitless: Unbounded Potential. At the time, it felt true. It felt necessary. And for many women, it was.

Because some women really do need that rallying cry. They have been conditioned to shrink, to stop short, to disqualify themselves. For them, the word limitless was like oxygen. It gave them permission to stretch beyond fear, their current belief system, and nervous system capacity.

But here is what I see now:

For women who already carry millions in revenue, teams, families, and responsibility, limitless is not medicine. It can become poison.

They already know how to sprint. They already know how to override doubt, fatigue, sometimes even intuition. They already know how to push past every natural limit until collapse forces them to stop.

Telling these women they are limitless doesn’t expand them. It f*cking erodes them.

Here they are giving it their all, and somehow it is still not enough.

Limits are not weakness.
Limits are wisdom.

They are the edges that allow longevity.
And it is those same edges that invite God into the conversation. Because if we had no end, we would have no need.

The Theology of Limits

This is where faith reframes the conversation.

I am not limitless. You are not limitless. But God is.

Mark Batterson writes in Draw the Circle: “We forget that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.” It is not my job to be infinite.

To honor my limits is not giving up on God-sized dreams. It is remembering I was never meant to be God. Our faith is limitless. My body is not. And that is where He meets us.

Sprinting vs. Staying

Anyone can sprint. Anyone can white-knuckle a season the way an athlete can cut weight for a competition. But what about the long game?

Warren Buffett is still leading Berkshire Hathaway after more than fifty years as CEO, and at 94, more than 95% of his wealth was earned after the age of 65.³ That is endurance.

Maya Angelou’s career stretched across five decades.⁴ She published poems, autobiographies, essays, directed films, acted on stage and screen. Her voice and body of work grew deeper with time instead of burning out after a single brilliant success.

My mentor used to tell me, “You can never have enough of the thing you don’t need.”

Chasing ovations is like chasing the wind. The applause will always fade.

And this is where I see so many women at $2M-$5M, and sometimes, beyond. They are still in every meeting, still answering late-night texts, still running with their hair on fire. They are building toward eight figures with the same sprinting nervous system that once served them, but at this level, it has to be rewired.

The woman who never quits does not need another gold star.
She does not need another standing ovation for being unstoppable.

What she needs is a blueprint that includes her health.
She needs to trust her limits enough to create sustainability.
She needs to remember that perfection is an illusion that will destroy her if she chases it too far.

Because the woman who never quits can reach the summit, but it is only the woman who honors her limits who gets to remain there.

💌Something to sit with:
Where have you mistaken exhaustion for excellence?
And what would it mean if your limits became sacred instead of shameful?

With love, and with limits,
Keri

PS. If you’re looking for a 6 month reboot, consider the Apex Leadership Advisory, created for the (very human) woman behind the role, the one carrying the company, the family, the weight of being limitless. Our job is to change how you lead, and the outcome is you get your LIFE back. We limit the monthly spots so we continue to serve well. Comment “Apex” on this post and I’ll share details.

PPS. Surprise! We have a pop up Champagne Club® event in collaboration with Deanna LaRue, Certified Financial Planner and host of She Masters Money this November 6th and 7th in Atlanta. Ultra VIP seats include the private dinner experience. Claim your seat here.

Sources

• Oprah.com – Arianna Huffington says sleep can fix your life (2016)

• Entrepreneur – How Google’s Marissa Mayer Prevents Burnout (2012)

• Entrepreneur – Warren Buffett’s Wealth Grew More After Turning 65 (2024)

• Biography.com – Maya Angelou’s Achievements

Picture her.

It's 3:15pm in the carpool line and she's answering Slack with one thumb and approving an invoice with the other.

Her daughter climbs in and innocently asks what's for dinner, and she snaps at her.
She sees her daughter's face fall in the rearview mirror and feels sick about it the whole way home.

Her business works.
On paper she's crushing it.
And, yet, she's still wondering when the next build season will end.

I've coached hundreds of women at this point, and I've been talking about somatic work online for the better part of five years.

And honestly?
She doesn't give a f*ck about "regulating her nervous system."

She wants to stop snapping at her kids.
She wants to sleep through the whole damn night.
She wants to make money without feeling like she's one bad week away from burning out.
She wants to know her team has it.
She wants to feel loved.

Maybe she's you.

There's also so much garbage online about what being regulated even means.
(This is me rolling my eyes from behind the screen.)

You can be triggered AF and still be regulated.

There's no magical moment in healing where you wake up and say, "Wow, I'm happy all the time and nothing bothers me anymore."
Aliveness is being able to feel all of it.

