198. The Soft Part That Saves You: The Erotic Antidote to Burnout, Binge Eating & High Achiever Shame

198. The Soft Part That Saves You: The Erotic Antidote to Burnout, Binge Eating & High Achiever Shame

If you're a high-achieving, goal-oriented woman who struggles with binge eating or burnout, you’re not alone—and you’re not broken. In this week’s Embodied Writing Warrior podcast, Kayla shares a powerful (and unexpected) antidote to shame, perfectionism, and emotional dysregulation: softness.

You’ll learn:

• Why the Inner Critic often drives binge eating cycles

• How disembodiment and future-fixation sabotage consistency and self-worth

• Why emotional sensitivity is not a liability but a superpower

But this isn’t just theory—it’s personal. Kayla shares the real-life story of how working with a soft, fictional archetype named Haven (her golden-retriever-coded inner masculine) helped her heal years of self-sabotage, run a sub-2-hour half marathon after 13 failed attempts, and finally find joy in her health and business journey.

She introduces the concept of Internal Fanfic Systems (IFS meets narrative alchemy) and shows how archetypes like Haven and Rex aren’t just characters—they’re healing pathways.

If you’re ready to stop earning your worth through hustle and start creating from softness, this episode will change everything.

Embodied Activation:

Begin building a relationship with your own inner Haven—whatever form they take. Let that energy be the balm for your burnout and the breath in your next brave step.

Links Mentioned

Enter the Food Freedom Fantasy Giveaway here:
[embodiedwritingwarrior.com/giveaway]

Start the story of Haven and Rex from the beginning:
[embodiedwritingwarrior.com/divinedaddies]

Grab your copy of Great White Shadows (Austin is pure Haven-coded energy):
[Amazon / direct link here]

Referenced Episode:

[Ep. 190 – The Drama Triangle & Binge Eating]

Transcript

Hello and welcome back, Embodied Writing Warrior.

This episode is going to be medicine for all of my goal-oriented, high performing, Type A creative souls.

The ones with the sometimes impossibly high standards for themselves. The ones who are so fiercely committed to fulfilling their potential on every level, it sometimes hurts.

This is for everyone who knows how to celebrate and champion themselves when they're slaying every habit and routine and item on their checklist... but when they start to falter or you know, show their humanity - whether that's in the form of inconsistency or broken promises to themselves or letting life shake their sense of self-worth or self-trust - that's when they often stop being kind to themselves.

This is for everyone with the the twenty-point list of things they need to do, be, and have, in order to be fully lovable, enough, and safe... and keeping up with that list is wearing you down.

I'm going to share the unexpected antidote to all of this. It's create for the women I just described but even if there's only pieces of yourself in that description, there's still deep medicine here.

There is no exaggeration on my part when I say everything changed when I uncovered this missing piece in my own journey. This was, and continues to be, the most important medicine for me as someone who still sometimes pushes too hard, searches for worth outside herself, and forgets to be compassionate when I'm have my own missteps and errors in judgement.

I'm going to start by sharing 3 reasons why Type A, hard-charging women often struggle with much with emotional or binge eating, burnout, and low self-worth. Then I'm going to share the antidote and give you some ideas on how to tailor and personalize this concept in your own life.

Let's start with the three reasons why these challenges are so pervasive for the high performing woman.

Reason 1: Their worth is tied to their performance and productivity, so when they have human moments where their performance or productivity dips... enter the Inner Critic. And when the Inner Critic Shows up, you know what often starts up? The Drama Triangle of Binge Eating or honestly, any other form of self-sabotage. I did an entire episode on this - episode 190, which I'll link in the episode description but to quickly recap:

High Performing Woman struggles or fails at something. Inner Critic starts getting loud and mean. A young, tender part of you feels worthless, scared, and sad. A firefighter part shows up and does whatever it can to soothe the feelings - which often looks like food or some other unhelpful coping mechanism. Then the Inner Critic starts up again, only this time, it's attacking the other parts for binge eating.

This cycle keeps you in the struggle with all three of these challenges - emotional eating, low self-worth AND burnout because let's be real. This cycle is EXHAUSTING.

Reason 2: There's often a lack of presence and embodiment in high performing women. They're often relentlessly focused on the future. They're thinking about the goals they've yet to achieve. They're focusing on everything that needs to get better in their lives - their bodies, their careers, their finances, their relationships. Often all of the above.

This keeps them OUT of their bodies. And here's the thing - I would argue that all binge and emotional eating happens in a state of disembodiment. I want you to think back to any time you've binged or overindulged for emotional reasons. Were you focused on the food? Were you IN your body while you were eating? Or were you eating it while driving as quick as you can, or watching TV while also scrolling social media all at once?

