927: The Relaxed Woman Revolution: Redefining Success Without the Stress

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0:37As always, you can find all of our amazing deals in the show notes. Now, let's get into it. This episode is supported by What Should I Do With My Money from Morgan Stanley. Okay, can we just talk about how money is legitimately one of the hardest topics to bring up? Like, even when you think you have your stuff together, there's always this really weird awkwardness around it. That's why I am obsessed with this podcast. it actually makes money conversations feel approachable. I recently listened to an episode about affording multiple big life things at once, like a wedding, a house, an IVF, if they were all happening at the same time.

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2:00And I think that is really at the heart of being a relaxed woman. I'm Jenna Kutcher, and I help you trade hustle for purpose and build a business that gives you the life you actually want to live. From a$300 Craigslist camera to a seven figure business I run from home. I've learned that success isn't just about what you do. It's about how you live. Here, you'll get strategies that work, systems that give you your time back, and steps that turn your effort into results and impact. If you're ready for clarity, confidence, and a business that feels as good as it looks, you're in the right place. This is the Goal Digger Podcast.

2:43What if the very thing you've been avoiding, which is slowing down, was actually the key to creating the life in the business that you've been working so hard for. We live in a world where rest has been branded as being lazy, where women, especially ambitious women and entrepreneurs, are expected to do it all, to run the business, to raise the kids, support the family, maintain friendships, and keep it all looking effortless. But beneath the surface, so many of us are exhausted, overwhelmed, and quietly wondering if we'll ever feel enough. My guest today, Nicola Jane Hobbs, is here to challenge that narrative.

3:23Nicola is a chartered psychologist with a master's degree in sport and exercise psychology, and she spent more than a decade supporting women's health and well-being through yoga, meditation, and therapeutic practice. She's also the founder of The Relaxed Woman, a movement and community dedicated to helping women recover from stress and burnout. Her new book, The Relaxed Woman, blends psychology, neuroscience, and real-life stories to show how rest isn't weakness. It's actually a radical act of healing, freedom, and joy. And if you're someone who has tied your worth to your productivity, this conversation is going to feel like a breath of fresh air.

3:59Today, Nicola and I are unpacking why rest feels so hard for women, why female entrepreneurs in particular struggle to switch off the most, and the practical rituals and strategies we can use to make peace with rest. So if you are somebody who has ever felt guilty for slowing down, or if burnout has been lurking in the background of your business journey, this episode is for you. Nicola Jane Hobbs, welcome to the Gold Digger Podcast. Nicola, let's start with this. And here's what I really want to know is what truly is a relaxed woman? Because I think when people hear that phrase, they might picture somebody who maybe doesn't have ambition, who maybe doesn't have a lot of drive, maybe even someone who's given up.

4:44And so when you say a relaxed woman, what do you actually mean? Oh, that's such a beautiful question. And exactly what you said about the lack of ambition, I think as I went into this research and into this work, that was my fear, was that what happens if I lose all my ambition and all my drive? But I began to realize that actually that's a lot of the cultural narrative around relaxation for example a lot of us believe that resting is lazy or we have to earn our rest and what actually come out of the research is that to be a relaxed woman it's a way of being and it is a process of I suppose we could say it's a woman who is consciously untangling her sense of worth from her productivity and she's learning to relax without guilt or anxiety.

5:37And I love how the origin, so the etymology of the word relaxed comes from the old French, relaxer, which means to release, to liberate and to set free. And I think that really gets to the heart of what it means to be a relaxed woman. A relaxed woman is a woman who is free. Your work has deeply transformed my life. And even if I only had a few sentences that you've written. I feel like that alone has changed my life. You really shifted something for me. And I think I discovered it through my sister where, and you can say your line because I don't want to mess it up. But the premise of instead of asking yourself, have I worked enough to deserve rest, ask yourself if I've rested enough to do my best work.

