The Link Between Insecure Attachment, Self Abandonment And Chronic Stress

Hello. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and today we have a guest. Her name is Kate Bartley. She's a physical therapist and author and embodied freedom and transformation coach specializing in helping service-driven women who feel like they're falling apart, overwhelmed, exhausted, and struggling with chronic anxiety, pain, or fatigue. She has an upcoming book called The Good Girl Rx, which dives deep into these patterns and how breaking free from them is the missing piece in women's health and a catalyst to healing their body. Stepping into the confidence to to pursue their dreams. Today, I'm really excited to talk to Kate about the link between insecure attachment, self-abandonment, and chronic stress, and how early relational patterns create cycles of overgiving, people pleasing, and exhaustion. Tune in to my episode with Kate Barley. Kate, hi, welcome to the podcast. Hey, thanks, Zoe. I appreciate you having

me.

Yeah, it's good to see you too. So I've had the privilege of being able to actually see this, uh, your book and, and process And so I'm, I'm excited that it's coming out. So what I'm excited to talk about today is the link between insecure attachment, chronic stress, and self-abandonment. And I don't think we've ever talked about this on the podcast before. So I'm really excited to do that. I think I talked about in the intro that you are a PT, that you specialize in pain and how would you say it? You say it.

Yeah, I really specialize at some of the things that are driving pain, both physical and emotional, just feeling like just frustrated trying to get on the other side of some type of pain, right? Yeah. Get relief and relief and, um, nothing they're trying is working. Yeah.

Can you tell us about your journey to working in this specific area and writing your book called The Good Girl Rx?

Yeah. So

good girl prescription.

Yeah. So, um, like you said, I'm a PT and I, um, used to be somebody that was just, never had any health problems, never had anything written on my health form or any of that. And, um, just kind of went through a season of just ongoing health challenges where I could not get my health back and was just starting to have an identity crisis. Like, who am I if I can't fix myself? Right? Like, how am I supposed to show up and help someone else?

Mm-hmm.

When nothing I'm doing is working to get my own health back. And so it was, it started with a diagnosis of thyroid cancer and then later down the road, just lots of other stuff that, that was happening. And, um, I'd always struggled with back pain and neck pain and migraines and things like that. And during that season, all of that stuff was just really intensifying and it just felt like my whole body was just breaking down and, um, you know, just like it was betraying me, right? Like when you're a mom and a therapist and a, you're trying to do all these things and your body can't keep up with what you need to get done, it's really frustrating. Anyway, so all of that. Um, yeah, I just got to the breaking point where, um, I think the pain here became worse than the pain

in my

body and just was standing in church one day and just like, you know how we usually don't let ourselves cry in front of people? Well, I just, I'm just, the worship team said it is well with my soul and I'm like, can't sing that.

It is not well. Yeah. Right.

That's not what I feel right now. And I'm just so tired of this. Um, and I just began to just boohoo right there in the pew. And I think when I came home that day, it was just like, something's gotta change. Like, something's gotta change. And I think that was the turning point where I stopped fixating on my body and trying to fix my body and started focusing on my own needs and what needed to change and what needed to be different to support myself and finding my voice and being able to express that and ask for that.

Wow.

And I really think, and then the first thing I did really was I stepped back from some obligations and began to, um, create space to write. Like I just was like, there's a, there's a chapter in the book that talks about, um, the difficulty and the shame that came up with trying to express that and ask for that time without feeling guilty about it. But I was just like, everything in me, I need to be journaling. I need to be processing through this. I need to be writing. And Um, that's on, that was on the other side of going to see the movie La La Land. Have you ever seen that movie?

I haven't. I've heard a lot about it, but I haven't seen it. The

main actress in it is a writer. She's writing, playwright, and she's sitting by an open window. And in the movie theater, I just started sobbing, just sobbing. And it wasn't about writing a book at that point. It was just that that is what helps me connect to myself and helps me to process through what I'm feeling and helps me to release things, get perspective. Just, it's just the way that I just, my body knew that's what I needed to do first intuitively. And so through that, um, a couple months down the road, I looked up and I was better and I, my nervous system was regulated again and all, you know, and it was like, um, I think it's just, it led me to realize that, um, what women need when they're struggling with chronic stress and symptoms and all of that is so much deeper than what we're trying to do on the outside.

Mm-hmm.

Um, going on in their life and the context of their life, the things they're holding in and not, not expressing in their, um, feeling trapped in their lives and all of that stuff. Right.

Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, first of all, that's an amazing story and I'm so glad that you were able to get yourself back to health and now can help other people as well. So many women are not aware. I always say your mind and your body are intimately connected, right? We know that, we know it, but we don't really know it.

Right.

Um, we don't think about how our emotions, how our moods, how our environment, all of the things, how they actually affect the health of our body. And I had not considered attachment. So you're connecting this even to insecure attachment. Can we talk a little bit about that? Because that goes way back, right?

Yeah. So basically where that comes in and where I started uncovering that, that was something I really needed to grow in understanding to support my clients was, um, you know, as a coach, we learned that if somebody is not experiencing what they want, something feels at risk, something's not safe.

Mm-hmm.

And the key reason for them being able to take the actions that they needed to take to support their bodies, to support their nervous systems, to get into a place where healing could occur was the insecurity they felt around taking that action.

Mm-hmm.

Which was related to their relationships, right? Like, it's like for me, like being able to say, I need space to write. I didn't feel safe to say that to my husband.

Mm. Yeah.

I mean, like, you know, and it's not a conscious thing. Like, yeah, there's shame there. Like, who are you to think that you should just be able to just throw off work and not support your family and just sit here and sit by an open window and write? Like, you know, like there's all of that, but it's, well, what's the risk of saying that? It's not just the guilt and the shame. It's the risk that somebody might think, you know, think, um,

you're

selfish. About us. I'm selfish, right? Like, and they might pull away from me, you know? And again, it's not something we would say cognitively, but when we've learned that growing up, when we've seen people pull away from our big emotions, when we've seen what happens when we try to express ourselves and it doesn't go well. Um, our body holds those memories. It holds that risk and it won't let us do anything that's going to risk attachment or abandonment. Um, so we give up our authenticity. We give up our needs, our voice, our desires to preserve attachment.

Hmm. My goodness.

We're not dealing with attachment, or if we're not dealing with that, we're not dealing with the root of anything.

Right. Right. Oh my goodness. That makes, that makes so much sense, especially as I think about even sessions I've had this week with my clients. And I have so many women that will tell me, I'm afraid to say this to my husband, or I have to plan it out to figure out how am I going to approach him about this thing? And often it's a thing that they really deeply want and desire. And it's not selfish, although all of the messages from their childhood, from society, maybe in some ways in their relationship as well, tell them that their needs are selfish, right?

Yeah.

And so sometimes it's not even about there being an issue in your relationship, although When you bring this into the relationship, when I say bring this, I mean, bring an insecure attachment, an anxious attachment, um, into a relationship, it's going to affect the relationship, right?

Yeah.

You connect with certain people who are going to help, unfortunately, um, perpetuate your, your attachment issues. Um, but so many women really struggle to be able to be authentic with their relationships and ask for what they need for all of the reasons that you said. One, Rejection. I might not get it. I don't— it's harder to ask it and then, you know, to risk rejection than to just never ask it because then I don't have to be upset about the rejection, right? And then also, like you said, that feeling of, do I really need it? Do I deserve it? Is it fair? Should I be doing something better or something else? And especially with something like writing, because with writing, especially for writing, for me, even the beginning stages of my writing, there's no guarantee that anyone's ever going to read what you're writing. There's no guarantee that you're going to make money off of this. There's no guarantee that you're going to get a book deal.

What am I contributing? How do I spend my time that way? How do I justify it?

Right? Yes. Yes. And I had to push through that myself as well.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just kind of goes back to, you're stirring up just memories of just going through this writing process of that insecurity arising, right? Like, um, I had to really step into a deep place of trust. Even I'd finally gotten myself on the other side where I was finally making some decent income with my business. Mm-hmm. After I stepped out of the PT clinic and was making a lot less, um, cuz building a new business takes a lot of investment. Yeah. You don't make a lot at first, you know? Um, and, uh, and then I invested a lot of money into this book process, right? Mm-hmm. And when I went and did my, uh, proposal for this, like, it was a full body, 100% yes. Like everything in me knew it was time.

Mm-hmm.

