Flow vs Fear - Your Nervous System might be stalling you.

Fear Is a Prison Cell:

Ever wish you had a collapsible sword, not to fight anyone, but to slice through the racing thoughts in your head and teleport yourself to a tropical island, book in hand, blue waves gently rolling in, the soft sand under your feet? (Funny how fast your brain just went there - right?)

Meanwhile, back in reality, you're in yet another “urgent” meeting. Tension is thick. The undercurrent is unspoken but obvious. People trying to look calm while calculating risk, budget cuts, and their place in the new order, the new season of AI.

CEOs are pushing agendas everyone knows are unrealistic. Teams are trying to survive. Executives are trying to lead through chaos while privately stressed under the weight of their responsibility..

Everyone’s pretending to be fine. No one is fine.

Picture me one Monday, stuck in a glass-walled boardroom with ten execs, arguing about staffing cuts and product forecasts. This wasn’t a strategy session. It felt like a tiger pit.

The Invisible Health Crisis Behind the Corner Office

It’s more than stress. It’s an epidemic that’s wrecking executives’ bodies, minds, and careers:

• 55% of CEOs admit they’ve faced mental-health challenges in the past year, and 52% say their own workplace culture is toxic
  (Harvard Business Review, 2023 and Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends, 2024)
  
  
• 83% of American workers report suffering from work-related stress, and 65% say it’s a very significant source of anxiety
  (American Institute of Stress, 2023)
  
  
• U.S. employee engagement hit a ten-year low in 2024, with only 31% truly engaged and 17% actively disengaged
  (Gallup State of the Workplace, 2024)

• 120,000 U.S. deaths each year are linked to workplace stress, from heart attacks to strokes
  (Goh, Pfeffer & Zenios, Stanford / Harvard Study, 2015)

These numbers aren’t abstract. They’re your racing heart before a Friday briefing. The knot in your stomach on a Sunday evening. The jaw tension you pretend isn’t there.

The Corporate Cage

I walked into that National Role thinking I had it all figured out. I’d led teams, hit targets, even pioneered new revenue streams. But the time came when the whispers of financial trouble in the company erupted into toxic memos and back-stabbing politics. Allies turned on each other. Every email felt like a landmine.  

Weekends offered no escape. I lay awake at each ping, convinced the next message spelled my exit. Birthdays, backyard barbecues, lazy afternoons... they all slipped away while I fought to keep a sinking ship afloat.

Then came the redundancies. The year after I was laid off. I’d get the kids to school. Come home and flop into an anxious job search while my mind raced through worst-case scenarios. No job. No income. No safety net. My whole identity had been tied up in that role.

Afternoons were for cooking dinner, helping with homework, and pretending everything was fine. At night, I just longed to sleep for the next ten years.

That’s when I realised - I had to create an income that was redundancy proof. I needed to pull out of myself every reserve, every bit of faith, every dream - and find something deep down that would give my kids the life I wanted them to have.

It’s Not About Another Job Search

You’ve polished your resume. Tapped your network. Maybe even spoken to a headhunter.

But the missing piece isn’t another role. It’s learning how to slow your thoughts, hear yourself think, and actually feel safe in your own body again.

I did all that - but came to a point where it was just wasted energy.  I had no back up plan. I had to find another way.

This is about:

• Understanding your subconscious thoughts are driving your actual income
  
  
• Not knowing how to calm your nervous system
  
  
• Lowering the mental load so you can experience moments of peace and clarity
  
  
• Realising your value isn’t tied to a logo or a LinkedIn headline

• Unlocking your higher self - the part of you that  finds solutions to a problem in a way that no one else can. Problems that people will pay you to fix. And pay you well.

• Building a Personal Brand so strong it draws the right audience and offers even in silence.
  
  
• Rewire your body  - through flow habits and techniques, so fear based thoughts don’t hijack your decisions anymore

• Find new environments or groups where the best of you is celebrated, applauded and encouraged. You’ll know it when you feel safe to express yourself. You won’t question your ideas. You’ll be co-regulating inside healthy relationships.
  
  

“The Inner Game is the Main Game”

Before the world believes in you again, you have to believe it first.

It’s all about calming the internal battle. Every great inventor, orator and world leader knew this. You have to be the kind of person who, in any storm - sees possibilities and leads with deep certainty.

That certainty isn’t found in your next role. It’s inside you. 

From Burnout to Flow (What Steven Kotler Reveals)

In Stealing Fire, Steven Kotler explains how burnout begins when the brain’s stress response stays on too long. The amygdala, your threat detector, keeps firing. Cortisol floods your body. 

The prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for decision-making and creativity, goes offline.

