Welcome to The Energy Is Everything Series
This episode kicks off a six-part series dedicated to one core truth: your energy is the foundation of everything—your business, your relationships, your health, your identity.
Across this series, you’ll hear conversations with women who aren’t interested in performative healing or hustle-as-identity. These are grounded, practical conversations about nervous system capacity, cortisol conditioning, identity fatigue, and the hidden energy leaks that quietly drain high-achieving women.
This isn’t about doing more.
It’s about becoming more honest with what your body can hold.
Why Heather Chauvin, why now
Heather is one of those women who doesn’t sugarcoat reality. She doesn’t offer three-step formulas or “just think positive” advice. She tells the truth—the kind that wakes you up.
In this conversation, Heather introduces herself not by her titles, but by her mission:
She brings souls back to life.
Her work centers around women—especially mothers—who are quietly dying inside while appearing “successful” on the outside. Women who are meeting impossible standards and calling it normal.
And she knows this terrain intimately.
The permission slip no one talks about
Heather shares how her diagnosis with stage four cancer in 2013 became an invisible permission slip—not because cancer was the answer, but because it forced her to stop living inside cultural expectations that were slowly killing her.
But what makes her story powerful isn’t the diagnosis.
It’s what came before it.
Years of striving.
Years of achievement.
Years of being praised for exhaustion.
And a body that was quietly waving red flags she didn’t yet know how to honor.
Her story isn’t about tragedy—it’s about what happens when a woman finally listens to her body instead of the rules she inherited.
Reverse engineering: from goals to feelings
One of the most powerful threads in this conversation is Heather’s approach to reverse engineering life.
Instead of asking:
- What do I want to achieve?
she asks: - How do I want to feel?
Alive.
Present.
Free.
Regulated.
Then she works backward.
Not by forcing motivation—but by embodying the identity that already lives on the other side of those feelings.
This is where so many women get stuck. We chase outcomes believing they’ll give us permission to feel a certain way—when in reality, those feelings must come first.
And yes—this process is uncomfortable.
Because if you want to feel alive, you have to be willing to feel grief, anger, sadness, and fear that’s been suppressed for years.
Why exhaustion feels safer than aliveness
Heather and Ash dive into a hard truth many women don’t want to face:
Exhaustion can feel safer than freedom.
Staying busy keeps us numb.
Staying needed keeps us validated.
Staying overwhelmed keeps us from asking bigger questions.
Questions like:
- Is this actually how I want to live?
- Who would I be without this identity?
- What would happen if I stopped performing?
For many high-achieving women, exhaustion is familiar—and familiarity often gets mistaken for safety.
Motherhood, martyrdom, and misplaced power
One of the most charged parts of this conversation centers around motherhood.
Heather speaks candidly about opting out of a culture that bonds women through suffering—especially maternal suffering.
Children are exhausting, yes.
But they are also mirrors.
They don’t cause burnout—they reveal what isn’t sustainable.
This isn’t about blame.
It’s about responsibility.
When women use motherhood as the reason they can’t feel, can’t rest, can’t desire more, they unknowingly give their power away.
And power—when reclaimed—changes everything.
Balance is the wrong question
If you’re waiting for “balance,” this episode may rock you.
Heather challenges the entire concept.
Balance, she explains, often hides perfectionism and patriarchy. Life isn’t meant to be evenly distributed—it’s meant to be alive.
The real question isn’t:
- How do I balance it all?
It’s:
- How do I feel while I’m living it?
Because time doesn’t belong to anyone else.
Energy is currency.
And alignment is a daily practice—not a destination.
Co-regulation, repair, and returning home to yourself
This episode also dives into co-regulation—the truth that not everything can or should be done alone.
Sometimes regulation isn’t breathwork or meditation.
Sometimes it’s being held.
Sometimes it’s asking for support.
Sometimes it’s letting yourself soften.
Healing doesn’t mean you never get dysregulated again.
It means you repair faster.
You notice sooner.
You come home to yourself more often.
The real takeaway
This conversation isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about recognizing that your exhaustion is information.
That the life you want isn’t built through force—but through honest, embodied choices.
And that when you stop betraying your energy, everything else recalibrates.
Where to find Heather
- Podcast: Emotionally Uncomfortable
- Book: Dying to Be a Good Mother
Website: heatherchauvin.com
xx, Ash
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