I didn't even think through the money. It was just like, Sorry, we're doing this. Like, it has to happen now. And because I'd been holding these stories in me for so long, you know? And, um, so a lot of insecurity on the other side of that. And I had to work through that to create enough safety to move forward in this book process, right? Because that financial insecurity becomes a thing. But it's, it's like, um, you know, like, uh, when there's something that triggers you in the, uh, when you're doing it, like for me, it was like, okay, I'm not bringing an anchor. Mm-hmm. Because all my focus is on this book. I've already have, I'm trying to pay off the investment in the book. And I hear my husband say, hey, can you come back here and let's look at the budget together? Or I hear my daughter say, hey, why don't we have the money for this? And well, because mom's being selfish. You know what? You know, like, yeah. And it's, nobody's accusing me or anything, but we're, our brains are on the lookout for those threats of what we might be doing wrong that could hurt our family and risk Attachment, right?

Yeah.

So it just takes us into a deep spiral and I, you know, and, and the only way to get on the other side of that is to be able to have the conversations to confirm the opposite. But sometimes, like you were saying, those conversations don't always go so well and they end up confirming the thing that you're afraid of.

Absolutely. Yes.

No. And so that's, it's, it's challenging, isn't it? Yeah.

It is. And, and part of the reason why is, like I said, often we connect with people, we couple with people who confirm all of the, the issues and things that we have in our life, or because our, our brain says we need to work on them. So let's find an avoidant, you know, attached person when I'm this anxious attached person, and let me hook up with that person and see if I can fix this thing. That's what our brain's doing in the background, you know, much to our detriment. So let's talk, walk a woman through that process. Well, let's talk first about some of that physical, the physical manifestations of chronic stress, of attachment issues in relationships and all the things that we've already been talking about.

Yeah. Well, I like one of my favorite ways to guide women into this is to use like a rope exercise. I don't know if you've ever done that.

I think so.

So like, maybe I can play with it with you for a minute. Like, can you think of something that's happening right now that feels that you feel a little like stressed about or?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. So I want you to—

You want me to tell you what it is?

You don't even have to tell us. You can if you want to. It's up to you.

Oh, right now it's, it's, it's my book. I,

I, okay.

That's enough said. Let's go.

Okay. Yeah. So I want you to imagine that this book is out in front of you. It's like sitting in a chair in front of you or the whole project. Right?

Right.

And there's a rope, but it's between you and the book. Okay. And just imagine this rope and you're holding onto the rope and the book's got the other end of the rope. Like what, what are you doing with the rope?

I'm holding onto the rope. The book's got the other end of the rope. I imagine that I'm. Using the rope to hold up the book. I'm holding it.

Oh, like, like physically holding it?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Now hold that for a little bit and tell me where you feel that in your body.

Hmm. Um, I feel like I feel it in my lower back. Like I feel like just tension, like pulling in my lower back. Yeah.

Yeah. So, uh, yeah, because that book's far out there and that's not really good body mechanics to be trying to support something

Yeah. Yeah.

But like, and so, um, yeah, there's so much that we can learn from that. Like, how are we unconsciously holding? What are we trying to do unconsciously? You know, sometimes if it's like a relationship or something, we can tell a lot about if we're anxious attachment there. We may be, you know, going like this toward the rope, or if this book project feels like too much, we might be letting it go, or, you know.

Yeah. You

know, so many things, but once we connect with the energy of that, or that whether it's anxiety or avoidance or just numb, whatever's happening, then we can connect with what's happening in the body and notice the impact on the body. And so that's where, like, um, for me, um, one of the things that I notice a lot that impacts my body is like when I'm on a call with clients or like the other day I had 4 back to back, which I don't usually schedule that many in a row because I need to I need space in between. And I can come away just feeling a lot of like eye strain.

Interesting.

Because I'm really like leaning in to connect and engage and I'm listening and I'm trying to get on their map. And, and so, you know, I can go to the eye doctor and work on that, but some of that is my habit. What am I doing that's causing me to stare so intensely and not take a break and not step back and not look away and

Yeah.

And so does that answer your question a little bit? Like, um,

it does. It does. And, and even after I answered the question, I realized, oh, I mean, that's where I carry my tension is in my lower back. When I tend to have, you know, any kind of health issues, it's usually something to do with my lower back. And

yeah.

Um,

you're trying to hold up things, right?

Yeah. Trying to hold up everything really. And so in my mind I thought, okay. And so what I need to do though, is I actually need to just let go of the rope. Right. Yeah, that book's gonna hold itself up and all the things are already in motion with it. And I don't really have control over what's going to happen with it. And what I need to do is let it go, but it's scary to let it go because it feels like, you know, if I just hold on tighter, if I can control, then, you know.

