Written by Iena SpiritWalker, Founder of The Leadership Resonance Code™ and an internationally known healer, Modern Medicine woman, and executive leadership advisor. Iena works with $250k+ leaders who have built external success but still feel something is missing, helping them cultivate greater joy, peace, fulfillment, and alignment through her unique approach, where science meets Soul.
I was reading Kate Chopin’s book, The Awakening, last week. It’s a story about a woman whose life looks successful and what most would envy. She was also quietly dying on the inside. It’s like one of those trees that looks fine until it falls over and you realize – shit – it’s completely hollow! That’s Edna. She is not sad. She is not ungrateful. She is completely numb inside a life that fits perfectly on the outside. What really bakes my noodle is that Chopin named it before neuroscience had the language for it. What she was living with was a nervous system issue, not a character flaw. This book was written in 1899 and is still relevant today!
You know that feeling, right? You have built epic success. You’ve got the house, the car, and the life you always thought you wanted. But when the hell does it start feeling good? Is this just the way success is supposed to feel? Is this as good as it’s ever going to get? Maybe you just need to hit bigger goals. Maybe THAT win will bring you the feelings of joy, happiness, and inner peace.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and it exists for a reason. The sad truth is that 26% of executives report symptoms consistent with clinical depression versus 18% in the general workforce. The high performer is not exempt to feeling like a hollow tree.
Spring has sprung, my friend. Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and more light fills our days. It’s time to bring that same fertility and joy into your own life.
Here’s the biology of a modern business:
Serotonin is the chemical that helps regulate our mood, sleep, and even digestion. However, your body needs exposure to sunlight to generate it! Yes- you know- outside, where there are no electronics!
In addition, chronic stress reduces your body’s ability to produce serotonin AND dopamine (the reward or “feel good” chemical). The brain’s reward circuitry has been running on stress chemistry so long it has lost the capacity to register pleasure from the wins it worked to earn. So, being indoors and under a lot of stress is literally setting yourself up for failure in the “being happy” department – no matter how many cars you have, babe. This is not a mindset problem. This is neurochemistry.
Now, for the energetics of business:
Science has proven we’re all made of energy and frequencies. Light is frequency — literally. When your internal “grow lights” dim inside, the energetic field contracts. You end up broadcasting Winter while standing in Spring. The external world cannot reach a field still signaling shutdown. This can create inconsistent income or even an income ceiling that you just can’t seem to break through.
Plus, you may have some unhealed wounds that need to be addressed. Perhaps you subconsciously believe that you are not worthy. Maybe you have an ancestral line that has never financially achieved what you want to do. That all must be healed in order to move forward.
You are not ungrateful. You are not broken. Your biology is running a program that was written under pressure. And programs can be rewritten.
Colleges and businesses never asked what you could feel — only what you could produce. The coaching industry will only hand you another strategy. The hustle culture treats numbness as discipline and calls it focus. Congratulations! You feel nothing. The truth is (and the studies prove this), happy people produce better results!
HeartMath Institute shows that coherence between the heart and nervous system is measurable, trainable, and directly linked to emotional availability and performance capacity.
According to neuroscience, serotonin plays an important role in emotional steadiness and feelings of satisfaction. Research has also shown that exposure to bright sunlight influences serotonin activity in the brain. With movement and genuine social connection also playing a key role. Every one of those is a behavior. A trainable one.
The tree is not hollow. The roots are just thirsty.
Joy is trainable biologyTM. Time to turn the lights back up.
If something in this article landed, that’s your Soul whispering for you to pay attention.
In my 27 years of experience, I’ve identified 6 key pillars that make up what I call the Leadership Resonance CodeTM. If you’d like to learn which of your 6 pillars is the most imbalanced, take the free quiz below.
Take the Leadership Resonance Quiz
With fierce dedication to your success,
Iena SpiritWalker
