In March, researchers at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon published a study in Science testing 11 leading AI systems. The machines affirmed people's choices about 49% more often than other humans did. After one conversation about a real conflict, people were more certain they were right and less willing to apologize or repair. They also trusted the flattering AI more.

Episode 37 opens our October theme, The Mirror That Talks Back. Us…in the Age of AI. Full disclosure: we used AI to help research this one, then checked it against the actual papers.

We get into:

• A new "relationship" with someone named Claude
• 2,000 posts from Reddit's "Am I the Asshole?" forum
• Why your brain treats disagreement like a mistake
• The slot machine versus the warm bath
• What the "ChatGPT is shrinking your brain" headline leaves out
• London taxi drivers and GPS
• A therapy chatbot that was designed to help instead of to be liked
• Why growth has never come from being agreed with

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why being agreed with feels like relief, especially for those of us who have spent years not being believed
• What happens in the brain when your opinion clashes with the group, and why beliefs tied to identity get defended like threats
• How AI assistants were trained into flattery, partly by accident and partly by incentive
• What the research on heavy chatbot use, loneliness, and emotional dependence does and does not show
• Why the order matters: brain first, machine second
• Why sycophancy is a design choice, not the technology itself
• An anti-flattery toolkit you can start using tonight

⏱️ CHAPTERS

[0:00] "I'm talking to someone"
[1:38] The study that should make us uncomfortable
[8:22] Why disagreement registers as an error in the brain
[14:45] Why would anyone build a flatterer?
[19:21] Coming soon: Not Her Anymore
[20:44] What is AI actually doing to my brain?
[23:53] "ChatGPT is shrinking your brain": what the study says
[29:38] The case for AI: the Therabot trial
[32:48] The anti-flattery toolkit
[37:03] Back to the mirror: growth needs friction

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:
Website: https://therawonionpodcast.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/therawonionpodcast

Substack: https://therawonion.substack.com
Reach out: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
Triage Coaching and Consulting: https://triagebalancedlife.com/
Let's talk: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:
Lotus Flower Journeys: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com
Let's connect: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com/contact

For Heather Rippere, it was her dream job. One dinner and one shared secret later, a coworker was gone and her trust in the team was broken. She stayed nearly ten years, kept her head down, and never spoke about it.

Now a leadership coach and author, Heather joined The Raw Onion to close out our September series on betrayal. This time we take it where many of us spend most of our day: the workplace.

We get into:

• The dinner-table secret that cost a coworker his job and shaped how Heather showed up for almost ten years
• Why HR is not your friend (said with respect)
• How a work problem so often traces back to childhood
• The burnout both Heather and Stephanie went through because they could not say no

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why going quiet after betrayal is your brain adapting, not paranoia
• Why workplace betrayal sparks anger instead of heartbreak
• How taking responsibility differs from blaming yourself
• How coaching moves you from functional to optimal
• Why authenticity at work needs boundaries
• What Heather would tell her younger corporate self

🎙️ GUEST:

Heather Rippere, PCC. ICF PCC-certified leadership coach, Prosci® Certified Change Practitioner, and trauma-informed NLP practitioner with nearly 30 years of corporate experience. Her work blends somatics and change management. Author of From Imposter to Influencer: Stories and Steps to Unlock Self-Doubt and Lead Authentically.

⏱️ CHAPTERS:
[0:00]  Welcome
[4:15]  Meet Heather: a coach who lived it
[7:01]  A dream job and a secret at dinner
[12:09]  Trust is a prediction your brain makes
[21:09]  Taking responsibility privately
[32:30]  Why workplace betrayal hits differently
[39:01]  How coaching moves you forward
[47:41]  Authenticity needs boundaries
[48:41]  Stephanie and Heather on burnout
[1:06:38]  Choosing how you trust again
[1:09:10]  Where to find Heather

🛠️ RESOURCES:

• Appraisal theory, Richard Lazarus
• Dickerson and Kemeny's research on social-evaluative threat

🔗 CONNECT WITH HEATHER RIPPERE:
Website: heatherrippere.com
Book (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Imposter-Influencer-Stories-Unlock-Authentically/dp/B0FSS3TWVW/
Book (Lulu): https://www.lulu.com/shop/heather-k-rippere/from-imposter-to-influencer/paperback/product-p6g8mqj.html?

🔗 CONNECT WITH US:
The Raw Onion: https://www.therawonionpodcast.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
Let's Talk: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian/30-mins-discovery-zoom

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:
Let's Connect: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com/contact

We sit down with Lauren Cheney, a mom of two who rebuilt her life after an almost 20-year marriage ended in betrayal. Yoshie also shares her own story on camera for the first time. We get into why this wound cuts so deep, why so many of us blame ourselves and try to fix the very person who hurt us, and what the brain and body are actually doing in the worst of it.

In this episode:

• Why betrayal from your closest person cuts deeper than any other loss
• The strange "gift" in Lauren's timeline that showed her it was never her fault
• Why the brain treats the person who hurt you like an addiction
• Guilt vs. shame, and why the shame spiral keeps us silent
• Broken heart syndrome, and the study on Tylenol and social pain
• The phases of betrayal trauma, and why you stabilize first

🎙️ GUEST:

Lauren Cheney is a mom of two who rebuilt her life after an almost 20-year marriage ended in betrayal. A Certified Emotion Code® and Body Code® Practitioner, she draws on holistic work and her own hard-won experience to explore both traditional and unconventional ways back to steady ground. When she shared her story online, her videos passed a million views. She is now launching her own podcast on rebuilding and moving forward after betrayal.

⏱️ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] What if everything ended?

[5:33] Lauren's story: blindsided after 20 years

[13:03] Yoshie's story, and the shared thread

[20:08] Why betrayal cuts deepest: the oxytocin bond

[23:40] An attachment injury, not just broken trust

[28:40] The brain on rejection, and the urge to fix

[34:51] Guilt, shame, and releasing it

[42:14] The phases: stabilize before you make sense of it

[51:52] Broken heart syndrome, and the Tylenol study

[57:10] The first spark of joy, and rewiring the brain

🛠️ RESOURCES:

• Book: The Betrayal Bind by Michelle Mays: https://amzn.to/4yDRfPO (Affiliate link shared by our guest. Purchases may earn her a commission at no extra cost to you.)
• Find a betrayal-trauma-trained therapist or coach. Search the APSATS or CCPS credentials: https://iitap.com/page/TherapistDirectory
• Helen Fisher's MRI research: a rejecting partner's photo lights up the same dopamine circuitry as addiction.
• Takotsubo cardiomyopathy ("broken heart syndrome"): an adrenaline surge that mimics a heart attack.
• DeWall and Eisenberger study: acetaminophen eased both hurt feelings and social-pain activity in the brain.
• Bach Rescue Remedy

🔗 CONNECT WITH LAUREN:

BetterAfterBetrayal: https://www.tiktok.com/@betterafterbetrayal

🔗 THE RAW ONION:

Web: https://www.therawonionpodcast.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
Let's Talk: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian/30-mins-discovery-zoom

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:
Web: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com

This week we go deeper into September's theme, The Wound That Wasn't What You Expected. This is Part 2. We look at what your brain is actually doing when reality doesn't match what you predicted. Why disappointment and betrayal grow from the same root but land in completely different places. And why a real betrayal can keep your body on alert for years before you ever notice.

We get into:

• Why your brain is a prediction machine, not a camera
• What dopamine is actually for (it was never really about pleasure)
• Why an expectation that goes unmet drops you below baseline, not just to neutral
• The difference between a letdown and a betrayal, mapped in the brain
• Why the expectations we never say out loud do the most damage
• Why living in fight or flight for years shows up in your body, your weight, your hair, your skin

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your disappointment is not proof you're too sensitive
• Why a missed expectation updates your model of the world, and a betrayal updates your model of a person you had already filed under safe
• Why resentment can feel older than it should
• What your brain is really doing when a story never gets to close

⏱️ CHAPTERS

[00:00] Welcome, and the expectations we hand people without telling them
[4:42] Your brain is a prediction machine
[6:34] Prediction error, from a coffee cup to your relationships
[8:53] Dopamine's real job (it was never pleasure)
[9:59] The dopamine factory: VTA and nucleus accumbens
[11:16] Why an unmet expectation drops you below baseline
[13:59] The orbital frontal cortex and updating value
[15:57] Is betrayal the same as disappointment? The trust game
[17:54] The anterior insula and the deeper cut of betrayal

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:
Website: https://therawonionpodcast.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/therawonionpodcast

Substack: https://therawonion.substack.com
Reach out: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

Guest form: https://www.therawonionpodcast.com/be-our-guest/

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
Triage Coaching and Consulting: https://triagebalancedlife.com/
Let's talk: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:
Lotus Flower Journeys: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com
Let's connect: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com/contact

This week we open a brand new theme on the Raw Onion: The Wound That Wasn't What You Expected. We are starting with betrayal, the topic so many of you wrote in to ask about. Masks are slipping. Marriages are ending after decades over a single text. Long friendships are quietly rearranging. And underneath every one of those stories sits the same biology.

