In Your Power

CHAPTER 5Physiology: From Hijack to Natural High

“Thoughts are the language of the brain, feelings are the language of the body.”

—Dr. Joe Dispenza, author of Becoming Supernatural

How do you know you're out of your power? Your body tells you so! Think about the ways we describe being out of our power: We get a pit in our stomach or are gut‐punched; we feel paralyzed, hot under the collar, or a knife through the heart. Maybe you feel like you're swallowing your emotion or have lost your footing.

Being knocked out of your power isn't just an in‐the‐moment thing, though. You might carry the emotion into your next meeting and the one after that or be off‐kilter the rest of the day. It's hard to focus, let alone empathize or be inspiring. If you replay the emotion‐inducing event in your mind at any point in the day, you whiplash yourself to experience the event again and again.

In this state, we usually put our focus on the stressor—the situation that caused this ejection from our power. But the stressor that caused the issue needs to be distinguished from the stress reaction that it activates in your body. As the Nagoski sisters write in Burnout, “Addressing the cause of the stress doesn't mean you've addressed the stress itself. Your body is soaked in stress juice,” wreaking the havoc just described.¹

We have to deal with our emotions first because a state of strong emotion constrains our ability to problem‐solve, have perspective, or remember the strategies you're reading ...