00:00:00 Shreya: Today we are talking about well-being by listening to ourselves not as a luxury, but as a skill we can reveal.

00:00:15 Shreya: Welcome back to the Wellness Reimagined, where we explore health in a way that is human, integrative, and honest. I'm your host, Shreya, and today I'm joined by Holly Bartram, a coach and doctor of traditional East Asian medicine who helps leaders and high achievers step out of chaos and reconnect with their energy patterns and purpose. In this episode, we are exploring what it actually means to listen to yourself and how that becomes clarity, resilience, and lasting well-being in real life. Welcome, Holly. I'm honored to have you on my show.

00:00:50 Holly Battrum: Well, thank you so much. I'm honored to be here. I appreciate your time and energy that you're putting into such great topics.

00:00:58 Shreya: Thank you so much, Holly. And before we go deep, when you hear the phrase listen to yourself, what do you notice people assume it means. And, and I think, what does it actually mean in your world?

00:01:13 Holly Battrum: I think people assume it means sort of, uh, you know, this big grand gesture, right? Like when people talk about doing mindfulness or, or all of those things, our first thoughts are often like, well, we have to do it for hours or we have to do it this way. And, and then on the flip side of that, most of us don't necessarily want to listen to ourselves because it's uncomfortable. Because the first message is, if we haven't been listening to ourselves, can be very disconcerting, even if they're good in the long run.

00:01:49 Shreya: Yes.

00:01:50 Shreya: I think that's.

00:01:50 Shreya: Such an important distinction because a lot of us think listening is some vague spiritual thing. And I think when it's often a practical data we have been trained to override. Yes.

00:02:03 Holly Battrum: Yeah. It's a the interoception our signals that our bodies are telling our brains and, and all of those things, it can be as simple as being hungry or thirsty or having to go to the bathroom. Um, it doesn't necessarily mean as much as I love all the grand gestures and everything, that doesn't necessarily mean knowing our complete and utter passion and, and our true north at all times and things like that. So yeah.

00:02:31 Shreya: I'm also uh, what, what is the big misconception high achievers have about wellbeing, especially the kind that sounds responsible on paper but quietly drains them?

00:02:44 Holly Battrum: So wellbeing has kind of been taken to have the same structure as a lot of other things. So more is better. Um, or, or this is there's only one or two ways to do it. And, and often it becomes something like checking a box, right? Like we're really good as high achievers in particular of accomplishing things, getting things done. So it's, oh, I did this workout thirty minutes before waking up and I had my thirty grams of protein and, and all of these things. And whilst those may be good things for you, if you don't really understand your connection or your why you're doing them, um, above and beyond. I was told that it was healthy, that we can really start to overdo Well-Being habits and behaviors and, and, and not really process exactly what we're getting at and why we're doing what we're trying to do. It's not necessarily it can be unhealthy.

00:03:44 Shreya: Yes. when someone is stuck in that push through loop, what tends to be the first signal the body gives that they're crossing a line like the early warning sign they miss.

00:03:58 Holly Battrum: Sometimes it's pain. Um, you know, shoulder tension, neck tension, uh, digestive issues. Uh, sometimes it's we don't notice it until we go to do like try to conceive or things like that. And our, our deeper systems are off a little bit more than we expected them. So it, you know, um, it can really obviously vary per the person, but a lot of times, I also think it actually starts with almost being very comfortable or what we feel comfortable in, in the push push push push. So we might notice that we just we aren't able to relax or don't know what relaxation is and everything else is feeling fine. So we're thriving on it. And that's great for certain seasons. But if that lasts for too long, then sometimes that pattern just becomes more wearing and wearing.

00:05:00 Shreya: Yes.

00:05:01 Shreya: So it's not that people don't have signals. It's they have learned to distrust them. And that sets the stage for a deeper question, like, why do we disconnect in the first place?

