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About this episode

Can you really have it all—an ambitious, thriving career while also nurturing a deeply satisfying romantic relationship? Or does chasing professional success mean sacrificing love and connection at home? For many high achievers, pursuing career goals brings unexpected loneliness, relationship strain, and an exhausting sense of self-abandonment. The pressure to perform at work often leaves little time or energy for building intimacy, leading countless professionals to quietly wonder: Why does succeeding at work come so much easier than succeeding at love?

In this episode, listeners are invited to reexamine this all-too-common belief that career ambition and a fulfilling love life are mutually exclusive. Through frank discussion and real stories, this conversation unpacks the hidden patterns that cause us to disconnect from ourselves and our partners, amidst the demands of professional life. By exploring psychological frameworks, practical strategies, and embodied personal growth, the episode offers actionable insights to help you move beyond self-sabotage, redefine success, and create space for both professional achievement and authentic, secure relationships.

Katarina Polonska is a Science-Backed Relationship Coach, Published Gender Dynamics Social Scientist (University of Oxford M.St), Founder of the Successfully in Love® Method, ex-Regional VP of a global Behavioral Science Firm, and Podcast Host with guests like John Gray, of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, NY Times Bestseller Marci Shimoff, and Christina Tracy Stein, daughter of world-renowned Brian Tracy.

As an accredited coach since 2007, she helps ambitious professionals become Successfully in Love®.

Episode Highlights

08:35 How high achievers self-abandon for success.

14:42 Debunking the “either/or” myth for career and love.

19:05 Finding balance: Shifting from sacrifice to flow.

27:41 Katarina’s three pillars for relationship transformation.

36:48 Navigating growth: Solo vs. couples work.

43:47 Real-life example of creating change in marriage.

49:07 Resolving self-sabotage and expanding capacity.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Take time to reflect on how much you might be abandoning your own needs in pursuit of career goals, and consider ways to reconnect with yourself.
• Challenge the belief that ambition and healthy relationships are mutually exclusive, and start envisioning a more balanced life.
• Work on building secure attachment through therapeutic practices such as hypnotherapy, somatic work, or self-reflection to heal core wounds.
• If you’re feeling stuck in your relationship or career, outline a practical backup plan to create a sense of safety and agency as you make decisions.
• Open up to your partner about your feelings, needs, and even fears in a direct yet compassionate way to foster more genuine intimacy.
• Be open to challenging traditional gender roles and relationship structures to find what authentically works for you.
• Set boundaries with work, incorporate rest, and allow yourself to prioritize personal well-being without guilt.
• Engage in coaching, group programs, or connect with professionals to deepen your awareness, practice new skills, and find community along your journey.

Mentioned

How to Go From Second-Guessing Yourself, Avoiding Hard Decisions, and Feeling Disconnected To Trusting Yourself, Knowing Exactly What You Want, and Creating Freedom, Trust, Intimacy, and Connection – In 90 Days (video)

Evolve in Love – Next level – Book Your Discovery Call

The SIL (Successfully in Love®) Podcast

Essentia’s website (*Affiliate link)

Stratami™ Organic Mattress (This is the mattress we purchased) (*Affiliate link)

Classic REM5 Active Mattress – (The mattress we wish we could have gotten for the cooling feature) (*Affiliate link)

Connect with Katarina Polonska

Websites: katarinapolonska.com

Facebook: facebook.com/katarinapolonska

Instagram: instagram.com/katarinapolonska

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katarina-polonsky

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like it to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Katarina, thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation. It sounds like you really support people who are professionals, have a professional career, ambitious, and also how to negotiate and foster a healthy, lasting relationship. Just for people who are getting to know you here, what would you like people to know about you, your perspective, how this became of interest?

Yeah. I'm a behavioral scientist by background, so I spent most of my life studying love and relationships, but from a social sciences/behavioral science perspective. I've always been into the world of personal growth and personal development. I'm really lucky that my father kind of forced me into this world when I was super young, and he's worked with some pretty big names like Joe Dispenza and Tony Robbins, from a speaking engagement perspective. So this world has been really familiar. I did all the personal growth, all the personal development, did all the retreats. I can go into more depth on what that looked like. But I did my first coaching qualification when I was 17 and learned all about the subconscious mind.

