You Don’t Need a Sabbatical — You Need a Nervous System That Trusts You

Tracy Tutty [00:00:02]:

You know the edge I’m talking about? That quiet tension that hums beneath the surface. The one that has you rewriting your team strategy at 10pm because, well, it’s quicker if I do it. Or the subtle brace before opening yet another urgent email. And then there’s the morning login. The screen flares to Life and. And 130 unread messages stare back at you like tiny red alarms. You don’t know which, if any, of those are actually urgent. Your test tightens before you even realise it.

Tracy Tutty [00:00:38]:

Your breathing shifts fast, shallow, high in your chest. And it feels like your lungs have shrunk by half of this. There’s no space to take a full breath without slipping through your fingers. Your body leans forward, ready to solve, ready to respond, ready to control. And before you’ve even opened that first email, your biology is already on the clock. You’re not burnt out, you’re brilliant. But your biology is tired of being your bodyguard. For high performing women, this edge often hides behind excellence.

Tracy Tutty [00:01:14]:

You’re celebrated for being composed, capable, calm under pressure. But what no one sees is the vast amount of energy it takes to hold it all together. The sleepless nights where your brain replays conversations at 3am, the Sunday wobbles when the week ahead starts whispering before the weekend’s even finished. That tooth brushing, anxiety at night, that quick surge of alertness just as you’re winding down, when your body senses the stillness and mistakes it for danger. And then in the early hours, around 1 or 2am, the real chemistry kicks in. Your cortisol begins to rise earlier than it’s needed. It’s your biology showing up for tomorrow’s challenges before tomorrow’s even begun. A body arriving early for a responsibility it doesn’t need to carry.

Tracy Tutty [00:02:11]:

Yet that early surge pulls you awake around 3am, heart racing, mind already sprinting. It’s not weakness, it’s your nervous system doing what it’s been trained to do to protect you through control. It’s not failure, it’s physiology. Your body has learned that control equals safety. And now it’s doing its job a little too well. Right? So let’s be honest about the biology. When you’ve spent years equating responsibility with worthiness, your body begins to wire success to vigilance. You hit a goal and your brain doesn’t relax.

Tracy Tutty [00:02:51]:

It says, good, now, don’t drop it. You get praise from the board, recognition from your team, the promotion you worked for. But your nervous system doesn’t celebrate. It scans for the next threat. It’s like Crossing a finish line and immediately being told to stop, start another lap. So when someone suggests take a break, you’ve earned it. Your body doesn’t register safety. It hears danger.

Tracy Tutty [00:03:19]:

Because stopping feels like exposure. And that’s why the holiday doesn’t fix it. Because the moment you finally stop, your body crashes. You get sick in the first 48 hours, or maybe you spend the next three to five days trying to feel like you’re on holiday. And then, just as your system begins to settle, it’s time to come home again. And the retreat doesn’t fix it either, because you’ve already done the things right. You’ve done the yoga, the meditation, the therapy, the breath work. And they work beautifully in the room.

Tracy Tutty [00:03:53]:

But back in real life, your nervous system slips back into its old choreography, the one that confuses control with safety. It’s not coincidence, it’s chemistry. Your nervous system has been operating in overdrive for so long that when you remove the structure, it interprets rest as threat. The immune system, no longer flooded with stress hormones, finally gets permission to do its backlog of repair. And that holiday cold. Well, it’s your body saying, okay, now that you’ve stopped, I can finally catch up. And maybe that’s the real revelation. You don’t need another reset.

Tracy Tutty [00:04:35]:

You get to remind your biology that safety isn’t earned through control. Because control feels safe, but it isn’t the same as being regulated. And when your nervous system confuses productivity with protection, success starts to feel like survival. And this is where your next evolution begins. Not by pushing harder push. But by teaching your body that safety doesn’t live in control, it lives in coherence. So what do I mean by coherence? Well, coherence is when your internal state, your biology, your identity, your breath, it aligns with your external role, your leadership, your influence. And when that happens, you don’t need to act calm.

Tracy Tutty [00:05:20]:

You are calm. You don’t need to manage confidence. You embody looks like walking into a high stakes meeting and feeling your breath before you speak and noticing how the room mirrors that steadiness back to you. It’s the difference between reacting to a crisis email and responding from regulation. Voice lower pace, slower clarity intact. It’s catching the team’s anxious energy before it snowballs. And instead of absorbing it, your presence steadies it. It’s ending the day without the adrenaline hangover.

Tracy Tutty [00:06:01]:

Because your system never left safety to lead. Your body’s no longer performing composure. It is composure. Your system finally understands that you’re not in danger. When you’re at ease, you’re in mastery. And that shift from vigilance to regulation is what turns leadership from effort into art. Because coherence creates safety. Our teams feel our nervous system calibration.

Tracy Tutty [00:06:32]:

They read it in the micro pauses between your words, the cadence of your emails, the steadiness of your gaze. So when we lead from coherence, their systems subconsciously match ours. Heart rate slow, shoulders drop. Decision making clears. That’s why coherence creates safety. Because regulation is contagious. This is the quiet core of servant leadership. Self regulation becoming collective regulation not through control or charisma, but naturally through biology.

Tracy Tutty [00:07:10]:

Your coherence gives others permission to find their own true. Leadership isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. When your biology and your brilliance start working together instead of against each other, your power stops being expensive. It becomes effortless. And this is exactly what we explore inside. Revitalise my private, one on one neuro identity coaching partnership. And it is a partnership between you and me.

Tracy Tutty [00:07:41]:

It’s not about stress management, it’s about dissolving the invisible contracts your body signed to keep you safe. The ones that whisper, if I let go, I’ll lose control. Or if I slow down, I’ll lose relevance. As a medical herbalist and neuro identity coach, I combine subconscious repatterning with physiological calibration so your power stops costing you your piece. We work at that intersection of biology and belief, inviting your nervous system to trust your success. This isn’t life coaching, it’s leadership recoding. And it’s for women who are ready to hold more without holding their breath. Because you don’t need to fix yourself.

Tracy Tutty [00:08:28]:

You’re already exceptional. You’re simply evolving into a form of leadership that your nervous system can finally sustain. So how do you begin this work? We’ll start with micro moments of exhale before you reply to that urgent email. Pause, inhale. Feel your feet on the ground. Remind your system we’re safe. I’m leading, not surviving. Delegate one task today, not because you can’t do it, but because your next level of leadership doesn’t require you to let yourself take that walk after lunch.

Tracy Tutty [00:09:09]:

Let yourself finish a thought before you fill the next space with productivity. These are nervous system recalibrations that are designed as ordinary moments. Tiny acts of coherence that teach your biology. That ease is safe now. Success is not a threat. And as that belief lands in your body, leadership starts to feel different. Quieter, cleaner, sharper. You stop managing your energy, you start amplifying it.

Tracy Tutty [00:09:42]:

You stop performing resilience you become it. Think of this as your gentle reminder. You don’t need to escape shape your success to enjoy it. You simply get to teach your nervous system to trust it. You get to experience leadership that feels coherent, sharp, grounded and unshakably alive. You get to trust that your biology and your brilliance are finally on the same team. Because true power isn’t held, it’s harmonised. Revitalise is open now for private enrolment.

Tracy Tutty [00:10:18]:

You’ll find the link to apply down below. And if this episode resonated, share it with the woman who never looks tired, but whose eyes hold the quiet weight of being the reliable one. Because she doesn’t need a sabbatical either. She gets to have nervous system that trusts her success. Until next time. Breathe deeply. Intentionally luxuriate in that breath. Your brilliance is safe here.

Tracy Tutty [00:10:51]:

Bye for now.