The tension between what your body needs to thrive with work and money — and then the constraints of the economy, uncertainty, AI and everything else.

I spoke to 40 professionals across tech, design, education and entrepreneurship to explore a simple question:

How do sensitive, neurodivergent, and trauma-aware professionals navigate the friction between their nervous-system needs and the systemic demands of modern work — and what practices restore alignment between the two?

You’ll find:

• Why burnout isn’t your fault
• What the real body-work mismatch looks like
• 7 somatic experiments to try this week
• How nervous-system safety becomes the foundation for creative, sustainable work

What if you're not the problem? Full report.

Access the full report here: https://sheridanruth.com/what-if-youre-not-the-problem/

Energy Management Pilot

This 5-week program helps thoughtful, sensitive, or neurodivergent professionals understand how their brain and body actually work — so they can rebuild focus, energy, and calm at work without pushing through.

If you love your work but end the day drained, forgetful, or tense — this is for you.

It’s not therapy or time-management hacks. It’s practical, body-informed psychology that helps you redesign the way you work so your system supports you instead of fighting you.

You’ll learn to:

✨ Read your energy in real time and prevent create-and-crash cycles

✨ Recover faster after stress

✨ Set boundaries that hold

✨ Redesign your workflow to fit your brain

✨ End the day steady, not spent

How it works:

• Short 30-min lesson on Monday
• Guided body practice on Wednesday
• 5-min reflection on Thursday
• Optional live call on Friday
• → About 1.5–2.5 hours per week, at your own pace.

Join the pilot: Click here to apply or express interest. 

Your Next Step

“I’m ready for something else... but I don’t know what that is.”

If that’s you — start with a 90-minute Somatic Clarity Intensive. We’ll find your next step, the one your body can actually follow through on.

Or if you’re tired of circling between “almost-ready” and “total doubt,” the 6-month journey helps you rebuild energy, boundaries, and clarity — so you stop second-guessing and start leading from your center.

🤍 Explore coaching here

Burnout Is Weird PDF:

7 real stories of people who stopped trying to “fix themselves” and found steadiness in unexpected ways.

click here

Let Me Know You're Listening

Connection is my love language! Let me know you exist and are listening along by sending me a ✨ on Instagram @_sheridanruth_ or LinkedIn

Read Somatic Intelligence for Success

Nervous system alignment to prevent burnout and leave an impact.

Purchase here.

Regulation Your Nervous System At Work

Learn to regulate with practices you'll actually use. No need for more time, space or privacy. Download here.

Try the Burnout Prevention AI ChatBot

Soma helps you shift out of spirals, self-doubt, and stress-based decision-making—so you can lead from your most grounded, self-aware state. Access here.

This podcast explores the intersection of sales, money, and business success, offering entrepreneurial insights on overcoming the inner critic, burnout, and the unique challenges of ADHD and autoimmune conditions, while integrating polyvagal theory, Ayurveda, coaching, resilience, regulation, and trauma healing to support holistic growth and thriving in both life and business.

  the past 15 years, I've sat on every side of the work equation. I've been an employee, an entrepreneur, a coach, and I've researched it. I've been told that I was too much, too sensitive, and once when I was 17, even too Latina, simply because I asked for my break on time. That was my first taste of how a difference 📍 gets pathologized instead of understood. And since then, I've supported hundreds of professionals, many neurodivergent, trauma aware or quietly burning out, rebuild calm, clarity and confidence in how they work. And in my own seasons of collapse in their renewal, one truth keeps surfacing.

The problem isn't that we are broken, it's that our bodies and our workplaces have different and conflicting needs. 📍

I interviewed 40 professionals in design, tech, health and entrepreneurship, and found one common question that they were asking themselves, what do I do when it feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me? In this podcast, you will find an answer to the question of how to sensitive neurodivergent or trauma aware professionals experience and navigate the friction between their nervous system needs and the systemic demands of modern work and what to do when you are aware of the structural problems, yet you carry the physiological imprint that says, if I just tried harder, I would be fine.

And what to replace all of that with seven somatic experiments to try this week. So when I asked these 40 professionals who or what was to blame for burnout, everyone was conflicted. They kind of oscillated between blaming the system and blaming themselves and the system. Again, some quotes included. I'm wired to never feel like I've done enough.

It comes from childhood, always feeling slower than the rest of the herd. I resonate that a lot. , KoSA said, burnout isn't just work. It's the emotional problems outside work trickling in. Jacqueline said, you're responsible for your professional health, and then you get to decide where you're going to contribute your skills.

