It's not your mind that's stuck. It's your body.

You've done the work. You know it's over. So why can't you let go?

If you're capable, accomplished, and still stuck in an old identity, a career, a relationship, a version of you that no longer fits, this episode names the one thing no one talks about.

It isn't fear. It isn't lack of clarity. It isn't that you're not ready.

It's judgment, and it's held in your body, not your mind.

In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur names why high-achieving women stay glued to the old life even when they know it's hurting them, and why "thinking your way out" doesn't work. Drawing on the neuroscience of Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory and neuroception), Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score), and Kristin Neff's research on self-compassion, she shows why your nervous system runs the old programme until it gets a new experience, and how compassion (not positive thinking) is the actual release.

In this episode:

• Why "I know but I can't move" is a body problem, not a mindset problem
• The two layers of judgment keeping you stuck (and which one is louder)
• Why affirmations don't land when your body is in survival
• The marathon analogy: why your body refuses to start a race it hasn't trained for
• The handbrake metaphor: there's nothing wrong with your engine
• How self-compassion lowers cortisol and brings the thinking brain back online
• One question to ask the next time you feel that grip in your body

Free masterclass: learn how to retrain your body to move forward. Link in the show notes below.

If this episode landed, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a woman who needs to hear it.

Dr. Amen Kaur

Key quotes

• "Your mind wants to do it, but your body is stuck. And they run on two completely different systems."
• "Judgment is the glue to the old identity."
• "The opposite of judgment is not positive thinking. It's compassion."
• "You can press the accelerator all you want. If the handbrake's on, you're not going anywhere."

Mentioned in this episode

• Stephen Porges — Polyvagal Theory and neuroception
• Bessel van der Kolk — The Body Keeps the Score
• Kristin Neff — Self-compassion research (University of Texas)

Free Masterclass Retrain your body to move forward, even when your mind has been ready for a long time. amenkaur.com/masterclass

Connect with Dr. Amen Kaur

• Instagram: @dramenkaur
• Youtube: @dramenkaur
• New on Substack: https://dramenkaur.substack.com/ 

If this episode helped you:

• Subscribe so you don't miss the next one
• Leave a review: it helps other women find the show
• Share this with the friend who's been "doing all the work"

Free Masterclass: The Human Intelligence Framework

A walkthrough of the five stage method Dr Amen Kaur uses with high achieving women who have lost themselves inside a career, role or identity that no longer fits.

Watch it free at amenkaur.com/masterclass

About Dr Amen Kaur

Starting Over, Being You with Dr. Amen Kaur is the podcast for high-achieving women who have been quietly losing themselves inside the life they built. Dr. Amen Kaur, PhD, is a former scientist and former Partner at a FTSE 250 company with 20+ years of corporate experience. She teaches the Human Intelligence Framework, the Five Intelligences that orbit Your Self, and how to bring the integrator back online when it has stepped away from the seat.

Learn more at amenkaur.com/about

Stay Close

Instagram: @dramenkaur
TikTok: @dramenkaur
YouTube: @dramenkaur

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical, psychological, or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation.