Boring, I know.

But here's where it gets good.

It's freeing to know that when...

your friend crosses a boundary, anger is appropriate.

your dog passes away, grief makes sense.

your dad raised you to work constantly, of course you can't relax on a Sunday.

So here's something to try this week.

Next time you feel something big, instead of asking "What's wrong with me?" ask "Does this make sense?"

Most of the time, it does.

I always say healing is less about getting rid of, and more about allowing all of.

You're not broken. You just picked up some patterns along the way that made sense at the time.

And the best news? You're the one who gets to change them.

Keri

PS. The latest Founders Roundtable episode, "The Cost of Being Seen: What Exposure Actually Asks" with Netflix's Roxanne Kaiser, Shannon Grainger, and Jordan Laurelle is up on our private podcast.

PPS. We opened 4 spots in Apex Leadership Advisory this month. We keep it small so every woman gets our best. Would you like to work with me on the woman behind the business? Each spot comes with a $1,500 private session with me, our gift to you. Comment "APEX" and let's see if it's a fit.

Episode panelists:

• Ali Katz, Personal Family Lawyer, LIFTed Advisor, author, speaker, and entrep…

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Room one: Entrepreneurs' Organization, San Diego
The first group was a private women's event for the San Diego chapter of Entrepreneurs' Organization.

The women collectively voted on the experts and topics they most wanted, and guess what was at the top?

Nervous system work.

AMAZING.

We gathered at a member's home, and I led them through a two-and-a-half-hour experiential workshop. We ended with a neuro-visualization that stretched their capacity to hold MORE of the good stuff they want in their life and business.

Not one woman had done Somatic Experiencing® work before, so hands shot up and they asked the coolest questions.

Room two: Champagne Club®
Next was our very own Champagne Club®, which I have fully surrendered to owning a category of one. Meet the nervous system social club. Each event opens with a three-hour morning workshop on the Somatic Success® topics and techniques I've developed over years of working with hundreds of women. Then we head to a private dinner at a beautiful restaurant. We laugh, we cry, we get dressed up, and we have fun.

This one was The Science of Momentum. These women are so used to trying to push through every wall, and they got to experience sourcing motivation a few different ways. Because momentum isn't about how fast something moves. It's about how hard it is to stop once it's moving.

I'm still deciding our workshop topics for 2027, but both events are already posted, and women have booked all the way out to next September. It's the furthest ahead clients have ever committed.

Room three: WMN+ Collective
The last room was the WMN+ Collective, hosted in a private art gallery with about 60 women looking to grow in their mental and physical health. I spoke about how we can multiply goodness, greatness, and wellness.

I showed them how to tap into their nervous system so they could feel the difference between an emotion and the sensation of an emotion. Then we strettttched a positive experience out a little longer, and practiced training our brain to look for evidence of everything that's working in our lives.

For example, "I feel good" goes deeper into: "What does good feel like [sensations], and where [location] do I feel it?"

Sensations are the language of the actual nervous system and sound like these:

It's been an amazing few weeks, and I am so grateful I get to do this work with brilliant, sharp, talented women.

Women who are experts in their own craft, who take this work, metabolize it, and pass it on through everything they touch: parenthood, marriage, partnership, leadership, team dynamics, conflict resolution. The list goes on.

If you're heading into the Stretch Quarter, you're not alone. And sometimes knowing that is the most healing part.

With so much gratitude,
Keri

PS. 2027 Champagne Club® seats are already booking out to next September. If you've been meaning to join us in the room, plan ahead and grab your seat here.

PPS. Catch up on Founders Roundtable private pod replays (we're dropping a brand new episode today!) or read past issues of Good at Life on Substack where we host the archives.

Episode panelists:

• Jordan Laurelle, transformational speaker, female empowerment thought leader, podcaster, and creator who helps women transform their relationship with themselves so they can transform their lives

• Shannon Grainger, …

Read more

“I made a $200k ROI”

That is an actual text from a client after our last event. We only have 7 seats left for our next Champagne Club® in-person event this September 19th. When you join, you'll also be added to our private community of female founders spanning 18 different industries and 3 countries. Our VIP experience includes a healing sound bath experience and wellness juices. Grab one of the last seats!

1. What people feel when they’re inside your company (this is company culture, think Facebook where the campus is like an adult playground)

2. How your brand is perceived outside of it (this is company values, think Dove and body inclusivity)

Now make your list of 10 things under each category.