And there's this pendulum here where we have both self blame and systemic frustration. And it captures this paradox where we are aware of these structural problems, but we carry that physiological, body-based nervous system imprint that says, I should be able to figure this out. I should be able to hack I.

My word in my head is like, I can hack this system and we're in this friction zone. Where sometimes we actually feel quite hopeless, but this is an important place to, to linger in, to spend more time in because this is where your power is going to, to emerge. There's this nervous system, need for safety, and then there's the cultural addiction to performance or productivity and growth and understanding.

This tension is actually the, the beginning, the seed of redesigning how we work, not running away from the tension or trying to get rid of it. Our economy, our businesses, they need growth. Our nervous system needs stability, and we live inside of these systems that reward endurance while our biology, our body requires rhythm.

We have these growth at all cost culture. We have rising living expenses. We have a constant kind of evaluation of what's next. And this myth that more insight, more education, more knowing what's going on inside of you will actually create change. Hello everyone, speaking to your AI bots. And then we have decades of occupational health research that confirm that burnout arises not from weakness, but from a mismatch between human design and work design.

If you download this report, you will gather, , information to the sources and the resources that I've used, and you can go and you can play around and go down the rabbit hole with that one.

In my findings, other patterns that were echoed across all 40 professionals, regardless of age or industry, were feeling like maybe you were doing a good job, but also feeling nothing. A tired but wired type of loop of thoughts and insomnia, and then craving weekends that fill their cup, and then a real big desire for certainty and autonomy and security and freedom all at once.

Some quotes that stood out to me were Nancy when she said, sometimes it feels like I'm walking a tightrope trying and not to inconvenience others. Carolyn said, I'm not overworked, I'm under challenged. I've graduated from my job. Edie said I could hustle and contact a thousand a hundred people today, or I could create space for some big picture stuff.

And the more that I listened, the clearer it became that burnout isn't actually one state that we arrive at and then we're in and then we're out of it. It's this oscillation between orienting and nurturing your body and environment or, or like then that side of you that wants ambition and then back to the side of you that wants rest, and then to the peace of you that wants belonging and then the other that wants authenticity.

And it's this oscillation between meeting all of these needs for yourself and then others. But that makes us tired. Um, most participants weren't really just disengaged in their work. They were just overloaded by a ridiculous amount of uncertainty and ambiguity and under-resourced by recovery, they didn't have enough space or, or financial resources, or emotional resources or skill to really recover.

And there was a lot of body-based somatic language. It was like, it was like frozen. This feeling of being frozen or stuck or feeling like you have to push forward. Like you know, this sense of almost like you're in a fetal position and you're just kind of staring into space, or it's like zombie-like, and.

Or this big desire to almost defend and like there a bit of ego out there. Like, no, no, no, no. I, I'm doing a good job. I'm doing a great job and I'm just gonna keep going forward and everything's fine. Everything's fine. Don't worry guys. Like don't worry guys, everything's fine. And what. It's important to notice here is I think that this movement between the two, it's not like a lack of discipline.

It's not a failure. It's not saying that you're not successful. It's just this like your body is begging for something that is a little bit different to what you are giving it what we are giving our body.

One core insight was how important safety is before strategy. I know that you may have heard this before, but under chronic stress. Or threat such as economic uncertainty, AI disruption, contracts ending different buying habits, the nervous system diverts energy from creativity towards survival. Awareness is really lovely.

Oh, I, I love that. I love to know that it's doing that. But safety is more important. Establishing that sense of safety is more important than establishing a strategy around the uncertainty. Because you can't feel insight and knowing like, oh, like you don't feel safe to just exist in the next couple of weeks.

It's going to be very difficult to think of a resilient and creative way to pivot into something new, given all of the uncertainty that there is. In practice, this is like a titration, doing something that's challenging and then coming back to resource and that feeling of, I've got myself, I'll be okay.

It's being really clear about what needs you have and how to get them met and really, really honest limits. So like, be brutal about your boundaries is, uh, with yourself, you know, not letting yourself go down certain rabbit holes, , with other people. What we wanna create inside is this feeling of I can handle whatever comes next.

Research from neuropsychology and polyvagal theory shows us that without perceived safety, so I'm talking about you feeling your body, there's this like ex exhale in your body like, oh yeah, I can rest. And you know when you don't have it, you're anxious, you're concerned, you have trouble sleeping. And then when you feel it, you're like, oh wow, I have energy.

I'm doing like, I'm suddenly all this really productive. And I said, I feel really good and oh my God, I can do all these things. It means that if you don't have that feeling, your brain is putting its resources towards. Defending itself, it's focused in, it doesn't even have peripheral vision. It's just like task oriented forward.