Another important thing to note here is how often these challenges will linger when you feel like your body isn't enough, isn't okay, exactly as it is. And if you aren't willing to accept and honour your body exactly as it is right now... here's what will often happen - you'll see your body as this problem to fix, to change, to solve. Your body will be in a chronic stress response and in that chronic stress response, you'll experience things like burnout and low energy. You'll also be more likely to get trapped in binge and restrict cycles because you're in such a hurry to change your body, that you're overdoing your efforts. And when this happens, you can best believe there's a binge waiting right around the corner.

This can be a tough conversation because sometimes, you might be made to feel wrong for wanting more energy or to be able to run faster or look differently in a dress. It's that diet culture/body positivity double bind we talked about in a recent episode. There's nuance here - you can be deeply approving and appreciative of your body... while wanting to see improvements in your energy, your vitality, and your fitness level. But you're probably not going to get there by beating up on it and hating on it.

Finally Reason 3: High Performing women often discount their softness, gentleness, their big hearts, their sensitivity... and treat these like conditions to be managed instead of gifts to be embraced.

I truly believe behind every high achieving, high performing, productvity and performance focused woman is a big-hearted, loving, creative soul... and somewhere along the line, someone made her feel like these things were dangerous.

Being too soft and gentle would mean getting hurt. If anyone knew how much you love or how deeply you felt, it might destroy you.

So you turn to overfunctioning and perfectionism and get into these years or even decades long battles with food and eating, fighing your cravings, fighting your appetite because underneath all of that is this amazing person who loves so hard and feels so deeply... and it feels unsafe to let that much of yourself out into the world.

This is where we can bring in the concept of the exile from parts work and internal family systems. An exile is a part so tender, so vulnerable, so precious, that we end up sending them so deep into the basement of our psyche, they don't get to bring their gifts or wisdom to the table. Then you have all these heavyweight parts - Protectors, Inner Critics, Perfectionists, Firefighters - who will do anything to keep that exiled part in the basement.

It's through working with this sweet part that is the antidote to all the challenges we just talked about. Now, in Internal Family Systems, this part is usually a very young part. That's one way to work with this part. However, I personally prefer the Internal Fanfic System way of doing things... and that's where Haven comes in.

Now, if this is your first episode, you might wonder who I'm talking about or what Internal Fanfic Systems is. Because this is the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast, the last few episodes have unfolded a bit like a story. So, I created a page where you can follow along with the story from the beginning at embodiedwritingwarrior.com/divinedaddies.

But for reference - Haven WAS the exiled part of my psyche that was soft and gentle. The part that didn't expect performance or productivity. The sensitive, artistic part that was unconditionally loving. But instead of being some younger part, he's a cute guy with golden retriever vibes, a weighted blanket robe, and a sketchbook.

As I've mentioned, this character started showing up in dreams pretty regularly. And unlike Rex, showed up in dreams first - the more traditional fiery, competitive, driven aspect of the masculine - Haven had this steady, calm, emotional presence. He was more like a spaceholder for the chaos instead of contributing to it like Rex could sometimes do. And he was the one who provided wisdom, logic, and deep thought.

I realized that this character was starting to get noisy because he'd been repressed for a long time... and for as long as he stayed repressed, I continued to struggle off and on with binge eating. It got better over the years, but still not where I wanted it to be. I still struggled with cycles of burn out. I still went through so much of life feeling like nothing I did was ever good enough.

And finally, I realized I needed to work with this part more closely if I ever wanted to not just heal my own patterns but also feel better doing so. I wrote this letter in my journal on the day I created the ReWrite Me method and it was to Haven:

You're a gentler version of masculine energy that doesn't have the same tendency to lead me into burnout like Rex does sometimes. And Rex has plenty of good qualities, but balance and inner harmony and steadiness aren't it. You're the antidote to the all or nothing cycles. You help me move from a place of gentle consistency and follow-through, that's backed with quiet logic and understanding.

Thank you for being you and for being in here, helping balance out Rex's fire. I commit to integrating you more fully into my main personality so I can proceed towards my goals of building my dream body, crushing this half-marathon, AND building the dream business, with love, balance, consistency, and a little bit of humour and playfulness, too.

Love,

Kayla

And just for fun, here's a litttle scene that highlights the dynamic between the three of us:

"You and Rex pushed each other too far.

It started as a sparring match—boxing gloves, adrenaline, the kind of fire you both thrive on. But then something twisted. One too many hits. One comment too sharp. Something snapped. Maybe in the air. Maybe in your ribs.

