Why We Stop Trusting Ourselves: Healing Burnout, Boundaries, and Self-Trust

Women’s wellness, nervous system regulation, self-trust, emotional healing, boundaries, and the mind-body connection are essential conversations in a culture that often rewards overgiving, perfection, people-pleasing, and constant productivity. Many women spend years prioritizing everyone else’s needs, disconnecting from their intuition, ignoring their bodies, and pushing through burnout until exhaustion starts to feel normal.

In this episode of the ANEW Insight Podcast, Dr. Supatra Tovar continues her conversation with board-certified holistic nurse, health and wellness nurse coach, and founder of Oubaitori Wellness, Samalie Rivera, for Part 2 of a powerful discussion about self-trust, embodiment, women’s healing, nervous system health, and coming back home to yourself.

Together, they explore why so many women struggle to trust their intuition, how people-pleasing disconnects us from our inner voice, and why healing is not just about changing your mindset. It is also about reconnecting with the body, creating emotional safety, setting boundaries, and learning to listen to the signals that were always there.

Samalie shares practical ways to return to the body during stress, the deeper meaning of the Wild Woman archetype, and what happens when women feel safe enough to be vulnerable, seen, and emotionally honest without performing or holding everything together.

Dr. Tovar and Samalie also discuss what is often missing from the current approach to women’s health and wellbeing, including the need to look beyond symptoms and include the emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and nervous system aspects of healing.

If you have ever struggled with burnout, self-doubt, anxiety, people-pleasing, emotional exhaustion, overgiving, disconnection from your body, or feeling like you no longer know how to hear yourself, this conversation offers grounding insight into self-trust, emotional healing, nervous system regulation, and sustainable wellbeing.

Subscribe for more conversations on psychology, nutrition, mental health, emotional wellness, women’s health, nervous system regulation, self-development, healing, resilience, and sustainable wellbeing.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome Back to Part 2

00:30 Rebuilding Self-Trust Through Self-Compassion

01:00 Why Small Steps Help Rebuild Inner Trust

02:00 Gratitude, Prayer, and Connecting Within

02:30 How the Nervous System Affects Intuition

03:30 Regulating the Body to Access a Wiser Inner Voice

04:15 Why Embodiment Matters More Than Mindset Alone

05:00 The Body Has Its Own Language

06:00 How the Body Communicates Before the Mind

06:40 What to Do When Your Body Sends a Warning Signal

07:00 Breathwork, Belly Breathing, and Body Awareness

08:00 Emotional Eating, Body Signals, and Asking “What Do I Need?”

09:30 Why the Intuitive Voice Is Loving, Not Mean

10:00 What the Wild Woman Archetype Really Means

11:10 How to Connect With Your Wild Woman

12:20 Aging, Wisdom, and Caring Less What Others Think

13:15 Letting Go of People-Pleasing Earlier in Life

13:40 What Happens When Women Feel Safe Enough to Be Seen

14:00 Dropping the Mask in Women’s Circles

15:15 Moving From Competition to Connection Among Women

16:45 Ketamine, ECT, and Treatment-Resistant Depression

18:00 How ECT Helped a Patient Begin Eating Again

18:30 Psychedelics, the Right Brain, and Expanded Awareness

20:00 Nature, Dance, Singing, and Right-Brain Healing

21:10 What Is Missing From Women’s Healthcare

21:30 Menstrual Cycles, Energy, Mood, and Productivity

22:35 PMS, PMDD, and Taking Women’s Symptoms Seriously

23:00 Why Women’s Symptoms Need to Be Taken Seriously

23:35 How to Connect With Samalie Rivera

24:10 Final Reflections on Intuition, Self-Trust, and Reconnection

24:40 Closing the Episode 

Episode Summary

In this episode, Dr. Supatra Tovar continues her conversation with holistic nurse and wellness coach Samalie Rivera to explore women’s wellness, nervous system regulation, self-trust, embodiment, emotional healing, and the importance of reconnecting with the body. Together, they discuss how people-pleasing, chronic stress, burnout, emotional suppression, and societal expectations can disconnect women from their intuition and inner wisdom.