00:05:18 Holly Battrum: It's often for a completely normal and acceptable disconnection, like one hundred percent. It could be sort of trauma based or anything like that. Um, so I don't want to minimize it, but a lot of times it's like, oh, well, I needed to spend a day. I got hyper focused on a project and I accomplished it and I just forgot to take a break and think differently. And so it's a very unassuming and just could be slow process. Or of course, it can be traumatic. But for a lot of us, it's, it's just a habit that we started to form and started not to listen to it. And then when we tried to go back to listen to it, it isn't necessarily a comfortable experience.

00:06:15 Shreya: Yes.

00:06:17 Shreya: What do you see underneath that disconnection? What are the deeper patterns that makes something like someone stop listening to themselves, even when they are successful?

00:06:32 Holly Battrum: So. In eastern medicine, we have kind of separate parts of the psyche, and those develop as we grow. And if little, little things happen or big things happen in these in these steps, in these patterns, then one of those parts, right? Maybe the willpower kind of gets derailed or, you know. And so those then we start having to use different resources energetically, physically, all of those things to hold those patterns in place. And so we start to see those deeper, really have to kind of peel back a lot of layers. And in that, I like to think of things as an onion or peeling back these layers to see how where we can find that realignment and start to relisten to that. But in, in a more of a psychological component, we might start to misinterpret those signals. So anxiety versus excitement, right? The physical pattern can be the heart racing, the sweating. Both of those can be very similar. And we may not know which one we're experiencing and or we might not hear the signals if we're a little bit more in the depressive state, you know, and, and that kind of thing. So we'll see those patterns where we don't start to trust, we don't trust our gut anymore. We don't trust what we we want to know is true because we started to have a life of misinterpretation.

00:08:26 Shreya: Yes.

00:08:27 Shreya: I think that really hits because it's.

00:08:29 Shreya: Not.

00:08:30 Shreya: Only fatigue, it's the quiet grief of abandoning yourself in small ways. And every day.

00:08:37 Holly Battrum: Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, I like the way that you say that because it is. It's a little bit of a grief. It's a grief process. And then we are always trying to go back somewhere. And as we grow and age and change, like we might be just trying to find a new place to experience it. And, and there's not a lot of space in the wellbeing culture. I think for the little grievances, like the everything's sort of been taught like, oh, we're going to be, I shouldn't say everything. There's plenty of amazing people out there, but a lot of times we see the stories of these really dramatic changes and experiences and where we've given up everything, gotten a divorce started over, and maybe people Maybe you do want to do that. I need to do that. And that's amazing. But on the other hand, too, sometimes it's it's like the subtle shifts of, of realignment to who we are and what we want to be experiencing.

00:09:42 Shreya: Yes.

00:09:43 Shreya: And also like when someone says, I'm fine, I'm just busy. What are the patterns you notice in their day to day that reveal they are not actually fine, but they are just functioning?

00:09:58 Holly Battrum: It's. That I like to kind of say that we start to sort of OD on that busy experience. So we actually do think we're fine and we do think we're managing it really well, but we're not really connected or happy or enjoying it, or being able to be in the moment and have our connection with ourselves and our communities, because that That is really important. Or we start to have a very small window of tolerance of emotional response. So we're like, oh, we're a little bit more reactive to something, or everything ends up being more of a crisis than it needs to be because we can't. We just have such a small window of tolerance of our experience.

00:10:54 Shreya: Yes.

00:10:55 Shreya: And also in leadership specifically, how does not listening to yourself leak out into how you lead, like decision making, patience, boundaries, team culture, what shifts?