Transcript

Capable Yet Still Stuck

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're probably one of the most capable people that you know. You've built things, you've led things, you've carried things that most people would have probably been flattened by. But here is a question that doesn't make sense. Why can't you let go of the past? You know it's over, you know it's no good for you, and you know that holding on to it or thinking about it is actually hurting you, and yet you can't seem to put it down. It's not a weakness, it's not lack of clarity, it's one specific thing that no one names. And once you see this, you can't unsee it. I'm Dr. Erman Cor, and this is starting over being you. If you've done all the work and you're still stuck and you're so capable, this episode is for you. Let me show you what is holding you back. Now, it's reasonable to think that the reason why we can't seem to move forward is because one, I don't know what I want. Or two, maybe I'm afraid. I have a fear of rejection. And sometimes we think, maybe I'm just not ready. And all of these can be true to some degree, but normally it's not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is judgment and it works on two different levels. The first is the judgment of what will other people think if I lose my old identity. For instance, what will other people think if I lose my job? I'm no longer a director. What will they think of me? And that fear actually registers in the body as if it's a threat. And your nervous system can't distinguish the difference between a thought or a real bodily threat. The second is much louder. It's what's going on inside of you. Your own voice is saying, I should have known. How did I allow this to happen? I should have got out earlier, I should have done this, or I should have done that. And this is so painful because not only are you stuck, but then you've got the judgment on top of it within your own mind of I shouldn't be stuck. If I was so capable, I wouldn't be stuck. So you've got the original pain, and then you've got your judgment on the top of that. I shouldn't have been in that situation. Those kind of thoughts. I see this so many times with so many unbelievably capable, incredible women. And it's not because their mind isn't incredible, they have the most amazing ideas, they're so capable and they're so competent. But yet, what is the real problem? It isn't in the mind in terms of your thinking, it's in the body. Your mind wants to do it, but your body is stuck, and they run on two different, completely different systems. So even though you might be ready, if your body isn't, you're not going to be able to move forward. And why do I know this? Because I've been there. I was that woman who was a partner of a Fitzsi 250 company. I had the career, I had the marriage on paper, it looked great. The home, everything looked great on paper. I knew it was falling apart, but I was holding on to it for as long as I possibly could because there was judgment around letting go. There was judgment around who will I be if I don't have that? And what will others think of me? And how could I have allowed this to happen? I judged myself for not being able to see it, being able to work through it, being able to be capable enough. And why was I in that situation? I judged myself for not being able to think it through. Hey, I have the credentials, I have the professional experience. And the more I had these things, the more judgment there was that I should be able to work through this. Think about it this way. If I was to run a marathon, I could read every single book. I could watch the TV and watch everybody else run and see exactly what they're doing and book myself on to run the marathon and do all the research until I can physically start running and train my body to run. My body is gonna go nowhere near the start of that marathon because it knows it's gonna be a disaster. I am not trained for a marathon. So there's no point in blaming ourselves if our body isn't trained for something, for a new way of doing things, something new. It doesn't matter if you want to start your own business. Your body needs to be trained to be able to hold that identity. So when you know what it is that you want to do, but your body isn't moving you to that, please don't blame yourself. You have to start and take those small steps and allow your body to acclimatize. There is a pain of holding on to what was because that judgment within our own mind of what will other people think and what you think of yourself because of it. And then that becomes familiar and safe in the body because we're training the body to feel that. Even when the familiar thing is hurting us, we can still hold on to it. We would rather stay with the pain and the judgment of holding on to the past than to go into the unknown where we don't know what might happen and we don't know if we can face that future. So it kind of makes sense. Let's look at the science. You know, judgment isn't just a thought, it's not that we just think a thought, and then that's the end of that. When we feel like someone's judging us, it's actually a bodily reaction. We feel it in our body, we might feel our breath contract, or our heart start pumping faster, or we feel that tightness in the neck, or maybe we feel our stomach, we have a gut reaction. And this is just not an opinion, it's actually science. Stephen Porges, the neuroscience behind the polyvagal theory, discovers something called neurosception. What he realized was that our body actually responds to threats way before our mind even knows it's happening. So for instance, you could be sitting in your lounge and everything's safe and you haven't thought anything, but all of a sudden you can feel this anxiety. Your body is reacting to something like a car racing by and you didn't register it. Basil Vanderkoel, he's a leading researcher in trauma. He actually found that our body keeps a score. So it's actually locked into our tissues, into our muscles, into our gut. So our body reacts to life itself. And until we can actually have a new experience, our body can experience something different, it won't actually update the old program. So until we can experience a new perspective, a new way of being in our body, we're not able to update. So if you've been in a stressful scenario for years and years and years, you need a new experience to be able to move forward. This is why it doesn't matter what your mind knows, you can know something. You might have more knowledge, but until your body can experience something, nothing is really going to shift in your life. That's why judgment is so terrible for the body. Our body reacts. And until we can have a different experience, we're not going to be able to move forward. So if you felt judged, we need to start actually looking at, okay, what are you good at? What can you do? How competent are you? And actually retrain the body to experience every single thing that you do well. Sometimes we can be super critical, but we're not acknowledging when we are doing well. And this is what I see with women that I work with. They say something like, My mind knows what it needs to do, but my body hasn't caught up. And I know I'm safe, I know I'm capable, but knowing is not enough. No one's hurting me, but I still can't move forward. And it's not that there's anything wrong with your body and you should judge your body that it's not working the way you want it to, but it's knowing that it's been trained, just like you can train your body to run a marathon, you can train your body to experience new things. And that's the only way it will know, oh, I don't need that old program anymore. So then we can see judgment can be like a glue to the old identity, that old bodily reactions, and it acts like a glue. So the more we judge ourselves, the more we hold on to that old identity that we're trying to get away from. So, say if you've been in a toxic environment