The Strong-but-Struggling Podcast

What Your Anxiety Is Actually Trying to Tell You

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In 2020, Alyssa was hiking down a trail in Glacier National Park when another hiker mentioned someone had spotted a bear nearby.

They never saw the bear. But for the rest of that hike, every rustle in the trees, every sound from the brush — her body responded like it was already there. Heart racing. Senses on high alert. Running through exactly what she'd do if it showed up.

That's anxiety. Not a character flaw. Not catastrophizing. Not being dramatic. Your nervous system running a safety protocol for a threat that hasn't happened yet — because it has happened before. And your body learned that being prepared hurt less than being caught off guard.

In this episode, Alyssa goes into anxiety from the inside out. Not the version about challenging your thoughts or stopping worst-case scenarios. The real version — where it actually lives, what it's actually doing, and why telling yourself to just relax is probably the least helpful thing anyone has ever said to you.

In this episode:

Why your nervous system can't tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived one — and why that's not a flaw, it's the whole point
How chaos and unpredictability in the past train your body to scan for danger everywhere — even in the lighting of a room
Why over-planning, over-controlling, and researching everything until 2am isn't a bad habit — it's a nervous system trying to keep you safe
The anxiety that doesn't look like anxiety: re-reading texts five times before sending, backup plans for your backup plans, a life that looks fine but a body that never fully exhales
What stress hormones actually do to every major organ in your body when anxiety runs chronically
Alyssa's personal stories — an unpredictable marriage where the rug got pulled out repeatedly, and going through IVF and the specific kind of anxiety that comes with tracking everything and still controlling nothing
The one question to stop asking — and the one to replace it with

The takeaway: Next time anxiety shows up, stop asking "what more do I need to know to feel in control?" and start asking "what does my body need right now in order to feel safe?" Those are completely different questions. One sends you further into research and preparation that will never feel like enough. The other brings you back into your body, into this moment, into what is actually true right now. Try it once this week — and notice what comes up.

Chapters

00:01 The bear on the trail — and what it has to do with anxiety

03:44 What anxiety actually is (and why your body is not broken for having it)

06:01 Alyssa's story: an unpredictable marriage and a body that stopped waiting to be surprised

08:53 Real threat vs. perceived threat — and why your nervous system doesn't know the difference

10:32 What's actually happening in your brain when anxiety fires

13:42 How anxiety shows up in ways you don't recognize as anxiety

15:32 Over-controlling and over-preparing — and why our culture rewards it

16:54 When hypervigilance is also genuinely useful — and where it still gets you stuck

18:17 IVF, infertility, and the anxiety of tracking everything while controlling nothing

21:45 Control feels safe. Letting go feels more dangerous than the exhaustion of holding on.

24:04 What chronic anxiety does to your body physically

27:18 Your brain running worst-case scenarios like a movie — and why it can't stop

31:47 There is no such thing as enough certainty

32:10 The shift: stop asking what you need to know, start asking what your body needs right now

35:10 The zebra analogy — what it looks like to only respond to what's actually real

37:06 Why this is almost impossible to do alone

Join Her Steady Circle Membership

Apply for Reclaim

Catch Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Nobody Told You About Emotions that Will Completely CHange Everything

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

How are you feeling right now?

Not the reflex answer. Not "good" or "fine" or "just really overwhelmed." If you had to put something more specific than that — what would you actually say?

For most of us, the answer is: I don't know. Not because we aren't feeling anything. But because somewhere between being a toddler who cried in Target without apologizing for it and being the woman who holds it all together in every room — we got taught to sort our feelings into three categories. Good. Fine. Bad. And we stopped looking any deeper than that.

This season, that changes.

Season two of the Strong But Struggling Podcast is going emotion by emotion. Not to make you feel more, but to finally give you the words for what is already there. Because the feelings you've been muting, minimizing, and converting into productivity or over-apologizing or deep cleaning your entire house — they didn't go anywhere. Your body has been storing them and getting louder in a language you don't recognize as feelings anymore.

That's what this season is about. Learning to listen.