Yeah. What, what, what's the benefit? If you control, then what? If I can control this, then what?

Right. That's a great question. I think the first thing that comes to my mind is Somehow it's safer, or if I can control it, then, uh, I'm trying to think of what it is. If I, if I hold on and control, I guess that the outcome will be better. Somehow the outcome will be better.

And then think about the opposite. Like, what's the risk of letting it go?

The risk of letting it go is then I have the, what I call the phantom critic in my mind that says you didn't try hard enough. You weren't strong enough. You didn't. Do the things you should have done. If you had controlled it, the outcome would have been better, right? I know it's a lie, but that's what—

yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where the work starts, right? Like working with that inner critic and, and really building a relationship where you begin to appreciate why that inner critic is there. What's it trying to do for you? What does it want for you? Right. But most of the time we We, how, how is our relationship between us, like the part of us that's critic?

Well, I know the purpose of the critic, the phantom critic is trying to protect me. It's trying to protect me from hurt. It's trying to protect me from failure. It's trying to protect me from all those things I'm scared of. Right. Um, but what was the question? But what?

Yeah. Like what's, well, you answered it. Like what's the positive intention? What does it want for you to keep you from, what does it want in relation to this book project?

To keep me from failing.

Yeah.

It wants to help me succeed, but unfortunately it's doing it in all the wrong ways. It's affecting me in the negative ways and it's driving anxiety and all of those things instead of health.

Yeah. And that, that's, yeah. So that's the reason that connects to the body is because if we don't look at what our unconscious drivers are, what, what is, what is our survival Um, drives, right? That's what drives our habits. Yeah.

Right.

And our habits is what drives— it's like driving a car. If we have certain habits around the way we drive the car and what we're believing as we drive the car, it's going to impact the car.

Absolutely.

Take it to a shop over and over again. But if we don't change our habits around the way we're driving the car and what's causing us to drive that way, you know,

right,

then we're not. Right. We're just spending a lot of money on that stinking car.

I almost imagine, has, I don't know if you've ever done this, but have the emergency brake on and trying to like back up or make the car, right? And the car will actually kind of do it if the emergency brake isn't on hard enough, but it's damaging to the car.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And all of that's that, you know, we just, we see the self-sabotage. We see that it's backfiring and it's the strategies aren't necessarily working, but it doesn't make it easier to interrupt that pattern. Like, because it's so programmed, it's so unconscious. And if those parts of us, those protective parts don't feel safe, if they don't think we're safe, they're not stepping back and giving us any space to do anything differently.

That's so true. That's so true. And so let's talk about how do we make those protective parts safe? How do we walk a woman through the steps Of recognizing, oh, okay. Maybe my anxiety, my anxious attachment, my chronic stress is— I won't even say maybe, it is having an effect on your body. It is having an effect on your relationships. So now what?

Yeah. So the easiest entry point before I get too deep is, is, you know, to ask yourself, what would my, like, what would my inner critic need to see me doing To feel a little safer, you know, to feel like, oh, she doesn't need my protection. She's okay.

She's got this.

She's got this. She's meeting her needs. She's advocating for herself. She's speaking up. She's about, you know, like, and I think that can help us to start landing on an intuitive, like, prescription of what, what's the first step. Like, for me, it was when my protectors started seeing that I was Writing and like, uh, happy and like creative and, um, you know, expressing myself. It was like, oh, we can calm down a little. It's okay. She's okay. Look at her and she's okay. Right? Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah. And so it's, it's looking for those opportunities to, to really ground ourself in the present and, and do the things that, um, You know, it's like if you think about like a protective parent, right?

Yep.

Child, why would a parent get really hyper, like helicopter-y and protective, right?

Right. It's fear. It's, I want to keep my child safe. Yes.

Yeah. And so if they see their child doing things safely, they're going to calm, calm down a little. Right.

Right.

Um, and so, yeah, we just got to start looking at what that is. And I think we got to really tap into our needs, um, and our desires there. To get there, but like, I'm trying to think of a specific example for the listener. Um, so I'll give you, okay. So just recently, um, one of the work I did with a client, um, we were tapping into this and this is someone that's been just back and forth into PT clinics, acupuncture, all these things trying to, you know, and, and has a lot of stress in their life, things that are outside of their control that they can't Control and change, right?

Right.

You know, what do you do with that? And so you get relief for a minute and then you go right back into the context of your life

and

none of the things you're doing is sustainable. Right.

