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Most people are addicted to healing, and it’s keeping them stuck exactly where they are. In this episode, I explain how, after months of questioning whether my natural ambition was actually a trauma response I needed to fix, I realized I’d swung so far into “healing mode” that I was dimming my greatest superpower.

Too many ambitious women are using their past trauma as an excuse for not stepping into their power today.

In this episode, I’m sharing a framework to break through the repetitive “healing” cycle, why nervous system regulation doesn’t mean relaxing all day, and how to know if your drive comes from connection or disconnection. If you’ve been dimming your ambition because the wellness world told you it’s “too masculine,” this will change everything.

Key Takeaways

• The three-step Becoming Pathway—how to move from release to integration to actually embodying your future self (and why most people get stuck in step one forever)
• Why always being “in healing” is actually toxic—how I realized that constantly processing trauma had become part of my identity and an excuse for staying small
• The connection vs. disconnection framework—my simple way to know whether your ambition comes from ego or authentic inner knowing

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I am cranking in the solo episodes today. We leave tomorrow for our trip. I’m feeling of course, excited. Looking forward to the time with our family. Our summer adventures have become a tradition. I’m also like. You know, when you leave for a month, overwhelmed and like, it’s not the best time.

There’s so much I could do, I could use one more week. That’s just the way it is. So I’m here at the studio today recording all the solos that I need to get done before the trip, because if you know me, you know, I don’t do things ahead of time. I just, I don’t know why I’m like this, but something about the, there’s no option to get it, but to get it done, deadline.

Puts me in a place where then I produce. So here we are. I wanted to talk about something today that I finally feel like I am clear enough on how to articulate this. And I did a post about it recently on my Instagram and it was very well received and I think it’s just super relevant right now. So.

The last few months I’ve been reflecting around something and that is how I feel. Like I went on this journey of I am naturally since a kid, I was a kid, a very ambitious, driven. Human being. And I see it in my daughter today, like I don’t have to influence at all her. And she wants to have a business run an event, work really hard in CrossFit.

She just started, they just started CrossFit Kids class and just like this drive in this ambition and like wants to be in motion and creating. And so I see it in my daughter and I’m like, I really, you know, aside from that’s who I am, I haven’t influenced that. And if anything, I have gone out of my way to make sure my kids don’t have overt stacked schedules and feel like they have to constantly be doing, ’cause it’s important to me.

And so since I was a kid, I was like this, like I am, I am built with this ambition and this drive and, and desire to create an impact. And I feel like I went on this, this journey that a lot of you guys have. Witnessed where I realized kind of the, I guess, unhealthy side of that, right? Where, and I think I’m clear now that the unhealthy side of that is only when you get into the territory of disconnection from yourself.

But I wasn’t clear on how to articulate that until recently where I had this realization because what happened is. I started to question the ambition. I started to question the drive. And you know, that innate part of me that that wants to train really hard in CrossFit to build the eight figure business, to set the high standards for how I live my life, how I provide a life for my kids.

And I realized like that’s coming from an authentic and genuine place from inside of me. Now in the past, there’s times that that came from disconnection. It came from me overriding my intuition, overriding my connection to myself, and pushing myself past limits. There was definitely a time when, like when I had my kids, but especially after I had both of my kids, that I was in a place of not taking care of myself.

You know, I was bottom of the list priority. I was working a lot. Breastfeeding, had a toddler like. Wasn’t necessarily in a good, healthy place, and that was a season. So, so there was times that I, I went in into that where I would override myself. But as I reflect on how I show up with my ambition and. How I’m able to, to have an idea and create it in six days.

When I built that product, I, I realized and kept sitting with it, you know, that’s my superpower and I’m dimming that in the name of, it’s too much. It’s coming from an unhealthy place. What am I running from? Like, I really started to question it, and I, if I think about why I started to question it, it’s because of what I, it’s because of content I’ve consumed and, and I’m really careful with the content that I assu, consume.

But it’s out there, right? The messaging, the people that I look up to, right, who have this, this message. And so what I realized is I went on this like other side of the pendulum swing, which comes with the feminine energy and flow and ease, and. The balance nervous system, and almost like a misunderstanding of what that really means to the point where I felt like a little lost of like, okay, does this fire in me?

Does this ambition that I see in my daughter, that I naturally see in my daughter, is it healthy? Is it coming from a healed and whole place, or is it coming from a trauma response that I need to. Heal. And I think when I had Samson on the podcast, I brought that up and he challenged it for me and like went through a coaching kind of questions with me.

But I really like, every day I would think of this and I’d almost start judging my ambition or judging that drive of like, why can’t you just sit still? Why can’t you just relax? And then I started saying, is it, is there a reason to judge it? Is it coming from a whole place? And as I sat with this, I realized something.