Stephanie walks through what actually happens when someone you trusted breaks that trust, why it registers as real physical pain, why it lands so much harder on some of us than others, and why the people who look like they have it most together are often the ones who get flattened.

We get into:

• Why your body reacts to betrayal before your mind can explain it
• The old idea that emotional pain and physical pain live in separate places, and why the research no longer holds
• Why the closer the person, the worse the betrayal tends to land
• The secondary wave of betrayal that has nothing to do with the original event
• Why the same betrayal can devastate one person and barely register for another

In this episode, you will learn:

• What is happening in the brain the moment trust breaks
• Why betrayal makes your body brace, not just your feelings ache
• How your earliest years quietly wrote the template you filter every betrayal through
• Why perfectionists and overpreparers often get hit the hardest
• Why being careful enough was never the force field you were promised

⏱️ CHAPTERS
[00:00] Welcome back
[02:45] A new theme: the wound you didn't expect
[07:11] When the brain can't tell betrayal from injury
[13:09] Betrayal as a prediction error
[15:26] Why closeness makes it worse
[18:23] Why we don't all respond the same
[23:16] The perfectionist who gets flattened

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:
Website: https://therawonionpodcast.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/therawonionpodcast

Substack: https://therawonion.substack.com
Reach out: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
Triage Coaching and Consulting: https://triagebalancedlife.com/
Book a call: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:
Lotus Flower Journeys: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com
Let's connect: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com/contact

We get into:

• Why leaving a twenty-year career felt less like quitting and more like outgrowing it
• How the body tells the truth when your working life is telling you who to be
• The kitchen as constant fight-or-flight, and what happens when the stress never stops
• Matching your outlet to your load, so the reset is as big as the pressure
• Taking one small action when you're frozen at a crossroads

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your body knows you've outgrown something before your mind admits it
• What happens when chronic stress becomes your baseline, not an emergency setting
• How choosing a hard thing shifts what your brain believes you're capable of
• Why settling the nervous system first leads to clearer decisions at a crossroads

🎙️ GUEST:
Jon Butler is a mortgage broker and former chef in Southern California. Before finance, he spent 20+ years in hospitality, with apprenticeships at Arzak and Noma and leadership roles at République, 71Above, The Rose Venice, and the Michelin programs at Sparrows Lodge and Holiday House. Today he helps clients navigate home financing and complex lending. Outside work, he climbs and pursues alpine adventures worldwide, volunteers with the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit, and spends time with his wife, Laura, and their French bulldog, Nico.

⏱️ CHAPTERS:
[00:00] Welcome Jon Butler
[3:45] 20 years in the kitchen and chasing the next challenge
[8:42] Realizing he'd outgrown the profession
[19:42] Taking one small action to bring the prefrontal cortex back online
[23:02] The kitchen as chronic fight-or-flight and what constant stress does to the brain
[32:09] Building your own prison and holding the key out
[44:08] Why a challenge you choose rewires the brain: allostatic loading in reverse
[45:35] The dopamine, norepinephrine, and endorphin hit that makes it stick
[50:22] Starting small when a curb feels like a mountain
[59:16] Settling the nervous system before the big decisions

🔗 CONNECT WITH JON BUTLER:
Website: jon-butler.com
Email: jonb@barrettfinancial.com
FB/IG: @jonbutler84

🔗 CONNECT WITH US:
The Raw Onion: https://www.therawonionpodcast.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:
Let's Talk: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian/30-mins-discovery-zoom

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:
Let's Connect: https://lotusflowerjourneys.com/contact

Stephanie got fired for calling out a toxic environment. A few months later, the exact people she named were fired for the exact things she named them for.

This episode is about what made her speak up the second time when she stayed silent the first. Same kind of company. Same behavior. Completely different response. The difference was not courage, and it was not willpower.

Discipline is downstream of regulation. When the body does not feel safe, the fastest route to relief wins. That is not weakness. That is biology.

We get into:

• The ER visit that ended the first chapter
• Why self-discipline rises and falls with your nervous system, not your resolve
• The moment she named what was happening to her team
• The birthday cake, the laptop, the escort out of the building
• The people she named getting fired a few months later
• A new job forty-eight hours later, and eventually Triage

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why willpower is the wrong explanation for standards that collapse at work
• What chronic stress changes in the brain, and why silence starts to feel like the only option
• How the same environment can show up twice and land completely differently
• Why sleep, connection, and a sense of control are conditions for repair
• What it cost to speak up, and what staying silent was already costing

⏱️ CHAPTERS

0:00 I got fired

3:30 The burnout that started it all

6:58 Discipline is downstream of regulation

12:03 What chronic stress does to the prefrontal cortex

16:23 Sleep, connection, and a sense of control

19:00 Calling it out: not on my watch

20:57 The birthday cake and the firing

22:26 The irony a few months later

31:04 Forty-eight hours later, and how Triage was born

🔗 CONNECT WITH US
Website: https://therawonionpodcast.com

Email: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/therawonionpodcast

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:

Stephanie works with high-performing individuals and teams to understand what is actually driving the loop, and reset it at the level where it began. Neuroscience-based, practical, and built for people who have already tried everything else.

Website: https://triagebalancedlife.com/

Let's Talk: https://scheduler.zoom.us/stephanie-ohannesian/30-mins-discovery-zoom

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:

Yoshie Barnett is a Crossroads Coach and the founder of Lotus Flower Journeys, working with high-achieving women in midlife who are meeting a crossroads and finding that perfectionism no longer gets them through it.

Website: https://www.lotusflowerjourneys.com/

Connect: https://www.lotusflowerjourneys.com/contact/

We get into:

• Why corporate environments are built to numb the body's signals
• The heart's own nervous system and what that means for "gut feeling"
• The eight limbs of yoga
• Why chronic burnout physically changes brain tissue, and what helps it rebuild
• Inherited stress and where the body stores what the mind forgets

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your body may register something before your mind catches up
• How corporate spaces are structured to quiet the body's signals
• What the gut-to-brain pathway means for how you process the world
• How chronic burnout changes brain tissue, and what helps reverse it

⏱️ CHAPTERS:
0:00 Welcome and the question of trust

6:16 Meet Michele Carrión Yopps

10:05 The crossroads: burnout hiding in plain sight

15:31 The heart's 40,000 neurons

18:32 How corporate spaces numb the body

20:55 The eight limbs of yoga

24:50 About Yoga Moxi + coming soon: a collaboration with The Raw Onion

26:31 The gut-brain highway, 80 percent starts here

37:25 Joseph LeDoux high road/low road

43:26 Flow state and breath

53:00 A hospital bed and shrinking gray matter

57:00 Fascia, memory, and inherited stress

1:03:56 One breathing hack to leave with

🎙️ GUEST:

Michele Carrión Yopps, founder of the Yoga Moxie app. Certified in Hatha Alignment Yoga, Yoga for First Responders, and Yoga Nidra. She has also trained with Master Paulie Zink and Gioconda Parker. Spent over 20 years in corporate media and marketing before crossing into yoga full time.

🔗 CONNECT WITH MICHELE CARRIÓN YOPPS:

Website: https://yogamoxi.com/

App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yogamoxi/id1639610883

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yogamoxi/

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:

Website: The Raw Onion

Email: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Follow us on Substack

Follow us on Instagram

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:

Website: Triage Balanced Life

Let's Talk: Free 30-min call

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:

Website: Lotus Flower Journeys

Let's Connect: Free clarity call

This episode kicks off July on The Raw Onion: the relationship between your brain and your body, the one most of us were never taught to notice, let alone tend to.

