Listen to this before starting something new

Have you ever started something new and immediately felt overwhelmed?

First, know this: just because your nervous system suddenly decides you're being chased by a tiger does not mean you have done anything wrong, that you haven't healed enough, and it's definitely not a sign to stop. It's usually a sign to GO. :)

In this episode, I'm sharing what happened when I recently found myself in a full-blown spiral while stepping into a new season of growth. What started as excitement quickly turned into overwhelm, panic, comparison, and the familiar feeling that somehow everyone else had figured it out except me.

The good news, of course, is that this is incredibly normal.

When you step outside what's familiar -even when it's something you want - your nervous systems often interprets uncertainty as danger. That's why growth can feel exciting and terrifying at the exact same time.

In this episode, we're talking about why that happens, what your nervous system is actually trying to do, and how to support yourself through the messy middle of expansion without making it mean you're failing.

Inside this episode:
✨ Why starting something new can trigger overwhelm
✨ What happened when my own nervous system hit the panic button
✨ How "not enoughness" gets activated during growth
✨ Why comparison gets louder when you're expanding
✨ Practical ways to regulate your nervous system when you're spiraling
✨ Why joy isn't something you earn - it's a powerful tool for creating safety

If you've been feeling overwhelmed, behind, or questioning yourself lately, this episode will help you understand what's really happening and how to move through it with more ease.