Alyssa opens with her own story — the toxic Christian Bible study where she learned her real struggles were too much to say out loud, the marriage where her completely appropriate reactions were called crazy, the years of holding space for her clients' emotions every single day while completely ignoring her own — and what it actually cost her.

In this episode:

Why your body's alarm system keeps getting louder — and why it's not random
How you learned to grade your feelings as good or bad instead of asking what they're actually trying to tell you
The thing no one ever told you: there is no such thing as a bad feeling
What anger, jealousy, numbness, grief, and rage are actually trying to communicate — and why they're not the enemy
Why you can understand your patterns perfectly and still have no idea what you're feeling in your body
What secondary emotions are and why you rarely feel just one thing at a time
The practice for this week — and how to get Alyssa's emotion pinwheel sent directly to you

The takeaway: This week, just start collecting words. When someone asks how you are — or when you catch yourself reaching for "fine" — try to say something different. A body sensation counts. "Heavy" counts. "Like I want to crawl into a hole" absolutely counts. You don't have to know what to do with it yet. You're just learning to name it. That's where this all starts.

Chapters

00:01 How are you actually feeling? The question most of us can't answer

01:29 What season two is about and why emotions come first

04:07 The moment someone asked how you were doing and you said "fine"

06:42 What happens in your body every time you mute a feeling

08:33 When the alarm gets louder — chronic pain, insomnia, snapping, spiraling

10:26 Alyssa's story: the Bible study, the marriage, and learning that her emotions were too much

17:58 Leaving and going into go-go-go mode — holding space for everyone else while ignoring herself

20:14 How we learned to sort feelings into good and bad — starting in childhood

24:44 There is no such thing as a bad feeling

26:28 Secondary emotions — feeling an emotion about your emotion

28:17 The whole season in one sentence

29:36 What emotions have you been calling bad that were just uncomfortable?

34:15 This season is not about feeling more — it's about finally getting the words

37:18 Your practice for the week

38:59 How to get the emotion pinwheel

Join Her Steady Circle Membership — your first week is free

Apply for Reclaim

DM Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth to get the emotion pinwheel sent directly to you

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

7 Truths I Wish I Had Learned Before I Tried to Heal the Hard Way

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Ten episodes in.

And before we go any further — thank you. For getting in the car with me. For doing the dishes with me. For showing up week after week, even when the topics hit places you weren't totally ready to look at.

That means something.

This episode is a little different. Alyssa is closing out season one with the seven truths that have made the biggest difference in her own life — not the things she learned from a book, but the things she had to live through before they actually landed. The ones she wishes someone had handed her back when she was in grad school, pregnant, in an abusive marriage, holding it all together on the outside while quietly unraveling inside.

If you've been doing the right things and still feel stuck, this episode is the one to save.

In this episode:

Why survival mode doesn't always look like chaos — sometimes it looks like the most competent, put-together woman in the room
Why discipline, planning, and willpower will never fix what is actually a nervous system problem
What distress tolerance actually means (hint: it is not getting better at handling more)
Why you don't have to forgive people who did unforgivable things in order to move on — and what happened when Alyssa finally stopped trying to
The real reason you can't stop even when you're running on empty — and why that vacation didn't fix it
The difference between rest you choose and rest your body takes from you because you never gave it a chance
Why healing alone is why you keep starting over — and what co-regulation actually looks like in practice

The takeaway: One of these seven truths probably landed harder than the others. That's the one to sit with this week. You don't have to do anything with it yet. Just notice it. Let it be true for a second without immediately trying to fix it or think your way out of it. That noticing — that's already the work.