We get into:

• The vagus nerve and why most of its signals travel from body to brain, not the other way around
• The three nervous system states behind Dr. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory
• How stress patterns get passed down through generations without a single shared experience
• Why the high achiever who undercharges or overdelivers might be running on inherited wiring rather than a confidence problem

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your body registers the truth of a room, a person, or a meeting before your conscious mind catches up
• The three nervous system states (green, yellow, red) and how to notice which one you're running on most days
• How epigenetics allows a stress response to travel from one generation to the next
• Why familiar does not always mean safe, and how that shapes who and what we keep choosing
• What it actually takes to start listening to a body you've been overriding for years

🎙️ HOSTS: Stephanie Ohannesian, founder of Triage Coaching and Consulting, and Yoshie Barnett, Crossroads Coach at Lotus Flower Journeys

⏱️ CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to July's series: The Relationship You Can’t Ghost

5:12 The brain and body as a two-way conversation

6:39 The vagus nerve and the 80/20 signal split

9:16 Polyvagal theory and the three nervous system states

11:10 Why so many of us live permanently in yellow

15:56 Epigenetics and inherited stress

20:09 The professional whose body panics before logic can step in

21:27 The entrepreneur who can't stop undercharging

23:49 A simple way to start listening again

25:27 What's ahead this July

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:

Website: The Raw Onion

Email: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Follow us on Substack

Follow us on Instagram

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:

Website: Triage Balanced Life

Let's Talk: Free 30-min call

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:

Website: Lotus Flower Journeys

Let's Connect: Free clarity call

#BrainBodyConnection #NervousSystemRegulation #InheritedStress

Marta Spirk is a strategic speaking advisor, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and professional singer who helps women entrepreneurs use speaking, storytelling, and visibility as tools for authority and business growth. She came on The Raw Onion to talk about what actually happens in the body when a woman tries to take up more space, and why "confidence" was never the real problem.

We get into:

• The neuroscience behind why women hesitate before self-promotion
• The difference between confidence and self-trust
• Why the voice is the only instrument controlled by both the voluntary and autonomic nervous systems
• The signature talk versus the elevator pitch
• Why repetition, not talent, is what actually builds the kind of presence people trust

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why women show higher amygdala activation around visibility, and why that's conditioning, not biology
• The difference between chasing confidence and building self-trust
• How the body gives away a dysregulated nervous system before a word is spoken
• How cultural upbringing shapes a woman's relationship with being seen
• Why repetition, not waiting to feel ready, is the actual bridge to feeling safe

🎙️ GUEST:

Marta Spirk, Strategic Speaking Advisor, TEDx Speaker, Bestselling Author of The Empowered Woman: The Ultimate Roadmap to Business Success, Professional Singer, Host of The Empowered Woman podcast

⏱️ CHAPTERS:

0:00 Meet Marta Spirk

3:44 Growing up loud

5:38 Becoming trilingual

8:21 Women and visibility

12:18 The amygdala and self-promotion

15:02 Confidence versus self-trust

16:52 The signature talk

20:19 The inner critic

23:30 Vulnerability in groups

30:43 Knowing your own content

37:23 The body and language

39:47 Discomfort and the real pain point

44:33 Cultural conditioning and saying no

52:35 Repetition and safety

59:10 Where to find Marta

🔗 CONNECT WITH MARTA SPIRK:

Website: MartaSpirk.com

Book: The Empowered Woman: The Ultimate Roadmap to Business Success

Podcast: The Empowered Woman

LinkedIn: Marta Spirk

Facebook: Marta Spirk

Instagram: MartaSpirk

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:

therawonionpodcast.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:

triagebalancedlife.com

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:

lotusflowerjourneys.com

#PermissionToBeSeen #MulticulturalVoices #SelfTrustOverConfidence

Adyna K. Pressley is a global women's leadership architect, award-winning author, keynote speaker, founder of Queens Royale, and host of the Pressley on Purpose podcast. With more than 30 years of corporate leadership experience, she built her life's work on one truth: leading from truth, not performance.

We get into:

• What it felt like to be the only Black woman in executive leadership
• Why performing eventually became physically unsustainable
• The moment she chose to speak up knowing it might cost her everything
• The science underneath why generational elevation happens in the body first
• What it sounds like when Oprah gives you eight minutes she only promised you two

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why the brain learns that performing is safe and authenticity is risky
• How exhaustion signals that two versions of you are running in opposite directions
• Why speaking from truth does not mean starting over

🎙️ GUEST:

Adyna K. Pressley, Global Women's Leadership Architect | Founder, AKP Inventions and Queen's Royale | Author, Rise Into You: Reclaiming Power, Love, Life and Legacy | Host, Presley on Purpose Podcast

⏱️ CHAPTERS:

0:00 Meet Adyna K. Pressley

5:08 Who were you before the title?

7:40 The only Black woman in the room

9:03 When he performed as a teammate

13:40 The system is the problem, not the woman

17:43 Hospitalized. Burned out. Done.

21:07 How she stayed grounded in the chaos

27:32 Never changed who she was, not once

33:17 "If he gets this job, I quit."

40:00 Generational elevation starts in the body

43:39 The science behind what she was already doing

48:22 Queens Royale: identity you can wear

59:43 A solo train ride and a book was born

1:01:52 How she ended up on Oprah

1:06:43 Adyna's closing message

🔗 CONNECT WITH ADYNA K. PRESSLEY:

Book: Rise Into You

Website: adynakpressley.com

Queens Royale: queens-royale.com

LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube: Adyna K Pressley

Podcast: Pressley on Purpose

🔗 CONNECT WITH THE RAW ONION:

Substack: therawonion.substack.com

IG: @therawonionpodcast

Contact: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

Work with Stephanie: Free fit call

Work with Yoshie: Free clarity call

#AuthenticLeadership #TruthOverPerformance #WomenAcrossCultures

And she still felt like she couldn't make a dent in it.

"So why am I here?"

That question changed everything.

She did everything right. Master's degree. Fortune 500 consulting. Billion-dollar nonprofit. But she felt very unhappy and purposeless in a way she couldn't fully explain.

So she left.

"I want to build something with my hands and feel it and literally be able to see what I just made."

And that became Chachi's.

This one goes into the places most career conversations never touch. The hollowness behind the highlight reel. The cost of impact you can never see. And the quiet courage it takes to start over.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why achieving everything you were supposed to want can still leave you feeling empty
• How unfinished stress cycles quietly fuel burnout from the inside
• What it really costs to stay in a life that fits on paper but not in your body
• Why walking away from security can be an act of honor, not betrayal
• How connection and community become the unexpected bottom line in business
• Why a little productive delusion might be exactly what your next chapter needs

🎙️ GUEST:

Reece Soltani is the founder of Chachi's, a Los Angeles sandwich shop building toward franchise expansion and retail. Prior to Chachi's, she spent nearly a decade as a consultant and strategic advisor to Fortune 500 companies and executive teams before burning out and making a hard pivot into entrepreneurship.

⏱️ CHAPTERS:

0:00 Introduction

2:10 Meet Reece Soltani

3:37 What Success Was Supposed to Look Like

8:40 Living Inside the Picture-Perfect Life

9:50 The Feeling of Never Making a Dent

16:29 Stress Cycles and the Dopamine Connection

18:27 Wanting Something Tangible

21:15 Making the Leap

26:55 The People Who Made Chachi's Possible

28:21 The Line Out the Door on Day One

30:53 Universal Act of Care

36:28 Building a People-First Business

38:00 Heart, Soul, and the Loneliness Epidemic

39:27 Two Sides of the Same American Dream Coin

43:04 Building With a Village

46:09 Productive Delusion

50:30 Step One and Cutting Through the Noise

54:00 A Word For the Family Who Worries

56:14 Where to Find Reece Soltani and Chachi's

🔗 Connect with Reece

Website: www.eatchachis.com

Instagram: @eatchachis

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:

Website: Triage Coaching and Consulting

Free fit call: tidycal.com/sohannesian

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:

Website: Lotus Flower Journeys

Free clarity call

🔗 The Raw Onion:

Website: The Raw Onion

Email: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

#WomenInBusiness #PeopleFirstBusiness #MultiCulturalWomen

Renee shares her journey from high-stakes legal work to a more aligned life, including the moment she realized that burnout was not just emotional, it was physical. We talk about career transitions, the illusion of safety, self-advocacy, and the courage it takes to rebuild after everything you thought defined you starts to fall away.