Here’s your t-chart ➡️Company Culture | Company Values

Once you’re clear on both, it becomes the filter you run every hire through.

When someone already on your team doesn’t pass through that filter, holding on to them doesn’t protect the vision. It slows the whole damn thing down, and trust me, your nervous system will feel it.

Here’s where I watch building founders get stuck:

When you’re in building season, stretched a little thinner on time and money, capacity feels scarce.
(Don’t worry, we can work on the nervous system part.)

But when you hold on to someone because they already know the role…

And you tell yourself there’s no replacement lined up, that you can’t spare the hours to post the job, vet, interview…

That decision carries an emotional and financial cost.

While you’re holding on to keep from losing, your nervous system stays in a holding pattern, bracing for the next mistake, spending the extra hours double-checking their work, settling for “okay.”

That’s the broken freezer.

It’s four flavors when the machine beside them could be running six.
It’s a $3 cup ringing up where a $10 pint used to.
It’s revenue sitting frozen a few feet from a line of people ready to buy.

It’s protecting yourself from a cost you can see while absorbing a bigger one you can’t.

That woman at TCBY stays with me.

She’s behind the counter, probably certain she’s protecting something, yet the whole time, “getting ahead” only moves further out of reach.

It makes me a little sad, actually.

And it invites a few self-reflection questions I want you to ask yourself:

Where are you playing not to lose when you could be playing to win?
Where are you guarding a small cost and missing the bigger one?
And where might you be clipping your momentum on the vision God built you for?

We’re going deep on exactly this at my next in-person workshop at Champagne Club®, “The Science of Momentum: How to Keep Flow & Opportunity Going.” You’ll leave knowing why some leaders stall, and the multipliers that turn ordinary effort into compounding speed (but without the burnout).

And yes, there’s champagne and dinner, too. Join me this September?
Keri

• MelanieBenson.com

• Melanie’s Substack

• FREE masterclass on how she’s building Substack (the Invisible Sales Force)

• 6-Week Un-Ignorable Substack Accelerator

And if you just want a really great downloadable roadmap from Best Kept Secret to Un-Ignorable Expert, click here.

Get more from Keri Ford in the Substack app

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🥂 Have you considered coming to our next Champagne Club® event here in Atlanta this September 19 & 20? We’ve officially decided to embrace calling ourselves a nervous system social club. Reserve your seat HERE.

🧠Somatic Success® Foundations, our brand new 6-week introduction to nervous system change. The waitlist for 2027 is now open. Join HERE, and you’ll be the first to know the next cohort date.

Episode panelists:

• Shay Bacani, financial strategist and founder of Centure Financial

• Michelle MacDonald, 4X fitness champion and founder of The Wonder Women

• Amy Yamada, business coach, keynote speaker, and AI strategist

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But alas it does have a lesson.

Because I love storytelling.

And I love teaching.

A day date I didn’t ask for

Have you been to Venice Beach, California?

Like, the not so nice part?

K. Picture that.

Now picture that Jake is taking me on a day date to go “floating.”

I had never heard of it, but according to him it was so relaxing you can nap.

So we walk in and immediately the place gives off, well, Venice vibes.

And not the good ones.

I’m thinking maybe we are in the wrong place?

It looked like it was under construction with half finished walls that didn’t go all the way up to the very high ceiling.

The lobby was sad with old pamphlets and outdated posters.

No, we were in the right place.

Jake and the man behind the desk, a lanky kind of strung-out looking fellow, seem to recognize each other.

He shows us each to our “room.”

We have a shower to rinse off in, a wall that isn’t finished all the way around.

And in the middle, a giant tank.

I had never seen anything like it.

The man has us lock our doors and says don’t worry, “I’m leaving for a couple of hours, but I’ll lock the door to the boardwalk.”

Uh. What?

We’re booked for a two hour session.

Jake is in the “room” next to me, but all is quiet aside from background music.

Suited up, going nowhere

So I go rinse in the shower, put my suit on and…

Proceed to sit in a fold out chair outside of the tank.

I was terrified.

This giant tank is completely dark inside because as it turns out this is actually a sensory deprivation experience.

There is all kinds of plumbing that seems to be running in and outside of it.

Any minute now, I’ll muster up the courage to step inside, I think to myself.

But the longer I sat there, the more my imagination went wild.

What if my hair extensions float out?

What if I’m the one person whose hair gets sucked into a drain they didn’t know about?

What if a water snake or a weird fish got into the tank and bites me?

What if I don’t float in the water?

