The Self Investment Project with Kathy Washburn | Emotional Wellness, Midlife Reinvention & Reclaiming Your Authentic Self

Kathy Washburn
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Biweekly

The Self Investment Project is a transformative podcast dedicated to those grappling with Type C traits—people-pleasing, emotional suppression, and conflict avoidance. Join us as we explore unique strategies to cultivate emotional well-being, empowering you to reclaim authenticity and resilience. Tune in to discover how prioritizing your emotional health can lead to a more fulfilling, joyful life, positively impacting your relationships and overall well-being. You are worth investing in!This podcast may be helpful if you have ever asked: What are Type C personality traits?How to stop being a people pleaser?What is emotional suppression and how does it affect me?What are the benefits of emotional intelligence in daily life?How to express my true feelings without fear?What are less talked about ways to boost immunity? To learn more about Kathy and her coaching services, head over to: https://kathywashburn.net/

  1. Aug 15

    Ep 79 - Capacity vs. Capability: The Equation That Changes Everything with Emily Forbes

    Send us Fan Mail Emily Forbes spent nine years as a CEO, winning awards and passing every performance review, while her body was quietly falling apart. In this conversation, Emily shares the equation she developed after ill-health retirement forced her to separate two things most of us have never been taught to tell apart: capability and capacity. We talk about the moment capability stopped being enough to override what her body was saying, the crash protocol she now uses on low-capacity days, and why interoception and simple breathing techniques matter more than willpower ever did. Emily is the author of Too Hard to Swallow and founder of Wylde Wellbeing, where she coaches high-achieving women rebuilding their lives after a diagnosis, illness, or major transition. This episode speaks directly to the Type C pattern of pushing through, staying capable on the outside while running on empty underneath, and offers a gentler, more honest way forward. Key Topics Covered ●       The capacity equation: resource + recovery + regulation + support, minus demands and stress load ●       Why capability isn't in the equation at all, and what that reveals about how we're praised ●       Emily's crash protocol and the language of noticing versus labeling ●       Interoception, body scans, and the parasympathetic sigh breathing technique ●       Awareness before agency, and reclaiming choice after years of "capability override" ●       Too Hard to Swallow: part memoir, part self-help, and the wellness plan template inside it View extended shownotes here Subscribe to Sense of Peace (Kathy's Substack) today! RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  2. Jul 30

    Ep. 78 - Type C to Type D: A Therapist’s Honest Look at Building Your New Normal with Leonore Tjia

    Send us Fan Mail This week I'm bringing back a conversation that has stayed with me since we first recorded it, and repositioning it inside our Building Your New Normal arc, because it's the piece that unlocks what this quarter is really about. My guest is Leonore Tjia, a field guide to the inner world who helps people transform their emotional and relational patterns. Full disclosure: Leonore has also been my therapist for the last seven years. We talk about Type C patterns, the conflict avoidance, people pleasing, and emotional suppression many high achievers live inside without naming it. And we talk about the shift Leonore and I call moving from Type C to Type D: learning to differentiate instead of merge, to hold a boundary without losing the relationship, and to let your own needs matter as much as everyone else's. If you've ever wondered what a real transformation journey looks like from the inside, not the highlight reel version, this is it. In This Episode Where empathy and high sensitivity come from, and why they can be both a gift and a liabilityThe difference between merging with someone and truly meeting themFour ways Type C patterns show up specifically in relationshipsWhat it actually feels like to move from Type C to Type DView extended shownotes here Subscribe to Sense of Peace (Kathy's Substack) today! RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  3. Jul 15

    Ep. 77 - Learning to Say No: The First Brave Act of Building Your New Normal with Kathy Washburn

    Send us Fan Mail A people-pleaser's guide to saying no without guilt. Three practical scripts, one story about a boss who wouldn't take no, and why no is information, not rejection. If you've ever said yes when every part of you wanted to say no, this episode is for you. Kathy opens Part 1 of the Building Your New Normal series with a personal story about a former boss who kept overriding her boundaries during one of the hardest seasons of her life, and what she learned about the difference between a reflexive yes and a real one. Drawing on Kasia Urbaniak's concept of "the Smoosh" from her book Unbound, Kathy unpacks why saying no feels so loaded for high-achieving women who've spent a lifetime being agreeable enough to be liked and independent enough to be respected. She offers three practical "flavors" of no — the delay no, the clean no, and the relational no — that listeners can practice this week, plus this episode's twenty-seconds-of-insane-courage challenge. Topics Discussed: How to say no without feeling guilty  People-pleasing recovery  Building healthy boundaries  Why high-achieving women struggle to say no  How small habits create lasting life change  Nervous system regulation and boundaries  Self-worth and self-leadership  Building your new normal  Emotional resilience after divorce  How to trust yourself againView extended shownotes here RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  4. Jun 30