6:26And when I learned that and really started to contemplate that thought. That shifted so much for me. I mean, it's revolutionary and it's so simple. And I think that that is why it hits deep, especially for women who are achievers in their nature, maybe competitive or driven. Tell me, like, just walk us through that, that thought alone. Yeah. So I think so many of us, like you said, we're constantly, even on a subconscious level, asking ourselves have I worked hard enough to deserve rest as if rest is something that we need to earn by finishing our to-do list or achieving all our goals and I remember one day I was sitting down just to respond to some emails and I'm a psychologist so they're with clients and it's important that I show up even in emails as someone grounded and with access to as much of my kind of knowledge and compassion as possible and I was feeling tired and I remember thinking I haven't rested enough to do my most loving and meaningful work and so that was what really helped me flip the the kind of the or completely reframe that way of thinking of have I worked hard enough to deserve rest into have I rested enough to do my most loving and meaningful work and even the research shows us that when we're in this sympathetic fight or flight state which many of us are living in just from the nature of the of the speed and the pressures of modern life we can't do our best work because we don't have access to higher brain regions as well as emotional brain regions that allow us to be more compassionate so I think it it makes sense on a scientific and psychological level, but also on an experiential level of we want to enjoy our work rather than it being something that constantly pulls us away from what matters to us and deeper into depletion.

8:30Yeah. Oh, I mean that it's again, it's like simple and yet so complex in the entanglement of our lives and the conditioning and what we've been taught. And so it's just so life-changing. I want to know what happens. So when I think about entrepreneurship, for me specifically, like so much of my self-worth has been tied up into my productivity, right? Like I have even told my husband, I was like, there is something about me where like, I want to be the most productive person every minute of the day. Like I am thinking about how I can take the least amount of steps to get from one space to the other.

9:11I'm carrying 8 million cups. I'm thinking through how do I, you know, buckle my seatbelt fast enough to get these things done. Like my brain is just wired for productivity. And what's interesting is, is that I think for entrepreneurships, obviously our income is usually tied to us showing up for many of us. That is the requirement to earn a living. How do we untangle, you know, the productive nature, this desire to just keep going? The fact that like work never ends, how do we untangle that and really separate like who we are, who we are being from the work that we're doing? Oh, it's so hard. And I think you, you touched on it so beautifully in the sense of we live in this culture where everything is about speed, productivity, optimization, efficiency, and you see it even in health and wellness industries.

10:04It's almost like self-care has become yet another thing to optimize and do as efficiently as possible. And I mean, as you were talking then, I think the word that comes to mind for me is trust, is to trust that. And this is a phrase from one of the women that I interviewed for the book. She said, I'm scared to rest because I'm afraid if I take my foot off the gas, my whole life is going to fall apart. And I think that is such a shared fear for so many women. And especially when you run your own business, we're afraid that if we step away or if we don't check our emails constantly or we don't constantly show up on social media that our whole business is going to fall apart when the reality is if we can start doing some little experiments for example for me I only really respond to emails two or three times a week now because I found that it doesn't impact anything else but it took trust and experiment and just practicing being with that uncertainty and I think for those of us whose worth has been tied up with that productivity for so long and mine was being able to gently experiment with some ways to not take our foot off the gas entirely but to just slow down a little bit and just see what happens can be a really powerful way of saying okay I'm not going 100 miles an hour 24-7 anymore.

11:33And actually that's safe because that's what's at the heart of relaxation is feeling safe enough to do these things. Okay. I have been on a journey so similar. Like I love the idea, the illustration of the foot on the gas, because when I became a mom seven years ago, I remember sitting on this podcast and talking about how I was going to take my foot off the gas and trust myself to know where the gas pedal was, right? Like to really believe that if, and when I needed to hit it again, I knew where it was. And I remember unpacking so much during that time because it was a struggle for us to start our family.

12:15And so I was like, when we were finally able to, I was like, I am not going to miss this, right? Like I prayed for this. I am so awake to this. And I remember really thinking about like, why as women, is this so hard to trust ourselves? And I felt like for me, women are sold this lie of like our big break. Like if we say no to things, we're going to miss the big break. And you think about like so many movies and even like, you know, the funny Hallmark movies of like, she waltzes into the coffee shop and she meets the man and the man changes her life and all these different things. And it's like all of these different illustrations in our lives of like, you need to be everywhere and say yes to everything because you never know what your big break will be.

12:59And it really got me to thinking of like, why are we taught that? Like, we can't create our own opportunities. Like, where is the piece of the narrative of like, I am capable of building momentum and I am also capable of slowing down that momentum without fear. And it was just a really interesting time in my life. And I feel like right now, seven years later, I'm at a very similar stage in my life where I thought that once my kids were in school, I would be hitting the gas pedal again. Like that was my thought is like, be present, be awake, be here for all of this. And once those kids are in school, you're going to have so much time.

13:35It's going to be like retirement in a sense. You're going to hit the gas pedal again. And I've actually found the opposite to be true, that I want to hit the brake even harder. And it's really interesting because I do think that it comes from a deeper place of trust, of like trusting in opportunity, trusting in boundaries, trusting in what success is and what it looks like. And so I'm just curious for you with all the clients you've worked with, what are some of the lies that you think women are believing that keep us in that busied, frantic state where we don't really have that trust that relaxing or slowing down is possible and plausible.