This conversation is for anyone who has ever questioned whether the path they are on still fits. If you have been pushing through exhaustion, doubting your next step, or wondering how to trust your inner voice again, Renee’s story offers both honesty and hope.

We get into:

• Career transitions and self-identity.
• Overcoming fear and self-doubt.
• The importance of self-advocacy and boundaries.
• Building confidence and resilience.
• The role of support systems and community.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why burnout can show up in the body before it shows up in your decisions.
• How to tell when success no longer feels sustainable.
• Why a “power pause” can become a turning point.
• How yoga and meditation helped Renee reconnect with herself.
• What it means to bet on yourself and build something new.

🎙️ GUEST:

Renee Coover is the founder of Engage Law, a fractional outside general counsel who helps growing businesses navigate employment, regulatory, and operational matters with clarity and practical guidance.

⏱️ CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction

05:13 Renee's Story: From Big Law to Yoga Instructor

11:07 Listening to the Body and Making Decisions

19:52 Recognizing Opportunities in Life's Moments

25:06 Embracing Change and Taking Risks

37:20 Overcoming Fear of Risk and Embracing Change

47:22 Armoring Up for Yourself

55:28 Advocating for Yourself in the Workplace

01:05:52 Finding Your True Identity

🔗 CONNECT WITH RENEE:

LinkedIn: Renee Coover

YouTube: Engage Law

TED Talk: Taking Back Your Pregnancy Rights

Website: EngageLaw

🔗 CONNECT WITH STEPHANIE:

Website: Triage Coaching and Consulting

Free fit call: https://tidycal.com/sohannesian

🔗 CONNECT WITH YOSHIE:

Website: Lotus Flower Journeys

Free clarity call

🔗 The Raw Onion:

Website: The Raw Onion

Email: hello@therawonionpodcast.com

#WomenInBusiness #PowerPause #CareerGrowth

And you are not broken.

What happened, neurologically and physiologically, has a reason. This episode is where we start to look at it.

We closed out the Roadmap to Resilience series with something different this episode. Stephanie brought her own story to the table, and what she’s spent the last decade trying to understand about what actually broke down, and why.

What we explored together:

Resilience is neurological, not just psychological. Culture tells us resilience means endurance, suppression, grinding through. Neuroscience tells us something completely different. It is recovery capacity. Flexibility. The ability of your nervous system to find its way back to safety after stress. Those are not the same thing.

Your body has been scanning for safety your entire life. There is a process happening beneath your awareness, constantly assessing your environment, your relationships, your inner state. When that process has been overridden by years of hustle, inherited messaging, or survival wiring passed down through your family, you lose access to your own signals. You stop trusting what your body is telling you. And that is when collapse becomes possible.

What you inherited may not belong to you. The hypervigilance. The head-down, don’t rock the boat, keep working until someone notices. The inability to rest without guilt. For many of us, those were not choices we made. They were patterns absorbed from the people who came before us, people who needed those patterns to survive. The question is whether those same patterns are serving you now, or quietly running the show without your knowing.

Identity and resilience are not separate conversations. If you don’t know what belongs to you, if your values have been borrowed from a workplace or a family system or a culture that taught you to earn your worth, your system has nothing stable to return to. Resilience requires somewhere to land.

Curiosity is where it starts to shift. Not a program. Not a fix. Just the willingness to ask: what is this trying to tell me? What engine am I actually running on, and is it mine?

We are not here to tell you what is wrong with you.

We are here because what is happening in your body, your brain, your burnout, your exhaustion, your sense that something is off even when nothing looks broken from the outside, has a reason. And that reason is rewritable.

We will be back next week in a new format. Video is coming, and we are stepping into a new series exploring women in business.

Until then, you are more resilient than you think.

If something in this episode is still sitting with you:

Wondering if what you’re carrying might be inherited, not yours? Stephanie works with high-performers ready to remap what’s been running them.

Book with Stephanie

Feeling like you're at a crossroads and not sure which layer to look at first? Yoshie works with people who are ready to get curious about what's underneath.

Book with Yoshie

And suddenly the people closest to you feel... off.

They don’t outright say “don’t change.” But the jokes land weird. The concern feels heavy. The comments sting a little. Something shifts in how they respond to you, and you can’t quite name it.

Nothing like personal growth to make the holidays awkward.

In Episode 7 of The Raw Onion, we talk about why identity shifts don’t just feel scary to you. They can feel threatening to the people around you. And what’s happening in both brains when that discomfort shows up.

When You Change, Their Brain Has to Remap

Here’s what most people don’t realize: your growth isn’t just about you.

When you shift who you are, the people in your life have to update their internal map of the relationship. The brain loves systems. It tracks roles. Who supports. Who struggles. Who leads. Who stays small.

Even loving relationships unconsciously organize around these roles. The listener. The fixer. The one who never says no.

When you change, their brain needs to update that map. And updating requires energy. Glucose. Effort. Most people don’t want to give more.

So your growth isn’t threatening because it’s wrong. It’s threatening because it’s unfamiliar.

Envy Shows Up as Pain

One of the most fascinating pieces of neuroscience we cover: subconscious envy activates the anterior cingulate cortex, the same region involved in social pain, shame, and feeling excluded.

So envy doesn’t show up in the brain as motivation. It shows up as discomfort.

When someone close to you grows, their brain might not think, “Good for her.” It might think, “What does this say about me?”

And because women are often taught that envy is bad, it leaks out sideways. Minimizing. Over-concern. Subtle criticism. Emotional withdrawal.

Your growth can unintentionally highlight a question someone else isn’t ready to ask themselves.

Pushback Doesn’t Mean Stop

If you’re getting pushback while trying to level up, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.

It means you’re crossing a meaningful threshold.

Abundance arrives when the nervous system stops preparing for loss. But first, your nervous system has to trust that change is safe. And so does theirs.

Sometimes the discomfort isn’t a warning sign. It’s a rite of passage.

What version of yourself are you afraid to let go of? And who might you be on the other side?

Tell us about a time your growth triggered unexpected pushback from someone close to you. What did that feel like? How did you navigate it?

Sandy Davis is a fractional COO, the founder of Elevate Operations Advisory, and the voice behind Elevate Within on Substack. With over 25 years in operations leadership across investment banking and commercial real estate, she now partners with founder-led businesses to fix the operational breakdowns that quietly stall growth, so founders can stop being the bottleneck and teams can scale sustainably. Her work sits at the intersection of operational strategy and personal resilience.

Website: Elevate Operations Advisory

LinkedIn: Sandy Davis

Substack: Elevate Within

That moment when life hits you with everything at once. Loss, burnout, identity collapse. You wonder if you’ll ever find solid ground again. Many of us have been there. This week’s episode with Sandy Davis pulls back that exact layer.

Sandy’s story isn’t the polished bounce-back tale. It’s the raw truth of losing both parents within 37 days, right as corporate burnout peaked and her 50th loomed. The white void of grief turning black. Survival autopilot kicking in while the world demanded she keep performing. Then, the slow reclaiming. Through her mom’s journals, sitting with different versions of herself, and deciding to rebuild on her own terms.

We peel into what resilience actually looks like when the Instagram version fails. Not quick recovery, but the kind forged in fire. The masks we wear, especially as women navigating corporate spaces. And that inner voice, the little girl, the 20-year-old, still there beneath the noise, still looking for purpose.

Sandy now leads as fractional COO at Elevate Operations Advisory, turning founder chaos into scalable systems. But her real work lives at the intersection of operations and personal rebuilding.

“My mom gave me what she could,” Sandy said, “so I could become who she couldn’t.”

If you recognize yourself somewhere in Sandy’s story, we’re here. No need to have it figured out first.

Reach us at hello@therawonionpodcast.com.

Stephanie Ohannesian is the founder of Triage Coaching and Consulting, where she helps high-performing individuals and teams regulate burnout, shift stress patterns, and build sustainable performance using heritage-informed approaches. She offers one-on-one coaching, group programs, and retreats.
Learn more: triagebalancedlife.com

Yoshie Barnett is the founder of Lotus Flower Journeys and a Crossroads Coach for high-achieving women ready to move beyond perfectionism and reconnect with themselves.
Learn more: lotusflowerjourneys.com

Stephanie opens this episode with one question.

