This week’s episode dives into something we all experience but rarely talk about— embracing all of our weird social reactions. The feelings that rise up when we’re around other people: self-doubt, comparison, superiority, inferiority, grasping, withdrawing, fixing, or trying to prove ourselves.

The idea for this episode came to me at a women’s retreat I attended with my daughter, led by facilitator Katie Dove, whose words always stop me in my tracks. Her insights about power dynamics and emotional patterns sparked a question I couldn’t stop thinking about: What if, instead of rejecting our social reactions, we just noticed them?

When we put our ideas out into the world—when we share, create, or contribute—we inevitably encounter others, and in doing so, we also encounter ourselves. When we have an idea we really care about, we can expect our brains to do all kinds of squirmy gymnastics to avoid judgment. Today we’ll think about how to embrace that wiggly brain, and refocus it on what matters

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Where our automatic social reactions—feeling superior, inferior, excluded, or judgmental come from.

• The difference between power over (superiority, condescension, fixing) and power under (people-pleasing, grasping, shutting down).
• Where you can expect power over, power under, and power with to show up in the Regenerative Design Cycle
• Why suppressing or acting out these reactions keeps the power dynamic stuck, looping in our own body and in our interactions with others—and what we can do instead.
• How to pause, notice, and allow your social reactions to move through you, so you can respond with intention instead of habit, and keep putting new ideas out there without fear that someone’s stink eye will make you throw in the towel.
• How this practice leads to regenerative energy—fueling authenticity, empathy, and creativity.

When we stop judging our social power reactions and simply let them move through us, we regain choice. We become more empathetic, more grounded, and more aligned with our true selves. That’s when our relationships strengthen, our ideas flow, and our contributions expand.

Your Invitation This Week

Notice your own social reactions. When do you feel “better than”? When do you feel “less than”? What thoughts create those feelings, and how do you act from them? Just notice—without judgment. Let it all move through you, and then decide how you want to think, feel, and act.

Notice your reactions to putting ideas out there. Are you afraid of what people will think? Nervous they won’t want to be a part of it? Worried they won’t think you can do it?

When you can pause your reaction and steer it where you want it to go, you become unstoppable. The world needs your ideas—and the authentic, grounded you behind them, more than ever.

Mentioned in this episode:
Katie Dove — Women’s facilitator and retreat leader in San Diego

How to connect with Marie:

• On the Web | The Local Bloom
• Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
• All Things Marie on LinkTree

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

The more we put ourselves out into the world, the more people come to know us by the value we add—and the more they begin to depend on us. This is beautiful…until it isn’t. Because over time, the value we add and the strengths we command become commodities people want more and more of. Eventually, we’re faced with a flood of requests: friends needing support, family projects that need a helpful hand, community support requests, work opportunities, and so much more. For many of us, our hearts want to say yes to all of these things, but everything we say yes to means we’re saying no to everything else.

In this episode, I offer a perspective and tools to navigate this tension between wanting to give and needing to protect our capacity. Because hey, we’ve all been there. The month I said yes to too many things and eroded my margins landed me in bed with migraines, a cancelled videographer session, and a good, hard look at the greater contribution I had sacrificed by saying yes to so many small ones.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why every yes is also a no—and every no is a yes to something else, though we often don’t see it in the moment
• How leaning into this concept makes saying no much easier
• The concept of a high-quality no
• Using values, Regenerative Design, and priority thinking to help differentiate your yeses from your no’s
• Examples of the areas my students struggle with the most, and the payoff they experience when they start to use this thinking

We also dive into the truth that saying no with love, clarity, and strength doesn’t create rejection—it creates relief, respect, and space. A “high-quality no” (as Eckhart Tolle would call it) is contagious in the best way: it shows others what’s possible when we live in alignment with our commitments to ourselves.

By the end of this episode, you’ll be challenged to ask yourself: Every time I say no, what yes am I creating space for? It might just be more joy, more peace, and more energy to make your own ideas for how the world can be a better place, real.

Mentioned in this episode: Eckhart Tolle

How to connect with Marie:

• On the Web | The Local Bloom
• Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
• All Things Marie on LinkTree

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Last week, I hit pause. A middle-of-the-night migraine, a body that said “nope,” and—after three straight years of weekly episodes—I let myself skip a week. Not because I didn’t care, but because I chose health over hustle for this week. That tiny, honest shift is exactly what today’s episode is about: thought bridges—the believable steps that carry us from an old, harmful loop to a new, supportive one.

If you haven’t listened to Episode 144: Regenerative Thought Cycles, start there. Awareness comes first: noticing the thoughts running under the surface, the feelings they create, and the way our actions keep “proving” those thoughts true, through the evidence our brain is collecting on repeat. Once you can see the loop, you can change it—without gaslighting yourself, and without pasting sparkly positivity over real experience.

In this episode, Marie walks you through how to build a bridge from that awareness to a new way of thinking; one that your body actually believes.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• A quick, honest story about choosing rest over perfection—and why that counts as a win.
• Why it doesn’t work to just stop thinking a negative thought
• How introducing a new thought can backfire
• How to tell when a new thought is congruent vs incongruent
• How to build a thought bridge that will replace a degenerative loop with a believable, regenerative path.
• How to strengthen that new neural pathway until it becomes your default way of thinking

Try this now (2 minutes)

• Download your degenerative thoughts into the left-hand column of a three column sheet.
• Write: Degenerative thoughts (left column), Ideal thoughts (right column).
• For each pair, create a thought bridge in the middle.
• Say each bridge thought out loud. Circle the one that your body believes.
• Practice those new thoughts until they become your default

If this episode helped, share it with a friend who’s hard on themselves, or leave a quick review so more humans can find this work. And if you’re building bridges this week, tag @BloomYourMind so we can cheer you on. 🌱

How to connect with Marie:

• On the Web | The Local Bloom
• Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
• All Things Marie on LinkTree

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!