The How Are You Distinction Story

Welcome to the How Are You distinction.

I invite you to listen to this as if this is you and your life. See what reveals itself to you in this story.

And at the end, I’ll also share The MOST powerful way to answer this question any time, any where…no matter what is going on in your life.

How many times a day do you ask or answer the question how are you? I’m sure it’s a lot.

We open conversations with “How are you?”. We use it in lieu of “Hello”. We get asked it and we ask it back. Over, and over, and over.

The one thing I know for sure is this:

How I’m able to answer “How are You?” is hugely dependant on my stress levels.

My answer is based on my nervous system’s capacity to navigate what’s present and real for me in the moment.

I remember when I was working 80 hours a week in technology. My standard response to “How Are You?” always was some variation of “I’m so busy. It’s crazy this week!”

My stress was literally my response. (And because EVERYONE was stressed, this was the expected and acceptable answer.)

I remember in the early stress-filled years after my daughter was diagnosed. My answer to this question would always reflect something medical and the strain of being in the situation, as well as the huge energy and effort that I was pouring into the fight to re-establish wellbeing in her.

My answer always leaked my feelings all over the other person.

After my father passed, I remember the micro-seconds after that question was floated toward me. I was always tempted to hide the fact that I was walking through a grief portal by saying that I was great or even just fine — all in an effort to not make the other person uncomfortable.

For a millisecond, it seemed right to keep both of us safe instead of honouring and standing in my truth that I was indeed, walking through a period of grief.

Then, there were in those moments when my life or my business seemed to be crumbling around me. I remember the urge to paint on a smile and throw out a falsely optimistic response to prove something about how strong, or skilled, or capable I was.

Here’s the thing.

Answering from stress only adds to stress.

It doesn’t matter if you’re leaking your feelings, or trying to create safety, or a false sense of capability, each of these answers are beacons to the brain that only deepen the signal that “No, you’re Not Safe.”

As a result, your unconscious brain will alway trigger your fight-flight-freeze-collapse response, as it does in times of danger or perceived danger.

By answering from stress, you will be eroding your ability to create genuine connection with the person asking, and adding to the weight you carry in your nervous system.

So how DO you answer “How Are You?” Powerfully, honestly and in a way that doesn’t add to your stress?

Simple.

You stay present.

You answer from the present.

Here’s the other thing we know.

When you are feeling stressed, you’re operating from the past, or an assumed future. Things weren’t OK back then, or they are not going to be ok in the future. Thus your stress defences go up.

The more appropriately present you can be, the more you open a window for your nervous system to be accurately in the moment.

The most powerful answer:

How am I?

Right now, in this moment, I’m so pleased to see you. How are you??

Dissolving Stress: The 3-Sided Commitment You don’t Know How to Make.

I talk to people about stress. Everyday.

I think about stress and how it forcefully shapes our lives.

I’m always learning about how stress restricts us on all levels of our humanity. I study how to work with our body, mind, emotions and energy to increase our capacity to hold stress and have more resiliency as we navigate it.

I create, and share, accessible trainings and practices that reduce the toll stress exacts on my life — and the lives of those in my spaces.

So believe me when I say: Stress is costing you and me.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Stress comes with a cost. A huge one.

And most of us are paying the price of chronic stress — whether we know it or not.

(Yes, I’ve met many people who are deeply stressed but unaware of it. Perhaps this is the topic for another day.)

• There’s the toll it takes on our current and long term health & wellbeing.

• There’s the destruction it brings to our relationships. (40-50% of marriages end in divorce or separation in the US & UK.)

• And there’s the impact it has on our business success. (Yes, it is possible to build businesses out of stress, overwork, overwhelm and ‘push energy’, but eventually these foundations will crumble.)

We pay the stress tax with the currency of our joy, connection, freedom and longevity.

We can’t go over, around or under stress. Only through it. Learning how to do this will change your life.

Life is stressful.