This conversation offers a grounded and compassionate perspective on healing, reminding listeners that true wellbeing is not about becoming someone else. It is about learning to feel safe enough to return to yourself.

What This Episode Covers

• Women’s wellness and holistic healing
 • Nervous system regulation
 • Rebuilding self-trust
 • Intuition and inner wisdom
 • People-pleasing and overgiving
 • Emotional healing and embodiment
 • Boundaries and self-worth
 • The Wild Woman archetype
 • Vulnerability and emotional expression
 • Women’s health and the mind-body connection
 • Burnout recovery
 • Sustainable wellbeing

Connect with Samalie Rivera

Wild Woman Project:
 https://thewildwomanproject.com/samalie-rivera-wallingford-ct/

Oubaitori Wellness:
 https://www.oubaitoriwellness.com/pages/home

LinkedIn:
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/samalie-rivera-rn-bsn-hwnc-bc-ryt-07254082

Continue Your Journey

📘 Book: Deprogram Diet Culture: Rethink Your Relationship with Food, Heal Your Mind, and Live a Diet-Free Life

🎓 Course: Deprogram Diet Culture
 https://anew-insight.com

🌐 Visit the Website
 https://drsupatratovar.com

🎥 Watch More Episodes
 ANEW Insight Podcast

🎤 Watch the TEDx Talk
 Rethinking Your Relationship with Food in the GLP-1 Era

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the A New Insight Podcast. Empowering and inspiring your journey to optimal health. Hosted by Dr. Tipatra Kavar, clinical psychologist, registered dietitian, fitness expert, and author of Deprogram Diet Culture. Rethink your relationship with food, feel your mind, and live a diet-free life. I follow my guests' journey to optimal health, providing you with the keys to unlock your own wellness path. Tune in and evolve with us. Welcome back, everyone. We're here for the second half of our conversation with Board Certified Holistic Nurse and Health and Wellness Nurse Coach, Samalie Rivera. We've been talking about nervous system health, women's healing, and the importance of reconnection. I can't wait to go deeper. Samalie, welcome back. Happy sitting down. So let's talk about intuition a little bit. I think a lot of women struggle to trust their intuition because they have spent so many years prioritizing other people's expectations. How can someone start to rebuild that sense of self-trust?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So I'm gonna go back to uh starting off with self-compassion, you know, just learning to love yourself, give yourself loving kindness, but also taking baby steps because we've been so externally focused and focused on trusting the external world. We've neglected the internal. So you start to break that trust with yourself. So you have to start doing little baby steps to start building that trust within and also connecting within, because when we tend to want to do the most biggest thing at once, we tend to not follow through. And again, that goes back to breaking the trust. So start off small, even if that's okay. Every morning I'll wake up and start my day with gratitude. Do a prayer, whatever you want to do, to start connecting within, make it small, and then over time you build your capacity and you're able to have something that feels amazing.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yes, I agree. And I I really do think the pathway to our wisest, oldest, intuitive voice is through our nervous system. And if people can understand that when our nervous system is out of whack, when we are in our sympathetic nervous system, it's really interesting. I do this all the time in my practice. I I have people examine the voice that comes out when they're in their sympathetic nervous system. And it's so interesting because they're usually in their most wounded part of themselves, like usually in their childhood. So they're in stuck in this wounded child place, and they're also very much up into their cognitive mind. And so what I tend to do is I take them through a nervous system regulation where there's just uh two minutes of deep breathing, or I do something to activate the vagus nerve and I get them into their parasympathetic nervous system. That's, I think, where our intuitive voice lies. When we're deeper into our bodies, when our mind is a little bit offline and we're more connected, especially like you said before, to our heart and to our gut. It's incredible the voice that tends to come out when they're in that mode. It's like deeper, wiser, calmer, grounded. And then what I like to do is I like to have them then just talk to that wounded part of themselves and give themselves the thing that they need to feel calm and to feel heard and to heal. Amazing work. And I think if everybody could learn how to do this and really deeply tap into their intuition, they would only listen to themselves. They would never listen to anybody else's advice. They would go with whatever felt right for them and it would always be right. I think that's one of the most important things that we can do. And I love that you do that with people. So let's let's talk about your work some more and that it emphasizes embodiment rather than just mindset. Tell us why embodiment is more advantageous than just mindset work, and what are some simple practices people can use to come back into their bodies during a stressful day?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yes. So, first of all, the mind is very beautiful. I love the mind. I work in psychiatry, like I really do admire the mind. However, the mind is very logical, it's very rational, and you cannot get to the same place with your mind. Such um, you can't get to the same place with the mind like you would with the body, because the body has wisdom, and part of that is our intuition, and we've learned to value the mind and just focus on the mind, but the body has its own language. We weren't taught the language of the body, and the body communicates through sensations, and the body actually communicates with you before the mind does. So, say if you know you got a weird or like strange gut feeling, or your heart is like really fast, or just something doesn't feel right, you're like kind of like a bit put off by something. That's your body communicating with you, even though your mind doesn't logically know what's going on, the body's telling you.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Well, how can a person do that? Say that they, you know, in the past have kind of you know shooed away those thoughts, like, oh, you know, he's fine, and then realize that you know he's pretty much a uh a complete jerk later on. In a regular stressful day, if someone hears you know their body, you know, give them that that sensation, that that warning sign, what do you suggest that they do instead of pushing it down and pushing it away?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