These are literal thoughts going through my head.

Now I’m starting to panic.

30 minutes has gone by and I’m still dry, outside the tank.

F*ck.

The question that changed everything

Okay, wait. I need to ask myself one very important question.

Do I want to go in the tank?

I secretly know this question is going to reveal a choice point.

Immediate yes.

Yes?! I’m crying now.

Not out of relief, out of frustration.

Because now I am well aware I’m not just avoiding something I don’t want to do.

I’m avoiding something I do want to do.

And I’m the only one in my way because of fear.

45 minutes.

I get up and walk over to the tank. Open the door. “Wow, that is dark.”

The water is still and it smells like salt. I step into the tank one foot at a time, and decide to keep the door cracked to allow some light inside.

I can’t remember the water temperature because I was still low key freaking out, but there I was, eyes wide open and floating inside the dark tank.

What floating actually teaches you

1 hour to go.

I think back to Jake describing this as the “most relaxing thing ever” and how much he loves floating.

Floating, as it turns out, is much like surrender.

You have to let go of control and relax your body to allow it to float on top of the water.

45 minutes left.

I close the door a little more to let it be darker.

I let go.

5 minutes left.

I must have dozed off.

Relaxing? Not 100%.

A lesson in doing things despite the fear? Absolutely.

The opportunity

Fear holds us back from living a life that is fully alive and free.

It keeps us locked up inside, and sometimes we are the very thing in our own way.

From a trauma lens, this makes sense, but the cool part is that not only can we start taking new action, we can experience it differently inside.

Perhaps neutrally, enjoyably even.

At the time, I didn’t have the Somatic Experiencing training or the internal rewiring that’s different now, but

if I did, I would have had one thing on my side that I didn’t have then: speed.

Decisions that know and feel faster.

Aligned action with less wasted time.

And instead of only being in the tank a little over half the time, I would have been able to move through that paralyzed feeling in just a few minutes.

People pleasing is the same fold out chair.

It’s boundary you don’t know how to set, even after you’ve rehearsed it a hundred times.

But you sit next to it, suited up, waiting to feel ready.

That’s what I’m teaching inside Boundaries Like a Boss on July 22: how to find your yes (or your no) and do the damn thing you want to do while feeling fully free inside. Save your seat, replay included.

Spotlight:

I’m excited to share something my friend Lindsay created, because it fills a gap I haven’t seen addressed anywhere else.

It’s called Zestia, a personalized growth app built by Lindsay, a licensed therapist. It’s designed to help you create more joy, more confidence, stronger relationships, and a deeper love for life.

Here’s what makes it different. Most of us already know more than we’re putting into practice. The hard part is living it once the day fills up. Zestia gives you one short therapist-designed exercise to focus on, then sends quick reminders through your day that bring you back to it, so you’re practicing in real life and not just reading about it. Your path is personalized to where you are right now, and it takes only minutes a week.

If that’s something you’d connect with, you can explore Zestia here.

I celebrated my 42nd birthday starting with our town parade and a homemade sign my kids made that said, “Today’s my mom’s birthday!”

It redeemed every year my birthday was swallowed by summer break and friends being tied up with family holiday plans.

Though, I do get fireworks every year, and if you know me, it’s extremely fitting.

Birthdays always make me reflective, and this year my mind wandered back to 2008, when I first moved to Hollywood and learned one of the most expensive lessons of my life.

It didn’t cost me money.

It cost me my “no.”

The gym behind the gate

Back in 2008, I had just moved to LA, and I didn’t know anyone except my boyfriend at the time.

I was studying to become a personal trainer while working at a protein smoothie shop (with a college degree… a whole other story).

Then I met my good friend Ashley Conrad.

She’s the one who got me into the celebrity gym.

This gym was so secret… it had no sign.

Just a gate off Hollywood Boulevard, an alleyway, and a staircase above a Starbucks.

The only way in was to have a personal trainer or a spin class package.

My client list?

Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kaley Cuoco, Gerard Butler, Laura Prepon, Jamie Kennedy, Ali Sweeney, to name a few.

One of the trainers there, let’s call her Kendra, was a world renowned fitness model and awarded competitor.

I was in awe of her.

So when I signed up for my first fitness competition that year as a young twenty-something year old, a regional show in San Diego, I asked her, “What’s your best advice for a newbie like me?”

She said, “Let me send you some stuff!”

I thought, “Wow, how generous. She’s going to share some of her greatest secrets for my first competition.”