I realized that there’s a part of me that almost became addicted to healing and in the world we live in, especially in entrepreneurship. Spirituality, but I feel like there’s a lot of spirituality and entrepreneurship. It, it’s a spiritual experience being an entrepreneur, right? I think that there is a huge emphasis on things like trauma work, breath work, somatic work, internal family systems, like you name it, there’s all these methods for it, and it becomes this, I’m gonna say addiction because.

You crave it and it feels like you’re doing work and you are getting somewhere with it. Because in that work there is oftentimes, at least this is my experience, there’s a recognition of things that I had been ignoring. There’s a. Attention put on the, the little girl who felt this way and didn’t get, you know, what she needed.

And there’s a release that happens in things like breath work and somatic work and all of those experiences. But as I, after I went to Dispenza, came back, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast, I came back like, that’s just a piece of it. There, there’s something missing. In actually changing your life in all of that work, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta overcome the beliefs and, and put the attention on who you wanna become, not just the past.

And no one really said that to me. It was a lot of, like, a lot of, very much, let’s look at the past and let’s. Let’s feel compassion for that little girl and let’s, let’s pull this out. Let’s unpack it. Let’s heal the trauma. And I’m in, I’m in no way saying that that is, there’s not judgment. I’m just saying if your goal, if your goal is growth, and to actually become the best version of yourself, you can’t just look backwards.

So I realized. How much today people become very attached and committed to healing. So much so that I think it becomes a part of people’s identity because if you’re always healing and you’re always doing the work, now you are this person who you are perceived as. I care about growth and I care about, I’m aware and I am.

Unpacking and healing my trauma, and I have a regulated nervous system and all those things that come with it, but I was like, what if, what if we’re already healed? What if we don’t need to look backwards so much? We can acknowledge it. We can have the awareness to it, and, and so I sat with this. I sat with this, and then I hosted my event.

Last week, and it was actually in the middle of the, the, we did breath work, but we did a lighter version of it. So Samson, the facilitator, was incredible. And I talked to him about how I was feeling about breath work and, and like how I wanted the experience to be in this event, which is different than my past ones.

I didn’t want to push people into such depths of the past and of things that can come up somatically that you’ve been storing, because I recognize that you can’t override the body and not release what is possibly being stored. I also don’t think we need to put so much energy there. That’s my new belief and my new way of looking at things.

And so we did breath work on day two and. During the breath work I was observing. I’m very much a part of the room. I don’t participate in the breath work, but I don’t, and I don’t really facilitate it. I let Samson do his thing, but I was observing and I was watching the impact it was having on people, which is for a lot of them, a big release and allowed us to get into depths that we.

Hadn’t been able to before. So as I was watching, I realized, okay, this is necessary, this type of experience to pull you out of your mind and into your body and create awareness and release what you’ve likely been storing is necessary, but how does it fit in? And it was actually during the breathwork that I had this download for a process that I called the becoming pathway.

And what it talks about is, how I taught it was first you have the acceptance, you have the, the kind of release and the purging of a lot of things that we’ve stored that our nervous system has stored from, you know, childhood. So for some people, 30, 40 years, you’ve gotta get into that to release it, and you’ve got that purging and that letting go and shedding.

And it feels good. It feels like a big release. It’s like when you cry, right, and you have a big cry, then you’re like, okay, I released all this energy and all of these emotions, but then you need the next step, which the next step is, I called it the difference between the two selves. So now you have this like moment in time where you just released all of this that you’ve been holding onto.

That you’ve honestly been disconnected from because you haven’t allowed it. Any space you’ve shoved, possibly shoved it down and overrode your body. And then so now once you release that, it’s like, what did you make room for? And who do you wanna become? And you have the difference between those two selves.

You have the, the self who’s gonna hold onto all of that, that, that identity, those beliefs, the emotions and the thoughts. And then you have the future self that you get to bring into reality. Now that this made the space and that’s, you know, can take time. But it’s really just this definition of the difference between the two.

So we went through a process where I asked people, you know, what did you let go of in breathwork? What versions of you did you let go of or integrate is another way of saying it. It’s like you’re always gonna have those parts within you that was part of your human experience, but you’re releasing them, you, they no longer serve you.

And then the third piece to the pathway is the becoming. And this is when you integrate this work and you actually walk out the door and become the new version of you. And so as I, as I did this and I realized, and then as I was sitting after the event, I realized that the biggest thing comes back to the connection to self.

And when I take my ambition, for example, and my drive that I, that. Struggled with the last several years, like since I went to Costa Rica and had this experience where I really softened and tuned into my more feminine energy and, and ease and flow, which is all positive things, but I couldn’t figure out where the ambition fits in.