Unless you can retreat to a private oasis, in the wilderness, to live off-grid, with an abundance of resources, and a community around you, you are going to have to walk through stress too.

There are two ways you can move.

You can go through stress, stressed and stuck.

Or you can move through stress without being pulled off-kilter.

In order to move successfully from stuckness to Moving Well, it takes a 3-part commitment. One that most of us don’t know we need to make.

The components of this commitment are: Money, Time and Energy.

And the catch-22 is that the very thing we are committing to change is the thing that will sabotage us.

This catch-22 shows up as procrastination, hesitation and a failure to launch (even though, deep within, we feel the call to take this step.)

Let’s explore how and why this happens.

The 3-way commitment we don’t know to make.

Money.

We’re used to spending it to fix our problems. The roof is leaking. We call the roofer. The car is broken. We buy another. Or pay someone to fix it.

In a way. This is easy. Because we’re used to spending.

Except that, if our intention is to create a significant structural change in how we move through stress that transforms its impact on us, we’re not talking about spending.

We’re talking about investing. Investing in ourselves. In our lives. In our businesses. In our joy, happiness & freedom.

The hurdle for some —especially when we’ve been chronically stressed — is that we don’t believe we deserve to invest in ourselves.

We put everyone else first. We put us last.

And actually, the most loving thing we can do for ourselves, and those we love and serve, is to invest in us. With intention. With commitment and with the deep knowing that this investment will have a cascade effect on ourselves and everyone in our life.

The barrier is not a money issue. It’s a self worth issue. See this for what it is. Reclaim your self worth. Invest in you.

Time

This piece of the commitment is a little more challenging. We are so used to living time-poor in a state of overwhelm. We see this as an incontrovertible fact of life.

When actually, time-lack is merely a symptom of our chronic stress.

Stress creates us as feeling busy, without enough time in the present.

This activates us into constant motion. As a fast moving object we are safer than being a sitting-duck.

We constantly reinforce this busy-ness with the words we toss around.

“It’s my busy season.” “I’m so busy.”

Then we future-cast that even if I invest in me, I won’t have the time to use the resource I’ve purchased. We believe won’t have time in the future.

However, time is not the issue here. Your commitment is.

Either you’ve over-committed and taken on a marathon when a 2-mile run would be more beneficial. (Also a symptom of stress!)

Or you’ve failed to commit some of your time with the financial investment you’re making in you.

(This is the reason I make all practices and trainings in my Taster space less than 10 minutes. Easy. Bite-sized. Doable.)

Time is a resource, as is your money. We all have the same amount of time to spend each week. How you spend it is up to you.

So committing to invest your time in you is also essential.

Even while recognising that your chronic stress pattern will do everything it can to convince you that There’s Not Enough time to go around.

And finally, Energy.

By this I mean, how you do the thing that you do. How you approach it. This comes down to your identity.

It’s what moves you from the “Have to” to the “Get to” state.

I have to make dinner. I get to make dinner.

Same act. Different energy. Different presence.

Being in the “have to” energy fosters reluctance leading to stuckness. (Yes, a part of stress!)

Being in the “get to” energy engenders enthusiasm leading to flow. (Not stress!)

So the barrier is not an issue with the thing - the training or the practice. It’s an identity issue.

Who you are choosing to be as you do the thing. Claiming the identity of enthusiasm will support how you move.

Now for The Catch 22

Your stress patterns are there to keep you safe in midst of stress. They will make you hesitate.

And firmly believe that you don’t have enough money, time or energy to do the very thing that will dissolve them.

After all, there is a part of your unconscious brain that is setting you up to fail in your commitment to change your stress.

You’ve been chronically stressed for so long that your very being associates your stressed state as the safest, most familiar place to be.

Consciously, you want to make the shift.

Unconsciously, you don’t.

Thus the stuckness.

So how do you move?

Like this.