The invisible contract

What she actually shared was generic advice delivered like it was gold 😑

And while I appreciated her sending me some resources, it was essentially…

• Eat tuna and salad, or chicken and green beans 6x a day.

• Take these fat burners (I never did).

• Train every day.

Not only was this a fast way to burn out my adrenals, but it got weird when she wanted to show me how to pose, and then…

Somewhere along the way, that advice became a debt.

“Because I’ve helped you,” she said, “you can drive me to the bank on Tuesday. I don’t have a car and it would be really helpful.”

We never made an agreement.

She never hired me, and I never hired her, but I felt like I owed her, especially now that she was asking me.

My body said “no” before my mouth said, “Okay, no problem.”

I did want to be helpful, after all, and wasn’t she trying to be the same?

Ninety minutes on Hollywood Boulevard

If you’ve ever lived on Hollywood Boulevard, you know two things are true.

1. There’s a ton of traffic.

2. There’s absolutely no street parking.

So I dropped her at the curb of Chase Bank and started circling the block.

Every 10 to 15 minutes she’d text me: should be next in line any minute now.

She said that for NINETY minutes.

I had a training session to get back to the gym for, but I felt trapped in a loop, literally and otherwise, wondering how I got here. I couldn’t leave her with no ride home, but also how did I get here?!

When she finally got in the car, she wanted to run another errand.

Her Chinese medicine doctor.

Then another stop after that.

And another.

The whole time I was freaking out inside, but obediently driving her around.

I eventually did say something after a few hours, and I told her I had to get back to the gym.

But the question kept circling the way I had been. Why did I keep agreeing when everything in me was screaming “no?”

A passenger in my own body

The language I’d use now is that I felt like a passenger in my own body.

I felt like I owed her.

Like rocking the boat would cost me the advice I thought I needed, and the relationship.

About a week later, sleepless nights, and thinking about it non-stop, I mustered the courage to text her and ask if she had a few minutes to chat.

On that call, my voice was shaking.

I wanted to throw up.

I was sweating.

And that’s when I told her, “This isn’t working for me. I value your advice, but I cannot be your assistant.”

It took me hours or rehearsing the conversation, another hour to actually send the first text to her, let alone get that sentence out of my mouth.

She was upset. But we had never once discussed a trade.

She had simply acted like I owed her.

And my nervous system was in conflict the entire time.

The “no” in the knot of your throat

Have you ever felt like your body is paralyzed and won’t let you speak up, really say what you mean, and feel okay inside after expressing it?

The fawn response keeps us paralyzed on the inside while on the outside we are performing “everything’s fine.”

This response is also called the “please-and-appease” response.

It is the only socially oriented and externally focused self-protective response.

Many of us needed that response at some point. If your safety once depended on playing nice and playing along, fawning is absolutely brilliant. It protects you.

But there comes a moment when you’re no longer in that relationship or that dynamic… and yet you’re still saying “yes” when you mean “no” (or the other way around!).

You’re still overriding your body.

The “no” stays trapped in the knot of your throat, because the threat of abandonment or rejection feels too great.

Then you gaslight yourself into thinking maybe it’s not really a “no.”

But wouldn’t it feel so free to be able to say “no” or “yes,” know it for sure, and feel calm inside, too? Like it’s a non-thing anymore?

Boundaries Like a Boss

I haven’t taught a workshop in nearly two years.

But this pattern kept showing up so loudly, in so many women, that it brought me back to wanting to teach about it.

So many of our clients, so so many accomplished women, have come to us with some version of this exact story.

I see it all the time, even at ultra successful levels.

Different bank, different boulevard, same trapped “no.”

It shows up when they hire the wrong person, but knew it in the interview.

It shows up when the business part is figured out, but personal relationships feel confusing and anxious.

It shows up when they’d rather absorb the problem they’ve replayed a million times than have the tough conversation.

It kept coming up until it became clear: we’re get to do together.

Boundaries Like a Boss is a live two hour workshop where I’ll be teaching the Somatic Success® strategies we use inside the nervous system for trauma resolution, and how you can start to change the fawn response itself. You’ll learn how to feel the “no” in your body, and how to get it out of the knot in your throat.

Stop the looping pattern. Start experiencing something new.

Join us Tuesday, July 22, from 4:30 to 6:30pm ET. Just $97, replay included.

Come get your “no” back,

Keri

She’s hilarious.

She has an apparel line and one of the t-shirts says, “I don’t want to lean in, I want to lie down.” 😂

And I think that about sums up where most of the women are who I speak to.