Over time, this constant stress even shrinks the hippocampus, affecting memory, learning, and emotional regulation
(Kotler & Wheal, 2017, p. 52).

But when you're in flow, the body switches from survival to high performance. 

You drop into deep focus, calm, and creative power because of a potent mix of neurochemicals:

• Dopamine for motivation and pattern recognition
  
  
• Norepinephrine for heightened attention
  
  
• Endorphins for natural calm
  
  
• Anandamide for lateral thinking and problem solving
  
  

Flow also creates what Kotler calls transient hypofrontality
(p. 67), a temporary quieting of the inner critic and analytical overthinking. In that moment, you move with unshakable clarity.

How to Trigger Flow (Kotler’s Four Conditions)

1. High Stakes – The task must matter, but not terrify
   
   
2. Deep Embodiment – Get grounded in your body through breath or movement
   
   
3. Clear Goals and Immediate Feedback – Your brain needs to know what “done” looks like
   
   
4. Focused Attention – Remove distractions so your system can stabilise
   
   

Designing your day around these principles rebuilds your capacity to focus, create, and lead without collapse.

Rewire with Neuro-Resonance™ 

Neuro-Resonance is a methodology which incorporates spiritual intelligence, flow science and neuro-marketing  to shift you from stress loops into flow loops and to increase your focus, certainty and confidence about your value, Brand and business.

Some of these include:

• Nervous System rewire strategies
• Breathwork
  Micro-meditations
• Daily flow habits and rituals to focus and concentrate
• Decision making techniques
• Prophetic visualisations and impartation
• Peak Performance Flow Coaching
• Neuro-emotional activities and grids
• Evening reflections
• Money belief strategies
• Nervous system resets
• Prophetic, faith based activities,
• Emotional rewire techniques
• Reverse engineering strategies for income and money beliefs
• Brain resets and fear reversal strategies
  
  

Daily rituals. Not just theory. 

When your body feels safe you function at peak performance:

Three Dopamine-Hitting Flow Triggers

1. Two-Breath Reset
   Before a high-stakes conversation or decision, inhale for four counts and exhale for six. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, drops your heart rate, and sharpens clarity.
   
   
2. Micro-Goal Mastery
   Set a tiny win in motion. Send a thank-you. Write 100 words. Celebrate the completion. It rewards your brain with dopamine and reinforces action as safety.
   
   
3. Purpose Ping
   Pause mid-afternoon. Picture a future moment: closing a deal, helping your team, finishing the book. This activates motivation circuitry and reminds your body why this matters.
   
   

Check Your Circle: 

One of the core principles to success is your circle of relationships.

But how often do you audit your relationships?

Have you been somehow swept into a dynamic where you feel out of control, undervalued or overgiving?

There are 2 types of people:

The Over-givers: 

These are the go-to people. The leaders. The ones who carry the responsibility, weight and care for others.

The Takers: 

The Takers always find the Over Givers and use them to meet their needs. The over-takers are focused on their own needs before others. They are often master manipulators.. They don’t have a big enough emotional capacity for thinking about others. They operate from victim, combat or narcissistic tendencies.

The Over Givers see themselves as the saviours. They have a huge capacity. They are mission driven. Spiritually gifted. Intelligent. Talented. Highly intuitive, and most often the casualties of corporate toxicity. Why? Because they always put their needs last. Their leaders know they will get it done. Nothing changes until they fall apart.  They don’t as feel comfortable ‘receiving’ as they do in ‘giving’.  This is often due to the fact that they have built resilience, learned to cope on auto-pilot, and genuinely add huge value to the lives of others.

They come to see themselves in this way. Putting on the leader, CEO, coach, consultant hat. And forgetting they are human with deep needs that are often unfulfilled.

However the cost is high. They can often find themselves in a health crisis. (The Body Keeps the Score).  They may end up losing a role and falling apart. Or being used, undervalued and overwhelmed because they say yes to too often, ignoring their own needs.  Overcompensating for people in their team who are either too lazy or incompetent to do their own job well enough.

They want to feel in control. But this control intrinsically links them to a life of burnout, stress or anxiety. Because the job never ends. 

I find myself often working with the Over Givers. Why? Because I get them. I was one. I am still learning to receive. I personally LOVE The Over Givers. They are incredible human beings. They really have so much to offer.

Here’s what I want to say to you if you’re an Over Giver.

• Start to listen to your body. Not just your mind. I had to learn somatic tools to even reconnect with my body again. It was powerful. I cried for the first time in 3 years. It was a beautiful release.

• Find someone who has the capacity to listen to you talk about your own needs.Without making anything about them. 