    Ep. 76 - The Art of Listening to Yourself: Collage, Creativity and Coming Home to Your Body with Molly Meng

    Send us Fan Mail You’ll also love… Ep. 7 — Writing Your Way to Authenticity with Lisa WeinertEp. 5 — Tapping Into Body Intelligence with Miranda HolderEp. 31 — Finding Connection and Belonging by Building Self Trust with Elise BishWhat if the most honest thing you could do today involved scissors, glue, and a pile of old magazines?  In this episode of The Self-Investment Project, Kathy sits down with artist, teacher, and self-described "walking show and tell" Molly Meng, whose collage workshops have a way of cracking people open, gently, joyfully, and sometimes unexpectedly.  Molly's work is rooted in a simple but profound truth: we are all layered beings. And when we sit down with scissors and images that call to us, something quiet inside us begins to speak.  In this conversation, you'll explore: Why collage is one of the most accessible forms of somatic self-expressionHow layering in art mirrors the layers we carry as human beingsThe healing power of making something with your hands without a plan or a gradeWhat it means to work so slowly you can hear yourself living (yes, Elizabeth Gilbert makes an appearance)Molly's Traveling Postal Club, where strangers make collage postcards and mail them to people they loveHow procrastination might actually be a process, not a flawView extended shownotes here Subscribe to Sense of Peace (Kathy's Substack) today! RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  5. Jun 15

    Ep. 75 - The Habit Your Body Has Been Waiting to Build with Kathy Washburn

    Send us Fan Mail You’ll also love… Ep. 61 — The Currency of Your Attention: How Paying Attention Can Change Everything with Kathy Washburn Ep. 69 — Investing in Your Future Self with Kathy WashburnEp. 70 — Be Kind, Not Nice: The Type C Guide to Self-Advocacy with Kathy WashburnHave you ever set a clear intention, felt genuinely aligned with it, and then found yourself three mornings later doing the exact same thing you were trying to change? You are not alone. And it has nothing to do with your willpower. In Episode 75 of The Self-Investment Project, host Kathy Washburn draws on ancient wisdom, modern habit science, and the intelligence of your own nervous system to offer a completely different entry point into lasting change. We start in New Zealand with the aboriginal Australians' belief that the world was sung into existence through song lines, paths across the land learned through the repetition of words. We move through James Clear's identity-based habit framework from Atomic Habits, Danielle LaPort's core desired feelings from The Desire Map, and the quiet miracle of a salmon finding its ancestral river by taste alone. WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY Why habits fail when the body is left out of the conversationThe difference between outcome-based and identity-based habit changeHow to use your core desired feelings as a daily compassThe Regulate, Reflect, Root framework as a body-first practiceThree reflection questions to carry with you this weekView extended shownotes here Subscribe to Sense of Peace (Kathy's Substack) today! RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  6. May 30

    Ep. 74 - Pelvic Floor Health, Emotional Suppression & Empowerment with Erin Michael

    Send us Fan Mail Erin Michael — physical therapist, competitive powerlifter, breast cancer survivor, and co-founder of Rebuild A Bitch (RAB) — joins the show for a powerful conversation about pelvic floor health, perfectionism, emotional suppression, and what it truly means to reclaim your body and your voice. Topics Discussed: The founding of Rebuild A Bitch (RAB) and why survivorship support is so often overlooked after treatment endsWhy so many women can't actually relax their pelvic floor — even when they think they canWhy Kegels can backfire if your pelvic floor is already tightThe difference between common and normal (leaking, urgency, pain, heaviness are common — they are not normal)Why telling women to stop moving or squatting makes symptoms worse, not betterThe perfectionism–cancer connection: the pattern of over-performing, suppressing needs, and never asking for helpHow empowerment starts from the inside out — sometimes from the pelvic floor upView extended shownotes here Subscribe to Sense of Peace (Kathy's Substack) today! RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  7. May 15

