What was missed for me. For years. It might be missing for you, too.
I knew something was wrong. I can remember being in middle school and thinking that my body doesn't seem to bounce back like others.
I mean, I was generally healthy and active. Yet, there was this underlying exhaustion and chronic tension in my muscles that just didn't seem normal.
Something in my body wasn't working the way it was supposed to, and no matter what I tried, nothing stuck.
So, over the years, as you can imagine, I tried a lot of things.
I’m a thinker. I fix things.
Massage therapy. Cranial sacral therapy. Physical therapy. Occupational therapy. Red light therapy. Talk Therapy (CBT). Somatic Therapy.
Reiki. Chiropractic. Acupressure. Acupuncture. Dry needling. Sauna. Botox injections to stop the contracting muscles in my traps. Nervous system work.
Honestly, I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some. Every modality that made sense to me, I whole heartedly embraced. I truly wanted to find the thing that would hold for me.
I'm not someone who dabbles. I showed up to figure out what was going on for me, for my healing, pretty much the way I show up for everything.
Fully and consistently. For years.
And still my body kept bracing.
The thing was, it wasn't just when I was stressed. My body was tight all the time.
My shoulders were tense when I was just relaxing on the couch on an ordinary evening that was supposed to feel peaceful.
My jaw clenched during a lovely concert where I truly enjoyed the music and was fully present.
And the worst... My back and neck braced even in my sleep. I'd wake every morning already exhausted, in pain, because my body was waiting for the next shoe to drop.
And when I brought this to the people who I looked to for support, I heard the same refrain.
You need to be more patient. Do it longer.
You need to be more precise. Do it better.
Oh, you're not doing the right practice. Try something different.
Literally the same litany. It didn't matter the system. Medical. Psychological. Social circles. Well meaning family members.
I know they all meant well.
And yet: intent doesn't necessarily equal impact.
Every time I was handed that message, it reinforced what I had learned early on, long before I had words.
You see, I grew up in a small town where my father was the pastor, and my every move was noticed by everyone.
True story: I lived on Main Street, in a house with over 300 window panes facing the road and the church. My entire existence was on display for the town and the congregation.
From a very early age, I learned that being watched and being witnessed are not the same thing.
I learned to read a room before I could read a book.
And all those protocols I was doing to make myself feel better? They kept telling me to relax. To just let it go.
I couldn't do any of that because my system never developed an off switch.
I'd been built for continuous duty. It was baked in.
I didn't have a broken nervous system, like I was told. My system was doing exactly what it was designed to do. And it was designed to stay on.
My little nervous system grew in conditions that genuinely required it to be always on.
Most of the protocols out there are designed for a nervous system that occasionally gets activated and then recovers.
Mine didn't do that. Mine was always on. Not from anxious thinking or cognitive overdrive. Something much older than that.
And nobody, not the doctors who ran the tests, not the therapists who listened carefully, not the practitioners who offered their best techniques, nobody saw that.
The tests came back normal. I was sent home fine. But not fixed. For over 47 years.
What I eventually came to understand: This wasn't a failure of my effort or patience or the right technique.
It was a sequencing problem.
You can't soften a system that's never developed an off switch.
A signal was missing and it had a name.
Complete Witnessing. I wrote about it here, if you'd like to learn more.
At a high level, Complete Witnessing is when someone sees you for what you did and acknowledges that it mattered. Your effort is seen, and the cost of that effort matters too.
That was one of the things my system had been waiting for.
It might be one of the things yours is waiting for, too.
And your symptoms might not look like mine. Bracing doesn't always live in your muscles. It might live in your gut, or in the tiredness that no amount of sleep can fix, or in the flat, empty feeling after you've done something hard and done it beautifully.
If you're a high-achieving woman who holds it all together at work and at home, and you've tried everything and you're still not recovering the way you should...
If things feel chronically harder than they should for someone with good habits and healthy routines...
If you feel wound tight even when nothing is technically wrong...
If you've been told there's nothing to see here...
If the tools you've been using have felt like they were built for someone else, it's because they probably were.
I see you. I see the effort and time you've spent to feel more like yourself.
And I get how demoralizing it feels when that effort doesn't move the needle.
Your efforts need to stick. Your capacity deserves to match your capability.
The work I do is built for you.
And if you want my take on your particular situation, The Living by Design Session is where we start.
It's real coaching, not a discovery call. 50 minutes to take a look at what you've been carrying, in the full context of your very full life.
This is where you'll finally understand why other protocols and strategies haven't quite hit the mark.
And if you're quietly thinking 'I can't go through the whole intake process again before I get to the actual help'... I don't blame you and you don't have to. Bring me what you've got. I'll take it from there.
The session is $150, and if we decide that continuing our work together is the right next step, the fee applies toward the full investment.
Lisa Bobyak founded Living Fully Balanced LLC because she got tired of watching brilliant women break themselves trying to maintain excellence, in part because she'd been one of them. For over a decade, she's worked with high-achieving, deeply attuned women who are doing everything right. Competent, disciplined, and highly self-aware. Armed with strategies, protocols, and solid habits. The level of their exhaustion doesn't match their effort to feel better.
If you're a high-achieving woman who's tired of working harder at your own wellbeing than you work at everything else... you don't have to break yourself to prove your worth.
Here are some things to consider:
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