There’s this whole conversation about capacity and expanding it so you can “hold more.”

And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to hold more, I want to hold less, lol.

You’re already holding f*cking everything, and everybody.

Especially when you have kids, a team, a partner on payroll, and a large monthly nut to cover.

So no, don’t tell me to expand my capacity so I can continue to “hold more.”

Let’s try softer

Hold less.

Ask for help.

Lie down.

Receive love.

Put our face in the sun.

The part that’s actually true

The part that is partially correct here, though, is that in nervous system work, true Somatic Experiencing®, there are benefits to expanding our capacity.

We call this the Window of Tolerance.

This isn’t my term. It was coined by Dan Siegel, who defined it as the optimal zone of arousal.

Aka: where you feel triggered and activated (the term for things we feel bubbling up or that feel prickly inside) and aren’t losing your sh*t.

And each nervous system has a different sized window.

Some are more narrow, which means a little can set them off and keep them stuck there.

Others are wider, meaning they can navigate pressure and stress with more ease, with very little actually tipping them into overwhelm. They seem to fluidly move through and metabolize things. (Caveat: I don’t mean people who are good under pressure, but their body is screaming a different somatic story in the form of joint pain, inflammation, high blood pressure, etc.)

And if you haven’t guessed it already, the wider one is ideal.

The balloon theory

So how do we widen and expand your window of tolerance?

I’m going to share exactly how we teach this inside our programs:

Imagine a balloon 🎈

Let’s fill it up with one big puff of air.

What happens?

It takes on a new shape, and the air provides resistance from the inside as it pushes against the latex.

If we deflate it, the balloon loses air, but it doesn’t return to its original shape 100%. It’s been stretched in a new way.

Now when we go to fill it up again, this time with more air, it expands with much more ease.

This is the process we take you through when we’re tracking your nervous system, guiding you away from (deflating) or toward (inflating) activation.

It requires we don’t fill the balloon with too much air too fast, and that we give it time to deflate a little between cycles.

So we inflate it a little, deflate a little, inflate it again stretching it a little more, then deflate a little.

All the while, letting the balloon take on a new shape.

If you enjoyed this piece, consider subscribing so you don’t miss future essays on the nervous system, leadership, identity, and building a life that feels as good as it looks.

So why do this at all?

It’s not about holding more, holding it in, taking more on.

It’s about releasing and moving through more as it comes up so you are holding less.

Life always has curveballs.

But imagine that with your ability to process things with more ease, you also don’t lose yourself inside them.

You like who you are despite what’s going on in your life.

You handle conflict, stress, pressure, and decisions with more fluidity.

And, sometimes, you decide to lie down.

PS. If you want to understand more about the foundational work we teach, and actually experience it for yourself, we have a brand new cohort starting for our live “6-weeks to nervous system change” program this August 11th! Special pricing is available for a limited time.

-Keri

We talked about motherhood, marriage, business, family systems, freedom, routines, no routines, support, and what it really looks like to create a life that works for you, not just one that lo…

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In fact, as I write this, I was going to be on a plane headed there today.

But I said no.

Not because I didn’t want to go, but because the timing wasn’t quite right.

The right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing.

I had to remind myself that God wouldn’t gift me with a private invitation to a room I was supposed to be in without any way of it working out.

And while I technically had those calendar days “free,” or I could have rearranged some things to “make it work,” I have spent an entire career pushing to make things happen.

Maybe you’ve found yourself here, too?

“No one will outwork me.”

“I’ll give it 110%.”

“There is no plan B!”

“I’ll do whatever it takes.”

These are actual thoughts and mantras I used to live by.

While they are incredible for driving results, the problem is it’s exhausting to source motivation from constantly pushing. (Though a whole other topic for an entirely different newsletter is how we do need healthy resistance to grow.)

We just got back this weekend from an almost two week trip.

If you follow me on Instagram , you may have seen I was in Nashville filming on set for Taylor Welch’s Novos Network as one of the instructors inside their personal development platform. It’s growing FAST, and it’s been incredible to watch him build it from the beginning.

Filming was 4 hours with three 5-minute breaks between sessions, and was live streaming to an intimate audience of about 40 people! Later, the team will upload this Deep Dive into Novos and create a workbook to go alongside it.

After recording was over, Jake and I went out for a celebratory glass of Pinot Noir at an Italian restaurant. We had the most delicious caviar topped truffle tater tots, and an array of other yummy share plates.

