Are you lost in the forest?

I’m mid-conversation with this week’s podcast guest and she starts talking about being lost in a forest.

Not metaphorically lost like “I don’t know what I want to do with my life.” Lost like search-and-rescue lost. Helicopter-overhead lost.

And she says the reason nobody can find you isn’t because they’re not looking. It’s because you’re standing in the middle of the trees and there’s no clearing.

Lisa Shubin, my guest on this week’s episode of The Balanced Badass Podcast®, is a national board certified health and wellness coach. She’s spent years studying what happens when people hit a wall and can’t explain why.

She said most people get stuck because they don’t have the vocabulary yet. They’re in it. They know something is wrong. But they can’t call it what it is. So they keep using words like “tired” and “stressed” and “fine” because those are the only words they’ve got. And those words are too small for what’s actually happening.

When you don’t have words for it, you can’t think about it clearly. And when you can’t think about it clearly, every option looks equally bad.

Stay or leave. Push through or pull back. It all blurs together. Because you’re trying to navigate without a map. And you’re trying to read that map in the dark, with your eyes closed.

So back to her forest analogy… she said the clearing isn’t a plan, a new job, or simply “figuring it out.”

The clearing is vocabulary.

It’s being able to say “I’m burned out” instead of “I’m just tired.” It’s knowing the difference between “I hate my job” and “I’ve lost connection to who I am outside of this role.” It’s the moment you stop borrowing other people’s words for your experience and find your own.

Lisa said it like this:

You can’t fix something you can’t name.

Ask yourself what you’re actually feeling. Is it resentment? Disconnection? Grief for a version of yourself you used to be? Dread that starts on Sunday afternoon and doesn’t lift until Friday at 5?

Then ask yourself when you last felt like yourself.

You don’t have to do anything with the answers yet. Naming it is the clearing. And the clearing is where you start.

Lisa also said something I keep turning over. She said “It’s not enough to just know your strengths and know your values. What are your tendencies? What are your buttons?”

That kind of knowing doesn’t come from a quiz. It comes from paying attention to yourself with the same energy you’ve been giving to everyone else.

If you’re in the forest right now, this episode is a good place to start walking toward the clearing.

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This week’s episode with Lisa is the kind of conversation that hands you language you didn’t know you were missing.

Take care,

Tara