You're not usually a very nice person to be around, even if it appears that you are, but people perceive you as a little bit chaotic, maybe a little bit concerning. Maybe they don't even know if they can really trust you. They're not gonna say this to your face, but their body is picking up on it. Your brain isn't going towards problem solving, and I love you.

But we, and like, but not, we all need to be really good at problem solving if we're going to move forward into the next couple of years. Sane. So many people that I interviewed described these workplaces where it was like they had to like be a certain way, a performer, a certain way to belong, that it also wasn't really clear how to belong or what the rules were.

It felt like there were these un. Hidden rules. And that's so important because belonging is your access to safety. There was a lot of, um, words and quotes like this one, if I'm left out of stuff, it kind of hurts, but then maybe my life would be better if I could just feel more content. So we're searching for belonging and we are feeling this hurt, but then we're like, wait, maybe I shouldn't need that so much.

So it's like, oh no, you do actually, you need both belonging and to feel content. But we need to stay and linger in that desire to belong then and then and and meet that need. And then you can kind of problem solve for how to be content given your constrictions and limitations. Jack said there are times as a founder, when it feels really lonely.

And you have to be okay doing difficult things. Now here we have again, yes, it feels lonely, so you actually have to meet that need for belonging first before you go into problem solving mode. If you want to reserve your energy, if you want to keep energy. So Jack's going forward and doing all of these things and Jack is tired.

In order to go forward and do all the things and not be exhausted, you want to meet that need for belonging first, meet your need for safety first. Shannon said, I gave everything to this company and I was ushered out by an admin staff. So there's this like deep feeling of not being appreciated, not belonging, living in her bones.

So Shannon and I spoke about how to make sure that. Uh, she feels that sense of community as she continues and looks at new consulting roles or, or working perhaps in another company before she goes and strategizes about that. We need to meet that her. Otherwise it's gonna feel, um, like she was already feeling it, like scattered and, and kind of almost like hopeless or helpless about like, I don't even know where to begin.

Brene Brown talks about this. We love Brene Brown. If you guys don't know her, then go find her Most workplaces. She notes equate belonging with proving value rather than being valued for who we are. Now, this is a problem because our body needs to be valued for who we are so that we can do our best work.

Amy Edmondson talks about this. She does a lot of research on psychological safety. She's great. Works at Harvard. I think she. Confirms how important it is that people do their best work when they feel seen, supported, and safe to speak up. So we have a systemic problem here, but we have a you problem 'cause you are the one who controls where you focus your energy and how you make sure that you get your belonging and safety needs met so that you can do your best work, whether that is in the current um, structure or business company that you're in, or doing your best work to get to something better.

When participants finally experienced true safety, whether that was finding a part-time arrangement or a circle of peers or a manager who just saw their humanness and saw them, so in themselves, so many of them, the ones that did reach this, described so much relaxation and creativity. Returning, Elizabeth said they quickly realized, they quickly created a part-time role.

For me, realizing my value had kind of, um. For me, realizing my value made me take the gas off of myself, and this is when we come back to adaptability and the body and why somatics matter. We are living in in insane change. AI is reshaping industries for all of US economic and political systems, and everything feels unstable.

There is this collective question that every single interview has had, which is what the hell do I do when it feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me? Even before when I felt like this would happen, I would kind of know what to do and then I would go and do it. But now I don't even know where to begin.

The thing is adaptability, not certainty is a skill that determines who thrives. And adaptability is not strategic. It is physiological. A regulated nervous system lets us perceive nuance it, recover from stress, make clear decisions in uncertainty. Therefore a somatic practice, a body-based practice is not a luxury or a nice thing that you might do one day.

It is actually, I think of it as like a performance technology that is rooted in the biology of the body that you hold every single day that creates every single moment of that you possibly could experience and perceive. A somatic practice teaches the body to distinguish challenge from threat, allowing your curiosity and your creative thinking to stay online and accessible even if things are chaotic.

And this is so incredibly critical for people like myself who are more sensitive or neurodivergent or just kind of get overwhelmed really quickly or have a lot going on in life. Catherine said, high achievers don't know when to switch off. We take on too much until it's too late. Do you resonate? I certainly did.

I didn't think I was a high achiever. Um, in hindsight, hey, maybe. , Blake said, I fill my cup and then something stressful happens and then I'm 10 steps back and this is a lack of adaptability. Filling your cup and then something stressful happening and then you just filling your cup again and not really thinking of it as it's a non-issue.