Because every limitation is a chance to transcend into a new possibility!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, and welcome to Fuck Around and Get Paid, the podcast that's here to help you be you, have fun, and fuck around and get paid doing it. I'm your host, Jennifer Liss, and in today's episode, I'm going to talk to you about what to do when you feel like everybody is ahead of you and you are so effing behind. Let's dive in. Hey there, friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I gotta tell you, I gotta admit, I gotta confess. I got another confession. I've got a confession to make. Did you know that I started a Substack called Confessions of the Life Coach? I have many confessions, and I have one confession to make today on this podcast, which is about my Substack called Confessions of a Life Coach, which is that the other night I'm on Substack. I'm just getting started on Substack. And guys, I have started, tried to start a Substack eight times. There are the receipts to prove it on Substack. It shows you all the times that I started and then stopped and then started and then stopped and then started again. And finally, I'm feeling this call to write. And I do have a lot of friends who are on Substack. I have a lot of friends who are starting starting Substacks because it's kind of the hip thing to do right now. And it's definitely the hip thing to do if you have a business right now. And I even have a few friends who are teaching people how to make money with their Substack. So I'm getting onto Substack in the midst of all of this. And like, this is the time that I'm gonna do it because more than anything, I'm feeling the call to writing. And so I get on Substack though, and I know that it's algorithmic. Everything is energy, right? So my energy must have flowed to an article at some point where it was about growing and monetizing your Substack. And my entire feed, I'm scrolling and scrolling, and my entire feed is how to make $60,000 in one day using your Substack, how to buy a whale and become the whalesman of the seas with your Substack. I nobody buys whales. I don't know where that example made no sense, you guys. But Joey, just leave it in there. How to buy a multi-million dollar mansion for your best friend on Substack. You know, you know, you get what I'm saying. It's like it is wild right now, which is good. There are people who are monetizing, and you know, I'm all about the business and I'm all about you fucking around and getting paid. If you want to go make money on Substack, good. But that activated something in me. Because when I am starting something new, and when I am out of my comfort zone, and when I'm trying something that feels like, wow, I've started and stopped this so many times. Obviously, there's something in my nervous system that has a block around me putting my writing out there, around me putting words out there on paper that people can read in written form, in article form. That activates something in me. What it was activating in me that that night was not enoughness. You are too late, you are behind, you waited too long, but then it layered on another, it laid on another layer, which was people are gonna think that you're bad. They're gonna think you're a grifter. Now that you're getting on Substack, when all these other people are getting on Substack, they're gonna think that you're a terrible person and you're just in it for the money. That's the only reason that you're on here. So not only did I have not enoughness, but I had that layer. And my body, my whole nervous system went into shutdown. I tried to go to bed and my heart was just pounding out of my chest. I could not sleep. I had to get out of bed and go drink some water and do some nervous system practices because it was no good. No bueno. So I teach this shit, you guys. It still happens. The whole reason that I teach it to people is because it happens to me and it has happened to me. And I know that at every new level that I am expanding into, it may happen again because these perspectives get activated, especially when you're trying something new. And isn't that so often when we start to feel like we're behind, like we're not enough, like everybody else has it figured out, and you don't know, it's when you're starting something new, right? Because there's other people who are already doing it and you feel like you can't catch up and you can't catch your breath, and your whole system just starts to pull you back into safety and out of that expansive thing that you want to do. And so that's exactly what happened for me. And so I calmed myself down, I went to bed, and the next day I was like, why am I doing this? Why what is the actual reason that I am getting on Substack? Why would I sit and write? And the answer that I got, the answer I got from my intuition was because I want to write, because I want to share, because I want to connect with other cool people. That's the entire reason. The reason that I'm getting on Substack is not because I want to make money, although that would be cool. You know, we're all about fucking around and getting paid here. That would be cool. And so there is part of me that, of course, like, of course, right? There there is that part, but the real reason is because I want to have fun, because I want to share my thoughts. And so I had to back myself up and say, you know what? I'm gonna put some guardrails around this. I am going to write on here for the joy of writing. And if that ends up monetizing my stuff, good. If it doesn't end up monetizing my stuff, good. And I have felt it's instantaneous, you know, everything is energy. Instantaneously, it's like my whole Substack feed changed. And I know it's because I paused and actually read something other than reading all of these posts that are telling you about monetization, but my feed instantaneously changed. I have seen so many cool posts. I paused and had thoughtful conversations with people. I followed some people and they followed me back, and we've had some back and forth. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is an entirely different experience when I'm coming at it from a place of me having fun, coming from a place of joy and of ease, and of simply wanting to make connections and wanting to share my thoughts and not overthinking the thoughts that I'm sharing, but just sharing them because it feels like that's what I want to do, which is definitely what I like to do and what I'm really feeling called specifically to do on Substack. And so I I share this with you because two things there is this noticing what happens when you start to get activated. So we we notice what happens here, and then there is the the question that we have to ask ourselves Well, why am I doing this? And I'm noticing activation. What is my intention behind this? What why am I doing it in the first place? And so then we can listen to the answer. Because if the answer had genuinely been from my nervous system, if my answer from my intuition, from when I checked in with myself, had been because I want to monetize the Substack, that's good, that's fine. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that for anybody. I have clients who are doing it right now, and I encourage them as long as it feels good and it feels fun and it feels joyful to create a strategy around that to do that. Again, I have friends who are actively training people to monetize. I could go take their class. So there's nothing wrong with monetizing on any platform. I am all for the people making money. I am all for good-hearted, amazing, magical people, writers, uh, other content creators, people of all kinds. Go make your effing money. I'm all about it. I want to see more money in good-hearted, beautiful people's hands. I have no problem with it. I do not think that you're grifting. Just do it as long as it feels fun to you. And that, but for me, it doesn't feel fun right now for me to be strategizing around making money with it. Does it make sense right now for me with this podcast? Yes, this feels fun to me. It still feels fun for me to come and record episodes that help people to have fun and make money. So I want you to really ask yourself, what is the intention? What is the energy that is happening behind this? Because if it's coming from anything other than your enjoyment, it's the wrong reason. And again, we can totally get joyment, enjoyment out of making money. We can totally get enjoyment out of strategizing and figuring out, oh, what is this new platform? And what are all of the ways that I can connect it to my content? So if that is feeling really fun and exciting to you, right