    Ep. 73 - When Did Your Time Stop Feeling Like Yours? How Values Change Everything with Kathy Washburn

    Send us Fan Mail You’ll also love… Ep. 61 — The Currency of Your Attention: How Paying Attention Can Change Everything with Kathy Washburn Ep. 69 — Investing in Your Future Self with Kathy Washburn Ep. 64 — The Integrity Trap: Can following through for everyone else be breaking you down? with Natasha SkolnyHave you ever looked up on a Friday and couldn't find yourself in the week? You were there, you showed up, you did all the things — and somehow in the middle of all of it, you went missing. In this episode, Kathy explores one of the most honest conversations she's been having lately: the relationship between busyness, values, and what it means to live a life that actually feels like yours. Drawing on research from Columbia Business School and the wisdom of Brene Brown, she unpacks why busyness has become a status symbol — and what it's costing us underneath the badge. She also shares a question from a client that stopped her cold: How do I know I'm doing it? What are the signs that I'm actually living from my values? The answer becomes a warm, honest framework for celebrating the evidence of your own growth — something high-achievers rarely give themselves permission to do. Whether you are in the middle of a big transition, feeling the weight of a life moving at life speed, or simply wondering whose values you've been living — this episode is a cup of coffee with a friend who has something important to share. Topics discussed Why 'I'm too busy' is a values statement, whether we mean it to be or notThe Columbia Business School research on busyness as a status symbolWhat Brene Brown calls 'the armor of crazy-busy'Why transitions are one of the most powerful times to do a values assessmentThe 7 signs that your values are actually working in your lifeHow your body is tracking your values in real timeThe one truth worth keeping: you choose your valuesView extended shownotes here RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

  8. Apr 30

    Ep. 72 - Consciousness Skills to Create Change and Prevent Burnout with Andrew Parsons

    Send us Fan Mail  You’ll also love…  Ep. 61 — The Currency of Your Attention - How Paying Attention Can Change Everything with Kathy WashburnEp. 60 — You'll Never Walk Alone - The Art of Building Supportive Relationships with Kathy WashburnEp. 59 — The Sweetest Devotion - Why Self Care Isn't Selfish Kathy WashburnIf you feel like you’re moving fast but never arriving, this episode will show you how to find stillness inside motion and stop burnout before it takes you down.  Kathy sits down with Andrew Parsons, coach, author, and co-founder of The Conscious Workplace, to unpack consciousness as a practical, learnable skill. You’ll learn how “dynamic stillness” works in real life, why the body signals stress before the brain catches up, and how coherence protects you from burnout. If you’re a high-achieving woman who’s constantly performing while quietly depleting, this conversation gives you language, tools, and a way back to self-trust. Topics discussed: Burnout prevention skills for high achieversDynamic stillness and nervous system regulationSomatic awareness and body-based stress signalsCoherence and resilience at workValues clarity and integrity in decision-makingEFT tapping for emotional regulationView extended shownotes here Subscribe to Sense of Peace (Kathy's Substack) today! RECEIVE the attention you need to reconnect with your purpose. Click here to learn more about individual coaching with Kathy! If this resonated, the most generous thing you can do is share it with one woman who needs to hear it. One share grows this community more than any algorithm. Follow the show on your favorite platform, and come find me on Substack at senseofpeace.substack.com — that’s where the deeper conversation lives. And if you’re ready to stop just listening and start doing this work — visit kathywashburn.net. I’d love to talk with you.  Until next time — keep investing in yourself. It is always, always worth it. #SpreadMadLove

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The Self Investment Project is a transformative podcast dedicated to those grappling with Type C traits—people-pleasing, emotional suppression, and conflict avoidance. Join us as we explore unique strategies to cultivate emotional well-being, empowering you to reclaim authenticity and resilience. Tune in to discover how prioritizing your emotional health can lead to a more fulfilling, joyful life, positively impacting your relationships and overall well-being. You are worth investing in!This podcast may be helpful if you have ever asked: What are Type C personality traits?How to stop being a people pleaser?What is emotional suppression and how does it affect me?What are the benefits of emotional intelligence in daily life?How to express my true feelings without fear?What are less talked about ways to boost immunity? To learn more about Kathy and her coaching services, head over to: https://kathywashburn.net/

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