Right.

And so, um, and that just leads to a lot of frustration and you go from all the fight or flight energy trying to do everything and you shut down. And then what happens to your body when you go shut down, you're in a freeze response, your whole body's conserving energy and everything just gets worse.

Oh yes.

Immune system depression. I mean, you know, just holding on to fluids, you know, all of that stuff is happening because the body thinks that the only way to keep you safe is to shut down.

Mm-hmm.

And so one of the things that she landed on just beautifully and intuitively today was, um, just like we kind of gave a voice to, we, we looked at where she was holding stuff today and it was in her gut and then kind of like, okay, if, if, you know, She'd already talked to her body about how mad she was at her body. Like, so we vented all of that, but then it was like, you know, then we looked at what, what the body might be doing for her. But then it was like, okay, what did, what does your gut, what might your gut be doing for you? Well, she just sat there for a while and it was like, yeah, I'm holding on for you. I'm holding, trying to hold for you. Just like you were talking about with the book. I'm trying to hold. I'm holding onto the fluid. I'm holding onto this. I'm holding onto all the, you know, I'm not letting your bowels release. I'm just holding. Right. And as we begin to look at that, we were able to finally kind of tap into what would it look like to just let go a little bit and then what gets in the way of that, right? And, um, you know, we began working with these protective parts and these manager parts that are constantly trying to manage everything for her, keeping things, you know, so she doesn't get overwhelmed, so she doesn't get, you know, reacting to everything. And just, she has this pattern of like, she could access her anger, Right. Like she could get angry.

Anger is a much easier emotion.

Yeah. Anger also takes a lot of energy.

It does. Yeah. But also because it's masking other emotions as well.

Right. And so that's where we started to get to, like she really needed to be able to get under there because she was talking about it being at the place of, I'm really close to borderline depression here. I'm really like, you know, I hate my life and I feel guilty for hating my life, but I, she just began to describe the entrapment she felt like there's no solution here. I can't get out. Imagine when that feels like in the body, right?

Yes.

No wonder the body shuts down.

Right.

Um, but it was like this protective part would never give her space to even shed a tear. There was no access to sadness, no access to emotion because she couldn't find the safety to let, to have the safety to cry. And if she did cry, who was going to meet her in that?

Wow.

And have a corrective experience. There would be, she wouldn't be met with empathy. What might happen? And that began to, you know, If my husband saw me cry and he couldn't meet me in empathy, he might leave me actually.

Yes.

And so you hear the risk. We know we need to cry. We know we need to release. We know that's the one thing we can do in the midst of our stress is to let that stuff out. But our protectors are so fiercely holding us thinking that if you let that out, it's not going to be safe. And how, you know, how many women have learned that pattern over the years?

Absolutely.

Haven't been met with a corrective experience of emotional safety when they cry. And so the one thing that the action step that she was taking today, she couldn't even find the safety to let it out with me. And we know we have really good rapport. And, and so, um, we used, we used journaling. I just, we, I gave her some space. We got off the call and, um, left her where she left off. And like, she just really knew that she could not access the tears without the anger. She had to go through the anger to get there. Right.

Right.

But she didn't want to do it in person over and over again because it's not super effective. So yeah, pull up a journal and be raw and get it out. I hate my life and I feel really bad that I, my daughter is the source of my stress and I feel so guilty for saying that, but I can feel okay when she's not in the room, but I can't, you know, like that stuff we don't say out loud.

It's powerful. Yeah, it's powerful.

So just giving her the space to get there so she could tap into the next emotion and learning to reparent herself and meet herself with compassion on the other side of that. Yeah. So hope we'll see how it went, but that's the entry point.

That's, that's a phenomenal entry point. And especially when you talk about meeting yourself with compassion on the other side. Because when we don't get external compassion, and, you know, I actually talk in my book about complex shame and how part of how that gets developed is that we have this shame, we've tried to be vulnerable about it, we don't get that external compassion that can help relieve shame, right? And so instead, the shame just dives deeper. Right. And when we are able to take the steps to give our own selves Compassion, really it's forgiveness, but compassion is a part of that, right? Or byproducts maybe of forgiveness. Um, then we're able to start that healing process. Wow. That's so powerful. Thank you.