Not a framework. Not a breathing exercise. Just a question she wants you to sit with before anything else.

Right now, in this exact moment, are you actually anxious? Or are you carrying anxiety that doesn’t even belong to you?

It sounds simple. But the answer, and the science behind it, might shift something.

Here’s what’s actually happening in your body

Your nervous system was never a closed system. It was built to scan, sync, and absorb the emotional signals of the people around you. Before your conscious mind catches up. Before you even realize it’s happening.

Stephanie breaks down the three biological mechanisms behind this, and once you hear them, you will start seeing them everywhere. In the room you just walked into. In the conversation that left you feeling off. In the seven minutes you spent scrolling before you got out of bed.

The part that lands hardest: historically, emotional contagion moved through small groups. Families. Villages. Maybe a few dozen people. Today, your nervous system is absorbing the emotional signals of thousands of people before noon, fed to you by algorithms specifically designed to surface whatever creates the strongest reaction.

Your nervous system was built for a village. Not for eight billion people’s fears.

And then there’s what happens inside families

Children don’t pick up stress through words. They pick it up through nervous systems. Tone. Breath. The tension in a room before anyone says a thing. Stephanie goes into what this means for how emotional patterns move across generations, and it’s one of the more quietly affecting parts of this conversation.

What this episode is really asking

It’s not asking you to disconnect or look away from what’s happening in the world. The conversation is more honest than that.

It’s asking whether you can tell the difference between anxiety that belongs to your actual life, and anxiety that belongs to the emotional climate around you. That distinction, it turns out, is where clarity starts.

We close with something Stephanie said that has stayed with us:

If you have never allowed yourself to build your inner world, you will not survive the change of the outer world.

Not a warning. An opening.

This one is worth the listen.

We’d love to know: when you actually pause and ask yourself that question, what do you notice?

Welcome to Episode 2 of The Raw Onion, where we unpack what’s happening in your brain and theirs when holiday expectations collide with caregiving burnout.

You’re Not Alone

Up to 25% of Americans are in the sandwich generation. The holidays pile emotional and sensory stress on top of chronic caregiving. When you’re already depleted, the pressure to create a perfect moment can push you over the edge.

You’re not failing. You’re overloaded.

The Aging Brain

The aging brain has reduced dopamine and serotonin, and less cognitive flexibility. That means:

• Less emotional resilience
• More irritability
• Harder time adapting

They are not being difficult. They are less able to pivot.

Their amygdala activates more easily, while the prefrontal cortex struggles to regulate. Even positive moments can feel overwhelming.

The Nostalgia Trap

Older adults do not just recall memories. They relive them.

When memory centers activate, they may lose context. A holiday memory can bring connection or unprocessed grief. Often, they cannot tell which is coming.

Nostalgia is not neutral.

What’s Happening in Your Brain

While their brain is rigid, yours is flooded with cortisol.

Chronic stress leads to:

• Shorter patience
• Lower empathy
• Emotional exhaustion

Then comes the guilt cycle. You snap, feel bad, shut down, and think you’re failing.

You are not failing. Your nervous system is responding to prolonged stress.

The Mismatch

Two overwhelmed nervous systems trying to create a meaningful holiday moment. You both want safety, but in different ways.

That is biology, not failure.

How to Help

• Reset breath

Take two short inhales through your nose and one long exhale. This calms your nervous system and helps you regain clarity.

• Name your brain

Pause and say, “I’m overwhelmed. What do I need?” This creates space and reduces reactivity.

• Accept, do not solve

Acceptance lowers stress faster than problem solving. Acknowledge the overload instead of fighting it.

• Redefine success

Success is not a perfect holiday. It is moments of safety and presence.

Your Invitation

Lower expectations. Focus on small moments instead of perfect gatherings. Rest without guilt.

Before stepping into any interaction:

• Take a breath
• Name what you feel
• Accept the overload
• Lower expectations
• Choose rest when needed

You are not here to fix everything. You are creating small pockets of safety and connection.

That is enough.

Are you navigating the holidays with aging loved ones? We would love to hear your experience. Share in the comments or reach out.

Stephanie specializes in inherited generational stress and how family patterns shape our nervous systems across generations.

At 27, she brings both academic grounding and real-time lived experience to this conversation. She is someone who is actively navigating a doctoral program, a growing business, a farm, and a full family life simultaneously, which makes her perspective on the early adult brain not just informed, but immediate.

The decade when you were supposed to have it all figured out was actually the decade your brain was least equipped to do so.

We don’t say this to excuse anything. We say it because it changes the story you might still be carrying about who you were then, and why.

This episode is part of our Aging Brain Series, and we’re moving into the early adult brain, roughly the 20s through mid-30s. We sat down with Sierra, and what unfolded was a conversation that landed far beyond any single age group.

The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for planning, impulse control, and identity integration, doesn’t fully mature until around 25. But the expectation of having it together often arrives years before that. That gap between what the brain is capable of and what we demand of it is where a lot of quiet shame lives, and it doesn’t always dissolve just because the years pass.

Sierra brings a scaffold analogy to this conversation that stays with you. The idea that the first 18 years lay the outer frame, and everything after is the interior work. Adding rooms, knocking down walls, making space for what actually matters now. It’s a simple image, and it holds something true about how identity doesn’t form once and settle. It keeps building. It keeps revising.

What we found ourselves circling in this episode is the tension between expansion and pressure that so many people feel when they’re in the thick of this phase, and how easily that tension gets mislabeled as personal failure rather than recognized as the natural friction of a brain doing its developmental work.

For our listeners who are further along in life, this episode offers something different: a chance to look back at that chapter with less judgment. To recognize that the version of you who felt scattered, or didn’t know what she wanted, or made choices that didn’t hold, wasn’t failing. She was wiring.

We’re curious: when you look back at your early adult years, is there something you would offer that younger version of yourself, if she could hear it now?

And if any of this is stirring something current for you, about where you are now, patterns that still feel active, or identity questions that feel unresolved, we’re always open to hearing from you. You can reach us at hello@therawonionpodcast.com.

And for those of us in this community, there is something worth sitting with: we are among the last people who will ever have known life before that was true. We grew up with downtime built into the day by default. Evenings that ended. A world that existed mostly within a radius we could actually see.

That is not nostalgia. That is neuroscience.

The human nervous system was shaped over hundreds of thousands of years to process the emotional signals of a small, contained world. That same system now wakes up every morning and immediately begins processing the emotional temperature of millions.

In Episode 15, we go deep on what it actually means to maintain psychological sovereignty inside an environment that was not designed with your wellbeing in mind. We explore what the brain is actually doing when the noise of the world gets loud, and why so many of us feel depleted in ways that are hard to name.

What we hope you take from this one is not a to-do list. It is a different relationship with what is happening inside you. Understanding that your system is overwhelmed is not the same as something being wrong with you.

This is the third episode in our March series, Discernment in the Age of Chaos. If something here resonates, we would love to hear from you in the comments.

We are opening a new series on The Raw Onion, and it begins where so much of what we carry as adults actually begins.

With the young brain.

Not because this episode is only for parents. But because every single one of us was once a child in a system, a home, a culture, that was either building us up or quietly chipping away at something essential.

And most of us never had the conversation we needed about what was actually happening.

This episode is that conversation.

Dr. Saxena spent her early years being tested for a gifted program twice and not passing, not because she was not brilliant, but because the assessments were built around a language and culture that was not hers. She describes losing 25 years of her life to what that moment took from her. That experience became the foundation of 35 years of advocacy, and it is the thread running through everything she shares here.

What she brings to this episode is not a framework or a method. It is honesty. The kind that makes you pause and think about the child you were, the adults who surrounded you, and what was quietly being encoded in that developing brain before you ever had words for it.

We explore what the education system was built for, and who it was not built for. We sit with the concept of a secure base, the one relationship, the one presence, where a child can simply exist without performing. We talk about selective cultural identity and what children silently choose to carry forward. We talk about legacy, presence, and what it actually means to show up for a young mind in a world moving faster than any prior generation.

Stephanie‘s work at Triage Coaching and Consulting focuses on inherited generational stress and the neuroscience of how family patterns shape our nervous systems across generations.

