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Episode 17: Stop Hustling and Start Healing
What if the self care you were doing was actually making things worse? In this episode of Courage is Built Here, Justine continues Pathway Two, Embody Again, with a raw and honest conversation about what happens when grit stops working and your body forces you to finally pay attention. She welcomes therapist, life and mindset coach, and owner of Sea-Change Health & Wellness, Lauren-Ashleigh Whitaker, to share what it took to stop performing self care and start practicing it for real.
LA walks through years of misdiagnoses, pain that was dismissed by doctors, and the eventual discovery of endometriosis that had been quietly overtaking her body. She describes being a trauma therapist who was absorbing her clients’ stress without any adequate outlet, pushing through HIIT workouts and fasting trends while her body was falling apart, and finally collapsing into a bathtub breakdown where she surrendered and gave it all up. She also shares the moment after her hysterectomy when her husband looked at her with tears in his eyes and said he hadn’t seen that light in her eyes in eight years.
Together, Justine and LA explore how the real turning point was not a new routine but a shift in foundation, from self care driven by low self-worth and hustle to self care rooted in genuine love for herself. They talk about body shame that started in the dance world as a young girl, the food freedom she has built around endometriosis, why cold plunges and HIIT workouts can actually raise cortisol in an already dysregulated nervous system, and what it looks like to find movement and fuel that work with your body rather than against it. They also dig into the social cost of healing, how all of LA’s friendships changed when she set boundaries, the grief of letting people go, and how she eventually found her people by showing up authentically in book club and Bible study and letting them respond to the real her. The episode closes with a conversation about courage in the small moments, faith over fear as a daily mantra, and the one practice that helps LA most when she needs to come back to herself.
Key Takeaways
- Pathway Two, Embody Again, is about coming back into your body and learning to show up for yourself, not just everyone else.
- LA’s health journey included years of misdiagnoses, multiple surgeries, absorbing her clients’ stress as a trauma therapist, and ultimately a hysterectomy before she found relief from endometriosis.
- Grit culture kept LA pushing harder when her body needed her to slow down, and it took a bathtub breakdown and a moment of full surrender before anything shifted.
- A lot of self care performed on social media, cold plunges, twenty-step morning routines, and fasting trends can actually add more stress to an already dysregulated nervous system.
- Self care rooted in low self-worth looks different from self care rooted in genuine self-love, and making that shift changes everything.
- Body shame that starts young, as it did for LA growing up as a dancer, can quietly drive the way we feed, move, and talk about our bodies for years.
- Leaving a job after ten years, losing friendships when boundaries changed, and grieving the old version of yourself are all acts of courage that belong inside the healing journey.
- The marble jar is a real framework: if you are giving everyone your marbles and getting none back, that is data, not just a feeling.
- Fitting in requires you to stop being yourself, and finding your people means showing up authentically and letting them respond to the real you.
- Modeling self care, eating enough, resting, putting the phone down, matters more to the people watching you than anything you say out loud.
About the guest
Lauren-Ashleigh Whitaker is a licensed therapist, life and mindset coach, and owner of Sea-Change Health & Wellness, where she supports clients through trauma, endometriosis, perfectionism, and the hard work of learning to truly care for themselves. A mom, she knows firsthand what it looks like to live with chronic illness while also showing up for the people you love. She is trained in EMDR and brings both her clinical background and her personal healing journey to everything she does. Her mantra is faith over fear, and she lives it out loud one small courageous choice at a time.