14:17Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful what you shared. And I can completely relate to what you said about, it's almost like what we touched on earlier is you haven't lost your ambition. Ambitions have shifted direction. So like for me, I'd say I'm just as ambitious as I ever as I ever was but I'm ambitious to have a restful life and like you said it's so difficult when we're when we're online or when we're looking at other people's lives to not get sucked into someone else's idea of success yeah so to be open to our own evolution of what success looks like at that point in our lives but I mean I think in terms of the lies ultimately if we keep peeling back the layers it's you're not good enough I think that the sense of inadequacy and worthlessness that we we've absorbed over the years from so many sources often from childhood and growing up and it could be tiny comments or it could be more of just the cultural energy around women having to work so much harder and having to juggle so many different things that of course it feels like we're going to fail.

15:27And it's actually really empowering when we decide what matters to us rather than thinking we have to do it all. This podcast is brought to you by Mercury, banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Okay. I remember in the early days of my entrepreneurship journey, clients would literally mail me checks and then I would have to drive all the way to the bank to deposit them. It took me literal years to make things go digital. And I am ashamed to admit I still have a filing cabinet with paper contracts because I'm way too afraid to throw them away. But that's the beauty of growth, right?

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17:23And ShopPay's quick checkout, well, it's a game changer. It means way fewer abandoned carts and way more happy customers. This Black Friday, join the thousands of new entrepreneurs hearing, for the first time with Shopify. Sign up for your free trial today at shopify.com slash gold digger. That's shopify.com slash gold digger. Go to shopify.com slash gold digger and make this Black Friday one to remember. You know, it's interesting. I love the start of your book where you're just like, I've never known a relaxed woman. And I think that it's so true. And it's easy for somebody listening to be like, well, good for you if you have the ability to relax.

18:04I don't. And one of the reframes that you do so beautifully is it's not about doing less. It's about the state of your being, right? Because there are so many layers of privilege. There are so many different areas of life where it really isn't possible in terms of narrowing your to-do list, right? Like how lucky are we to say like, Hey, I'm just not going to log in today. Right? Some people don't have that privilege, but one of the reframes that I think is so powerful that would literally touch anybody listening to this is it isn't about necessarily doing less, right? It's about the state of being.

18:40Talk to me about that a little bit more. Yes. I see relaxation as a way of being. And I've, you know, I think relaxation is really difficult to, to experience unless we have some kind of definition for it. And because it's something that hasn't really been spoken about that much, it's never been researched. so there's not really a clear definition of it so I always think of I think of relaxation as aliveness without tension so it's almost a sense of knowing that we have this to-do list and it doesn't have to be finished before we can relax and that ties into this this sense of mental rest so I think a lot of women especially if we're entrepreneurs and we're building our own business there's always going to be something to do there's always going to be something that we feel inspired to build or to create and so our minds are constantly working and so I think no matter where our limitations or privileges are is if we can learn to give our brains a break that's going to help us feel so much more recharged and there are a couple of different ways that we can do this so one of them is beginning to notice our stress inducing thoughts so for me one is I haven't got enough time if that thought pops up that then triggers a stress response in my body or I've got so much to do that's another thought of mine that will trigger that stress response and then being able to meet those thoughts with self-compassion so it might be that we just put a hand on heart and just say take your time there's no rush and speak to ourselves like we would to a child and also for mental rest I love the idea of what's called noting so almost noting what your mind is doing so it might be that it looks like you're relaxed so you're I don't know resting on the sofa watching a movie with your kids but your mind might be worrying about the thing you've got to upload or the mistake you made in an email or something there's always something that that place that our mind tends to wander to and if we can catch ourselves and begin to note so it might be worrying, planning, comparing, thinking, whatever the mental process is that our mind is doing.

20:56It just helps us to step away from the story and come back to lying on the sofa, watching the television with our kids. Yeah, I love those thoughts because I feel like with a deeper level of awareness and even just like simply noticing, you start to see patterns and trends. You start to see triggers. You start to like see the areas too, where like you've almost built up a system that works against you. Like, what am I up to in this? Right? Like, why am I putting crazy deadlines on something that doesn't matter? Or why am I, you know, why am I setting myself up in this way? And it's interesting because I think it requires even just a few seconds of pause.