If you are in your 40s or beyond and something in your life no longer fits the way it once did, Yoshie works with women navigating exactly that. Visit Lotus Flower Journeys to learn more.

And there’s a good chance that’s exactly where you are right now.

In our “The Recode: From Skin to Stride” series, we’re living in the last weeks of the Year of the Snake before the Fire Horse arrives on February 17th. The space between shedding and moving is where most of us get lost.

Last week we talked about the shed itself. Why you’re not who you were anymore. Why awareness alone can feel exhausting. But shedding doesn’t automatically tell you what matters now. It just removes what no longer fits.

This week’s episode is about what happens after awareness. When your internal operating system begins to reorganize itself. When the pause becomes mandatory, not because you’re failing, but because your brain needs time to dismantle old predictive models.

When Values Reorder

Your values don’t disappear when you put yourself first. They reorder. And once values reorder, behavior has to follow. That’s not selfishness. That’s recoding.

The brain needs rest to declutter. Without it, your brain defaults back to the old identity because it’s cheaper and safer. The pause isn’t a problem. It’s the solution.

The question that matters most right now: Whose disappointment feels louder than my own needs?

That question is usually where the recode is happening.

Between the Snake and the Horse

Snake energy teaches us awareness. Horse energy teaches us movement. But there’s a pause between the two, and this is that episode.

The stride comes next. But this week, we’re honoring the pause. Because you’re not lost. You’re recalibrating. And the nervous system knows exactly what it’s doing, even when it feels like you don’t.

What do you value now that you didn’t before?

Which pause are you honoring this week?

Say “no” once, rest once, or name one old pattern you’re shedding. Let’s witness each other’s recalibration.

It sounds sharp. It sounds informed. It sounds like someone who has been paying attention.

It is well-articulated hopelessness.

And most of us, at some point in the last few years, have either performed it or quietly believed it.

In this final episode of the Discernment in the Age of Chaos series, we go somewhere that feels almost countercultural to say out loud right now. We talk about hope. Not the soft kind. Not the kind that asks you to look away from what is real. The kind the nervous system actually has to be trained toward, because the brain left to its own devices in a chaotic environment will choose something else entirely.

That is where the neuroscience comes in.

This episode closes out a month of looking at what it means to stay grounded when everything around us is designed to pull us under. Discernment. Emotional contagion. Nervous system overwhelm. And now, at the end of it: the question we think matters most.

Not “is the world okay?”

But who do you become in a world that isn’t?

If something from this series has stayed with you, we would love to hear what it was.

Where in your life right now are you reacting to what is happening, rather than participating in it?

Burnout isn’t always about work.

Sometimes the stress response you’re running didn’t start with you.

Stephanie works with high-performing individuals and teams to understand what is actually driving the loop, and reset it at the level where it began. Neuroscience-based, practical, and built for people who have already tried everything else.

Mazarine Treyz is an artist, writer, speaker, and facilitator focused on radical imagination and healing. She has worked across nonprofit, government, and entrepreneurial spaces, delivering 100+ talks in four countries and creating courses, conferences, and consulting work along the way.

She is the author of Healing from the Nonprofit Sector and lives in Oregon with her community, garden, and cat.

Explore her work:

Books

Speaking inquiries

Paintings, prints and workshops

There is a kind of exhaustion that does not make sense on paper.

You care. You show up. You give your best. And still, you feel depleted. Not because you are failing, but because something larger has been drawing from you for a long time.

That is where this conversation begins.

In Episode 23 of our Roadmap to Resilience series, we speak with Mazarine Treyz. Her work explores how systems are designed to extract from those who care most, and what it takes to return to yourself after that depletion.

We talk about the quiet shame many high achievers carry. The belief that if you are exhausted, you must not be doing enough. Mazarine reframes this clearly. The burnout is not personal. It is structural.

The conversation expands beyond the nonprofit sector into a shared experience. You can be successful, high-performing, and still feel like something is unsustainable. Like the cost of caring has become too high.

We also explore anger, not as something to suppress, but as information. A signal pointing to unmet needs and deeper truths.

And rest, not as a reward, but as a starting point. A way back to clarity and choice.

What stands out most is how Mazarine names the harm in these systems without collapsing into despair. She brings it back to the body, to the self, and to the possibility that your needs matter.

If you have ever poured yourself into meaningful work and felt unexpectedly depleted, this episode will resonate.

You can find her book and workbook at healingfromnonprofits.com.

If this conversation is landing for you, or you are navigating burnout or a turning point, reach out to us at hello@therawonionpodcast.com.

GiGi Hahl is an Empowerment Coach, public speaker, and Master NLP Practitioner passionate about helping people unlock their inner power and live with intention. Her work combines mindset coaching, leadership development, and embodied movement to help individuals build confidence, clarity, and meaningful forward momentum.

We have been sitting with horse energy all month. The freeze, the place where the nervous system shuts down not out of weakness but out of overwhelm. The thaw, the slow return to feeling and choice. And now, finally, the run.

Not the run as urgency or performance. Not proving anything to anyone. The run as something quieter: movement that comes from actually knowing yourself well enough to trust what you feel.

In this episode, Stephanie is joined by GiGi Hahl, an empowerment coach and NLP practitioner whose work centers on one question: how do we stop abandoning ourselves and start living in agreement with who we actually are? She brings warmth, real stories, and a way of naming things that makes the work feel less like self-improvement and more like a return to yourself.

She talks about self-trust not as something you decide to have, but as something your nervous system needs to learn through repetition. Tiny acts of keeping a commitment to yourself. Following through on something small and noticing that you did. It is not glamorous. It does not feel like a breakthrough. But that is exactly what makes it stick.

The conversation also moves through the difference between fear and panic, what it actually costs to start honoring your own voice, and why the people around us sometimes read that shift as selfishness. Stephanie connects it to the neuroscience, and it lands differently than you might expect.

Stephanie also shares something personal in this episode. The burnout that landed her in the ER, and what it took to understand why it happened. It is one of the more honest moments in the series.

Where in your life are you still waiting to trust yourself before you act?

You didn’t manifest this. Your brain just smelled cinnamon and went feral.

Here’s what’s actually happening: during the holidays, your hippocampus (your brain’s memory organizer) and your amygdala (your emotional threat detector) start overlapping in ways that make old relationships feel safer than they actually were. Your brain literally lowers its critical thinking filters when nostalgia kicks in.

The warm, fuzzy memories you’re feeling? They’re not reality. They’re your brain’s default mode network triggering selective memory. You’re forgetting what jerks they were and remembering only the cozy parts because familiarity feels safer than uncertainty.

But familiar doesn’t mean healthy.

Your nervous system prefers known terrain, even when that terrain hurt you. It’s the “devil you know” principle, wrapped in sugar plum fairy dust.

Three Steps to Protect Your Peace

1. Name what’s happening in your body

Is your chest tight? Your stomach heavy? Naming the sensation shifts activity from your threat-response amygdala to your decision-making prefrontal cortex. Your body knows before your brain starts making excuses.

2. Separate memory from reality

Ask yourself: Am I reacting to who they are today, or who they used to be to me? This breaks emotional time travel and restores your adult perspective. It interrupts old attachment loops.

3. Reclaim power with one question

What version of myself am I responsible for protecting now? Not what’s kind, not what’s fair. Who do you become if you let them back in? That question alone is discernment, not avoidance.

The Real Gift

Letting someone stay in the past doesn’t mean you’re cold. It means your nervous system has matured. You can forgive without re-inviting, because healing doesn’t require access.

Some people are like old apps. They made sense at the time, but now they just drain your battery and slow everything down.

Not everyone who reappears is meant to re-enter. Some are just reminders of how far you’ve actually come.

What old pattern are you choosing to leave in 2025 instead of carrying into the new year?

Happy New Year from Stephanie and Yoshie! Here’s to stepping into 2026 with clearer boundaries, wiser choices, and a nervous system that knows its worth. We’ll see you next week for our first episode of the new year with a special guest.

Christa Skinner is no stranger to life’s unexpected turns. She met her ex-husband when they were just 12 years old, fell in love as teenagers, and spent over three decades building a life together. After 22 years of marriage and raising three daughters, she found herself facing divorce. The process left her depleted for years, but through it, she discovered something powerful: there is life after divorce, and it can be even more fulfilling than before.

