This week's unbounding
—BREAKING THROUGH FEELING STUCK
The story holding you back
"I'm out of my depth. Making decisions used to be straightforward, but now everything seems ambiguous. Small choices have massive consequences, while major initiatives barely move the needle. I'm afraid of making the wrong decision."
How it shows up: the signals
Your body tightens. You fidget. You can't stop.
Your breath becomes shallow.
Your mind races through countless scenarios in the middle of the night.
You procrastinate on decisions or overanalyze until you're exhausted.
Your shoulders feel like cement, trying to hold the weight of unpredictability.
You notice yourself feeling annoyed when teammates present simplified cause-and-effect relationships.
"It's not that simple!" your body screams, while you stay silent.
You carry this tension home, where it shows up as impatience with loved ones or difficulty being present.
I heard some version of this from 8 different clients this week. Eight!
What's really happening
Your nervous system has shifted into fight or flight state.
This isn't just regular stress—it's a specific response to nonlinearity and incomprehensibility. Your brain is designed to seek patterns, and it can't find any.
Why? The BANI world opposes patterns.
The result? Cognitive dissonance triggers a threat response at the physiological level.
Think about it at your company. I bet it mirrors this response.
Your team oscillates between rigid control (grasping for certainty) and chaotic reactivity (surrendering to overwhelm and ceaseless firefighting 🔥). This collective dysregulation manifests as cultural brittleness—appearing strong until suddenly shattering under pressure.
The shift you can make
Let me share a client story that might resonate with you, Reader.
Alex (not their real name) came to me paralyzed by decision-making in their leadership. They wouldn't move without 100% of the data. Their team languished in limbo for months. The pressure mounted from the exec team and within themselves, creating a constant state of anxiety and imposter syndrome that rippled into every area of life.
"I can't make this decision until I have all the data," they told me with anxious edginess.
What Alex discovered through our work together was profound: the problem wasn't lack of data—it was lack of connection to their body.
Their intuition.
As we worked through needs, values, and accessing their Unbounded Self, something incredible happened.
Alex began making decisions—starting small, like what to serve at their birthday party (rather than seeking everyone's buy-in first), and progressively scaling to significant choices that saved their company tens of thousands of dollars monthly.
The most profound shift? It wasn't the decisions.
It was what's happening on a deeper level. Alex reported feeling "lighter, more in control of my life, unstuck, and finally giving myself permission to do what I really want."
Here's the truth Alex discovered:
Your body already knows how to navigate the BANI world. Long before humans developed strategic planning frameworks, our nervous systems evolved to handle unpredictability. The key isn't trying to force a framework onto the world—it's learning to access your regulated presence as your most reliable guide.
In The CALM Way framework, this is the foundation of Phase 1: Connect & Center. Establish regulated presence to create the conditions you need to make intuitive decisions amid nonlinearity.
From insight to action
—REFLECTION
Reader, when did you make a decision from a regulated state that turned out well, despite limited information?
How did it feel in your body to make that decision?
Reflect. Write. Use it to strengthen your decision-making.
💡 Bonus: I made this handy little toolkit (for free!) to help you tap into a body-first approach for important decisions, too. ↴
I hope today was helpful. If you're feeling stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, or [fill in the blank], you're not alone, Reader. I've got you—and more importantly—you've already got it within yourself 🫶🏽