So what I suggest doing is take a non-moment to step aside, you know, in a private place, and first tapping into your breath. It always starts off with the breath because you cannot get information from your body when it's dysregulated. You want it from a regulated state. So regulate your body through your breath. Take a few belly breaths. If it feels good, place one hand on the heart, one on the belly, and ask yourself a simple question, such as body, what do I need to know? And just noticing what comes up through sensations within the body from the top of your head down to the tip of your tiles, and no need to judge what's coming up or attaching, just noticing what's coming to the surface for you and making a decision from that more clear, regulated state of mind.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yes, I recommend this for people who struggle with comfort or emotional eating or mindless eating, um, that really want to learn how to stop that behavior, but not go into any kind of restriction or dieting or anything like that. And that's what I always suggest to people is that when they get that first, you know, desire for food, and especially if they're coming from an emotional state, if they were to go and go, you know, deep down into their body to regulate their nervous system and to really ask in that calm place, what do I need? Sometimes they are gonna hear food. Sometimes they'll get a picture of that in their mind, but sometimes they'll they'll hear in their mind, I need a hug, I need a nap, I need to walk away from this person right now, I need to scream, I need to beat on a pillow, I need to go for a walk. You might hear a variety of things. Rather than going on autopilot and going, you know, just towards numbing yourself, if you actually address what's actually happening in your body, you'll start to eat when you feel the need for nourishment. You'll start to, you know, gravitate towards things that your body is asking for. You'll start to provide yourself with what you need in that moment, whether it's a hug or a nap or you know, a walk in the park. I just think that it's so important that even during times of stress, we can just take two minutes. It's all it takes. Just two minutes to go and regulate yourself somehow, and then to deeply ask yourself, what do I need right now? And usually the answer is something wonderful and loving and kind for yourself because that intuitive voice, it's never going to be mean, right? It is always gonna be loving. Sometimes the mind can be really mean, but the body is always loving. And so tuning into that and listening to that is everything. So tell us about the term wild woman. You know, it can feel really powerful to some people, but also unfamiliar and maybe, you know, taboo. What does that archetype represent in today's world?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yes, so the wild woman. The wild woman, I know the name could be a bit deceiving, however, it's about being your true authentic self and connecting to that wild spirit within that's free, that is sovereign, that is again authentic and connected to the heart. And it's untamed, it's a leader, it's creativity. I mean, it is a beautiful, expansive energy of a woman's or even a person's true essence. So it's about being connected to your power. That is what the wild woman is.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Wow. For someone who's you know, maybe even a little afraid of that. How do you connect to the wild woman? What starts to happen when you see people who are resistant? How do you help them tap into that?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, so I'm here to meet people where they are, and doing something as simple as looking at yourself in a mirror and telling yourself, like, I love you. So you could start building that connection to yourself because that's what it is. The wild woman is your inner connection to yourself, so it's about taking small steps that are achievable to connect to this person, and if that's looking at yourself and starting to get comfortable with yourself, then I say let's start there.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, my guess is that maybe, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, that women over maybe 45 or 50 are pretty good at tapping into the wild woman because they stop, you know, caring so much about what the world thinks of them and just start to grasp and do the things that they want to do. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