• Be brave enough to be vulnerable. Find people who are invested in YOU! This means laying down your guard, being vulnerable and being ok with not having it all together.  Don’t let your ego get in the way of this. You’ll be amazed how many incredible people are out there who will still admire you - even more because you’re being yourself. They will feel more connected to you and you’re giving them the chance to share their gifts with you. If it means you have to pay someone - do it! You will begin to feel again. To enjoy life.

If you don’t start to invest in yourself - you might find yourself disconnected from others, isolated, lonely, anxious, spiralling or just plain burned out.

The hidden cost of being an Over-Giver is that your kids, your friends, your family all stop noticing that you’re exhausted.  Everyone gets used to seeing you fix it. And they wont feel as connected to you as they would if they see the real you. Because they know somethings wrong. So don’t kid yourself and think you putting on a brave face is hiding the fact that you’re crying on the inside.   Your martyr behaviour might just cause those around you who look up to you to start their own burnout cycle and model your behaviour. Is that what you want for them?

Are you an Over Giver? If so - I’ve found this. The Over Givers are the ones who respond with large leaps ahead when they are in the right coaching environment. When they are seen, heard and unlocked.

The Over Givers are often in a frustrating transition - not loving where they are at but growth minded, passionate and desperate to share their gifts with the world.

You might be in a C-level role, or a Founder who is exhausted. 

If that’s you - this is your opportunity.

This is your moment to pivot direction, still giving but enjoying life again.

Relationship Audit

You’re not just tired. You’re absorbing nervous systems that keep you stuck.

Audit tip:

List your top five closest relationships.
Rate how they make you feel (–5 = drained, +5 = energised).

Double down on +4s and +5s. Set boundaries on the rest.

Start to get used to testing your vulnerability.  If you find the right people - you’ll begin to feel like you have a safe space to co-regulate.

Burnout is not a badge of honour.

Your Personal Brand Is Your Powerbase:

When the company crumbles, your Brand remains. It goes with you everywhere.

I think of Personal Brand as your Legacy message. What you want to leave the world with.

It’s how Board seats, Strategic invitations, and aligned Clients find you, even before your LinkedIn loads.

A strong Personal Brand:

• Protects your influence when circumstances shift
  
  
• Attracts aligned, high-leverage opportunities
  
  
• Builds legacy beyond your current role
  
  

You didn’t survive the tiger pit to disappear now.

Employee Mentality Vs Entrepreneurial Mindset

Think of yourself as a Brand, not an employee.

Own your income - regardless of whether you’re employed by someone or doing your own thing.

We are mostly trained to have employee mentality - this means we wait for someone to ‘feed us’ our income.

If you’re going to survive in this brave new world - you will need to learn to think like an entrepreneur.  

Identify ways you add value to your organisation. List the traits you know you have which have added $$$ or reduced costs, or changed culture.

If no-one else is recognising you - its time to recognise what you are worth.

Three Dopamine-Hitting Money Rewires

1. Interrupt the Freeze with a Tiny Transaction
   When survival mode kicks in, even thinking about money can trigger a shutdown. Offer something small, not to earn, but to reconnect your body with safe receiving.
   
   

Why it works: 

A micro-offer or exchange calms the nervous system, activates your ventral vagal state, and retrains your body to associate visibility with safety.

1. Map the Moment You Linked Worth to Risk
   
   

Instead of pushing new beliefs, trace the origin. 

When was the first time asking, receiving, or wanting more felt unsafe? 

Write it down without fixing it.

Why it works: 

Naming the imprint reduces limbic charge and lets your prefrontal cortex re-engage. This is how subconscious scarcity patterns get disarmed.

1. Create a Proof Pattern Folder

Curate a folder with screenshots, wins, compliments, roles, feedback, and receipts of your power. Read it weekly.

Why it works: The reticular activating system in your brain begins filtering for more of what it already believes. Repetition plus emotion equals identity upgrade.

Craft the Strategy That Matches Your Calling

I work with C-level execs, Consultants, and successful Founders to create habits and strategies to align their nervous systems, reposition their Brand identities, develop powerful messaging, Offer and Revenue opportunities, and build cultures of peak performance, without the burnout.

Book a Call to have a yarn about your needs: 

www.louisetaylorglobal.com

About Louise Taylor

Louise Taylor is a 7-figure entrepreneur, CEO, neuro-strategist, and international speaker who built her first six-figure business while nine months pregnant after losing everything. She’s advised high-performing CEOs, founders, and global organisations across seven countries, blending brain science, spiritual insight, and sales mastery. Louise is the creator of the NeuroResonance Method and a trusted mentor for elite leaders ready to align their mission with their nervous system, message, and income.

She works with C-Suite execs, founders, and visionary advisors ready to build a brand that reflects their calling and lead from inner stillness, not external chaos.

Copyright © Louise Taylor 2025 

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