Have you ever noticed that when something good happens, you immediately brace for it to disappear?

In this episode of The Embodied Empath Podcast, Valerie Lundgren explores why joy can feel unsafe after long-term stress, trauma, burnout, or survival mode—especially for empaths and highly sensitive women. When the nervous system is wired for protection, expansion can feel threatening. Instead of relaxing into happiness, the body anticipates loss.

Valerie breaks down the biology behind this response, including how chronic stress conditions the nervous system to expect danger, and why openness and vulnerability can trigger anxiety instead of ease. You’ll learn how to gently build your capacity for positive emotions without forcing yourself into toxic positivity.

This episode includes a simple somatic practice to help your body tolerate joy and expansion safely—so you can experience goodness without bracing for impact.

You are allowed to feel good without paying for it later.

Do you finally slow down—only to feel anxious, guilty, restless, or like something bad is about to happen?

In this episode of The Embodied Empath Podcast, Valerie Lundgren explores why rest can feel unsafe for empaths and sensitive women who have lived in long-term survival mode. Through a nervous-system-informed lens, she explains how chronic stress wires the body to associate productivity with safety, why slowing down can trigger anxiety instead of relief, and how rest often brings unfelt emotions to the surface.

You’ll learn why this isn’t a lack of discipline or desire for rest—but a protective response shaped by biology, conditioning, and identity. The episode includes a gentle somatic practice to help your nervous system experience rest in small, tolerable doses so safety can be rebuilt over time.

Rest is not something you earn. It’s something your body needs to heal.

If you’ve ever said yes when your body wanted to say no, felt responsible for other people’s emotions, or struggled to set boundaries without guilt, this episode is for you.

In this episode of The Embodied Empath Podcast, Valerie Lundgren explores people-pleasing through the lens of the nervous system and explains why it’s not a personality trait—but a survival response known as the fawn response. You’ll learn how the nervous system uses appeasement to stay safe, why empaths are especially prone to this pattern, and how chronic self-abandonment fuels anxiety, resentment, and burnout.

This episode includes a gentle somatic practice to help your body feel safe with boundaries—without forcing, explaining, or over-functioning. Healing people-pleasing starts in the body, not the mind.