We were going to go back to Atlanta, but my kids ended up being in Nashville for a mini vacay with their dad, so we stayed with some very good friends and made new memories until we scooped up the kids on Sunday and headed north for the next leg of our trip: a week long vacation with Jake’s family at their home in Michigan.

A fulfilling, but long week.

After we got back home from our 2-day drive home, complete with an overnight in Louisville, I knew not going was the right choice... even if I had serious FOMO.

Oh, and we just started the brand NEW Somatic Success® Foundations: 6-Week Intro to Nervous System Change program!

This weekend I’m looking forward to hosting the Champagne Club®, and the women who are coming to this event are truly amazing. We’re going to one of my favorite Mediterranean spots here in Atlanta, and I booked a private pool on Sunday for those who want some additional relaxed networking, poolside. 3 seats left! You can grab one of those here and then we will be SOLD OUT.

(Don’t worry, I think it’s the fun kind.)

If you haven’t seen the family movie David, go rent or buy it right now. Then get out your journal and actually answer the below questions under each section.

This newsletter is about the two words that came to mind after watching it with Jake and the kids:

Reckless Faith.

Here are five lessons I learned, or re-learned, after watching David.

1. God is always for you

“My God” is a phrase David repeats throughout the movie, and what a beautiful reminder that we can never be misled when God is always for us.

It doesn’t always feel that way in the moment, because we get attached to how we think things are supposed to go.

But David says it to himself, and to the people around him, as a reminder that even when the plan doesn’t make sense to us, God is still for us.

Question: How could something currently showing up as a setback, actually be for you from God?

2. The authentic self always wins

Every time someone tries to show David how a King “should” dress or act or look, he decides to just be himself, and that turns out to be the winning formula.

The elaborate costumes, the slicked-back hair, the careful script of what he should and shouldn’t say. And each time he follows his heart and returns to who he already is, with no agenda and no performance. That’s what makes the people fall in love with him.

Question: Where in your life or business are you still performing a role, rather than being who you already are?

3. Leadership isn’t always chosen

What makes David a future great King is, paradoxically, that he doesn’t want to be one.

He isn’t power-hungry or pride-driven. He just wants to lead his sheep. And when he reframes being King as being a shepherd of the people, everything shifts. It goes from a role he doesn’t feel fit for to the thing he was born to do. There’s an inevitability to his being chosen.

Question: What do you need to reframe in this season so you can be the leader it requires?

4. It’s God through you

“It’s not my crown,” he says. “It’s God’s.”

How often do we make our business, our money, even our purpose into ours? It’s in the full surrender of it being God’s that He can use you completely, because you’re holding it the way a steward holds something entrusted to them.

And surrender, by the way, is a somatic experience. When we let go and let God, the body settles into a down-regulated, relaxed state.

Question: What are you still holding as yours that you need to hand back to God?

5. Reckless faith looks crazy

Take David and Goliath. If we only look for the evidence our eyes can see, the proof of what’s “possible,” we end up doubting God’s ability to do the impossible.

Everyone laughed at David. They thought he was insane for going up against that giant, but his reckless faith had the last laugh.

Last question: If what seemed impossible turned out to be possible, would you take action differently? How so? Be specific.

Keri

I’m about to share a family secret with you.

Unfortunately, it isn’t my grandma’s meatball recipe (and yes, that is a real, guarded thing).

Fun fact: my maiden name was “Yapaolo” and my dad is 100% Italian. For obvious reasons, I kept “Ford”

But this is something else my dad and I got into over dinner this past weekend, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

First, a quick story about stories

We all have them. The stories we’ve decided are true because they feel true, even though they’re built out of perception and feeling far more than fact.

Here’s one of mine: I have always felt like a bit of a weirdo.

I was in AP biology who also was invited to the “popular” parties.

I was a musical theatre geek who also drove a flashy stick shift coupe.

I was an art major who also trained with the UD cheerleaders.

None of those things seemed to belong together, at least not to me.

It felt less like peanut butter and jelly and more like oil and water, and that made me feel like I didn’t quite fit anywhere.

And even though I always seemed to be surrounded by friends, I was also getting prank calls from blocked numbers and coming home from spring break to find dog mess smeared into my car. Confusing, to say the least.

Seeing that screenshot just reminded me how differently we can hold our own story, and how little we actually know about anyone else’s.

The black sheep thing

Another story I’ve carried for a long time is that I’m the black sheep of my family (you, too?)

When I was going through my divorce in my early thirties, I basically had to “come out” about the fact that I’d started going to church. Both of my parents were raised with religion of some kind, and my dad even went to private Catholic school, but I wasn’t raised with any particular faith.

