I was on a coaching call with a client this morning—a brilliant, high-achieving founder who, like so many women I work with, has built something extraordinary. She's got the business, the beautiful family, the life that looks perfect from the outside. And yet, there she was, tangled up in her own resistance.

She told me she'd look at her kids and feel angst. Then she'd look at her business and feel angst. Then she'd look at the week ahead and feel angst. And what became clear in our conversation is that the angst wasn't really about her life at all. It was about her response to having feelings about her life.

The Double Layer of Emotion

Here's what I've noticed with so many of the women I coach: you're not actually struggling with your life. You're struggling with the fact that you think you shouldn't be feeling what you're feeling.

You look at your sweet kids and think, "I love them, but they're exhausting." Then immediately: "I shouldn't feel that way."

You look at your packed schedule and think, "This feels like a lot." Then: "But I chose this. Why am I overwhelmed?"

You're compounding emotion with judgment. The temporary feeling of "oh my god, I have so much going on this week" becomes fuel for "what's wrong with me that I feel this way?" And that second layer—the resistance, the self-criticism, the should-ing all over yourself—that's what creates the suffering.

The original emotion? That's just being human. The angst about the angst? That's what we need to address.

You're Not Broken. You're Wired Differently.

I've coached some of the highest-performing entrepreneurs in the world—people you'd recognize, people who've built empires. And there's a common thread among all of them: a certain quality I call "being compelled."

You lock in on something. You commit to an outcome. And you will not fail—not because failure doesn't happen, but because you trust the process so deeply that you know if it doesn't work the first time, you'll figure out why and try again. You know it's going to work. You just have to discover how.

This quality probably isn't new for you. Maybe it showed up in sports as a kid, or in school, or in your first career. And then entrepreneurship gave you a place where this intensity could really express itself—where it could matter, where it could create impact.

What's interesting is that you have this unwavering commitment to the "right" outcome in your business. You trust the iterations. You believe in the long game. But then you turn that same intensity on yourself as a human being and suddenly it becomes self-flagellation.

You beat yourself up for having feelings. For not being "on" all the time. For looking at your kids while thinking about work. For feeling distracted or overwhelmed or human.

But here's what I want you to understand: the very quality that makes you exceptional in business—that deep knowing, that commitment, that intensity—requires a huge amount of energy. It's heavy sometimes. And that's not a flaw. That's just the truth of what it takes.

You Were Meant for This

Here's where I'm going to get a little woo-woo on you.

I call my program The Sage CEO for a reason. I believe there are women who are here—meaning on this planet—to be the sages. To be the women who know things, who carry a certain wisdom that they might not even fully understand themselves at first.

You've probably had this knowing since you were young. And as you've gotten older, as you've accumulated more experience and maturity, it's helped you flesh out what you already knew to be true.

Being a sage means you naturally rise to a level of influence in your space. People look to you. Your insights matter. And through that experience, through that role, you're able to heal and help others in ways that really count.

But being a sage is heavy sometimes. You feel things deeply. You sense things others don't. You ask yourself, "Why am I doing this when I don't have to?" And the answer is: because this is what you're here for.

Every sage needs a sage. You've done a beautiful job seeking out your own guides and mentors. You understand that even the wisest among us need support, reflection, and someone who can see us clearly.

The Invitation

So here's the shift I'm inviting you to make.

Stop analyzing your life from the outside. Stop standing apart from yourself, judging whether you're feeling the "right" things or showing up the "right" way.

You're sensitive. You know things. You feel things. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. All of that is part of it. It's not a bug in your system—it's the operating system itself.

In the big picture, you are here for big things. You can argue against that or you can lean into it. You can keep resisting the emotions you feel as a human, or you can allow them without letting them define your rightness or wrongness.

Your business gives you a place for that intensity, that knowing, that commitment to excellence. It gives you a place to express what you were put here to express. Rather than giving yourself a hard time about the energy it requires, what if you simply acknowledged: this is what it takes. This is who I am. This is what I'm here for.

Stop looking at your life. Start living it.

You don't need to fix yourself. You don't need to stop feeling what you feel. You just need to stop making it mean something's wrong.

Because nothing is wrong. You're exactly where you're supposed to be, feeling exactly what you're supposed to feel, doing exactly what you were put here to do.

Now stop looking and start living.

Subscribe to The Curious Sage and every week, you'll receive two essays drawn directly from my work with accomplished female founders and CEOs—the real conversations happening inside The Sage CEO program and the real moments Sage Women Leaders face in life and in business. Subscribe today for just $13 per month.

 Subscribe to The Curious Sage