Hello and welcome to another episode of the Rich Woman Rising podcast. I'm your host Eloise Tomkins, and I'm a money coach and psychologist, and I love helping women just like you to regulate their nervous systems around money so that you can make more of it and hold more money. Because without a regulated nervous system, it's really hard to hold and attract wealth. And what I want to share with you today is a concept that you may be pretty familiar with, which is this sense of overworking, hustling, working harder. And the reason that I want to talk about this is because I had this experience recently where I noticed that I felt really proud of myself and I was like, oh my god, I'm so celebrating myself. I'm allowing myself to feel proud.
I'm taking a pause and I'm sharing this win with a friend. And who am I? Because past me, overworking, hustling me would never have celebrated a win because I would have just downplayed it. I would have said, oh yeah, no, that doesn't even matter because it's not, insert the bigger goal that I was aiming for. And what I have realized through running my own business, but not even running my own business, working with hundreds of clients over the years as a psychologist is that when we're so focused on working hard and keeping our body in this state of overwhelm, we lose our ability to actually slow down and to enjoy the positive emotions like feeling proud or satisfied or content.
We lose our ability to actually experience those emotions, which is what our hustling hard behavior is actually trying to get us to do. Because I suspect you're not hustling hard just for the sake of it. I mean, in some degrees you're hustling hard because there's a goal that you want, right? Like there's some kind of goal that you are chasing and there's something at the end of it. And you think, well, if I just work harder, then I'll finally get to that goal. And then when I get to that goal, I'll be able to slow down. But in my experience, what I often see is hard work never results in that slowing down. And it's funny, I'm just thinking about a conversation I had with a client recently where we had this exact conversation and I kind of highlighted this cycle to them and their mouth just dropped open and they were like, oh,
they could see how it played out in their life, how it was always this next shiny thing that they were looking for rather than being able to actually slow down and celebrate and pause and take stock of everything that they'd accomplished. Which was a lot. And this is one of the favorite things that I do with my clients is to kind of have that mirror, you know, like, I guess the way I kind of conceptualize it is imagine that you're sitting in a car and you have the windshield in front of you, which is what you look out of, right? You want to be able to see what's ahead. And that's really important. You need to be able to look forward and see your goals.
There is also a back window and there is a rear vision mirror and two side mirrors. They exist for a reason. They exist because you need to see what's behind you so that you can see how far you have come. But we forget, we forget to check our rear vision mirror. We forget to check the side mirrors. We forget to look back and see how far we've come. And one of my favorite things is to get my clients to slow down and to pause. And to actually reflect because those moments of feeling proud, feeling grateful, and to be able to sit in those feelings and acknowledge them and celebrate them is really cool. And it's so nice, but why don't we actually do that? Why don't we slow down our nervous systems?
They're hardwired to go, go, go. And we can think back to and think back to where this all stemmed from, right? Like if we think back to, well, if I think back to my own childhood, I think back to experiences that I had where working hard was a given. That's just what I had to do. You have to work hard. You have to get good grades. And if I got good grades, I would get approval from the teacher. The teachers would say, good girl, well done. Oh, you're so smart. You're so clever. Look at you. And I would lap that up because I wasn't getting that at home. So I would get it at school and I learned, okay, cool. Well, if I do well at school, I'll get praise from my teachers.
Awesome. It fills an emotional need that I wasn’t getting elsewhere. So I learned in one way, that was a way to work hard. But then I also saw it in my parents as well, where they would both work really hard. They would both go to their jobs and they would both work really hard. And I was like, 'I know dad, he would work, um, holidays, like Christmas, Easter, my birthday.' Like he would always be working and we would always be waiting for dad to get home from work before we could do anything fun. And so I learned, oh, you can't do anything fun. You need to work hard first. And then when you work hard, then you get a reward.
But by the time you get the reward, you don't want it anymore because you're exhausted and you're done. Or mom who would spend hours making sure the house was clean. And for her, that was fun. She really enjoyed that. I don't get it, but anyway, that's how she enjoyed things. And if you're a cleaner, good for you, you know, if you like doing the cleaning things, all hats off to you because I find it personally, just my idea of how, uh, however, when the house was clean, you weren't allowed to touch anything. So again, it was just like, well, you work hard and you can't enjoy it. You do all this hard work and now you just feel like shit. And so all of these messages were things that I picked up.
