I’ve started this blog several times, but my mental clarity has been foggy as I navigate a cold this holiday season. I’ve experienced significant fatigue that has honestly been disappointing and frustrating. My plans for an active and social holiday season have shifted to afternoon naps, too much Netflix, and bingeable fiction.
Meanwhile, my mind has been busy chattering away in the background with unhelpful messages: “Figure out what you’re doing in 2026.” “You’re already behind, and the year hasn’t even started.” “You’re so lazy.” And my chronic soundtrack: “This is a waste of time.”
Years of wiring those neural pathways with messages that keep me in constant motion—or at minimum, thinking about the actions I need to take—have been the soundtrack in my thoughts for decades. That mental chatter has served me in ways that created the business I love and the life I savour. But those soundtracks no longer serve the person I am becoming—or more accurately, the person I desire to be.
Despite that mental chatter, I’m more aware of those thoughts as just that: thoughts. Those thoughts were created by my brain, and my brain’s job is to keep me safe and surviving. It has done a good job of that for the most part, but it also kept me in striving and hustling mode for many years.
Last year, I had a massive awakening when I realized my aspirational energy—my ambition—was driven by a search for safety. It was a powerful thought bubble that appeared above my head, and when I was able to look at that connection, it became an opportunity to examine my patterns of performing and striving through a different lens. Because what I knew in that moment is that I already have safety. My nervous system just hadn’t caught up yet. It was still sending survival signals to my brain, generating thoughts that I needed to do more, be more, have more to create the safety I was searching for.
This feels quite vulnerable to share here, but I have a feeling I’m not alone in the pursuit of “more” to achieve a desired feeling or outcome that we aren’t even fully conscious of.
You may want to ask yourself a similar question: What are you striving for? What drives your need for more? What are you hoping to have on the other side of more?
We’re living in a chaotic time of constant messaging that we aren’t enough. We don’t have enough. There’s more to be done, or a better way to do it. Parenting, leadership, health, fitness, nutrition, aging, productivity—you name it, there’s a better way to do it, and these messages hook us into believing that we aren’t enough and we aren’t doing enough. Hence the exhaustion, burnout, and mental health challenges we’re experiencing—and wondering why we’re seeing more of them these days.
So how does this connect to the year ahead?
I’m practicing listening to my inner wisdom differently and honouring my intuition as an important guidance tool, rather than only listening to my brain and the thoughts it generates. While my brain has been a valuable and busy tool in my toolbox, I’m curious to cultivate a deeper relationship with my body’s wisdom and my intuitive guidance system.
THIS IS NOT EASY FOR ME.
As I write that sentence, it looks so accessible and easy—like I could flip a switch and just start listening and operating with new awareness. Ha! Not so much. In my experience, it takes intentional practice, deep listening, and a level of self-trust that is unfamiliar to most of us.
And yet.
When I reflect on the moments of clarity or decisions I’ve made these past few years, the best decisions came from that deeper knowing—from asking myself different questions. For me, accessing my intuition comes from asking my heart the question, rather than my head. For others, it might be your gut, your solar plexus, or maybe another place within your body.
When we intentionally bypass our mental level of processing, we find a deeper and different layer of wisdom that has been trying to speak to us for decades. For me, now is the time to listen.
If you’re curious to experience a taste of what it looks and feels like to access your intuitive guidance system, then I encourage you to join me and Katie Branter on January 10th for our Intuitive Visioning 2026 session. I created this space with Katie because I believe it’s time to quiet the external noise and go inward—in community.
I’ll leave you with this belief that I hold for myself and for you: Nobody is coming to save us. We need to take the lead in our own lives and prioritize our own needs and ways of being. This might require some rethinking, but you don’t have to do that alone.
Join us and be in a community of courageous, heart-centred women who are curious about what else is possible.
Link to register for Intuitive Visioning 2026Â here.
Connect with Diane:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianelloyd
Email: diane@dianelloyd.com