Chapters

00:10 Ten episodes in — thank you for being here

01:59 Why Alyssa made this podcast and what this season has been about

02:56 Her story: grad school, an abusive marriage, and trying to think her way through all of it

09:12 Truth #1: Survival mode doesn't always look like chaos — sometimes it looks like competence

13:28 Truth #2: Discipline won't fix what your body is protecting you from

17:49 Truth #3: Distress tolerance isn't learning to handle more — it's learning to come back to yourself

20:19 Truth #4: You don't have to forgive people who did unforgivable things

24:27 Truth #5: Most burnout isn't from doing too much — it's from never feeling safe enough to stop

26:33 Truth #6: The rest you're getting probably isn't real rest

29:17 Microdosing regulation — why small shifts matter more than big resets

31:07 Truth #7: Healing alone is why you keep starting over

35:24 The workshop moment — the woman who hadn't showered in five days and the room that understood

38:06 What's coming in season two

45:09 Her Steady Circle membership — what it is and how to join

Join Her Steady Circle Membership

Apply for Reclaim

Catch Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She's Not Trying to Hurt You. She's Trying to Protect You.

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

You hear yourself mid-sentence with your kid and stop. The tone, the wording, the way it came out — it doesn't sound like you. It sounds like someone else. Someone you grew up with.

You repair it. You apologize. You do the thing you never got. And it's real, and it matters.

But there's another voice. She doesn't care about the repair. She wants to know why you keep doing this, why you need so many repairs, why no matter how hard you try, you sound more like your mom than you want to admit.

That voice is the inner critic. And in this episode, Alyssa isn't going to teach you how to silence her, argue with her, or replace her with positive thoughts. She's going to show you something most people miss entirely: your inner critic has a job. She's not your enemy. She's a protector running someone else's script — and once you understand what she's actually protecting you from, your relationship with her changes completely.

Alyssa shares the story of meeting her now-husband at 28, after years of healing work, and introducing herself by listing every "bad" thing about her — nagging, controlling, a bitch — like a disclaimer. It wasn't until she'd been in a safe relationship long enough to notice those traits never actually showed up that she realized: she had been introducing herself using her ex's words. Her inner critic had absorbed someone else's cruelty so completely that it had started sounding like self-awareness.

In this episode:

Where the inner critic actually comes from — and why it rarely traces back to just one source
The difference between being regulated and being calm 100% of the time (it's not what you think)
Why your inner critic gets louder, not quieter, every time you try to fight her
Alyssa's story of giving her now-husband a "warning label" about herself before they even started dating
Why getting yourself first feels safer than being caught off guard by someone else's criticism
The real work: not silencing the critic, but asking her what she's afraid will happen if she stops

The takeaway: The next time that voice shows up, get curious instead of combative. Ask her: what are you protecting me from right now? What are you afraid will happen if you stop? Usually the answer is fear of rejection, fear of being "too much," fear of being caught off guard. You don't have to agree with her or fight her. You just have to hear her — that's how she finally gets to rest.

Chapters

00:00 The moment you hear yourself sound like someone else

03:02 Meet the inner critic — and why we're not trying to silence her

06:21 Where the inner critic's voice actually comes from

09:34 When criticism is dressed up as caring

10:55 The societal voice — impossible standards, absent support

14:38 What "being regulated" actually means

18:00 Alyssa's story: the disclaimer she gave her now-husband

23:51 Realizing the traits she warned him about never showed up

24:50 A different way to relate to your inner critic — validate, don't fight

29:41 What your inner critic is actually afraid of

35:24 Whose voice is that, really?

40:00 How to practice getting curious instead of combative

44:24 The deeper work in Reclaim Your Steady

Apply for Reclaim

Catch Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your Broken Leg Doesn't Heal Because Someone Else Lost Theirs

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

If you broke your leg and sat down in the ER, and someone walked in who had lost their leg entirely — would you get up and leave? Would you decide your fracture didn't count anymore and walk out to figure it on your own?

Of course not. Their worse injury doesn't fix yours.

And yet that's exactly what you do with your own pain. If someone else has it worse, you don't bring it up. If someone else has fewer resources, you tell yourself you don't have the right to struggle. So you keep walking around on a broken leg, calling it fine, telling yourself you just need to be more grateful.

In this episode, Alyssa names something that so many women have lived but never had language for — the way pain gets minimized by the people who are supposed to support you, the way empathy gets used against you the moment it points inward instead of outward, and what happens when this gets done to you enough times that you eventually start doing it to yourself.