now, good. And eventually it might for me on Substack. But right now, it's not. It was leading to all of this overthinking and craziness that was happening. So I was getting swallowed in everybody else's strategy. So what is what is your strategy? What are you growing right now? Where do you want to be just because everybody else on Substack does not mean that you need to be on Substack. Just because everybody's on TikTok does not mean that you need to be on TikTok or Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or any of those places, even if it makes sense for you to be. I actually think that things that make sense, the logical things, oh well, this makes sense for me, is actually often the worst place for you to be spending any of your energy, unless it's an incredibly low energy and it can just happen on auto. If it is not bringing you enjoyment, if you're not having a good time doing it, fuck it, because that's not paying you. It's not paying you in joy. It's not paying you and loving your life that you're doing things that are not fun for you, which is where your best energy will be spent. So for you, where is your light going? Where are you feeling pulled? Because for me, like let's just play this out. If I actually do have more enjoyment sharing on Substack, I start to make all kinds of really cool connections. I meet all kinds of cool people that I never could have imagined meeting because I'm sharing in a way that I normally would not share. I'm opening up in a different way. I'm sharing content that doesn't make sense. But I meet somebody cool and that person changes my life. They end up being a business partner, or they end up being my new best friend, or they don't worry, besties in Kansas. I'm not replacing you. They end up, you know, some who knows? Who the hell knows? I'm, but that's not what I'm banking on. What I'm banking on is my joy. And that's what I encourage you to do too. But I don't want to leave this episode without giving you something about what to do when you feel that level of overwhelm, when you feel that level of panic attack, heaven forbid you ever have to have a panic attack. It is not a fun experience. It feels like you're having an actual heart attack. In fact, that's what I thought was happening at first, but I've had them enough unfortunate times to know what is happening in my system when that happens. And it usually is because my strongest perspectives that that have long been challenges for me get activated. And it's usually when I start something new or I say something true or I do something vulnerable, that's when it really activates. And that's true for most people too. I have inside of the expansion room, if anybody is like, I really want to learn these practices, I have a nervous system toolkit that you can buy when you come into the expansion room that totally walks you through my exact practice. And it's so powerful. I have learned over all of the years of me learning nervous system tools, I've learned from many incredible teachers and coaches. And I combined that into my practice that works really well for me and works really well for a lot of my students and mentees. So if that's something that you really want to learn, but I'm just gonna give you a basics on this framework. So it's like if you want the walkthrough, come and get that. But if you want the basics, here's here's the process that I go through is noticing. The moment that you notice your mind, well, you might notice it in your body, you might notice it in your mind. So, for example, something I could have noticed in my mind that I didn't notice until it was high, highly activated in my body is that my thoughts while I was sitting on the couch with my husband and watching TV, my thoughts were going other places. And so you know that you're having some kind of a nervous system activation. There's something in your system that's triggering that you're not safe when your thoughts are not in the present moment, when they're going to history or they're going to future, you know that there is an activation that's happening. And I noticed it in hindsight, but I didn't really give it a lot of a lot of credence, probably because I was so caught up in my own spiral, which is what happens. Um, but you might also notice a felt sensation, like panic or your heart racing, or you can't sleep, those kinds of things. Uh, I'm not gonna say across the board, again, this is not any kind of psychiatric treatment or therapy here. This is just a basic acknowledgement of what can happen if you start to feel activated because you're feeling behind or you're feeling like uh you need to get it right, these kinds of things. You notice it, catch where your mind is going. Just catch, just notice where it's going. And when you do notice where it's going, don't fight it. The same goes for your felt sense, the same goes for the panic attack. Don't fight it, just allow what is happening to happen because if you push against, it will come back harder. If you tell those thoughts to go away, they're not gonna go away. They want to be listened to. So all of your sensations, all of your thoughts, they all have something to share with you. So notice them. And then the next step is to get curious. Ask them. Ask like, what's happen, what's happening? Why, why is this thought here? What is what might it be trying to tell me? If I'm experiencing this sensation, what thought might it be attached to? Because all of our thoughts are attached to feelings, and then name it, say it out loud, get it out of your head. This is the reason that journaling is so powerful. You can write it down on paper, you can simply whisper it to yourself or say it silently in your head. Wow, this is happening. There's also a really powerful tapping practice that I recommend for this process. Um, you can say it to another person, you can speak it into Chat GPT, you can speak it into your notes app, just get it out, name it, and then acknowledge it. Like, thank it for being here. I I realize like I'm in a full-blown panic attack here, but you know what? I'm gonna thank my body for protecting me. I'm gonna thank my thoughts for protecting me. And then you make a choice. You make a choice, like what am I choosing here? And part of that comes to that curiosity step, like, what's going on here? But then you choose, like, am I going to choose to feel overwhelmed or am I going to choose to move back into my joy? So that process of noticing it, get curious about it, name and acknowledge it, and then choose is incredibly powerful. When we do that, and we do that with compassion and love for ourselves, your nervous system expands. Like after this week, after this happening for me, I've had this huge opening. This just, I feel like I'm more me in some way because I know I've been called to Substack because I just want to, I want to explore a new side of myself. And then I saw that side of myself coming out in some of my Instagram reels. And I saw it coming out in my coaching calls, and I saw it coming out in my conversations because it was looking for an outlet. And right now, for me, my writing is that. And again, maybe it becomes more strategic over time, but joy is always your ultimate strategy. You can trust your joy. And that's not because this is like some light woo-woo stuff. Genuinely, your enjoyment, your wants, your desires are your divine direction. They are connected to your passions, they are connected to your purpose, they are connected to your contribution. And money will never come, good money, fun money, the best kind of money, the life-giving money will never come from pressure, overwhelm, or the stuff that induces panic attacks. It never has. It will come from you being yourself, being vulnerable, being awesome, being your awesome self, doing what feels fun. All of the rest will follow from there, my friends. So if you're starting something new, congratulations. Be kind, be loving to your nervous system in this process, let it unfold and see where it goes. No matter what, if you're following joy as your strategy, you're gonna be rewarded. You're gonna get paid with your own joy. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope it helped you. I hope it supported you. I hope some part of you felt seen by my own panic attack. If you want to leave a review of this podcast, if you haven't yet, it would mean the world to me. Go to Apple Podcasts, scroll all the way down to the bottom on fuck around and get paid. It's F Asterisk Asterisk if you're looking. If you're following on another platform, leave a review. That would just be so awesome and magnificent. And I'll see you next time in the next episode. Bye.