1. Ask the question: Am I done living like this? Constantly in fight/flight/freeze, collapsing at the end of the day into something —anything!— that will make me feel better. It might be Netflix. Or alcohol. Or scrolling. Or gambling. Or running a marathon (Years ago, that was mine, by the way!) or…the list goes on. Am I done paying the cost of stress in how I live, lead and love?

1. If the answer is “no”keep living in stress. If the answer is “yes,” notice the hesitation and all the ways the pattern of There’s Not Enough appears in your thoughts. Notice you’ll want to continue to try to solve this yourself. But since you’ve just identified that you, yourself, are conflicted between your conscious (I want to (this is your inner knowing guiding you)) and your unconscious (I don’t want to (this is the stress talking)), find yourself a coach, a mentor, a program, a membership. Find yourself a resource that will support you, give you a gentle structure and help you get to where you want to go faster.

As an aside, I spent nearly 2 decades trying to get somewhere on my own. This is why, today, I invest in a coach who holds a safe space and reflects my hidden patterns back to me, even as I do the same in my spaces. This is how you actually create transformation and motion forward.

1. Notice when you waver and fall into procrastination. Because in the beginning you will. There are several places along the 3-stage journey my clients take where I know they will want to quit. Again, this procrastination isn’t them. It’s their unconscious operating from stress.

1. Once you have this awareness. Recommit. Re-promise your time, energy and money to yourself as an investment in you, your life, your loved ones and your business. In essence, recommit based on your “why.”

1. Return to the work. To the practice and teachings that your coach, mentor, guide offers to you. And repeat. Again and again. One small, gentle step at a time.

Because life is too short to live it stressed.

And you don’t deserve to live in contraction, paying tax on stress with your joy, your peace or your happiness.

How Procrastination Becomes an Identity — and How to Pivot the Game

I’m really good at procrastinating. Perhaps you are too? I majored in it at university. And I’ve used it ever since

How Procrastination became my Go-To

Once, in my freshman year, I decided I was done with procrastination stress. I decided to write my essay a week before it was due.

After all, I would gladly ditch the caffeine-fuelled all-nighter. There would be no more bleary, handwritten sentences. Who needed the pressure of tapping them into the typewriter, rushing to beat the deadline of my 8am class, as dawn crept in? (It was always an 8am class!)

As an English major, I had a lot of essays to write. In those days, we typed, double-spaced, on manual typewriters. We stocked up on spare typewriter ribbons and little jars of white-out to cover our mistakes.

Our pages were stapled together in the upper righthand corner, and each essay had its own heft.

Our words had actual weight.It made no difference if we were erudite or nonsensical. We published every page and then we handed them in.

For a week, I thought I had Procrastination beat. I was smugly proud.

However, that ended when my professor (whose name I no longer remember) handed my essay back to me. Instead of the A I expected, my paper boasted a D. In scrawling red letters, it said, “Do better!”

From that day, I stopped trying to get work done early. I allowed my Procrastination to gallop freely over the weeks of each semester. I tackled each assignment at the very last minute.

The stress and pressure of a deadline released my words in a cascade of adrenaline-fuelled analysis that hung together and made sense. Procrastination pressure earned me straight A’s.

Procrastination Galloped Freely through the Decades

I learned that to procrastinate was safe and very effective. Over the decades, I deployed this technique like a pro: Zipping my suitcase as the taxi rounded the corner of my street. Submitting my taxes on the last possible day. Making excuses for posting on social media. Putting off that difficult conversation. Creating presentations on the night before the big business meeting. Never mind the jet lag, or my slightly red eyes, as I attempted to speak persuasively and lead compellingly.

The urge to procrastinate was firmly embedded in my cells. It was my defence against anything I needed to get done. I believed that it actually made me more productive and more effective. What I failed to realise at the time, was that my under-performing essay may have been lacklustre, not because I wrote it days in advance, but because I just didn’t grasp the concepts in that particular literary masterpiece.