21:45And I noticed when I wrote my book a couple of years ago, the thought process was around like women are afraid to ask, how am I really? Because they're afraid that the answer might be, I'm not well, right? Like it isn't good or like this life isn't what I thought it would be. and I just think about how we're so quick to fill every second of our days with sound with social media with our phone like our phones travel with us everywhere that we don't even get quiet with ourselves and just having those minutes to like check in and to do it often I feel like that is such a game changer because you do you start we all have loops and patterns that our brains are on.

22:29Right. And I think so many of them keep us overworked and under rested. And if we don't even ponder them or notice them, it's like, how do we break that cycle? What's your advice? You have a clinical background. So I think that is where people often so often hit burnout. And that's such a huge point of questioning kind of is this is the way I'm living the way I want to continue living yes but we want to begin to see rest as something that's proactive so we don't get to a point where we burn out and so I mean I think like for me what I've learned to do is everything especially I've got a toddler so everything always takes longer than I think it's going to take always and so for me I know that rushing is a huge trigger for stress and it is for everyone because when we rush we get sucked into what researchers called an intentional vortex which means that we lose connection with what matters and instead we get distracted and pulled into our phone or we lose ourselves in other people's demands or an email pings up and pulls us away from the deep work that we want to do so I think slowing down and giving ourselves these margins of time can be life-changing because like you said we can begin to touch in and remind ourselves what matters to us and I think that is really at the heart of being a relaxed woman is being connected to our values and connected to our loved ones and our wider communities instead of living by, or I often call this, an internalized rubric of shoulds, of how we should live our lives, that patriarchy, capitalism, whoever it is, has kind of, we've absorbed that message.

24:28You know, as you're talking about your toddler and like even just getting out the door, my almost seven-year-old is learning how to tell time, which is amazing and terrible. Because now when we're trying to leave for places, it's like, okay, do we have enough time? Like, what does the clock say? And, you know, I, my mom, I love her. She'll listen to this for sure. She was always five minutes late. Like we were always just perpetually five minutes late for everything. And she would even so much as like change the time on the clocks, but then she would know there were five minutes and she would add in that time.

25:00And so my dad was, that was perpetually early. And I have noticed even if we're running late, like that energy is so much different for me, for my kids. Like it's just a whole different level of exhaustion that follows that. It's like the thrill, right? It's like the exhilaration and then like the drop. And it is so interesting how much more present and mindful and joyful you are when you have just even a little bit of cushion. And as somebody with ADHD, I don't get enough cushions as much as I would want to, but it is something where I've learned to like, not push the time on my kids. Like we're running late.

25:41We got to get in the car, hurry up, like get your shoes on like that. I'm like, that is not their fault. And that is also not enjoyable for anyone. And it usually just means that it's going to be even later. Right. And so just changing energy around that is also so huge, but I feel like for so many of us. It's so hard, right? Because I think that the energy of rushing, it can be quite addictive and it can feel productive, even if it's actually pulling us away from doing the things and the work that we care about. And I think sometimes that feeling of productivity is something that we're striving for, even if all we end up doing is busy work, that actually would be far more effective if we took a break and then came back to what we were doing later.

26:29But because I think we're so scared of feeling unproductive or feeling as though we're wasting time that we then just push ourselves into trying to do whatever it is we're doing. And it kind of backfiring and depleting us. Totally. One thing I think about is like, I feel like our culture has created this idea of rest as like you're going to take a two-week vacation or you're going to log off and do this. And it's easy to see it in terms of like a spa vacation, which is not accessible for most and not something that happens often for pretty much all of us. And so how can we start incorporating this idea of relaxing or resting into our day-to-day lives?

27:12What is just like one tangible way that no matter how busy we are or how much we have on our plates, like we're starting to just adopt it into our day-to-day life. Because I would argue as a mom of daughters, I want them to see me relax often and not just on special occasions, right? I want that to be a part of our family culture. And so what does that look like in practice? So it can be as simple as using the breath. And I think when I work with moms and they're feeling that stress energy, come on, I say to them, exhale as if you're blowing through a straw and it slows down they think even just that can remind us and bring us back to our center and remind us that we're not being chased by a tiger the thing is everyone finds different things relaxing especially if we've experienced trauma or we're neurodivergent it might be that actually something that looks restful to the outside world like lying down on a sofa that you've still got a lot of the fight or flight energy going on inside so what I think it's really helpful to kind of at the end of the day every so often to reflect on okay what what helped me feel restful today when have I felt most relaxed and so for me when I do that did this recently it was actually going and picking raspberries so we've got I'm never going to find that in a book or it's some generic piece of advice, go and pick raspberries.