00:11:07 Holly Battrum: Yeah. I mean, decision making is a huge one, right? Mental clarity, trusting. We're seeing that a lot. I think right now in hiring experiences, right where companies are, are looking at thousands of candidates, um, who have maybe like the resumes are, are a little bit more level in the playing field, because a lot of people are using AI to synthesize those, right? And then so they're getting all of these candidates and they're seeing very, very similar resumes. So they don't trust the resumes anymore. And then they're doing many, many interviews and they're not sure if they should trust their decisions on, on being on hiring. And so then a candidate who is looking for this job is like, oh my gosh, I just went through five interviews and I didn't get it. And I think that or they didn't hire, like they didn't fill the role because they weren't sure if they, if they could trust themselves to, to fill the role. So that to me is really not listening to our interoception because as leaders, we can't make decisions. We're, we're, we're not sure the right path that we want to take or we should take for our teams and our companies, of course. Emotional dysregulation is a huge part of Interoception and getting angry at people or reacting to things and expecting our teammates to have, or our people who work under us to have impossible deadlines. Like I understand we're all under a massive amount of pressure, but if we can't see the realities of how we are reacting to things and creating these environments that are hard for everyone, um, that's where we start to see the disconnection to ourselves.

00:13:05 Shreya: Yeah, it's, it's.

00:13:06 Shreya: Wild how self-neglect doesn't stay private. It becomes a leadership style, a culture, even a legacy.

00:13:14 Holly Battrum: Mhm. And I think you're absolutely right that the leadership style and it and unfortunately, a lot of times it's sort of rewarded, um, unintentionally, I think, but it's perceived as being a an aggressive leader or a strong leader or this is just what you do. And eighty percent of what you do, for example, is amazing, but that last twenty percent that is causing stress on yourself and others, um, becomes your kind of what you're known for. And we do as a society sort of reward and let it slide a little bit. And I think, and because we've disconnected, we're not sure we may not even like it ourselves, right? We, I know for it's hard. I don't shame myself at all. I don't think any of us should shame ourselves. But like, when I feel overreactive to something, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's just not how I wanted to, to communicate. But it we have to do the work to like, try to realign that and build our tolerance back up to things and everything like that. Because life is very, very, very busy a lot. We're we're in a society where there's many, many things are coming at us. People can. We're trying to overload our brains, right. We're we're learning all the time. We're getting texts. We're getting, you know, from two different numbers, right? If you're working and you got your cell phone, you know, and then you have this messaging system and this messaging system, and it's a lot to manage.

00:14:49 Shreya: Yes.

00:14:50 Shreya: I think that brings us to like a whole part. What does listening look like when it's practical and not another performance?

00:15:00 Holly Battrum: Mhm. Yeah. Listening. I think when it's practical is being very comfortable with, um, our boundaries and our connections. So. We feel very aligned with decisions that we're making and we know how to adapt. Right. So if we're. For example, yesterday I was I was jet lagged and I woke up and I was tired because it was early and, and I was like, okay, so what do I, I know what I need to do, right? I need to have my water, I need to do my workout. I need to do this and I need to do this so that I can realign and not take that energy to my clients and my patients. And that's listening. And another option of listening would have been, do I push myself into a workout? Do I change my workout? Do I reschedule meetings? Like those are all things, but, but that listening and alignment means that we don't have as much as possible guilt behind it. Or and then ultimately that means that we know now like, well, maybe I need an extra day for my jet lag. And so, and I can anticipate that and not and set myself up for success for it, right. Like to the best of our abilities. And I think those are the things that listening to me is like, oh, we have our systems, but when our systems don't work, that's also okay temporarily, you know?

00:16:37 Shreya: Yeah. And what tends to happen when someone listening to themselves and then life needs like deadlines, family travel pressure and they fall back into old habits.

00:16:51 Speaker 2: Mhm.