That's adaptability. That's what I can help you g garnish and gain and practice and also what listening to the rest of this podcast will help you do. Because somatic work builds this muscle of recovery. It's this ability to return to baseline faster, and then over time that becomes confidence. And it's that feeling of I can meet what's next.

If you really wanna explore this, please reach out to me. I'll send, put a little bit of information below, but we have a five week pilot program that is happening very soon. We start on Monday and you're very, very welcome to it. It's pay what you can. It's super asynchronous. It's very, it'll fit in between wherever you are in your life and wherever you are in your body.

It will fit and it's for you if you just wanna end the day feeling like you have energy to do the things that you want, if you wanna get out of this pattern that you're in, because. The body learns adaptability through small, consistent rituals that build flow and trust and safety. And I design all of these programs, um, and all of the work with me to meet those rituals.

We're gonna be meeting on, we're gonna be having a resource on Monday that is educational audio. You'll learn. Tuesday you'll gotta practice that's spotty based and you can practice during the week. Thursday we'll do a check-in. We'll check in with what's working. We'll be measuring your sleep, your stress, your focus, your feeling of, um, like flow and wellbeing.

And then we'll get together if you, if you'd like, uh, as a group on the Friday. And just check in and share what's working and, and learn even more. It's like a permission slip to. Perfect the way that you manage your energy so that you can do some really great things. It's really fun actually, to learn.

Anyway, so I have seven somatic practices for you that I would really recommend that you look into. Um, my friend just messaged me saying she's gonna try the procrastination one shortly, so that's really fun. You guys can do that together. Um, actually no, there were five. Oh, you said there were seven.

They're five. Oh no, there's seven. Okay, we ready?

When you feel emotionally flooded or reactive, you can try a two minute emotional al alchemy practice. Pause, bring awareness to your body, find a sensation or a handle or an emotion, literally just one or anything, and then just breathe into it like you're, you're, you're pushing your breath into that space.

If you could fill it up like a pocket. People often find that this helps that feeling kind of complete itself and then you feel more calm before you, you can res well, you, you decide to respond, and then, you know, problem solving's back online, et cetera. You do a better job at responding.

I also recommend doing this before you give it to TBT to say like, oh, hey, can you make this sound more professional, less emotional, because we want that emotion to complete inside of your body. . And then you can kind of let it go, and so it doesn't ruminate in your thoughts later either consciously or unconsciously.

When you have just had a win or a success and you feel yourself, um, self-sabotaging or shrinking or thinking, what if they find out that this is, that I'm not that good, or what if I they find out that I lied to them or et cetera? You can try the expansion practice. This is in chapter nine of my book, somatic Intelligence for Success.

You can download it on Kindle or on my website. You're gonna orient to something either that is pleasurable or something that is grounded and neutral, and you're just gonna hold that for 16 seconds while breathing. What people often find is that this helps the body learn that it is safe to experience more ease and abundance and success, and then you can kind of neutralize that level of success, make that safe inside, and then you won't.

Second guess yourself as much and then you can move on to the next one. And you just repeat that for the rest of your life. It's very fun when you're stuck overthinking a decision. You can try strengthening intuition through your somatic intelligence. You're gonna close your eyes, you're gonna notice a sensation in different body parts or even one body part, and you're just gonna like notice between that body part and another body part, different sensations, and notice which one feels.

Softer, lighter or calmer, then you wanna make a decision from that calm, soft space. People often find that this helps them access, clarity, and a sense of quiet confidence. Really grounded confidence, not arrogant. Um, instead of saying in that analysis paralysis space, when you're procrastinating or you were lost, imper perfectionism, just try these, like small experiments of spontaneity.

So order a different coffee, take a new route, or re release or share something with your boss or, I don't know, co-founder or whatever your audience, something that is imperfect. People often find that this helps rewire the nervous system to feel safe, being visible and creative again, and not getting things right all the time.

Then. Letting that be. Okay. Over time you're gonna end up saving so much time and energy on your work and you're gonna feel more momentum moving forward when you're tense after feedback or just feeling really like unsafe in structure. So some type of like structure of like you're receiving feedback or even just your schedule.

I find this a lot. Um, when I've got a busy schedule. You remind yourself, I have agency now. And then just in just one element of your workflow. So like change the deadline, delete a task. Just notice that. Uh, that might bring a sense of agency. So much times. So many times we experience trauma from past phases of work in our life or, um, relationships.

Even if it was just like your dad not being very kind to you or, um, feeling like you didn't have the possibility to leave a job that you didn't like. And so that feedback or that structure feels threatening to our sense of agency. And trauma is often is, is created when we don't have control in agency.