It’s like, is that too masculine? Is that too much force? How much is too much? Like these are questions that my brain would really wrestle with. ’cause I need to know, like my, my linear brain wants the answer to these things and I, it hit me the other day. It was like, it, it all is about, is it coming from a disconnected or connected place?

Is the ambition coming from ego? And disconnection from myself because I need some sort of external validation and I’m telling myself a story of it. I need to X, Y, Z, have the million dollar business, be the best at CrossFit, do this, do this, do this to, to receive love. Or is the ambition fueled by purpose and fueled by an inner knowing and an inner connection.

And I think I can say. Today, more than ever, my ambition and my drive is fueled from within me. It, it is something that it’s like you are here in this life to do this, and I, and I’ve sat with the fact that I think my kids chose a mom. Who, that’s how she led her life. Yeah. Maybe we don’t have as many days where I sit around and, and just, you know, sit on the couch and read books and ’cause like, that’s not me.

Could I do that? Yeah, I could do it. Does it, does it fuel me? No. I’m fueled by creating, by building, and I’m not running from something when I do that. And that’s, that’s kind of what I told myself for a while, is like. You are doing this ’cause you’re out of balance and you’re, you’re, you’re too much in your masculine.

And as I’ve sat with this, I realized more and more how today I’m kind of calling it out ’cause I don’t see people talking about this. I think that the pendulum has swung so far that there’s like this addiction to healing, that it becomes a part of your identity. And if you’re always healing, then where are you putting your energy?

You’re putting your energy into the fact that you think you’re broken. If you’re always healing, you’re constantly looking backwards. Yeah. We need to allow space for things to process, for things to be acknowledged, for us to have awareness, that first step. But what, what if we put more energy into what we’re creating into the, to the future version of us?

And I was having a conversation with someone who I know will listen to this podcast, and I told her I was gonna record a podcast about it because she went through a. Situation, basically where she hit complete burnout, her health was starting to fail and she was not in a good place because of her business.

She actually came to my January event and it completely changed her life because she was introduced to embodiment, to paying attention to the body, to breath work, to meditation, to things that would help her heal her nervous system. It’s been six months and she’s. Basically like all her health issues have gone away.

She’s feeling like in a much more balanced place, but she finds herself in this place of hesitation of chasing a goal, or not even chasing a goal, pursuing a goal, taking her business to the next level. She’s very much at a place where she’s like, I’m just gonna kind of coast and I’m gonna stay where I’m at because I’m afraid that I’m gonna go back to where I was when.

My health was failing and I was in this really bad place. And I mean, I think everybody could have a, you have a season, right? And she probably needed that season. But one thing I said to her was, are you, I don’t know if I said it exactly this way, but are you taking the identity of somebody who needs to continue to heal?

Or can you take the identity of somebody who is now deeply connected to your body? Deeply connected to your intuition, to your wisdom, and it’s impossible for you to go back to that place because you found the connection. So it’s not about the external of where her business was or how she was chasing a next level.

I keep saying chasing, and I don’t think that’s the right word, pursuing, creating, building her next level because she’s very much like me. She’s a builder, she’s a dreamer, but she’s afraid now. To do that because she correlates and her brain correlates. When I was building and creating, I was hustling and then I was sick.

I don’t think you have to, I don’t think those actually are. They have to co-exist. I think you can build and create and dream big and do fricking big things in this life. Big dreams. And be connected. ’cause if we’re connected, then we’re healthy, we’re regulated. A regulated nervous system does not mean you relax all day.

It means when, when shit’s completely chaotic and life’s happening, you’re rooted and you’re grounded. That’s what it means. And that’s an internal state. So at the event I told her. She said, I’m afraid of losing my peace and my joy that I feel now after going through this journey. And I said, peace and joy comes from in within.

Your business is not gonna give you peace and joy. Your state of being gives you peace of joy, and you could choose to be in a state of peace and joy and choose that through stillness, through the connection, through the tuning in with yourself, through being present. You can choose that every day. And be growing a big business.

And so at my event, I, I actually called this out a lot because I just felt like there was this theme, and it’s coming, especially from women that’s like, I can’t have the big empire and the team and the support and the millions of dollars and be a present connected human being, mom with myself and with my health.

And that’s like honestly bullshit because you can. It, does it take energy and effort every single day? Yes. But what I’ve realized is that I went through this and I think, ugh. Like with everything right, you go, it’s just, it happens for such a reason. This journey that I’ve been on where I was in the hyper masculine and very much.

Operating from a place of extreme structure. Like I used to plan my day every day by the hour, and I had to follow that. And if something didn’t go how I wanted it to, then I would kinda lose it to forcing things to work, to overriding myself losing sleep, not taking care of my health. And, and I went through that to swung to the other side of.