And I wonder, you know, what are the things that you picked up when you were growing up around your relationship with working hard? Where did that come from? Some of my clients are, or were elite athletes. Like they did a lot of elite sport, uh, sporting during high school. And so for some of them, it came from coaches, their sports coaches. And those coaches, gosh, some of the stories I've heard of those coaches, like my gosh, some of them could be really harsh and really critical. And that then develops the sense of wanting to work hard. And we have this sense of if I work hard and then I achieve my goal, then I'll be able to slow down. Then I'll be able to relax.
The problem with this is that your nervous system has been hardwired to work hard. Which means your nervous system doesn't actually know what rest feels like. So anytime that you are able to rest or to slow down, your nervous system is just like, 'what the fuck is this sorcery?' I don't understand this. And it will find a way for you to self-sabotage so that you can continue working hard in some way, shape or form, which is why you might undercharge. Because if you undercharge, then you can say again, subconsciously, you can subconsciously say to yourself, 'well, I don't have enough clients. Got to keep hustling. Can't slow down.' And that will be your nervous system replaying out those same patterns.
Even though you say that you want to be able to slow down, your nervous system wouldn't know what to do with that. So what I mean by that is your nervous system has been geared to be in this sympathetic state. And sympathetic state, what I mean by that is the fight-flight response. So your nervous system has two responses. Parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest state. And that's like calm, balanced and regulated. The other state is the sympathetic, which is fight-flight, overwhelmed, anxious, on edge, et cetera. And working hard, we are often in that sympathetic nervous system state. We're in that fight-flight state a lot of the time. So we go, go, go, go, go. And it can be hard to go into that parasympathetic state.
It's really hard for our nervous system to be able to do that. It's not used to it. And you might notice this when you say to yourself, okay, I'm going to put all of my stuff away. I'm going to put my laptop away. I'm going to put my phone down and I'm going to sit in front of the TV and watch an episode of my favorite show. And you might sit down, you might put the TV show on and you can't help yourself. You pick your phone up. And you check your emails just in case, or you pick your phone up and you start scrolling through Instagram. And then all of a sudden you're on your competitor's Instagram account, wondering what's going on in their world.
Or you sit down and watch TV and then you think, oh, I'm just going to get up and make myself a cup of coffee. Or you sit down, watch an episode, and you can't find a TV show that you want to watch because you're in this constant state of just go, go, go, go. And it's hard to slow down because your nervous system doesn't understand. Or you go on holidays and you think, yes, this is finally the time that I'm going to slow down and relax. And you go on holidays and maybe you do slow down and relax a little bit. And then you come back to real life and you say, okay, I'm going to make some changes. I'm not going to let myself get that stressed again.
You come back and within four weeks, you're going to things are back to that same level of stress. You're like, how did I end up back here again? Because your nervous system is wired for working hard. That's why. And even though you consciously might want to change, if your nervous system isn't on board, then it isn't going to change. And I actually get a lot of amusement out of this. I shouldn't say this, but I do because I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it happening. I can see it happening with my clients. They will go on holidays and they'll be like, yes, oh, that was so good.
It was so relaxing. Ellie, I think we don't need to work together anymore. And I'm like, okay, I'll see you in a month and we'll just check in and see how things are going. And they come back in a month and like, oh my God, I'm so stressed. I'm so frazzled. I'm like, yep. I'm not surprised because they haven't done the work. They haven't done the nervous system work. Now, those examples were my psychology clients. Like when I was working as a psychologist, I would see that a lot. And I would tell them this at the very get-go, I'm like, you're going to go on holiday's. You're going to come back. You're going to feel great. And then I guarantee four weeks later, you are going to be at the same level of stress.
If we don't do X, Y, and Z. And I have some clients who will be willing to do X, Y, and Z, which is regulate the nervous system, which is why I have regulate to riches, which is my 28 day program that is designed to help you learn the tools to be able to do that. And I have some clients who will be willing to do that. And I regulate your nervous system. And then there are others who are like, no, I'm not, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if I'm on board with that. And then they come back and the exact scenario that was laid out happens. And that's when it finally clicks for them. And they're like, oh yeah. Okay. It's, it's not just as simple as wanting it.