I would agree, yes. Um, I've noticed that that a lot of wiser women, you know, I say every every time I uh age within a year on my birthday, I'm like another year wiser, another year gracefully aging. And it goes back to, you know, as you age, you you get more wiser and you stop caring about what people think. And just realizing the most important opinion is yourself. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

So ladies who are like 20 out there, anybody who's out there in their 20s, like the more you can let that go early, the happier you can be. Just uh you can't please them all. And you know, everybody at that age, especially, is really primarily thinking about themselves, they're not really thinking about you, so you can just go to town and let your wild woman out. Um, so in your circles and coaching, you hold space for vulnerability, which I think is so important, and emotional expression. What do you notice? Uh what happens when women finally feel safe enough to be seen without performing or holding it all together.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

So, what I see again is women dropping the mask. They are free to be themselves, and they are free to be in a community and notice that they are not alone with the hardships that they're going through, you know, things such as perfectionism, not feeling enough. These things sometimes you feel like, oh my gosh, like I must be the only person feeling this way. But then when you come into these circles, you're like, oh wait, this is actually normal. So you drop your shoulders, you start to relax more, and then you're able to emotionally express yourself and have that beautiful connection, which is so vital because it doesn't exist enough within this world. I mean, I remember growing up and just seeing women gossip, gossip, gossip. And you know, it would be challenging to have this sense of trust. So this is a space for you to be able to express yourself without having to feel fear that you're going to be talked about. You're just being human, and I'm here to hold you.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yes, I think that actually that gossiping comes from this masculine world that we live in. I think that, you know, we're kind of pitted against each other and given the impression that we're competition with each other and that there's limited resources for all. There's a limited guys, there's limited jobs. Once you get into a job, you have to fight for it and you have to, you know, fend off the other women so that you can win. That it couldn't be more false. I think that, you know, that's where actually mindset can come in and help you if you were to adopt a more abundant rather than a scarcity mindset. Really understanding that there's room for everyone and it, you know, there is no limit to what we can do will help keep us from that kind of competitive atmosphere. And we it would be such a wonderful world if we could all look at each other, women especially, as you know, colleagues, as you know, companions, as friends, and not competition? We could go so much farther in the world if we work together. So let's transition a little bit to talk about the uh work that you're doing with ketamine and ECT. How is that going beyond in terms of healthcare? How can that um those drugs administered safely lead us to greater forms of healing?

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Yeah, so ketamine, this is a form of a psychedelic. It was uh initially used in the field of anesthesia, you know, to help people go under and it has other uses. However, ketamine in this case of interventional psychiatry is used for treatment-resistant depression. So when um clients or patients have failed, I believe, two um antidepressants, they are trial on or placed on ketamine. And ketamine has, you know, everyone's unique. I say everyone has their own medicine, and ketamine may be a powerful drug for some and not for all, but that's what anything and find your medicine. And in terms of ECT, which is electro-convulsive therapy, it's shock therapy, um, that that's also used to help with treatment-resistant depression, which is also very powerful. I remember having a patient that was she had an eating disorder, she was not eating at all to the point where she had to have a G2. And over time, the ECT helps her, and she actually started eating again.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