Alyssa shares her own story from after her divorce — accepting childcare help from her ex-in-laws that looked like support on the surface but came with control, comparison, and a Harvard study about what divorce does to kids, while never once acknowledging what addiction does to a child. She unpacks why she could name every clinical dynamic at play and still stayed stuck in it, and what it actually took to let herself feel it instead of just explain it.

In this episode:

The "at least" minimization — why comparing your pain to someone else's "worse" situation isn't perspective, it's invalidation
How to spot help that isn't really help: support that comes with control, conditions, or someone else's agenda attached
Alyssa's story of accepting childcare help from her ex-in-laws after leaving an abusive marriage — and what it actually cost her
Why your empathy is only celebrated when it benefits someone else, and gets called "too much" the moment it turns toward your own needs
The difference between understanding why someone couldn't show up for you and needing them to have shown up anyway
Why grief and compassion aren't opposites — you're allowed to hold both for the same person at the same time

The takeaway: Finish this sentence this week — "I've extended compassion to this person for this thing, and I've never extended the same compassion to myself for what it cost me." You don't have to remove anyone from the equation. You're just adding yourself into it.

Chapters

00:00 The broken leg analogy

02:04 How minimizing your pain gets taught to you by others, then becomes your own habit

07:13 Extending grace to someone who hurt you — and what it costs

09:11 The complicated grief of figuring out parenting without ever being parented

12:38 Why empathy is only valued when it benefits someone else

14:29 Alyssa's story: childcare help from her ex-in-laws after leaving an abusive marriage

22:00 Naming the dynamics clinically vs. actually feeling them

25:38 The "at least" minimization

29:33 Help that isn't really help — support with conditions attached

31:39 Why women get trapped in caregiving roles

33:21 Noticing who only calls you "too sensitive" when it doesn't serve them

35:31 Where are you extending compassion you've never given yourself?

38:25 Holding both compassion and grief at the same time

41:34 Your practice for the week

Apply for Reclaim

Catch Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You Know Everyone Else's Temperature. But When Did You Last Check Your Own?

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

There's a conversation happening in your head right now.

Maybe it's the one from three days ago that you've been editing ever since — what you should have said, what they probably thought, whether you overshared. Maybe it's the one you haven't had yet, the one you've already rehearsed six different ways, including the part where he misunderstands you and how you'll clarify. Maybe it's the argument you're having in the shower with someone who doesn't even know there's an issue.

And while all of that is running in the background, you are also tracking your partner's mood when he walks through the door, whether your kid is off today and what that means for bedtime, whether your mom seemed short on the phone and if it was about you. You are running a full emotional weather service for every single person in your life.

And nobody — including you — is checking the forecast for you.

In this episode, Alyssa gets into the deeper layer of the mental and emotional load. Not just the schedules and the lunches and the dentist appointments — the invisible labor that doesn't live on any to-do list. The constant tracking, anticipating, pre-managing, and monitoring that has been running since the moment you woke up, at a cost no one is acknowledging.

Including you.

In this episode:

The invisible workload that lives underneath the physical one — and why it's more exhausting than anything on your list
Why you can tell anyone exactly how the people around you are doing, but go blank when someone asks how you are
The story of the client who could read the temperature of every person in her life — and had no idea what her own was
How being a highly sensitive person in an unpredictable environment taught you to attune outward so completely that your own signal got lost in the noise
Why you're exhausted at 6pm — not from what you did, but from everything you've been tracking since you woke up
Why the shower arguments and the rehearsed conversations aren't neurotic — they're your nervous system doing the job it learned when being prepared was how you stayed safe

The takeaway: Once today, before you check on anyone else, check on yourself first. Before you ask your partner how their day was, before you read the room at pickup, before you assess anyone's mood — ask yourself: how am I doing? What do I need? It doesn't have to be deep. Maybe you're thirsty. Maybe you're cold. Maybe you just need to put both feet on the floor and take a breath. You don't have to fix anything. You're just practicing the habit of adding yourself to the list.