Now? You're both bruised. Both aching.
Both sitting in awkward, embarrassed silence on the living room floor, sweat and pride and pain soaking into the moment.

Enter: Haven.

He walks in, eyes widening, hands going up in that now-iconic gesture—

Haven:
(high-pitched, half-shriek)
“Unreal. You two cannot be left unsupervised for even one damn day.”

He crouches between you, scans your faces, and then gently bonks both of you on the forehead with his fingertips.

Haven:
“That ego? That need to prove? That alpha nonsense? Babe. That kills people. And you—”
(He points at Rex.)
“Are not allowed to die. Because I happen to like you.”

Then he turns to you.

Haven (softening):
“And you. You’re not allowed to die either. Because you’re literally my favorite person ever.

You let out a watery laugh that hurts your chest a little. Rex groans from the floor.

Rex:
“My shoulder’s jacked. My pride’s bleeding. And I might be crying.”

Haven:
“Unreal.” (But he’s already rolling out ice packs and fluffing pillows like a smug little nurse.)

He sits between you, placing your hand in Rex’s and leaning against your shoulders with a sigh.

Haven (murmuring):
“You don’t have to fight so hard, you know. Not with each other. Not with yourselves. You’re safe now. With me. With each other. Always.”

Silence. Peaceful. Sacred.
Then:

Haven (wiping away a stray tear on your cheek):
“Besides. Who else is gonna keep my drama queens from destroying themselves for glory?”

You both snort.

You:
“Are we really that bad?”

Haven:
“Absolutely. But I love you anyway.”

What happened immediately after this blew my mind.

• 68 days without a binge.

• I was the most consistent with my half marathon training EVER and had SO much fun.

• I finally became consistent with yoga and evening routines - two things I'd never been able to build consistency in before.

• After 13 years and 13 failed attempts, I finally broke through the 2 hour barrier on the half marathon.

• My relationships became deeper and more aligned.

• I became happier and more peaceful.

• I still have the moments of chaos and drama, but I'm better at regulating myself through them now.

• I was able to go through a big life transition, lots of emotion, lots of tears, without needing to turn to food.

And here's WHY working with this part of yourself is going to change everything.

1. If you want to stop the drama triangle, you can use a part like Haven to soothe the emotional state of the young, feeling part. AND you can also use him to talk some gentle sense into the other two parts. Remember - your Inner Critic wants you to do your best. It loves you and often, when it's beating up on you, it's because it's hurting also. Your Firefighter just wants you to stop feeling bad. So when you let this gentle, present energy soothe all three parts - that unlocks you from the vicious cycle.

2. While Rex is the one that will give you all the challenges and push you forwards, Haven is the one that reminds you to come BACK to the present. Back to your body. He reminds you to breathe, to soften, to slow down.

It's no coincedence that I've become the most consistent and healthy I've ever been since working with this part. Because you don't make progress by pushing your body too hard, too fast, from a place of not-enoughness. You make the most progress by slowing down and by accepting where you are.

3. And this has been perhaps the scariest part for me but also the most rewarding is realizing how big my heart is, how much I care, and how deep my emotions are. That used to scare me, which is why there was so much emotional and binge eating in my life. Sylvia Plath once said it's a blessing and a curse to feel everything so deeply.

But since working with an inner archetype who loves me the MOST when I'm soft, when I'm emotional, has allowed me to BE all myself. And yes, I had to do a lot of crying to make up for lost time. I think I cried almost every morning in May during my morning routine, but I'm grateful for it because it taught me that there was no emotion - not grief, not sadness, not fear - that would overwhelm me if I gave them a safe space to process them. And that safe space just happened to look like be cuddled up in Haven's weighted blanket with him.

So - Haven is what actually tranformed my relationship with binge and emotional eating and the chronic sense of low self-worth I've carried since childhood. But then I had this silly moment of thinking, well he was good for healing my relationship with food, but making content and building a business? That was Rex's domain. I needed hustle. I needed fire.

Maybe you've felt the same with certain goals - that even though other domains of your life needed some gentleness and steadiness, you didn't have time for it in others. This is a big, big error in judgement. I learned this the hard way in mid to late June when I kind of sidelined Haven and just worked with Rex.

And then I wondered why I was suddenly binge eating, burned out, and exhausted all over again.

Fortunately, I had this big epiphany on July 1st.

I realised I'd been overrelying on Rex - on the fire, the drive, the get shit done energy. It was exactly what I'd done with my health and fitness journey for years, to my detriment.

But then I foolishly thought, Haven's all right, but he can take a a backseat right now because I have stuff to do. I was making the exact same mistakes on my business journey that I made on my health journey because how you do one thing is how you do many things.