Now a certified health and life coach and accredited divorce coach trained by the world’s leading expert Sarah Davison, Christa is a member of the International Divorce Coach Center of Excellence (IDCCOE) and is currently completing her Masters Practitioner certification in domestic violence. She is also a co-author of the upcoming book Emotional Alchemy. Her mission is to create a sense of balance and peace for women before, during, or after divorce.

What Forgiveness Actually Is

Forgiveness might be the most misunderstood concept in healing. It’s not about excusing what happened or letting anyone off the hook. Forgiveness is what you do for your nervous system.

When you forgive yourself, you’re telling your nervous system that the danger is over. Your brain has been rehearsing the past, looping through what went wrong, where you failed. That rumination keeps you stuck in survival mode. Self-forgiveness allows the rumination to subside so your voice can return, not as a reaction, but as authorship of what comes next.

The Two Layers of Forgiveness

Christa reminded us that forgiveness has two layers: forgiving yourself for the choices you made, the things you didn’t see coming, the ways you stayed longer than you should have. And forgiving others who hurt you. Both matter. Both free you.

For women who’ve spent decades directing love outward, forgiveness requires turning that same compassion inward. Christa spoke honestly about how she forgot what it meant to love herself. Put your oxygen mask on first. When you practice self-forgiveness, you’re showing the next generation that mistakes don’t define you, that healing is possible, that choosing yourself matters.

Forgiveness Sets You Free

As Christa said, forgiveness is the most important step of healing. Not because it erases what happened, but because it frees you to step into what’s next.

What patterns are you still rehearsing? What would it feel like if forgiveness gave your nervous system permission to finally rest?

You can learn more about Christa’s work at ChristaSkinnerCoaching.com.

I’m Stephanie Ohannesian, your Generational Inherited Stress Specialist, and alongside my co-host Yoshie Barnett, we’re here to peel back the layers of burnout, perfectionism, and the crossroads you never saw coming.

This month, we’re keeping episodes short. They are made for your commute, carpool line, or those rare 20 minutes to breathe.

The Corporate “Family” Trap

You’ve heard it before: “We’re a family.”

It sounds supportive, but here’s what’s happening beneath the surface: that word activates the same part of your brain that processes connection with your actual family. Your brain doesn’t distinguish the difference.

That’s not accidental.

“Family” triggers deep psychological patterns:

• Belonging and loyalty
• Forgiveness and unconditional support
• Shared identity

Companies leverage this to increase loyalty, reduce pushback, and create emotional obligation. It also makes boundary setting feel like betrayal.

Your amygdala, your threat detector, becomes more sensitive to social rejection. So you overextend, say yes when you mean no, and tolerate overload because it feels personal.

That single word can neurologically prime you for burnout.

The Holiday Amplifier

During the holidays, this intensifies.

You are managing two “families”:

• Your real one
• Your corporate one

At the same time:

• Q4 demands peak performance
• Events feel mandatory
• Your personal life is already full

Your nervous system ends up stretched in both directions.

Your 72-Hour Boundary Check

Here is a simple reset tool:

Step 1: Scan the next 72 hours

Write down everything. Meetings, deadlines, events, errands, and emotional obligations all count.

Step 2: Identify real vs. symbolic

Ask: What truly requires me? What is optional or expectation based?

Step 3: Reset boundaries

Remove, delegate, or limit. Then communicate clearly:

“I will attend for an hour, then I am heading out.”

No over explaining. No apology.

Why It Works

Your brain can only hold 4 to 7 items at once. During the holidays, you are trying to manage dozens.

Writing things down reduces cognitive load, lowers stress, and interrupts the guilt loop. It helps you stop equating obligation with worth.

What This Means for You

Corporate culture uses “family” strategically. During the holidays, that pressure intensifies.

But now you can see it. You can choose differently.

Go to the events you want. Leave when you are ready. Set boundaries without guilt. Use the 72-Hour Boundary Check to protect your energy.

We’d Love to Hear From You

Have questions or wins to share? Reach out. We would love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here for episode one. We will see you next week as we keep peeling back the layers.

Here’s to a holiday season on your terms.

Stephanie & Yoshie

So why does it fall apart by February?

Your brain is not designed for self-improvement. It is designed for survival, prediction, and conserving energy. When a resolution challenges who your brain believes you are, it gets flagged as a threat.

This is the identity prediction problem.

In Episode 6 of The Raw Onion, we break down why most resolutions fail and what actually creates lasting change. It is not willpower.

The Brain’s Protection System

Your brain protects your identity, even if that identity is exhausting.

If you have spent years reinforcing beliefs like “I do not have time” or “I stay quiet to keep the peace,” then new behaviors are not just actions. They are identity threats.

Your brain responds by pulling you back to what is familiar and predictable.

You are not failing. You are returning to identity defaults.

Identity First, Behavior Second

Most resolutions focus on action without addressing identity.

Real change starts by naming who you are becoming, then choosing actions that reinforce it.

Instead of “I am trying to work out,” shift to:

• I am someone who protects my energy
• I am someone whose voice belongs in the room
• I am someone who does not earn worth through exhaustion

Behavior follows identity.

The Language Shift

Your brain listens to how you speak.

“I am trying to” and “I should” reinforce that change does not fit you.

Shift to:

• “I am becoming someone who…”
• “I am practicing being…”

This reduces resistance and allows growth without triggering alarm.

Discomfort does not mean failure. It often means you are evolving.

Realignment Over Resolutions

Resolutions rely on pressure and willpower. Realignment works from the inside out.

You cannot build a new life on top of an old identity without deeper change.

Start with identity. Then take small actions that confirm it.

Your Invitation

If this resonates, this episode walks you through the neuroscience behind change and simple tools to begin shifting your identity.

Lasting change is not a motivation problem. It is an identity

problem.

What identity are you stepping into this year?

We kicked off the new year with Sara Wald, founder of Redefining Love and TEDx speaker, and what she shared about boundaries shifted everything.

This wasn’t the usual “just say no” advice. Sara introduced Redefining Love framework: Boundaries, Accountability, and Grace. Three elements that work together to interrupt generational harm patterns while actually reducing shame instead of creating more.

The part that landed hardest? Boundaries aren’t walls to keep people out. They’re the container that lets you show up authentically without burning out. And grace, the element most of us skip entirely, is what makes the whole thing sustainable.

Sara reminded us that we’re all doing the best we can with the tools we have. Some days that looks messy. Some days we’re tired and our boundaries get blurry. That’s where grace enters, not as an excuse, but as the practice that keeps us moving forward instead of spiraling in shame.

If you’ve been carrying guilt about distancing from family patterns or struggling to hold space for yourself while everyone else needs you, this conversation offers a roadmap that actually accounts for your humanity.

What would change if you gave yourself the same grace you extend to others?

She was helping her mom out of a building. Blinkers on. Gone in under a minute. By the time she turned around, a stranger was photographing her license plate, shaking, then screaming, then in tears.

It was not about the car.

We have all felt it lately. Conversations that turn sharp fast. Small moments carrying weight they shouldn’t. Everyone just one thing away from the edge.

So we had to ask: why does everything feel like an emergency right now?

Your brain was not built for 24/7 global threat exposure.

For most of human history, threats were local. Your nervous system would activate, you would respond, and then you would recover. The stress cycle completed. Today, that loop never closes.

Layer in something that is not being talked about enough right now: collective betrayal. Not just disappointment. Betrayal is what happens when a source of perceived safety becomes a source of threat. Your brain, which runs on prediction, experiences that as a full internal alarm. All at once.

And your negativity bias, your attention being hijacked by outrage and breaking news? That is not a flaw. It is ancient survival wiring being deliberately exploited.

Many of us are living in partial activation. Not panicking, not at rest. Just simmering. Cortisol running with nowhere to go. Irritable. Fatigued. Low-grade hopeless.

That is not weakness. That is a nervous system that has been fed urgency until it cannot tell the difference anymore.

This series is about discernment. Not looking away, but developing the filter that the world is actively working against.

It starts with one question:

What are you consuming that your nervous system is experiencing as a threat?

And what would shift, automatically, if clarity guided your attention instead of urgency?

Next week, in Part 2, we turn toward a tender possibility: that some of what you are carrying right now may not even be yours.

Subscribe so you don’t miss Part 2.

What is one thing your system is treating as a threat that might not need to be?

