Why High-Achieving Women Still Feel Disconnected (Even After Doing the Inner Work)

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A Conversation on Fear, Creativity, and Coming Back Into the Body

There are moments in life when everything appears to be working on the outside, yet something subtle feels incomplete on the inside. Success is present. Expansion is visible. The accolades, the momentum, the proof all exist. And yet, there is a quiet awareness that something deeper is asking to be addressed.

This conversation on the School of Becoming podcast explores that exact moment of reckoning.

In this episode,Tracy sits down with Julie Cabezas, a world-renowned brand expert, creative leader, and copywriter whose career trajectory many would describe as extraordinary. Julie had done the work. Years of spiritual practice, consciousness exploration, personal development, and success had shaped her life. But as she shares openly in this conversation, mastery in one dimension does not always translate into embodiment in another.

What unfolds is a deeply honest exploration of fear, leadership, creativity, and what it means to live fully inside a human body while holding a high level of consciousness.

When Success Arrives Before Integration

Julie reflects on the season of life when she and Gracie first met. At the time, she was riding a meteoric rise in her career. She was winning, thriving, traveling, and experiencing a deep sense of excitement about life. On the surface, everything was aligned. Beneath it, however, was an unspoken realization that would only come into focus later.

She shares that meeting Gracie felt like an energetic recognition. A sense that you attract the people you are ready for. That timing, as she later realized, was not accidental. It marked the beginning of a deeper awareness about how she had been living and relating to the world.

Julie reveals that shortly before meeting Gracie, her spiritual mentor had passed away. The synchronicity was striking. They shared the same birthday. The resonance between that loss and this new connection felt meaningful, almost guided. It was as if something unseen was gently steering her toward the next phase of her evolution.

The Hidden Cost of Floating Above Life

Julie had spent more than a decade immersed in spiritual and consciousness work. Much of that work centered around raising vibrational frequency, dissolving limiting beliefs, and cultivating love, presence, and awareness. The belief was that as more people reached higher states of consciousness, collective suffering would diminish.

And in many ways, that work was transformative. She felt alive, radiant, and deeply connected to something greater. But as she reflects now, she can see where something essential was missing.

What she came to recognize was not a lack of spirituality, but a lack of embodiment. While her inner world felt expansive, her lived, relational experience felt distant. She had unconsciously architected a life that kept her slightly separate from people. There were walls in place. Not because she did not care, but because she did not know how to safely interface with people at different levels of awareness.

She feared that closeness would dilute her vibration or pull her out of alignment. As a result, she remained connected, loving, and impactful, yet not fully present with others in the way she longed to be.

Consciousness Without Connection Isn’t the Point

Gracie reflects on this pattern and names a truth that often goes unspoken in spiritual spaces. What is the use of elevating consciousness if doing so requires separation from the very world we are meant to live in?

Enlightenment is not meant to exist in isolation. Most people are not meant to retreat to mountaintops or remove themselves from society. Especially not those who feel called to lead, create, and contribute. True embodiment means being able to remain grounded, present, and regulated regardless of the environment or the people around you.

The real work, as Gracie explains, is learning how to be highly conscious while fully human. To walk through the world with open awareness while remaining in relationship with others. To co-regulate, co-resonate, and stay connected rather than retreating into safety through distance.

Fear Doesn’t Always Look Like Panic

One of the most powerful parts of this conversation comes when Julie speaks about fear. Not the obvious kind, but the subtle forms that often go unnoticed.

She explains that earlier in her journey, she understood fear as resistance. Something to dissolve or move through. But what became clear over time was that some expressions of fear were completely invisible to her. They did not show up as anxiety or doubt. They showed up as procrastination, boredom, and a sense of disengagement from life.

Boredom, in particular, was revelatory. Not boredom from lack of options, but a deeper sense that life itself felt flat. Through her work in the School of Becoming, Julie realized that boredom is often fear in disguise. It arises when we are avoiding the very things that would bring excitement, expansion, and meaning.

Fear, she explains, is present anytime we are not doing the thing we want to be doing. Anytime we delay action, avoid visibility, or resist stepping into something that feels big and alive.

The Body Is Always Keeping Score

Julie goes on to describe a profound realization about the human body. No matter how spiritually evolved we feel, we are still inhabiting an animal body. A nervous system shaped by thousands of years of survival instincts. A body constantly scanning for safety.

This animal intelligence is not a flaw. It is a reality. And when it is ignored or overridden, fear and resistance find other ways to surface.

She shares how many women attempt to control their way into safety through achievement, appearance, status, or external validation. But control does not create true safety. It only creates exhaustion. The path forward requires surrender, presence, and a willingness to work with fear rather than bypass it.

Gracie reinforces this by emphasizing a foundational truth of the work: we are spiritual beings having a human experience. When we forget that, we tend to over-identify with one side and neglect the other. Integration happens when both are honored.

Reclaiming the Younger Parts of Ourselves

The conversation turns toward inner child work and emotional regulation. Julie speaks candidly about the moments when she realizes she simply needs to cry, rest, eat, or release emotion. These needs are often judged or suppressed in adulthood, yet they remain essential.

Gracie expands on this by naming something many listeners feel deeply. Many women never felt safe expressing emotion as children. They were silenced, dismissed, or required to be “mature” too early. As adults, the work becomes not just personal growth, but repair. Offering safety and permission to the younger versions of ourselves who never received it.

This, Gracie says, is why doing this work is not indulgent. It is responsible. It is an act of integrity and leadership.

From Accommodation to Self-Referral

One of the most tangible shifts Julie describes is moving away from constant accommodation. For years, she prided herself on being spacious, unattached, and flexible. But beneath that spaciousness was self-abandonment.

She shares that the practice of self-referral changed everything. Instead of automatically responding to others’ needs, she began asking herself what she needed first. What her preferences were. Whether her cup was full.

This shift created more energy, more creativity, and more capacity to lead. When her needs were met, she had more to give. What once felt selfish revealed itself as sustainable.

Gracie affirms this as a critical leadership evolution. Agency, sovereignty, and self-honoring are not weaknesses. They are power. The biggest flex is not hustle or output, but energy.

Creativity as the Path Back to Self

As the conversation moves toward the future, Julie shares her next evolution. Her work is expanding beyond branding and sales into creativity and self-expression. She believes that every person is creative, but many are trapped inside templates that dull their instincts and limit their expression.

True creativity, she explains, is not about talent. It is about permission. Being true to yourself is the fastest path to meaningful creation.

She introduces her Substack, Body Language, as a space for deeper exploration of embodiment, creativity, and expression. A place where women can reconnect with their bodies, instincts, and inner knowing.

One phrase Gracie taught her continues to guide this work: we cannot embody if we are not in our bodies. The answers are not only in the mind. They are in sensation, intuition, desire, and aliveness.

Connect with Julie:

Website: selfmadesales.com

Julie’s Substack "Body Language”: substack.com/@julieccabezas