You can be a confident, accomplished woman who makes difficult decisions, speaks up at work, and knows exactly what she wants.

Yet when it comes to your marriage, you find yourself holding back.

Maybe you don’t express what you really want. Maybe you avoid difficult conversations. Or maybe you’ve become so accustomed to putting your husband’s preferences first that you barely notice you’re doing it.

And even when you recognize the pattern and decide you’re going to change it, you find yourself doing the same thing again.

Why is it that you can know something intellectually and still struggle to do something differently?

In this episode of Next Level Greatness, I explore how implicit learning and conditioned physiological responses can influence the way you show up in your marriage.

I also share a personal experience from my own marriage, what happens in the body when we try to speak up, and how working with these responses can help us begin to change deeply ingrained patterns.

Because sometimes the very thing we’re doing to preserve connection is contributing to the disconnection we’re feeling.

Mentioned in this episode

Read the companion article: You’re a Badass at Work. So Why Can’t You Speak Up at Home?

Join The Reclamation: Enrollment is open for January 2027. This intimate, five-month coaching experience is for women who are ready to move beyond understanding their patterns and begin changing how they live.

Plopping yourself on the couch to “rest” isn’t the same thing as restoring. It doesn’t actually recharge you.

We often think we’re recharging when we collapse on the couch, scroll, watch Netflix, or simply stop doing. And while that may give us a break, it doesn’t necessarily replenish us.

In this episode of Next Level Greatness, I’m inviting you out of…

You decide you’re going to respond differently. One day, you do. The next time, the old reaction is back. Why does that happen when you genuinely want to change?

In this episode, I explore the difference between making a decision and changing a familiar pattern. I share what happened when I returned to publishing after a five-month sabbatical: I had chosen a new way to work, yet I could feel an old response return in my body.

I’ll leave you with three questions to bring to a pattern in your own life: What has this response done for you? How do you know in your body that it’s beginning? And what support would help you try something different?

If you’d like support with this work, you can explore the ways to work with me here: Work With Me.

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