Running from Shame and Not Good Enough

That one experience slotted itself into my identity and impacted me most of my life. Every time, I put something off to the following day, I was running from the shame of that failed essay. From the fear of being Not Good Enough.

In reality, I was creating my life, my work and my relationships from stress, out of stress.

This gave me a forced focus but limited the possibilities I could see. It shut down my ability to own my own self worth. It changed my energy. It pigeon-holed my leadership style. And, worst of all, it was costing me my wellbeing (I once stress-worked myself into 3 weeks of doctor-prescribed bed rest.)

There is another way.

Even for the most practiced of us Procrastinators.

It’s possible to create from ease.

It’s possible to work with your nervous system patterns and step into a new identity

It looks something like this:

1. See my friend as she comes up the drive: Ah look! It’s Procrastination coming to pay me a visit wearing a purple dress and some enviable boots!

2. Greet her politely: Hello old friend. You think you’re needed. Thank you for showing up. But all is well today. I am safe. Thanks; but move along.

3. Offer myself snacks: I know that Procrastination is birthed by my nervous system pulling a pattern from my past to make sure that I’m safe. It’s through small movement snacks or regular sensory snacks, that I can communicate present-moment safety to my innermost being.

4. Stay out of push. Claim and reclaim the identity of ease: Procrastination is no longer who I am. The stress of it is unnecessary. I no longer play in that sandbox. Through I might feel the old urge to Put Off Until Tomorrow, I do something…even if it’s a little thing toward my task. Then, I have another snack. This tiny ping pong game works surprisingly well to pivot Procrastination on her back foot and send her down the drive to elsewhere.

5. Over time, I notice that the frequency of Procrastination’s visits have diminished. I’m shifting the pattern, slowly, gently and permanently.

I know that, when life gets full or the stakes seem high, I may have to dance and pivot with Procrastination again.

This doesn’t mean I’ve lost.

The biggest shift is that I will see her coming and I know her for who she is. I understand her quirks and foibles.

But from here forward, I will be able to be a gracious host to her cousin, Easeful Creative Productivity.

Why Sharing Your Voice Feels So Hard (and What to Do About It)

Moving through self-doubt, perfectionism, and the fear of being seen.

For most of this year, I toyed with the idea of publishing on Substack.

The thought would float through my mind in odd moments — during a windy walk, when soaking in the bath. And even once, while in midst of food shopping.

Why? I craved the opportunity to share my voice, and my work, somewhere that didn’t foster the endless social media scroll.

I already had a daily writing habit. (I write and create myself daily each morning.) But each time the thought appeared, I hesitated.

Two weeks ago, a good friend gave me a bit of a shove. “You need to host a podcast,” she said. “Your voice is powerful and healing. Your work is unique. Stop dithering!”

With this, I committed: I would be on Substack. And, I would publish at least once weekly.

For a few moments, I felt the thrill of my decision. I was stepping into new territory!

A new way of being. This was going to be fun!

But then, it began. My very own inner revolution, rising to the hectic beat of a very foreboding drum.

First came the Need for More Information.

After all, how does Substack authorship work? What’s the best time to post? Are there things I should be doing besides curating thoughts and ideas for you?? Should I illustrate my posts? Or provide video? Or…Or…??? Should I offer content for free? Or offer a subscription? How do you do this? And what would I put where?

Then Self Doubt tiptoed in.

What if life gets busy, as it often does? Especially this time of year? What if I start and can’t maintain this commitment because I don’t have time? What if I can’t do this AND take care of all the other Important Things in my life. Like, getting my taxes done. (My taxes are already complete, in case you’re wondering.) Won’t I look foolish?

Stomping behind, taller and bigger than everyone else, was Fear.

Fear strode into my brain space and snorted mockingly, Ha! Who are you to provide meaningful content for anyone, week after week? You’re not a Published Author. Your writing process is often clunky at the best of times. Creating a good newsletter is a slow process. It takes time and skill and wisdom. Everyone says this is hard. And it takes a long time to build a community of subscribers. You’re just wasting your energy and effort for nothing. Besides, you’re not good enough anyway.