So very possible. That's amazing. I would imagine it helps you access, maybe, and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong on this, more of the right side of your brain than the left side of your brain, at least for ketamine. I don't know if we're ECT. But um, I think if we in there's a really interesting TED talk called uh My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolt Taylor, and she witnesses her own stroke. She's a neuroscientist, so she studies the brain, and she realizes she's starting to have a stroke on the left side of her brain because she's like, oh my gosh, I don't I can't even form words, I can't dial number what is a number at this point, right? And this is where all of that is housed on the left side of her brain, and so her right side of her brain goes online. And what she experiences, thankfully, she calls somebody and they managed to figure out it's her. She can't even talk anymore, so she's obviously alive. But as she's, you know, continuing to experience her stroke, the right side of her brain is opening up. And what she says she experiences is oftentimes what people experience when they're on psychedelics or when they're in a deeply meditative state. She started to feel like she was expansive, that she was connected to the world. She started to experience this kind of feeling of universal love. And so that's what I think starts to happen for people when they go on canonine. The the critical, logical, you know, analytical side of their mind starts to just calm down a little bit. This is what we're conditioned into so much in this world to stay in. But when we let that go offline and we open up, you know, and this is why when you go on a nature walk, you actually go into your right brain. When you're dancing, you're in your right brain. When you're singing, you're in your right brain. If you were to allow yourself to be in your right brain, you know, as much as, or sometimes even more than your left brain, you start to experience that expansiveness and that connection with all. So I love that you are incorporating this. And this is what I've I've, you know, I've interviewed people who administer ketamine uh and and and have done some research on my own. And I think that it can really help people kind of break out of these locked cycles uh in their brain. It's really wonderful that you're doing that. Um, you know, and along with that, in healthcare, what do you think is missing from the way we currently approach women's health and well-being?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yes. So what I feel like is missing from women's health is having a focus on the impact of a woman's menstrual cycle on their health. Uh, you know, with the menstrual cycle, we have four phases, and in each of those. Four phases, our energy levels are different, our hormones are fluctuating differently. Uh, even just like productivity, it's different. For example, when you are menstruating, that's the perfect time to rest and reflect. Compared to if you're ovulating, if you want to do like a talk or be on a podcast, do it while you're ovulating because that's when you have the most energy. So I think really just being more aware of how our menstrual cycle impacts us, what gulf are, because it impacts your mood, you know, from PMS to even something called uh PMDD, which is pre-menstrual dysphoria disorder. And that's like a more severe form of PMS, and it could get to the point of like severe uh agitation or even to the point of being hospitalized if it's not taken care of. So my point is just taking into account a woman's menstrual cycle and its impact.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yes, and I hope doctors are listening to this. Um, I think a lot of doctors tend to minimize women's symptoms. I think they also tend to label, you know, women as emotional or even the oldest term, hysterical, which uh just makes me cringe. I really think that if healthcare can um look at women more on an individual basis, not minimize their symptoms, really, you know, be more investigatory, uh women's health would improve so much more. So we're almost out of time. I can't even believe we're out of time for this this half of this podcast. Tell people how they might be able to get a hold of you, work with you, find out more about you. Where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, so you could find me on my website, obesverywellness.com. Also, I'm on Instagram, SomaticPeriod, Nurse, period Sam. And I also have an Obitesvery Wellness Instagram page and Facebook page. You could email me. I will be more than happy to connect and help to make your life better.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yay! Well, I'm definitely gonna follow you and add you to my social media good stream uh algorithm that I have been curating. And I hope everybody else does as well. Thank you so much, Samaly, for coming in and helping us, especially women, reconnect to this more intuitive side of ourselves, helping us to trust ourselves and really embracing that all of us are unique and different. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. And thank you everyone for tuning into the A New Insight Podcast. I'm really looking forward to the next conversation. And I hope you join me next time. Thanks for tuning into the A New Insight Podcast. Please remember the content shared on this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. You can find us anywhere podcasts are streaming, on YouTube at my dotanew.insight, and at anewinsight.com under the Anu Insight Podcast tab. And follow us on our socials at my.