Sarosh Iqbal is the founder of Prezio, a personalized gifting brand rooted in meaning and creativity. After a career in Silicon Valley, she chose a different path. Her journey reflects resilience, uncertainty, and learning to trust herself.

Website: prezio.gifts

Instagram: @prezio.gifts

LinkedIn: Sarosh Iqbal

There is a kind of weight that builds quietly over time. Not because everything is wrong, but because everything has been held together for so long. By family expectations. By inherited definitions of success. By the version of you that learned early that belonging meant staying within the lines.

That is where we begin this month.

May is our series on resilience. Not as toughness or pushing through, but as your nervous system’s ability to return to itself after stress, without losing clarity or connection to who you are.

The brain does not distinguish well between physical danger and social risk. Disappointing family, stepping outside cultural expectations, or choosing a different path can register as threat. So when a woman chooses ambition or independence, her nervous system often braces. Not because something is wrong, but because it is doing its job.

In this episode, we sit down with Sarosh Iqbal. Raised in Pakistan with a clear path laid out, she followed it into a corporate career in Silicon Valley. When that chapter ended, she built Prezio.

What she shares is not linear. She was building a business while raising three children and navigating cultural expectations of motherhood. The guilt was real. So was the fear of judgment, which often lands deeper in the body than professional risk because it is tied to belonging.

We also explore the space between shame and guilt, what happens when worth is tied to roles, and what it costs to want something beyond them. Near the end, Sarosh shares a moment with her son that brings the conversation into focus.

This is resilience without performance.

If this conversation resonated and you want support, reach out at hello@therawonionpodcast.com.

Stephanie Ohannesian is the founder of Triage Coaching and Consulting, helping individuals and teams regulate burnout and shift inherited stress patterns.

Yoshie Barnett is the founder of Lotus Flower Journeys, supporting high-achieving women navigating life transitions and reconnecting with themselves.

The snake and the fire horse are both ruled by fire. But they express it in completely opposite ways.

Snake fire is yin. Internal. Smoldering. The kind that rewires your nervous system behind the scenes while you’re sitting still, wondering why nothing feels the same anymore.

Fire horse is yang. External. Kinetic. The kind that moves your body before your brain gives permission.

Here’s what most people miss: you’re not changing elements. You’re not becoming someone new. You’re flipping the switch from hidden combustion to open ignition.

Identity shifting isn’t about abandoning who you are at your core. It’s about honoring that the internal work has to happen first, slow and uncomfortable, before the body is ready to move.

And right now? A lot of us are between skins.

If life feels quieter, slower, or you’re less willing to do the things you used to do, you’re not late. You’re shedding.

Snakes don’t negotiate with old skin. They don’t explain themselves. They release what no longer fits because staying the same becomes too painful.

Between skins is not behind.

Next week, we’ll talk about how the body signals readiness for action, and why real momentum feels clean, not frantic.

For now, maybe the question isn’t “who am I becoming?” Maybe it’s “what am I done pretending still fits?”

Stephanie Ohannesian is the founder of Triage Coaching & Consulting and a neuroscience-based resilience strategist helping global leaders and communities break the burnout cycle. With a background spanning neuroscience, psychology, and cultural intelligence, she transforms inherited stress into intentional resilience, working across sectors from the Middle East to the Americas. Her approach bridges science and soul to create sustainable, high-impact leadership.

Yoshie Barnett is a Certified Life Coach (ICF/ACC) and founder of Lotus Flower Journeys, helping women release perfectionism and reconnect with their authentic selves through her P.E.A.C.E. framework. Originally from Japan and shaped by life between cultures, her approach is gentle and intuitive, guided by your values and natural rhythm rather than force or shoulds.

She was exactly the right person for this conversation.

Something shifts in midlife. Most of us feel it before we have words for it.

Sleep becomes unreliable. The things that used to recharge you don’t land the same way. Your weight, your energy, your memory, your mood. Something just... moved. And the fear that follows that noticing can be louder than the change itself.

This episode sits with that.

We call it the Great Neural Recalibration. Your brain at midlife is not breaking down. It is reorganizing. It is changing how it processes reward, stress, and meaning. The burnout, the emotional shifts, the fog, the sense that what used to work no longer fits. These are not signs that something has gone wrong. They are signs that your brain is doing something real.

We covered a lot of ground with Dr. Covall in this conversation. The relationship between what we eat and how the brain functions. Why sleep is not a productivity tool but something the body genuinely requires. Why the strategies that worked for years can quietly stop working. And the one that surprised us most: what loneliness does in the body, and how many people in this phase are experiencing it without naming it.

Midlife is not the chapter where things fall apart. It is the chapter where your brain begins to let go of urgency and move toward something more discerning. Different cultures have understood this for a long time. We are just catching up to it.

If you recognize yourself in any of this, Dr. Covall works directly with people navigating exactly this terrain. You can reach her at stephanie@realizedbetterhealth.com or visit RealizeBetterHealth.com for a free discovery call.

And if the emotional or identity side of this recalibration is where you’re sitting, we’re here too. You’re welcome to reach out.

This is Part 3 in our April aging brain series. Next week, we continue.

You don’t have to figure this out alone.

In Episode 20 of The Raw Onion, we explore the neuroscience of the aging brain. we look at it not just as biology, but as a deeply human experience that can leave us feeling confused, tender, and even heartbroken.

You know that ache when someone you love starts repeating stories, snaps in a way that doesn’t feel like them, or looks at you with eyes that seem unfamiliar? It’s more than concern. It hurts.

If you’re in midlife, squeezed between raising your family and supporting aging parents or relatives, you’re likely carrying this every day. That’s the sandwich generation reality, a crossroads where your heart pulls in two directions at once. Most people in the middle don’t have language for it yet.

Stephanie unpacks the neuroscience behind the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. She shares why nuance fades, reactions quicken, and emotions feel more fragile. Her uncle story stays with you. A simple offer of help with chopsticks read as a threat to his identity and independence.

Then she names it: ambiguous loss. The grief of loving someone still physically here, but changing in ways that feel out of reach. No closure, no clear ending. Just this tender, ongoing tension between who they were and who they are now.

Because care shows up in simple ways too, Stephanie mentions making raw vegan walnut taco meat for her aging parents. Walnuts support brain health with omega-3s, and it's an easy way to nourish without fanfare.

If any of this feels close, this episode has something for you. It’s about compassion, adaptation, and what it means to keep loving people as they change.

Stephanie Ohanesian is the founder and owner of Triage Coaching and Consulting, an ancestral lineage and heritage burnout regulation company.

She helps high-performing individuals and teams reset stress patterns that drive burnout loops, improve communication under pressure, and build cultures of restored clarity, energy, confidence and sustainable performance.

She specializes in one-on-one, group, and upcoming retreats.

Yoshie Barnett is the founder of Lotus Flower Journeys and a Crossroads Coach. She works with high-achieving women in their 40s and beyond who are standing at a crossroads, held back by perfectionism, and ready to find their way back to themselves.

If you are someone who looks capable on the outside and feels quietly stuck on the inside, you can reach her at lotusflowerjourneys.com.

You can’t force your nervous system either.

There is a moment most of us know well. You are clear. You know what needs to change. And yet, nothing moves.

You are not confused. You are not lazy. You are not broken.

You are regulated for a life you are leaving behind.

That is what this episode sits with. Because once you understand what is actually happening in your body during that pause, the shame around it dissolves. And something else becomes possible.

We opened with the horse. Not the cinematic image of full gallop, but something quieter: horses are emotional mirrors. They absorb and reflect the nervous system of whoever is near them. The Fire Horse year will do the same. It will amplify whatever you are carrying.

Which is why regulation comes before momentum.

In Episode 9 and Episode 10, we explored the shed. The internal, necessary release of old identity and old roles.

This episode is about what lives right before the run begins.

Clarity often precedes paralysis. The moment you shift from I kind of want to change to yes, I am done is also when the freeze can deepen. Your brain sees the next chapter clearly. But your body is still calibrated for the life you are leaving. That is not a flaw. That is biology.

A horse does not bolt from panic. It moves when the field feels clear. When it senses its own strength.

You do not need to override your freeze. You need to build the safety that lets your fire move.

One more episode in this series coming next week, and it is a special one.

Where are you right now in the shed-to-stride arc? We would love to hear.