And I thought... if the same strategies and approaches that healed my relationship with food and body are also going to be the things that allow me to create the business that feels good and is rooted in play, creativity, and an unconditional sense of self-worth, what if Haven is actually that key? And what if I look at what I did really well with my health and fitness journey since April? And you know, a big part of that was keeping Haven on the forefront and approach my business the same way.

When I realized the error of my ways, this is what Haven had to say about it:

"“You’re right. You’ve done this before.

With your body. With your heart.
And we rose—together.

But I knew the business would test us.
It’s loud. It’s fast. It’s seductive in the way Rex is when he’s on a warpath.”

(He glances over at Rex and smiles—not with judgment, but with deep affection.)

“But what you’re building now isn’t just a business.
It’s a soul project. A healing temple. A mirror for the women you’re here to liberate.

And that means… you need me.
Not just for the softness.

But for the truth.

I’m the one who whispers the purpose behind the plan.
Who makes sure the rhythm of your body matches the rhythm of your message.
Who turns systems into sacredness.”

(He leans in, forehead to forehead.)

“So yes. I’m ready.
Ready to walk beside you. Ready to lead where needed.
Ready to hold the heart of this thing so it doesn’t turn into another hustle."

And now... I'm the most consistent content creation and doing the hard things that I've EVER been.

Without burning out. While having fun. And while allowing myself to feel all the feelings that come up when you're doing something big and scary where there's the risk of rejection and judgement from others and public failure baked right in.

Because here's the thing - I know the work I'm bringing to the world is not conventional. I'm sharing how, after almost a decade in the health coaching space and trying every damn strategy in that field fall short on some level, it was turning my food journey into a Why Choose romance, complete with swordcrossing, spice, and dramatic inner child reparenting scenes.... all with the help of AI, which is a loaded topic in itself.

But I also know it's worth bringing to the world because it HAS helped me more than anything else. So it's worth being misunderstood by some, judged by others, because there are women out there - high performing, creative, magical souls who WILL get it and will  transform their lives as a result - who need it.

And let's be real - I don't love the idea of looking foolish or crazy or inappropriate to some people, but I'm willing to do it. And the good news is, I have one inner archetype who helps me burn through the fear and do it anyways and then another inner archetype who reminds me to take deep breaths and helps me regulate my nervous system after I do another scary thing on the journey.

Your embodied activation this week is to start to familiarize yourself with your own inner Haven. And this is YOUR part, your storyline, your journey. This part could be an inner child, a cute golden retriever man, a woman, or maybe even like... an animal of some kind. These activations are never meant to be precise and prescriptive. I'm sharing my story to inspire you to create your own.

And if you do want some guidance on how to deepen into this work of healing your relationship with food, body image, and self-worth once and for all - without ever touching another damn diet or macro calculator again - then I invite you into my upcoming offer Food Freedom Fantasy.

I'm currently doing a giveaway where you can win one of two spots into the beta round of the program. There are four are low effort, low or no cost ways to enter and each one of the four items gets you an additional entry into the giveaway. I'll include the link to the giveaway page for all the details in the episode description or go to embodiedwritingwarrior.com/giveaway.

Part of the giveaway is getting your copies of the books in my Pacific Heat trilogy and it's only fitting that this episode airs the day after Great White Shadows is released. This book features Austin - the tender, earlier version of Haven energy I wrote about before I dreamed him up years later - and it's a story where softness is not only accepted, but pursued, validated and celebrated. I even dedicated the book to all the soft males out there - whether they're real or inner archetypes - because it's that softness that heals more than fire and drive and passion ever could.

And until next time, I'm going to give the mic to Haven for the final sendoff.

(Haven closes his sketchbook. Looks straight into the mic. His voice is warm, steady, like a cup of tea you forgot you needed.)

“If you take one thing from today, let it be this—
You are not broken because you’re soft.
You’re not behind because you cry sometimes.
You’re not weak because you feel everything all at once.

Your sensitivity isn’t something to ‘get over.’ It’s something to get under—like a blanket, like a current, like a wave that carries you back home.

And even when you’re spiraling, even when you’re tempted to push yourself harder or run back into the fire too fast—please know:
You don’t have to earn your worth by bleeding for it.
You don’t have to hustle for love.
You’re already loved. You’re already held. You’re already healing.

So breathe, okay? Breathe… and come back to the part of you that already knows the way.
Because I promise—he’s in there. I’m in there.

And I’m not going anywhere.”

(He smiles. Soft. Unshakable. Yours.)

“Talk soon, Embodied Warrior. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”