And the thing you just said there about forgiveness, and you were talking about self-abandonment earlier, like that forgiveness practice, I think comes back to that because like one of the things that she landed on, and again, this is true for so many, it just reflects everything that we, most of us experience is When we get into this protective energy, we are constantly self-abandoning because that part that needs to cry, that part that needs to be held, that part that's crying out to be heard, to be supported, to do less, to rest, keeps getting pushed to the back burner to do all the things that will keep you from feeling the vulnerability of that. Right. And so we're abandoning our younger self over and over and over again. And we think that maybe it's our husband or maybe it's this person that can correct that when really we gotta learn how to meet ourselves in that.

We do. Yeah. Wow. That is so powerful. And the irony of it, right? Especially for someone who has an insecure attachment, who's wanting that acceptance and looking for that, feeling abandoned maybe in their relationship. And then Abandoning themselves.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

But we can change that. We can reverse that. Yes, we can. We can by paying attention to our needs, by allowing them to matter, by expressing them, by understanding the things that we're doing in relationship, right, to even distance and hurt ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's such a beautiful process to experience and witness, like It's just like, yeah, like again, it's like all the things that wounded us when we were younger get, those wounds start to get healed and it's just, you know, yeah.

Yeah. And many people don't think about, even if you're not having any physical manifestations of your, your stress or pain or, you know, attachment issues or relationship issues, they're there.

Yeah. And how else do you see them manifesting? If it's not in the body, where else do we see it? Did you say

if it's not? Well, what I'm saying is that it's in the body somewhere.

Oh, it's in the body.

Yes. And if you are not aware of it,

yeah,

there. Yeah, there.

That's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah, the body holds all of our experiences.

It does. It does. And sometimes we become, it's kind of like that smell in the room, right? Over time you don't smell it anymore. And sometimes that happens in our body when we're having a physical manifestation that it's there and learn how to kind of work around it, but it's usually going to become worse and chronic, right? Or sometimes we're not aware of it until it comes to— it builds up to a point. But if we recognize that our stress, that our relationship issues are affecting our body, if we pay attention to it and we honor that, then even before we feel it, even before it becomes such a glaring symptom, we can start to work on that and release it.

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, what, what's one of the ways that you do that personally? Do you know? Like,

oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I have so many practices. Um, you know, one is my prayer and meditation in the morning, which are an absolute for me. The other is physical activity. And I'm also a very big proponent of physical activity combined with, uh, words, with speaking out loud. So I will go on walks and I will record myself cuz it feels like I'm doing something productive instead of just Talking to no one, but I will put on a recorder and I'll talk and speak and talk about the things that are going on with me. I also journal. Uh, exercise for me is very big. Um, so those are things that I do regularly to purge both my shame, my stress. Mm-hmm. Um, those things that I, I know are happening on the, uh, outside that are affecting me on the inside. And also yoga, really for me, stretching, I do hanging too, like bar hanging, just to kind of release things out of my joints, release those pressure in my joints. So I'm very intentional about releasing those things from my body.

The way you describe it, those all sound like self-connection practices too.

Tell me more about that.

So like one of the things we think of when we think of exercise and getting in our bodies, we think about, yeah, I'm just I'm caring for my body, or I'm moving to release stress, or I'm, you know, trying to grow stronger or whatever, you know, builds our confidence, all of that stuff. But what I've realized is in, you know, I grew up in a Christian home and a lot of the clients that I work with are Christians. And so a lot of times when we are looking for support or relief, or we're looking to God outside of ourselves and We don't realize that it, to access peace, we have to ground in our bodies.

Right. Yes.

Because the spirit lives in our bodies. It's within us. So we have to connect into our body in order to feel that. And so moving and getting in our body helps to get us out of our heads, reconnect with our body, get us grounded. Right.

Right.

Which is why it's so good for anxiety, you know? Um, Yes. And yeah, just so, and for me, like we have such, sometimes we think of the body, like, like my, my client today, like we're mad at our body. We're frustrated with our body or we're pushing our body and we don't have the best relationship with our body.

Right.

And so we can go into exercise where we're just trying to, you know, push ourselves or, you know, instead of relating and connecting to ourselves within our body and like embodying Ourselves as we're doing what we're doing. Does that make sense?

That does. That's beautiful. That, that even just helps me shift a little bit in my mindset as I go through, you know, my intentional movements. So that's beautiful.

Yeah. It's kind of like I had it. I remember when I first started implying this, I was walking up a hill behind my husband one day and trying to push myself and trying to catch up with him and started realizing, slow down and just be with yourself here. Like, quit getting ahead. Be with yourself here. Like, come back into your body.