Chapters

00:00 The conversations you're having in your head — all day, every day

02:06 Running a full emotional weather service for everyone around you

04:37 The invisible workload underneath the physical one

08:44 "I know everyone's temperature — but I don't know my own"

10:20 How an unpredictable parent teaches you to track instead of feel

11:54 Being a highly sensitive person in an environment that called it too much

16:05 When attuning to others goes into overdrive

17:07 Hypervigilance as a nervous system adaptation, not a character flaw

23:50 Why you're out of bandwidth by 6pm

25:06 Why you rehearse, replay, and pre-manage — and what it's actually costing you

27:12 How are you actually doing?

29:21 Putting yourself on the list

31:46 Sensitivity isn't the problem — it's where it's always been pointed

35:06 Your practice for the week

Join The Living Aligned Collective

Apply for Reclaim

Catch Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"No" Is Not a Complete Sentence (And Other Advice That's Making It Worse)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

You've seen the posts. No is a complete sentence. You don't owe anyone an explanation. Protect your peace.

And you want to be that woman. You really do.

So you walk into the conversation with your talking points ready. You know exactly what you're going to say. And somehow — you don't even know how it happens so fast — you walk out having agreed to the thing, comforted the person, and completely abandoned yourself in the process.

And now you're standing in your kitchen wondering what is wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. Your nervous system did exactly what it was trained to do. And "no is a complete sentence" was never going to override that.

In this episode:

Why you keep walking out of hard conversations having agreed to the opposite of what you came in to say
The fawn response — what it actually is and why it shows up hardest when someone is being nice
Alyssa's own story of knowing exactly what to say, having the notes, having the pep talk — and still getting completely pulled back in
The difference between a boundary and a request (and why most of what we call boundaries are actually just requests)
Why boundaries aren't something you either have or you don't — they're a muscle, and you've been trying to max out without ever lifting the five-pound weights
Micro boundaries to start practicing this week — no confrontation required

The takeaway: Pick one situation this week where you would normally default to yes. Not the hardest one. The small one. Try "let me check my schedule and get back to you" instead of answering on the spot. That's it. You're not becoming a different person. You're just buying yourself enough time to get out of the fawn response and figure out what you actually want to say.

Chapters

00:00 Why the "no is a complete sentence" advice keeps failing you

02:08 What actually happens in your body mid-conversation

03:43 People pleasing as a nervous system response, not a personality flaw

05:39 The inner conflict between your values and your boundaries

13:24 The fawn response explained

17:14 Alyssa's personal story: knowing better and still getting pulled back in

22:38 Why boundaries are a practice, not a switch you flip

28:24 What a boundary actually is (and what it isn't)

35:20 Micro boundaries: starting with the five-pound weights

48:11 The nuance — when explaining yourself is actually okay

52:15 Your practice for the week

Join The Living Aligned Collective

Apply for Reclaim

Catch Alyssa on IG @heyalyssabooth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why Knowing More Isn't Enough to Change

Fri, 29 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Discover why knowing what to do isn't enough for lasting change and how to bridge the invisible gap in your healing journey using body-based strategies and insights.

Main Topics:

The difference between awareness and embodiment in change
How patterns are stored in the body, not just in thoughts
The myth of discipline and the role of nervous system regulation
The impact of watching and modeling behavior, especially in family
Practical steps: connecting with your body and creating a personalized "recipe" for healing
The importance of community and relational healing in sustainable change

Timestamps:

00:00 - 02:00: Introduction and grocery store analogy
02:01 - 04:00: Closet analogy and pattern storage
04:01 - 06:00: Awareness vs. embodiment
06:01 - 10:00: Over-identifying with stress
10:01 - 14:00: Modeling behavior and family influence
14:01 - 18:00: Recipe analogy and embodied change
18:01 - 22:00: Recognizing conditioned patterns
22:01 - 33:03: Program announcement and practical tips

In this episode:

