92. Overcoming overwhelm with Katie Grimes

Sarah met life coach, business coach, and podcast host Katie Grimes through Women's Business League, and after spending an hour walking before even hitting record, they had to cut themselves off just to start the podcast. This conversation covers it all — nervous system regulation, the link between our relationship with our moms and our relationships with everyone else, why "regulated" might be the wrong word, the power of play (and pleasure) for mothers, and why conscious parenting happens mostly outside the moments you're actually with your kids.

Key Points

• How our earliest relationships — especially with our mothers — create the programming that shows up in our parenting, our partnerships, and our businesses
• The four rungs of the nervous system ladder: joy/contentment → fight or flight → freeze/fawn → trauma response — and how to recognize which rung you're on
• Katie's five-step process for regulating emotions in the moment: naming the feeling, identifying the driving thought, using movement, deciding how you want to feel, and shifting the story
• Why Sarah has officially retired the word "regulated" — and what the "flourished mother" offers as a more honest, embodied alternative
• The biology of play: why play is a nervous system state, and why accessing it outside of your kids is actually what makes you more playful with them
• The powerful link between pleasure, fun, and co-regulation — and why resistance to play is the exact place to get curious
• Why conscious parenting is 95% of the work happening outside the moment you're in with your child — and why the scripts don't work if your nervous system isn't there first
• The Carl Jung quote that anchors it all: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate"
• Why women tend to take care of everyone else first — and how that pattern gets directly inherited from our caregivers
• A gentle, realistic approach to movement and self-care: set the bar so low you can trip over it

Quotes

"Kids don't need a regulated mom — they need a flourished mom. She's fully expressed. She owns and celebrates the full spectrum of her human experience." — Sarah

"We don't need to feel better. We need to get better at feeling." — Gabor Maté (shared by Katie)

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." — Carl Jung (shared by Katie)

"It's not what's wrong with you — it's what happened to you." — referenced by Katie

"You can't solve a problem in the energy that created it." — Einstein (shared by Katie)

"The trigger is the gift."

"Set the bar so low you can trip over it."

Resources Mentioned

• Katie Grimes' podcast: Anything for Love — available on Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/2DHP2FUvbp0IYYouSZ8oLM?si=51b071dcbc3c4e9d and Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anything-for-love-katie-grimes/id1490607022
• feelingswheel.com — a tool for naming emotions (referenced by Katie): https://feelingswheel.com/
• The Body Keeps the Score — referenced in conversation: https://a.co/d/0ct3m4AQ
• Inside Out (Pixar) — used as an analogy for the nervous system ladder: https://www.pixar.com/inside-out
• The Flourished Mother Map : https://theschoolofmom.com/map
• Send Sarah a voice note right here! : https://www.speakpipe.com/theschoolofmom

What's Coming Up

The Scream is happening again — and ABC is covering it! If you want to join Sarah for a primal scream event at her home, watch for details. And if Radical Flourishing has been on your radar, doors are opening soon. This is the premium container for women who are ready to stop circling insight and start living it.