You finally sit down for the night, but your mind is already making tomorrow's to do list. You're halfway through a conversation with your partner while mentally drafting an email. You're playing with your child while thinking about the next thing you need to do.

In this week's reflection episode, I'm sharing a question I was asked during a recent interview that took me back to a season of my life when work stress followed me everywhere. Even when I was with the people I loved most, my mind was always focused on what was next.

I talk about the belief underneath that constant striving and why overwhelm isn't always about your to do list. Sometimes it's about what you're trying not to feel.

Today, I invite you to pause before you fix, solve, reframe, or talk yourself out of what you're experiencing. Because you can't move through what you won't let yourself feel.

Your reflection for this week:

• When something feels off, don't rush to fix it, reframe it, or remind yourself what you should be grateful for. Let it be true for a moment. What are you actually feeling before you try to manage it?

Most of us are quick to solve what we're feeling. This week, try something different. When something feels off, give yourself a moment before you fix it. Notice what you've been too busy to feel.

Work with me:

1. The Leaders Table: https://www.samanthapenkoff.com/leaders-table
2. Breakthrough Intensive - You already know you should slow down, delegate more, stop overcommitting & be emotionally present. So why can't you? That's what we figure out in 90 minutes + integration call 1 week later. Book your Breakthrough
3. Exhale: Private Coaching - For women ready to do this work until it sticks and you can't revert back. 3 open spots: Work with me

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Welcome back to Beyond Awareness. This week is a little bit different. Normally, Thursdays are our strategic journaling episodes where I give you a couple prompts to actually journal through while you're listening or to come back to.

But today there's no prompt list for you. There's just one thing to reflect on that you can do while you're listening or throughout the week. Before I tell you what that one thing is, I wanted to share something that was asked of me during an interview last week. I was asked, is your work rooted in a time when you brought work stress home with you? Because her whole episode featuring me was not bringing work stress home.

And how to do that. And when she asked me that question, which for some reason nobody has asked me before, I first paused and honestly froze a little bit. And then it brought me back to when I was 28 years old, living in Albany, New York. And that was when I started working for myself. Actually, wait, I had just moved from Albany to Boston. And that was when I quit my corporate career at General Electric and started working for myself.

And I was not married yet, even, no kids or anything. And at that point for the next few years, I just remember hustling and 10xing everything during the day. And then I would take a break when my partner came home from work. After dinner, though, couch time was fair game to pick up my phone and sneak in some work.

That did force me to work smarter during the day and in the evening and actually unplug physically. But for the first 10 months of his life, I would be physically feeding him or playing with him or physically talking to my partner about his day. But mentally, I was thinking about tomorrow's to-do list.

I was reminding myself to check in with my clients tomorrow or to reply to emails or just focused on my next business milestone. Like all of that was swirling around in my head while I was doing those things with my partner and son. And the thing is that I loved my family and they were what drove me. But work and the anxiety that followed, even though I loved my business too.

Work was always stealing my presence away, even though I was physically there with them. And that was when I realized that you can't out-hustle the belief that success only comes through hard work and never rest. Like when you rest, there's no money coming in. You can't rest and be successful at the same time. You can't feel like enough when you're convinced.

That what you do is never enough. You can't feel like you're doing enough when you are doing everything under the sun and you're still overwhelmed. You can't be less overwhelmed and trust that on the days that you do nothing, that is enough. Right. I'm just saying different reiterations of the same thing to maybe hit home for you that you can't get what you want with an undercurrent belief that is keeping you there.

You can't be present when your mind is always one step ahead of the room that you're sitting in. So that is the work that I do now. Back to that interview question that I was asked. Yes, that is where my stress was bleeding into my home life in every aspect. And that is why I A have changed. I kind of drew that line in the sand and was like, no.

I want to raise my son in a place where I am actually mentally and physically and emotionally present and really there and remembering his childhood. And I also want to love my business in the way that I, you know, remember it and I'm not so stressed by it and anxious by it. So I made so many changes. And I also help women with that as well. I help women release.

their specific belief underneath the overwhelm, not manage it, not time block around it, but actually release it. Because to me, the goal was never to get more done on the couch that night or more done real quick, you know, checking our phone or computer. It was to actually be on that couch. It was to be present, right? So the one

Assignment or prompt to reflect on is either right now or this week when something feels off, don't rush to fix it, reframe it, or be grateful for something instead. We get stuck in the I should be grateful for something else in my life. So when something feels off, just let it be true for a second. Accept the feeling.

Of when something feels off. Tap into what else might be coming up for you, whether it be a feeling or a different thought or a different person or situation might pop in. Just sit in that moment and notice what you actually feel before you manage it. Most of us never actually feel our feelings. We think we do, but we

Feel it for like a split second, and then we skip straight to solving them, solving these f feelings or issues or situations. And you can't move through these feelings. You can't move through what you won't let yourself feel. And so, yes, you feel overwhelmed, but when you immediately jump to solving it, you're not really sitting in it. You're not really.

Understanding where it's stemming from. And I can promise you it's not your to-do list. We just had another episode on that. So go back and listen to that one. And next Tuesday is when I'm sharing a deeper personal story. It's actually a night where truly everything in my life felt like it was working, like I was successful in my terms. I had a great income, a healthy baby, all the things, but I felt like

Hollow almost inside, like I had no voice. I didn't know how to use it. And I'm also going to share the one thing that I did to start to change it. Truly, it's like one of the most, if not the most honest episodes that I've recorded. The most honest episode might be the first one or episode four about my divorce. But, anyways, this week, just catch yourself again with what you feel before you fix it.

And feel free to message me on Instagram or Facebook or email on what that feeling is for you. And I will see you on Tuesday with the rest of this story.