or web and you've had a toxic boss, the more you can feel those bodily reactions that once the toxic boss created for you, where you start to doubt yourself, the more that old pattern is being integrated within your body. So you can know and you can tell me, for instance, yeah, I did this really well and that really well, but until you can absorb that into your body and really know it inside your body and you feel good. So it's like if I was to give you a compliment, until you can feel the reactions of that compliment and you let it land, you're not gonna actually experience that compliment. And sometimes when we are complimenting, we might feel like crying because we're grieving that old identity, that old pattern. Now, the opposite of judgment is not positive thinking, like thinking, yeah, I'm really good at everything. Your body's not gonna thinking, yeah, I am strong, I can do anything when it's in survival. You can't get the body to think that because it's too smart. So those affirmations don't really land. So, what does really work? The opposite of judgment is actually compassion. Meeting yourself where you actually are with love, with understanding, and being able to see yourself fully. Judgment is when we're excluding information, we're not seeing the full picture, we don't know, we're missing loads of parts. Compassion is like, yeah, okay, I'm holding on to the old. I don't feel safe yet, but I still love and appreciate myself of how far I've come. And it's understandable that I would be feeling the way I feel, given what I've experienced before. And actually seeing it's not a failure, but allowing that grief to come up, that sadness that might come up, the anger that might come up, and then bringing love and compassion and understanding to those feelings. And that's when you can start to release those feelings. So it's like the emotion comes up, and then your system knows, oh, I'm safe to release this. I'm not going to keep pushing it down and pretending it's not there. You see, fear, fear of the emotion, fear of the truth, fear of accepting what is, is a contraction we are suppressing. We're trying to make it not be there, but a kindness and consideration and compassion and love towards ourselves, no matter what the experience, having the courage to face it is what releases that emotion. It's like a plant. If it's been in a cupboard and it's dying because it hasn't had any light and water, we wouldn't start shouting at it by saying, Why are you not growing? Why are you not evolving? We'd go, oh, okay, I forgot it was there. I'm going to take it out of the darkness and put it into the light so it can get sunlight and water it. Compassion and love and understanding is that light and it's that water. And I want to explain why it's so important. It's neuroscience. There is so much research on self-compassion. Kristin Neff's work at the University of Texas links it to lower cortisol, the body's main stress hormone. And when you bring kindness to yourself instead of judgment, your stress hormone drops, your muscles release, your breath deepens, and your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain, comes back online. So you have clearer thinking. You're able then to make the right decisions for yourself. Not because you're trying harder or beating yourself up to be better, but because you're being kinder, you're being more compassionate. The body responds to compassion. Just think of yourself as you were growing up as a child. If someone was to tell you off, you'd contract into yourself. But if there was someone that was supporting you, like a good coach or someone that loved you and accepted you with compassion, even if you made a mistake, you're more likely to be more open and more okay about making mistakes and actually trying more. And research shows that children that have had trauma find it hard to study, whereas children that don't have trauma do better at school. And I see this time and time again. So the women that are really hard on themselves, the high achievers, and they've been quite judgmental towards themselves, quite frustrated. And as soon as they start working through and bringing compassion and love to themselves, they soften and they start moving forward. The old life does feel familiar, even if it hurts. The biology makes it feel familiar and it's not a flaw because our body is trained to that environment and it still runs that program, even if you leave that environment. It can only run a different program if you have a new experience. So you don't need a plan or a strategy of knowing what it is that you need to do. You need to adjust the biology so that you can fulfill the plan of what you want to do moving forward. This is where so many people get stuck. They do the training courses, they look at strategy, they do everything, but they can't seem to move forward and get the results from what it is that they want to do, like start a new business. So imagine that that judgment, that feeling of, you know, am I good enough? Or that self-doubt that comes up, it's taking up energy. And as soon as you can let that go, it frees you up to be creative so that you can move forward. It's like driving a car with the handbrakes on. You're not going to get very far. You can press on the accelerator all you want. It's just really, really slow. And then you wonder why you're not moving as fast as you used to. The only difference, now there's judgment. And there's nothing wrong with the engine, there's nothing wrong with the car. You just need to take the handbrake off. And I've watched women release that handbrake and they feel like themselves again and they know exactly what they need to do and they go ahead and do it. It's not about letting go and then deciding what it is that you need to do, it's about the process of letting go and moving forward at the same time. So your body can experience a new experience. You are one of the most capable people that you know, you always were, and your body needs to now experience that you can do it. So let's look at what you can do this week. There's got to be a moment where you reach for something new. You want to do something new. Maybe it's a conversation that you're putting off, maybe it's something that you really want to do for yourself. And then as soon as you try and do something new, a voice will come along. Who do you think you are? You're not ready. You need to learn more, you need to do a course. Just watch for that. Now you know what's actually really happening. It's an old program that is running. And the judgment is doing what judgment always does. It contracts, it holds you back, it limits, it's a conditioning. It's like being a plant that's been put in a cupboard. And now you have seen it, you can't unsee it. So when that happens, ask yourself a question: Is this fear or judgment? Because fear and judgment, they need safety and compassion. The next time you feel some sort of grip in your body, like a bodily reaction, and you can hear the phrase something like, I should have done more by now, just take a deep breath in and out. And just say, even though I feel this, I still love and accept myself, it's been hard for me. Bring that compassion to you. You are the most important person in your life. You're the person that you'll get to know deeply. You are so privileged to be able to really truly get to experience you. So bring in that compassion and see the whole picture and then watch everything soften. That one breath is the door. Pausing so that you can regulate your nervous system so that you can accept what is. If you want to understand your body and allow it to move forward so that you can achieve what your mind wants to achieve and you want to retrain your body, I do have a free masterclass, and the link will be in the show notes or in the comments. Please do also subscribe, like, and share this podcast. It really means so much. Be kind to yourself. I'm sending you so much love. Till next time.