28:38So I think that can be really powerful in beginning to think about how can rest be accessible for me in my life in a way that actually helps me relax. Okay. I love that you said that because as you were speaking, I was just thinking about gardening and it's like you're active and you're in motion, but like, I feel so deeply connected to myself, to nature. Like my, as a mom, my greatest joy is like seeing my girls outside with a watering can and just like noticing, right? Like it's just like the ultimate presence. And so I think it is important to talk about like relaxing isn't just like becoming a couch potato, right?

29:18Or like rotting on the couch while you watch Netflix. I think for a lot of people, rest and relaxation might be active, but just a different type of active. And for me, that resonates again, as somebody who is like someone who likes to be in motion, finding like active rest is I think a game changer because, you know, even if I'm laying on the couch, I'm like, well, I guess I could be doing, I could fold laundry or I guess like, you know, like where it's so easy, even our attention spans can't even, you know, watch TV these days without being distracted. And so I love that idea of like active relaxation in a way that is truly like nervous system calming for you.

30:02Am I going in the wrong direction or no? Are you like, you're lying. This is still productivity wrapped up. No, that's right. But I think that does tap into what I was going to touch on is almost the intention that matters. Because if you're, for example, baking, like I love baking with my toddler, but there's no outcome. I haven't got Pinterest up and I'm aiming for it to look beautiful. And so I think there are certain qualities where rest is intentionally unproductive. Almost if there is an achievement goal, then it's probably not restful because it's taking you away from being present. And that active rest can often be almost a doorway or an entry point to a more kind of still rest like yoga nidra or a seated meditation.

30:49if that's something that feels accessible but to begin with we often have to just begin with the slightly more active ways of calming our nervous system because if we've been in a flight or fight for weeks months years sometimes decades I think for for some people we can't then just expect ourselves to feel safe lying down in stillness not doing anything so it's almost again and we come back to the word trust comes up for me it's trusting that it's taken time for our lives to speed up it's almost like that story about the the frog or the toad that's in the the pot of water that's slow the temperature is slowly turned up little by little and it's the same with stress as we take on more and more almost without noticing it and it's and then we have to kind of untangle that and slowly introduce rest back into our life in a way that feels safe.

31:45I have told friends before, like if you've ever heard of those running plans where it's like couch to 5k, I'm like, you guys are running the marathon and you need to get back to the couch. Like it's like a training, right? Like it is a muscle that you need to flex and it takes reps. And for me, you know, I've been learning to rest, especially over recent years where sometimes rest feels like it takes as much work as the work itself. Like work feels second nature because it feeds that dopamine, right? Of like doing. And for me, rest takes work. It takes presence. It takes like a different style of ambition to actually get there.

32:28And it almost reminds me of like, if you ever have run, like the first half mile sucks, no matter if you are a seasoned runner or it's your first run, it sucks. And then all of a sudden you kind of break through and you're like, wow, okay, wait, this isn't so bad. This is feeling better. And I kind of feel like rest can be like that for certain people. I know for myself, it is where it's almost like you have to break through that discomfort and prove to yourself that you're capable of it. Because I swear to you, Nicola, there were years where I was like, I'm incapable of rest. I don't need rest.

33:04All these things. And it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, you didn't even know how to tap into that. You didn't even know how to get there. Have you experienced that? Have your clients experienced that? Yeah. I mean, my relationship with rest sounds very similar to yours as you're talking. And that's what drew me to this work. because it's almost like we think we're super women and we don't need this biological necessity that everybody needs. But I think, I mean, as you were talking there, just what was coming up was this sense of rest being, sometimes relaxation is something that we do.

33:39It's a practice. And other times relaxation is something that happens to us. It's something we receive as a gift when we feel good enough and when we feel safe. and the discomfort I think sometimes comes as the entry point like you were saying in the same way that boredom is often the entry point to creativity I think that restless kind of feeling is actually a discharge of stress through stress hormones through your nervous system so it is that transition and in psychology there's a really lovely theory called contrast avoidance theory which is about how the contrast between stress and a more relaxed state of being can be so uncomfortable that we'd rather just stay a little bit stressed all the time and I think even just naming that we begin to recognize it in ourselves and also sometimes the opposite is uncomfortable going from relaxed to stress when we have to kind of get ourselves going again we've got a goal we want to achieve.