And that's why wanting to slow down is not just that easy because your nervous system is hardwired. To want to be able to keep working hard, but you can slow it down. And you know, when you are in that hard work mode where you are just go, go, go, go, go. Do you know what actually happens? You lose your ability for your creativity. You lose your ability to be spontaneous. You lose your ability for flexible thinking and creative problem solving because someone was describing it to me the other day. And they said, 'I don't know, I don't know.' I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
And they said that it's kind of like a tunnel, like they kind of go into this tunnel focus and they can only see what's in front of them because they don't have the space to be able to take in more information because your nervous system in those moments are wired for survival. They're not wired to be able to take in more of the world. And when you are able to kind of take your foot off the brake and be able to slow yourself down, you have, that ability, your creativity comes flowing back. You are able to be more flexible with your problem solving because you're not in that fight or flight danger mode. Like, oh my goodness, my whole business is going to fall apart if I take this Wednesday morning off to go out for coffee with a friend I haven't seen in six months because I've been working so hard.
You actually have like more flexibility. You have more creativity. All of those creative juices come back, which means you actually have more ideas that you can implement in your business. Things just become easier because you're not so stuck, right? Like this is the power of the nervous system. And there are people out there who are like, 'oh, nervous system, you know, woo woo,' or it's not that important. It is the fundamental piece that a lot of women are missing when it comes to being able to grow their business. And they're out there thinking, yeah, but if I just jump on another strategy, if I just reach this next financial goal, if I just get another client, if I just read another book, mate, you've read all the books, you've listened to all the podcasts, you've done the affirmations, you've tried the strategies.
What if, what if the answer is actually in you? What if now it is actually in you? Because that's the thing, like there's so much external stuff out. And we keep looking for that answer. We think, well, it must be just something else. But in all honesty, the answer is within you. You have the answer. And that's what I help you get out of you. I help you find the answer that's already within you. I don't, I don't do anything. Like I don't give you any tools or tips or strategy. Well, actually that's not true because in Regulate to Riches, I definitely do give you strategies, but those strategies just help you connect in with you. So you have those strategies for life.
Because they help you connect in with your own nervous system rather than being this external strategy, like reading a book and learning all of these tools and techniques that you can't implement because your nervous system is not on board. I know I harp on about the nervous system a lot, but it just baffles me that we don't think about how impactful it is. And I'm not talking about just breathing techniques, you know, like breath work is a popular buzzword, or ice baths are popular as well. And look, don't get me wrong. They can be really great regulation techniques, but you can't jump into an ice bath every time you are feeling dysregulated. I was at a coffee shop the other day and I noticed myself starting to feel dysregulated because of the energy around me.
And I tell you what, couldn't jump into an ice bath then and there. So, what can you do in those moments, right? How can you regulate your nervous systems in those moments? How can you regulate your nervous system while you're trying, for example, to sit there watching TV and you find yourself mindlessly scrolling on Instagram, not able to engage with a TV show. How can you regulate yourself in those little micro moments that happen throughout the day where you don't have time to go sit in an ice bath for an hour? Or maybe not. I don't know if you'd want to do that for an hour, but you get my point. It's a lot of effort to do the ice bath. It's a lot of effort to go to a breath work class once or twice a week.
The tools that I offer you are micro tools that you can use at any time. They're simple, they're easy. And the more that you build those tools up, the easier that that regulation process gets to be. And you get to switch out of that overworking mode and you get to switch out of hustle and be able to slow yourself down and get those creative juices flowing. So if you're interested, go check it out. The link's in the show notes for Regulate to Riches. But at the end of the day, what I really want you to take away from this episode is that hard work, hustle, we think it's going to get us to our goals faster, but the reality is it's probably not. It's probably going to actually, in the long run, slow us down.
Think about how often you have pushed yourself to breaking point and then you've gotten sick. How often you have worked really hard and then find yourself like my stress signals are ulcers in my mouth, mouth ulcers. And that is for me, moments where I'm like, Ooh, okay. I know that I'm starting to get unwell. So notice what working hard brings up for you. And if you do want to slow down, what would that look like? And notice your nervous system and how that plays into it as well. Because when we start to slow down, if we find it hard, that's our nervous, nervous system giving us signals. On that note, I'm going to end the episode here for today. And I really hope that you've enjoyed this episode and I'll see you in the next one. As always, you have found this episode helpful and I can't wait to chat to you all again next week. Until then, take care of yourselves.