What this practice does is it restores a sense of choice and therefore safety in a system that might otherwise feel really oppressive. It reminds you that you do have control and you can find your way of being yourself in the structure that you're in. When you feel really disconnected or uninspired, try the accessing inspired action exercise from my book, somatic Intelligence for Success.

It goes like this. You pick a supportive belief. Let's just say one right now is gonna be, I can trust myself. It's gotta feel like you can kind of believe it, but like maybe you're a little bit skeptical. Insanely unbelievable. You are gonna ask, what's my next act? Action from that belief. So for example, if I was doing above and I was like unsure if somebody was gonna like this work or if you know, unsure, if you guys would like this podcast, I would take a deep breath and I would feel in my body, what would it feel like if I believed that I can trust myself and say, okay, if I from this stance in my body, if I can trust myself, what would be the next logical step?

I would edit the podcast and I would send it, or I'd send that email or I'd send that text to the guy that I like. People often find that this leads to this like grounded motivation and momentum moving forward. Instead of feeling like you're kind of like logging through and pushing forward, sometimes you'll have to wait a little while in stillness before an answer arises, and that's just because there's a new pattern for you and you haven't done it yet and it'll take a second.

See, I actually, I'm a little tricked, don't I? I actually sometimes when I'm struggling with this and I just, it's like something totally new and I'm really struggling to figure out like, what would it do? I send a quick voice message to chat JBT or on Soma, specifically Soma, that's the chat JBT that I recommend you use.

You can find that down below. It's trauma informed and it's, it's actually educated on everything that I'm sharing with you today, but I. I take a, I say to her, okay, this is like the, the, the practice that I'm doing and I'm struggling to figure out what would I do if I really believed in myself. And sometimes I'm even like, what would I do if I was a white man?

'cause I can see that I'm being hard on myself 'cause I'm a woman because then. I just do that and it helps me, well, it helps me brainstorm and I feel into my body like, oh yeah, that one feels correct, and I go and do that. Number seven, final one. When your body feels agitated or over activated, like there's lots of energy in your system, try a couple of cross body movements, so that means like you're alternating right hand.

O over to your left side of your body. So right hand to left shoulder, left shoulder to right sho left hand to right shoulder. I do it on my knees often, right hand to left, knee left. He left hand to right knee. Just for a few minutes. People often find that this actually balances the two brain hemispheres.

Science tells us this and it creates this like sense of regulation and calm and focus. So adaptability isn't about just like controlling everything around you. Fixing you or fixing other things around us. It's just your relationship to the moment. The more predictable signs that your nervous system receives, so predictable rituals or rest or self dialogue or these practices here, the more fluidly you'll be moving through these changes, um, instead of like trying to figure them out the hard way.

This is important because it comes through the micro to the macro. We've got decades of organizational research that mirrors what our body knows already, what you can feel in your heart, which is that autonomy flow, and psychological safety, predict sustainable performance. Once again, go and download this report on my website to see the sources so you can rabbit hole down into those sources and research.

System thinkers like Sangen Meadows remind us that genuine change starts with mindset and the internal patterns shape every external system, meaning your little micro shifts such as pausing before you say yes, or breathing before replying or structuring rest as seriously as deliverables create big impact.

They build the learning organizations and the humane workplaces that we keep wishing for. If you would like support applying these tools in real world complaint constraints, explore somatic coaching for burnout. Recovery with me. Or keep listening to this podcast or send it to a friend. My biggest invitation here is not to just focus on slowing down because technology, politics and culture is gonna keep testing your capacity for uncertainty, and it's not going to slow down, but it's actually to prioritize the body, to anchor in the ancient rhythm that is trustworthy inside of you.

Somatic rituals, whatever yours are. Therapy, yoga, creativity, time in nature, coaching. This is how we learn to move through change without losing ourselves. And they're not indulgent. They are really intelligent. Book the session with your healer, with the yoga class, book the class. Return to a practice that you have in your body that you know restores.

You all invent one and find one. 📍 Do 10 days of your yoga on YouTube or breath or breathe for five minutes in the morning or while you're on the tram. And if you would like to explore this work further with me, you'll find information down below for that. We do have, uh, the pilot program coming up that is, especially for you, if you want more energy at the end of your day.

If you want to go through a deeper re-haul, you can book a curiosity, call just a 20 minute chat to explore what's coming up for you and whether my somatic work could support you. Um. Yeah, thank you for being here all the way to the end. I'm really happy that we are on this journey together to creating work that is more enjoyable for all humans, no matter the how our body works, no matter how our brain works, and we get to be the future that we really would've liked for ourselves in the past.

Much love.

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