Suddenly, my very exciting, sparkly, new intention was starting to look a little bit jaded and faded.

My glorious commitment no longer felt glorious in the face of Not Enough Information, Doubt and Fear.

It was only 10am. I had the sudden urge to make myself a hot chocolate. It seemed a much better idea to curl up on the sofa under a blanket with my mug and a good film while ignoring the world for a while.

After all, no one knows I committed to launching something new.

And then, The Most Dangerous Thought of All:

There’s no need to tell anyone. Nobody knows but me. It’ll be alright.

And right there, what started as a cascade of limiting beliefs became an eroding tidal wave. My stress-based hormone rush attacked my self confidence, making it even less likely that I would ever step onto Substack, much less author my first book in 2026.

All of this because my unconscious brain told me that writing on Substack MIGHT not be safe. Promising you that I would show up regularly DEFINITELY wouldn’t be safe.

These risky thoughts birthed the entire family of Core Limiting Beliefs. I’m not safe, There’s Not Enough and I’m Not Good Enough were gathered at my dining table waiting for me to serve the hot chocolate.

These demons dissolved my brilliant commitment to move my energy and my voice to a platform that is less invasive and more supportive for you, Dear Reader.

I began with the intention of offering something that is of MORE value. And I’ve ended up on my knees in a cold, mud puddle, feeling deflated and useless.

And so it always goes.

The perfect recipe for procrastination and avoidance:

• One inspirational thought.

• A little dash of daring to be new.

• A sudden landing in limitation and fear.

• The over-riding desire to retreat into lethargy and fatigue.

• And a whirlpool of: It’s all too much. I don’t have time. More study is needed. More something needed. Because, let’s face it, I’m not good enough.

Except. NONE OF THIS WAS TRUE.

It was just my unconscious brain keeping me safe. My nervous system, deep in stress, spawning old thoughts and emotions that perpetually make me move in limited ways.

I know you’ve experienced this too.

• Maybe you also want to get your voice out into the world in a new way.

• Or maybe you want to improve your health, diet or fitness.

• Or maybe you want to grow your business, or speak on stages.

• Or start a relationship, or move house.

Whatever your dream is.

If it’s outside the realm of where you are today, you can be sure your very own family of Limiting Beliefs will be waiting eagerly in the wings.

What’s to be done?

I know that neither Netflix, nor endless information seeking, will support me with my sparkly intention and commitment.

It’s tempting to think that it’s possible to think my way through the stuckness. Or to action my way through (Just do it doesn’t really do it!)

Pushing through the fear doesn’t work. Not long term.

The only effective way to create permanent transformation is more foundational than that.

It requires deep nervous system healing married with identity and mindset work.

1. I work with my brain and body to support my nervous system. I heal my historical stress patterns and learn how to meet day to day stress events without getting stuck.

2. Then I claim the identity that I need in order to be who I am becoming.

My body is the fastest, least-defended way into my unconscious and nervous system work. (This is part of the work that I share with my community.)

So, I build a lifestyle and a daily practice that supports my nervous system regulation and capacity to hold things that feel just a little bit scary. (Like stepping into something new.)

Only from this regulated place can I claim the identity of being a brilliant and compelling author with a vibrant and valuable Substack community.

(And no, contrary to popular belief, lying to yourself with affirmations won’t cut it either. It will only irritate your nervous system and create more issues in the future.)

From the outside, the moves I make have nothing to do with authoring a newsletter for Substack. Feeling my feet on the Earth or sensing my ribcage look completely unrelated to writing.

But from the inside they have everything to do with writing. Because this makes it safer for me to write. And to hit that publish button.

Which is exactly what I did.

This is Moving Well.

I’m off to do my sensing practice again.

See you in a few days for the next post.