Explains that behaviors like procrastination and self-sabotage are not rooted in laziness but in deeper pattern storage
Introduces the concept that anxiety, overwhelm, and stress are stored in the body, not just in the mind
Highlights how upbringing and environment shape our automatic responses and patterns
Uses the analogy of baking a cake to differentiate between knowing about change and experiencing it fully
Emphasizes the importance of sensing your body's signals and grounding into bodily awareness
Encourages building a supportive community and reprogramming in relational spaces
Announces the relaunch of the "Reclaim Your Steady" 12-week program designed to help women feel steady amid life's chaos
Provides practical tips: noticing where stress shows up physically, and ways to start connecting with your body's response

Resources & Links:

Connect with Alyssa:

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My Dogs Surgery Gave Me the Biggest Realization I Had Missed

Fri, 22 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In this episode, Alyssa Booth shares a powerful story about how neglecting her own physical and emotional health led to burnout, and how recognizing the cycle can empower women to choose themselves first.

Welcome to the go-go-go crash cycle. The one where you run yourself completely into the ground, hit the wall, feel guilty about hitting the wall, get back up, and do it all over again. The one that looks like productivity and ambition from the outside — and feels like barely surviving from the inside.

In this episode Alyssa gets into the cycle that shame from Episode 3 actually creates. Because shame doesn't just sit there. It drives something. It keeps you moving so you never have to stop and feel it. It fills every margin so completely there's no room left for gas — which is why some of you are driving on five miles and calling it fine.

Alyssa shares the story of taking her dog to physical therapy twice a week while ignoring her own significant postpartum back and pelvic pain. And the moment ten months postpartum when she finally hit her breaking point and asked her husband for help — and he looked at her and said: "I thought you liked doing everything."

Not with cruelty. With complete sincerity. Because she had been doing everything without complaint for so long it looked like a choice.

If you're stuck in the go, go, go rhythm and feeling guilty about slowing down, this episode is your wake-up call.

In this episode:

The go-go-go crash cycle — what it actually is and why a better planner will never fix it
Why the go-go-go is not ambition — it's avoidance with an impressive to-do list
The connection between the need to control everything and a dysregulated nervous system
Why the crash is not weakness — it's the only break you ever give yourself
The dog PT story — funny, painful, and the most relatable thing Alyssa has ever shared
Why asking for help is not the crash — it's what prevents it

The takeaway: Find one thing this week that you have been putting off doing for yourself. Not for your kids, your house, or your job. For you. The doctor's appointment. The PT referral. The thing you keep moving to next week. Do that one thing. Not because you've earned it. Because you have a dog who got PT before you did and it's time.

Chapters:

00:00 - Alyssa’s realization and need for change

05:05 - Understanding and breaking the cycle

17:25 - Community and support networks

30:51 - Embracing pause and reflection

Resources & Links:

Living Aligned Collective — Join Alyssa’s community for ongoing support
Reclaim Program — Deep dive into healing from burnout and control
Alyssa Booth on Instagram — For direct connection and support

Leave a review and share this episode with a mom who needs to hear this!

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The question that stops women in their tracks and why the silence after it says everything

Fri, 15 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

You say it all the time. "I don't really ask for much." "I don't want to be a burden." "I'm just low maintenance."

And you say it like it's a personality trait. Like it's just who you are.

It's not who you are. It's what you learned.

In this episode, Alyssa introduces the question that has stopped women in their tracks more than any other in her years of clinical work: why not? Why don't you ask for much? Why don't you want people to go out of their way for you? Why do you extend a grace to everyone around you that you won't let them extend back to you?

The answer has nothing to do with being low maintenance. It has everything to do with a rule your nervous system learned a long time ago — in a relationship, a community, a childhood — that needing things had a cost. And you got so good at needing less that you forgot it was ever a choice.

This episode cracks that open. In the best way.

In this episode:

The specific moment Alyssa recognized this pattern — in her clients and in herself
How she learned to ask for less inside an abusive marriage
The difference between your personality and your survival strategy
Why the people who love you most can't show up for you when you won't let them
The one thing to try this week that costs nothing and changes everything
The takeaway: Notice one moment this week where you automatically edit yourself down. You don't have to do it differently yet. Just catch it. "There it is." Noticing is the beginning of choosing.

Chapters