What to Do When Your Mind Wants to Flee but Your Body Needs to Stay and Feel
For Midlife Women Entrepreneurs Ready to Lead With Presence, Not Just Productivity
If you’re navigating a career change after 50, rebuilding your purpose, or stepping into the role of second act entrepreneur, you may have noticed something surprising:
You’re not just launching a business.
You’re managing your nervous system.
You’re learning how to feel, not just fix.
Because let’s face it—when you’ve spent years in high-pressure roles, leaving corporate to start a business isn’t just about strategy. It’s about staying present when everything in you wants to run.
This is especially true for women who identify with the Enneagram Seven archetype—the “Enthusiastic Visionary.” But honestly, it resonates with any high-achieving woman building her legacy business for women in midlife.
Let’s explore why staying with discomfort can be the most powerful business tool you never knew you needed.
Why We Run from Discomfort (Even When We’re Building Purpose)
Let me start by saying I am not an Enneagram expert. But after a 3-day intensive with Racheal Jayne Groover, I saw myself clearly: the fast-thinking, future-focused, always-busy woman who reframes pain into positivity before the emotion even finishes its sentence.
Sound familiar?
If you’re working with a career transition coach for women, launching your coaching brand, or trying to start your second act business, it’s easy to default into constant motion. New ideas. Shiny offers. The next goal. The next launch.
But running too fast—emotionally or physically—can disconnect you from your deeper purpose. And for midlife women stepping into purpose-driven entrepreneurship, that disconnection becomes a costly habit.
The Mind Wants to Escape. The Body Wants to Stay.
As an Enneagram 7, my instinct is to move away from pain, discomfort, grief, stillness—even boredom. And if you're a visionary-type entrepreneur, this might sound familiar.
We:
Fill our calendars to avoid stillness
Turn every “no” into a joke
Jump from idea to idea in search of the thing
Avoid difficult conversations or emotional truths
But here’s the bold truth: if you’re serious about building a business that makes an impact, you must learn to stay—to feel what your fast-moving mind is trying to outrun.
The Controversial Reality: Productivity Doesn’t Equal Progress
In corporate, high performance gets rewarded. But in your second act as an entrepreneur, emotional presence is your greatest leadership skill.
Women building personal branding after 50, launching thought leadership branding, or offering story-based branding for coaches don’t just need visibility—they need embodiment.
That means:
Feeling your fear
Owning your uncertainty
Pausing long enough to hear your intuition
Releasing the pressure to be “on” all the time
This is the deep work that allows you to reinvent your professional identity, not just repackage your résumé.
7 Ways to Stay When Every Cell Wants to Bolt
If you’ve ever struggled with self-doubt, over-functioning, or avoidance while building your dream, try these simple but profound practices:
1. Name It Before You Frame It
Stop spinning it positive right away. Pause and name the actual emotion. "I feel disappointed." "I feel unseen." Naming breaks the loop of avoidance and is the first step toward a growth mindset for midlife business owners.
2. The 90-Second Sit
Set a timer for 90 seconds. Sit. Feel. Don’t fix. Most feelings pass if you allow them space. This practice is core to mindset shift from employee to entrepreneur.
3. Check Your Boredom
Ask: “Am I bored—or am I avoiding fear, grief, or loneliness?” The discomfort of boredom often masks the call to deeper healing, especially during a profitable business launch for women juggling visibility and vulnerability.
4. Close One Loop
Pick one incomplete task and finish it. Just one. Completing it reconnects you to your confidence to start a business, rather than spinning in “what’s next.”
5. Practice Savoring
Choose a joyful activity—tea, music, nature—and give it your full attention. This is an antidote to hustle culture and a powerful tool for lifestyle business for midlife women who want to grow without grinding.
6. Journal from the Hard Place
Write as if the discomfort will never leave. What do you fear? What do you long for? What part of you believes this feeling is unsafe? Journaling is one of the most underestimated forms of business support for women starting over.
7. Ask: What Part of Me Believes I Can’t Stay?
This question unlocks core beliefs—many formed in childhood or corporate conditioning—that say, “Rest is lazy” or “Slowing down is unsafe.” Your job is to rewrite that narrative.
From Escaping to Expanding: The True Power of Staying
You don’t need to give up your visionary edge.
You don’t have to suppress your brilliance.
But if you want to move from executive to thought leader… if you want to lead a mastermind for women entrepreneurs, step into one-on-one business consulting, or build a platform for entrepreneur training for women…
...you must learn to bring your whole self into the room. Not just the polished parts.
Staying with discomfort won’t break your momentum. It will deepen your capacity to hold space—for your clients, your audience, and your evolution.
The Invitation: Stay, Feel, Lead
You’ve made the pivot. You’ve embraced the uncertainty. You’re building a brand, a mission, a legacy business for women.
And that means you will face discomfort—again and again.
The question is: will you run from it?
Or will you sit with it, learn from it, and lead through it?
Because when you stop escaping, you start expanding. And that’s where your most powerful work begins.
Are you ready to start your journey with journaling? Download my free “Countess Code” daily pages!
Want an online journal? Grab the whole Countess Code Journal here.
Prefer paper? THE PHYSICAL JOURNAL coming soon!
