EP 556: Why Do I Associate Success with Stress and Self-Sacrifice? with Maya

What if part of you wants success—but another part believes achieving it will cost you your health, relationships, or well-being?

In this insightful coaching session, Christine works with Maya, an ambitious entrepreneur who knows she's capable of achieving big things in her career. But after years of professional success coincided with increasing health challenges, Maya has begun to associate achievement with stress, exhaustion, and physical suffering.

Now, as she intentionally slows down and prioritizes her health, she notices something surprising: the better she begins to feel, the more she slips back into old habits. It's almost as if part of her doesn't want to fully recover—because getting better might mean returning to the same version of success that depleted her in the first place.

Christine helps Maya reframe what looks like self-sabotage as protection.

As they explore Maya's childhood, another layer emerges. Health challenges were present from a young age, while success was modeled as something that required hard work and sacrifice. Maya also remembers desperately wanting friendship, belonging, and romantic attention as a young girl—only to experience rejection and disappointment.

Could a younger part of her have learned that putting herself out there isn't safe?

Together, Christine and Maya explore the connection between physical health and emotional patterns, subconscious protection, childhood experiences, belonging, success, relationships, and the possibility that we don't have to choose between thriving professionally and thriving personally.

If you've ever said, "I know what I want, so why do I keep getting in my own way?" this conversation offers a compassionate alternative: perhaps you aren't sabotaging yourself at all. Perhaps a younger part of you is simply trying to keep you safe using an outdated strategy.

Press play to explore how curiosity, compassion, and working with—not against—your protective parts can begin creating a new definition of success.

Consider / Ask Yourself Do you unconsciously associate success with stress, overworking, or self-sacrifice? Do you believe you have to choose between your health and your ambitions? Is there something you consciously want but continually find yourself resisting? When something fulfilling is followed by discomfort, do you automatically conclude that you shouldn't have done it? Could what you've labeled "self-sabotage" actually be a protective pattern trying to keep you safe? Key I