Have you noticed how often we’re told that wisdom lives in the body now? That our best decisions come not from overthinking, but from embodied knowing?
Yet for many ambitious women, this advice creates more frustration than freedom. Perhaps you’ve experienced the mind chatter that won’t quiet down, or felt a twinge of shame when others talk about “just follow your gut” or “listen to your heart”, while you feel disconnected from your body’s signals.
You are not alone in this struggle.
What inspired me to write about this was an interaction I had with another woman the other day. We talked about being grandparents and she shared that she had taken her 4-year-old granddaughter for her first pedicure. Her granddaughter had enjoyed it so much and had been sitting leaned back with her arms above her head the entire time. In total pleasure. She showed me a picture she had captured from the spa. With a little hesitation she said “I don’t know what I did!” Her face showed some worry. “Maybe I ruined her.” “Now she may want this all the time.” I noticed the shift in her energy and excitement and she looked like she felt ashamed.
That moment is one example how deeply ingrained belief that too much pleasure is somehow wrong or dangerous.
Think back to your childhood. How many times did you hear phrases like “No pain, no gain”?
When I was just five years old, and a flower girl at my mom’s best friend’s wedding, the heated hair from the having run through the curling iron burned my skin as my hair was being styled. When I spoke up about the pain, my mother’s friend continued while my mother explained, “Sometimes we must experience pain to have beauty.”
As little girls, we had no intellectual framework to question these messages. We absorbed them like sponges—the words, the energies, the beliefs that surrounded us. Unconsciously, we learned to override our natural ability to feel what was right for our bodies.
This disconnection often deepens when we’re criticized for expressing ourselves freely:
* Too loud
* Too sensitive
* Too emotional
* Too curious
* Too much
The price of this disconnection is steep and often invisible. It shows up as:
* The executive who hustles until burnout before learning to follow her soul’s natural rhythm
* My client, a Projector in Human Design terms, forgot that being in community brought her joy because past moves and rejections had taught her to close off
* The woman who sits through three meetings before allowing herself a bathroom break
* My awareness of feeling unable to freely express feminine movements early on, when I started ballroom dancing, because a man once laughed at how I held my coffee cup.
These seemingly minor moments of denying our pleasure and intuition compound over time, creating invisible barriers between us and our authentic expression.
To be clear: this isn’t about avoiding hard work or challenges. Just as muscles grow through resistance, we grow through challenge. But muscles also require rest to strengthen – and so do we.
When we consistently ignore our body’s signals and deny ourselves pleasure, we’re not just giving up moments of joy. We’re systematically disconnecting from our most powerful source of wisdom and guidance.
This disconnection doesn’t stay contained to one area of life. When we learn it’s not safe to take up space or ask for what we want in one context, that hesitation tends to spread throughout our lives.
If any of this resonates with you, I want you to know two things:
1. It doesn’t have to be this way
2. It is never too late to change
You can reclaim your relationship with pleasure and embodied wisdom. In fact, our world desperately needs women like you to fully feel joy, pleasure, and fulfillment.
Even when we know there is much despair and people suffering in the world I promise you that you do the world a favor by getting home to feeling your natural pleasure, boundaries, and individual rhythm.
It is through this inner strength we really can make a difference.
What came up for you by reading this? See some special opportunities below.
I believe in you!
Love Always,
Charlotte