Learning what it meant to be in the feminine, to be in a more place of ease and flow and not have to push and grind to now like finding this middle place of of wait. There’s a lot of positives to quote the masculine energy, which I’ve never said there aren’t, but I’ve judged the ambition that I have innately in me.

I’ve judged and I’ve dimmed the power. Behind wanting to create all the time and create big, and I’ve said like I’ve told myself stories of you, you have to slow down. You have to relax more. But if we take it back to one thing, this is what I realized the other day as I was, I was falling asleep. I always come up with good ideas.

When I fall asleep, I was falling asleep and I was like, I, I get it. It all comes back to connection, which comes back to presence. And if we are building and creating from a place of disconnection, we’re then building and creating From a, from an ego place, I need the achievements and the accolades and the praise, and that’s what my identity’s built on.

If we’re building and creating from an internal place of alignment and of connection and of peace and trust, and. You know now, I mean, I can look at my day and it can be completely different than I planned it. And I don’t care. I’m fine. ’cause I’m connected enough to know that I’m choosing that in the present moment.

So when we build from that place of connection, the ambition and the drive and the dreaming and the building big, if you have that in you, it’s your superpower. Not everybody has it. I naturally have it and I have it big. And I think my daughter has helped me see this because I look at her and, you know, my, my two boys, they grew up in the same house and they don’t have it the same level as she does.

They’re their own person, but they don’t have that level of drive. And I see it in her, and I see me as a little girl. No influence. Like no one told me I had to be like that. No one told me, we’re only gonna love you if you achieve. That didn’t happen. And so I see this as like such a genuine piece and I got in this loop of you gotta heal, you gotta heal it outta you, you gotta keep doing the trauma work, you gotta figure out why you’re like this.

So I don’t know if this is helpful to you guys, but it’s something that’s on my mind. ’cause I’m seeing a lot people kind of dim their ambition, dim their. Their drive because they’re afraid of being labeled as they’re hustling. They’re working too much or too hard. They’re not regulated. And I think everybody’s on their own path.

And if you’re here to do that, do it. Like create it as long as it comes from a place of connection. And that’s the skill I’ve developed in the last two and a half years is deeply knowing. How to connect to myself and how to now connect to myself and hold myself accountable. I said this in my post, but I think when you, when you overly live in a place of, you’re always healing, you’re always looking backwards at your trauma.

And I mean, if we all look long enough, we all have stuff, right? Some people more than others, but that’s the human experience. We are meant to experience all the facets. When you look deep enough and when you stay in that loop, it becomes, this might be hard to hear, but I realize this, like I’m holding myself accountable for this.

It becomes an excuse as to why you’re not where you wanna be or who you wanna be, and that’s where that third piece of the pathway that I taught at my event, the becoming piece comes, it goes, who are you becoming? And who do you wanna become? What are their beliefs? What are their thoughts? How do they carry themselves?

How do they make decisions? How do they show up? And when you’re looking at your life through that lens, now you have to hold yourself accountable. Now you don’t get to say, oh, because of all this trauma, like that’s why I don’t, I don’t know, have motivation or hold myself accountable, or that’s why I’m not present with my kids, whatever it is.

When you focus on, you can be anything and anyone you want. When you claim it and you make it into your reality, now you have to hold yourself accountable and you don’t get to use the past as an excuse and the trauma as an excuse. And I think a lot of people, it feels really good to constantly stay in a state.

It’s why we see people go do tons of plant medicine ceremonies, tons of retreats, all these things that they’re just bandaid. You’re not actually integrating and becoming the unlimited future version of you. So something to sit with today. You may or may not resonate, but I think this is imp an important piece to my journey.

And I’m in no way saying that I’m not committed to self-growth and self-work. I mean, I think that through experience as a person, that’s just naturally what happens. And when you’re committed to being aware and constantly holding yourself accountable to these things, you are just naturally going to change.

As Joe Dispenza says, memories without emotion are wisdom. And I love that quote because I think that’s what it’s all about. Is we experience something, we feel an emotion around it. We process the emotion, we remove ourselves from the emotion, and it becomes wisdom. And that wisdom builds our life. It builds the decisions we make, who we are, how we carry ourselves, and all of those things are so necessary.

And when you look at it through that lens, then you look at the pain and all the facets, the good and the bad. The dark and the light are an important part. Of life and are necessary for your experience? I just think sometimes we are actually more afraid what our life would be like if we didn’t feel pain than we are of feeling the pain.

And I think pain can actually be kind of comforting for people and they are more afraid of the power that’s behind a life free of the paint. If that makes sense. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. I will talk to you next time.