I found my way to it on my own, and assumed that it continued to make me the odd one out.

During this time, I was going through what can only be described as a spiritual awakening, which, if you’ve ever been through one, you know is an upheaval of life as you know it.

Suddenly I had a new language: personal development, Somatic Experiencing®, inner child healing, universal law, manifestation, God, all of it.

Meanwhile, my dad built a hugely successful corporate career and majored in math.

MATH. Lol. (Very much not my zone.)

I’m the entrepreneur in the family with no blueprint to follow, so the black sheep story always had plenty of evidence behind it. I figured he and I couldn’t be more different aside from some dorky humor.

Then, dinner

Fast forward to this past Friday night. We’re eating dinner and somehow we land on Joe Dispenza.

I’ve never done his retreats or programs, but I know his story well.

If you don’t, here’s the short version:

Back in 1986, during the cycling leg of a triathlon, he was hit by an SUV and shattered six vertebrae in his spine. Four different surgeons told him the same thing: without a risky surgery to put rods in his back, he would likely never walk again.

He turned it down.

Instead, he decided to rebuild his spine in his mind, vertebra by vertebra, spending a couple of hours on it in the morning and again at night.

Here’s the part that is really incredible…

Every time his focus slipped, he made himself start the entire reconstruction over from the very beginning. I think he said it took him 4 hours to complete, start to finish, the first time. He promised that if it worked, he would spend the rest of his life studying it. Roughly ten weeks later, he walked again, and he kept the promise.

So there we are at the table, talking about the body’s ability to heal itself and how our beliefs shape our reality, and my dad says, almost casually, “I used to do something like this before bed when I was working.”

Um, WHAT.

It’s important you know that he has NEVER once mentioned this to me.

“Yeah,” he goes on. “Before I’d fall asleep I’d tell myself, ‘wake up with a solution to xyz,’ and every time, I’d wake up and there it was. I always had the answer.”

I’m just smiling and staring at him. “Wait. What?”

He laughed, almost like he still couldn’t quite believe it himself. “It worked every time. But it was so weird that I decided I’d never tell anyone.”

I’m sitting there thinking how unbelievably cool this is.

“And other times,” he adds, “I’d just say, ‘work on this, this, and this.’”

“What do you mean?” I wanted more information.

“You know,” he says, “like telling my body to work on an ache or a pain while I slept.”

Basically, my dad is Joe Dispenza.

Parallel lives, different words

Joking aside, his body’s inherent wisdom nudged him to do this without any of the formal somatic training or healing work I have pursued. Just wow.

This whole time, the two of us have been doing similar things to rewrite beliefs and create new realities, just with wildly different vocabulary.

While he didn’t have a name for it, I’d call it manifestation, or visualization, or divine intelligence. Similar practice, different language.

It also got me thinking about how genetics actually work, because I’m right around the age he was when he was “waking up with the answers.”

Maybe I’m not the black sheep after all.

Maybe I just translated the family gift into my own dialect.

And maybe… you aren’t either.

The games we play with ourselves

So here’s my real question for you, and I genuinely want your answer: what little games do you play with yourself that actually seem to work?

I’ll go first. At the start of every month, Jake and I tear off a new sheet of large white paper on the office easel and start fresh.

Here’s how we map it:

My financial goals on the top half.

Jake’s financial goals on the bottom half.

We write them down with a big sharpie, and then all month long we practice the felt state of having already reached them, as if it’s a done deal. We see the easel every time we leave the home office.

And it really works.

Your turn

If you want to play with this, here are three simple ways to start this week:

1. Name a game you already play. Most of us have one seemingly “common sense ritual” that works, even if we’ve never said it out loud (like my dad and his bedtime questions). Notice yours and name it.

2. Hand one thing to your body before bed. Tonight, before you fall asleep, pick one question or one ache and gently assign it: “wake up with a solution to this,” or “work on this while I sleep.” See what shows up in the morning.

3. Write it, then feel it. Put your goal somewhere you’ll see it every day, then take 17 seconds (yes, literally that number of seconds, according to Abraham-Hicks) to drop into the feeling of it already being real. The writing sets the target. The feeling is what does the work.

Hit reply and tell me your version. I read every single one, and I have a feeling some of you are doing practices that are way cooler than you’ve ever admitted.

-Keri

We talked about protecting what you’re building, preparing for what’s next, navigating exits, and trusting yourself through seasons of uncertainty and reinvention. From trademarks and financial st…

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