Yeah.

And be like with your body as you're going up the hill instead of trying to pull your body up the hill. Does that—

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And especially when you said be with your body, like come back into your body. I've worked with a number of women who have a really hard time in their body that it feels unsafe. Right. And so—

It's a source of a lot of trauma.

Yeah. It can be. And so I would just encourage that woman who might've had that response, like, that's scary for me. I don't, I don't, I don't know if I can do that to just Just try moments, not 5 minutes, not 10 minutes, but maybe 30 seconds and you can come back out. Um, because sometimes too much time, like even a minute or 2 minutes or 5 minutes feels like too much. And so start small, start really small.

Yeah. And bringing in those safety resources, like sometimes one of the practices I really like, I bring in a lot of somatic practices now, just body-based practices. Um, and it's saying like a lot of times we're just heads floating on a body and we don't have connection. And usually if you're not connecting to your emotions, you're probably disconnected from the body too, because it doesn't feel like a safe place to be. But like, just like looking out on my window right now, if I can just look out and watch the branches on my tree and the leaves moving a bit and begin to feel that sensation and find where that is in my body. I can just kind of bring it in

a

way to just take this safety in this. Let my body start to mirror it and then I can find it in that way. I'm not trying to go into the pain. I'm not trying to go to the— does that make sense?

Yeah.

That's a really— I like that practice.

You're just attaching yourself to the beauty that's in your body. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It starts to— it's mirroring it because it's like the body wants to move like that. And if you can find that felt sense of what you feel as you look at it and locate it in the body and just connect it with it for a moment and go back to the tree. Right. You don't have to stay.

So yeah.

Oh,

that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thank you, Kate. This has been just an amazing conversation. Um, first, how could people find your book? It's coming out soon. Can you tell us about it?

Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's called The Good Girl Prescription and it's I think the subheading is Breaking Free from Good Girl Syndrome to Heal Your Body, Transform Your Relationships, and Uplevel Your Confidence. And it, yeah, it's available anywhere books are sold, Amazon and all of that. But it's, you know, the book basically comes from my journey through my own journey and the clients that I worked with and realizing that really just the hidden stressors that are impacting us and keeping us stuck. And keeping us from moving into all we want for our body, our relationships, and, you know, even our goals, like writing a book or moving forward in our careers, you know, like, um, just getting a better understanding of what's happening inside of us, getting to know ourselves, getting to know our bodies so that we can support ourselves. Um, yeah. So that, and yeah, I, the other thing that maybe they'd be interested, I'm trying to create some bonuses right now to go with the book, or I have created some.

Mm-hmm.

And one of them is a guided journaling process. To help us to reconnect, um, you know, with the parts in ourselves that, that really need empathy, that really need to be heard, um, to find our voices. And so, um, that's when you, when you preorder the book, you'll get that as a bonus and, um, some other goodies. So yeah.

Oh, excellent. Okay. So they can preorder it and do they just need to contact you, go to your website or DM you?

Uh, yeah, there's a landing, there's a page on my website where they can find the book and the preorder link right there.

Okay.

That's probably the best thing. Kate Bartley. Um, So I

will put that in the show notes. Do you have one last word of encouragement for a woman who is recognizing a lot of the things that we talked about here today and wants to really take those steps?

Yeah, I think first of all, I just want to say you're exactly where you're supposed to be today, right now, that all of our past and all of our learnings and everything we've tried, um, all leads us to The next steps and where we are today. And so you're not, you know, all of those help us to shape our insights and moving forward. But I would say start with just appreciating whatever's coming up right now as you're listening to the conversation. Just be with it. Let it be whatever it is. And, and, um, you know, honor what your body or your soul is crying out for more of right now, whatever it is, whatever's feeling inviting. The way that we build self-trust, the way that we move forward is we just begin to guide ourselves and lead ourselves into that one little thing of exploration. And so if you're feeling led to check out the book, let yourself check out the book. If you're feeling led to, you know, have a conversation with somebody to explore what you just listened to, you know, call somebody on the phone and talk about it. Like, just listen to the invitation and just take that next tiny baby step.

Wow. That's, that's so powerful. Thank you so much, Kate. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for writing your book and we wish you the best as it launches.

Thank you. It's been great to talk with you. I love talking with people that understand what I've experienced and have the same passions that I do. So yeah. Thank you.