00:16:52 Holly Battrum: So I think that's okay. I think that's to be expected. And, and we just want to try to catch ourselves and change it back to our listening as soon as possible, which we need the listening to do. Right. And, um, I think the tendency is to kind of have that all or nothing mentality too, where we're like, oh, we didn't do what we wanted to do and therefore it's all ruined. And that's absolutely not true, right? Like we can quickly, we can sit with our, our experience and then we can adapt to and redo what we want to do and say, you know, it's okay, I'm human. I'm living this experience. I'm, I'm not going to be perfect. And that's where like trying to find that rhythm and understanding, which I think is part of listening to ourselves really makes us just be able to. Live and, and kind of ebb and flow in that experience. And it's the same thing. Like often people think about listening to ourselves means slowing down and not doing things. And that's why I think we're very scared as high performers to kind of go into this moment. And that's absolutely not true, because I think we can listen to ourselves and still push ourselves very hard if we're in that season of life, you know?

00:18:19 Shreya: Yeah. in those moments, how do you help people shift from I failed to I am returning without minimizing accountability?

00:18:30 Holly Battrum: Yeah, I think, um, I think we can have accountability without shame or guilt and we can understand and we can like if we're working on a team and we react to something or overreact to something and, and we were, we need to apologize or kind of, and then we need to look at like, how do we make sure that we're not repeating a behavior and that we're obviously separate from our behaviors, right? We're not, we have, we're humans having behaviors. It's not that we're a bad person. Um, it's the behavior was less than ideal. And so what do we need to do as a team and a leader in ourselves to kind of make sure that we are working on those behaviors.

00:19:28 Shreya: I think that returning language matters so much because shame makes people abandon the practice. While I think kindness keeps the door open and which leads perfectly into a question I want to hold gently for anyone who is listening. So first, for someone who's listening and who feels disconnected, maybe, uh, they don't know even what they feel anymore, what would you want to say to them about starting again in a way that feels safe?

00:20:02 Holly Battrum: I think sometimes this is why we want to use it professional to help us with, at least initially because, um, this, this can be really challenging. And. We don't know what layer we're going to peel back and it can be very uncomfortable, right? Or we might feel anger that we don't. We've never felt before. And so I think it's okay that I think it's really, really okay that you're not feeling and you're disconnected. Um, and just to take little tiny steps at a time and know that in this process, we'll start to find our path. Like we don't have to have our end goal, right? Like sometimes you're in a big fog. Um, but it's just, it's starting to notice, like, oh, I went to this event because I thought I should, because I needed to for my business or my leadership team or anything like that, or even my family. And I was so uncomfortable. Okay. So do I have the capacity to know to feel? What was that uncomfortableness? Was it because I was tired or was it because I was wearing uncomfortable shoes. Um, and then we start to just take those little tiny things, those little tiny things and say, okay, is there anything that I can change here? It's okay that I felt like that. And then, and then those, those, uh, those clouds or that fog, I think will start to, to shift out. Um, and we can then maybe find the grand gesture or the grand like alignment of, okay, what do I not, what am I not living that I want to live?

00:21:55 Shreya: Yes. That's so beautiful. And thank you for sharing this with our audience. And if, if there is one truth to carry from today's conversation that will be wellbeing is not something you achieve, it's something you practice by coming back to yourself and one honest moment at a time. And this is truly a wonderful conversation with you. Very heartfelt, very warm, very helpful for all kind of audience of mine. And if after this, my listeners want to connect with you and want to know more about your work, your coaching, then what's the best way?

00:22:30 Holly Battrum: Um, you can find me on Instagram under my name, LinkedIn under my name. My website is ww dot com, which I'm sure you'll put in the show notes. Um, all of my coaching and corporate and individuals can be all done virtually. And I would love to hear your thoughts and, and connect if I can help.

00:22:52 Shreya: Yes. And I will make sure to attach all these details and links below so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you. And for my listeners, if this conversation starts something in you, then take that as a sign not to push harder, but to pause and listen. Maybe today's practice is simple. One check in before you sleep. What did I need today that I didn't name? Thank you for spending this time with us on the Wellness Reimagined. If this episode helped, then share it with someone who has been carrying too much alone. I'm Shreya and see you next time in the same show. Until then, take care of yourself and do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you,