#148: On today’s episode, Masha Kay, nervous system regulation coach, jumps on the podcast to unpack the deeper psychology behind high achievement and how it’s a tool for nervous system regulation. Han shares her Substack (linked here), which opens a conversation into what it actually means to heal beyond just intellectualizing your patterns and explore how many ambitious people use work, achievement, and constant productivity as coping mechanisms to avoid feeling, and how protector parts developed in childhood can continue running our lives long after we no longer need them to survive.
The girls get into:
- productivity as a coping mechanism & form of emotional avoidance
- why high achievers struggle to slow down
- nervous system regulation, trauma healing, & somatic healing
- what “parts work” actually is
- protector parts & how they try to keep us safe from feelings that once weren’t safe to experience
- why intellectualizing your healing is not the same as embodying it
- dissociation, overwhelm, & constantly needing to stay busy
- reconnecting to the body & learning how to feel below the neck
- why healing can actually feel unsafe for the nervous system
- inner child work, emotional suppression, & survival strategies
- how ambition and achievement can become trauma responses
- why awareness alone doesn’t always create transformation
- learning how to feel instead of avoid
- the difference between numbing and true healing
- Learning to surrender to the process of healing
& MORE!
This episode is for anyone who feels they may be using productivity and achievement as a form of emotional suppression or avoidance, anyone feeling frustrated in their healing journey despite being “self aware,” anyone pursuing trauma healing and looking into nervous system regulation, or anyone wanting to better understand parts work, protector parts, inner child healing, and what it actually means to feel instead of intellectualize.
CONNECT BELOW:
follow Masha here
Check out her program here
CONNECT with HAN:
follow Han here
follow HOW I SEE IT here
follow Han on Substack here
watch HOW I SEE IT on YouTube here
shop the podcast merch here
work with Han: howhanseesit@gmail.com
00:00 – Introduction
02:44 – Productivity addiction & high achievers using work to cope
03:58 – Achievement as nervous system regulation
04:47 – Why ambitious people struggle to be with themselves
07:54 – Productivity as emotional avoidance
08:41 – Work, avoidance, & disconnecting from feeling
09:13 – What are “protector parts”?
09:41 – Understanding parts work & internal family systems
12:46 – Why healing can feel blocked
16:15 – When the “high achiever” part takes over healing
18:31 – How protector parts keep us safe
20:14 – Awareness, observation, & compassion in healing
22:35 – Dissociation & living outside the body
27:35 – The inability to stay present with feeling
32:40 – Intellectualizing vs actual self awareness
36:44 – Anger, discomfort, & emotional control
37:58 – Observation creates separation from emotion
39:39 – Beginning somatic experiencing
41:32 – Reconnecting to the body through orienting
52:55 – Why slowing down is harder for high achievers
1:00:00 – Numbing vs actual healing
1:05:37 – Building ambitious lives to avoid pain