All of that to say, I've been a fiend for personal growth and personal development, as well as a high-achiever all my life. Yet, when it comes to love, I was notoriously not the luckiest person. Then when I met my ex-fiancé, I thought: Great, I've made it! I've met someone. I am in my 30s. We're going to get married, we're going to have kids, we're going to have a family, white picket fence. Everything's sorted. I realized at that point that just because I meditated and had a therapist and did all of this personal development, did not mean that I was A: securely attached, and B: knew how to handle a long-term healthy relationship. Inevitably, that relationship did fall apart. At that point, I was in my early 30s, I wanted a family, and I was like, what did I do wrong? Like, what can I take ownership over here and how can I improve? That's when I really went knee-deep into studying relationships in a more granular way, in a more honest way, and really embodying and practicing everything that I knew in theory, but maybe had applied in different arenas of my life, but not actually to the relationships.

Lo and behold, I met my husband and started building an executive coaching practice. As I began working with executives, I realized pretty much everyone was struggling with their relationships. It wasn't just me. Actually, a lot of the things that I had really grappled with from the “high-achiever” perspective—being very Type A, being a perfectionist, being pretty hard on myself, not feeling good enough, having an eating disorder in my past, all of this stuff, anxiety—was plaguing a lot of my clients, and their relationships were terrible. So I put two and two together and began to go harder on the relationships and got my qualifications in this space. That's how I ended up doing the work that I do.

All of that to say, I think mastering your relationships, and you'll know this so well, is a whole different kettle of fish to mastering your mindset or building a successful career. It's a very different skillset that we don't get taught at any point in our lives. So no wonder people are flailing around and being pretty miserable in love.

Yes, I absolutely agree. A lot of people that I work with are pretty high-level in their industry, and definitely, I try to apply perhaps some of the principles or practices that have brought them so much success. Like you said, it's a different skillset, perhaps. I made the analogy of like, it's like putting on a different hat. This was back when I was doing my brick and mortar private practice. I was in Boulder, Colorado at the time, and it was like 2009. It's switching gears a bit and switching focus. Not that we're necessarily a different person, but it's utilizing, like you talked about, putting into practice and living into, in an embodied way. Versus perhaps what we might do when we're trying to achieve or accomplish a goal or have a vision, and being very clear about that vision, that it asks something different of us.

100%, it's a very different way of living. I will say, I think actually, building a business I found to be quite comparable to dating. It's been a really interesting journey for me, and maybe we can even touch on that. But it is an embodied experience. It's very different to when you're in a corporate job, and you've got KPIs and you've got objectives, and you roll your sleeves up and you grind through them, and you hustle and you perform, and blah, blah, blah. It's a very different type of skillset that you need to have in order to actually have a healthy, fulfilling, secure relationship.

Yes. Just for your understanding, my experience, not so dissimilar, but different in that I had a lot of psychological, also personal growth exposure practices growing up. Being a part of different, not so dissimilar from some of the kind of people you're mentioning, and more of the metaphysical thinking, but also the psychology. I had an undergrad in psych, a master's in counseling psychology. I felt like I should have the nuts and bolts of how to do relationship well, and I felt very ill-equipped and was confronted with a lot of upset and challenges in that relationship when we were engaged, but was very significant and didn't end up lasting and propelled me. My dissertation was on relationships. I mean, even in the same way of feeling like, even in the personal growth space, had a lot of information, and it still wasn't necessarily helpful in how to negotiate when you talk about secure functioning or the embodied experience. When you talk about building a business, it's a creative project. It's a creation from oneself, and you're going to see your shortcomings or the areas where maybe you're strong in and the areas where you're maybe not so strong in. Is that right?

Yeah, 100%. The belief that you have to have. The same way that I tell my single clients, you have to believe that you are worthy of having a healthy, meaningful, fulfilling relationship. You have to believe that that person is out there, that there are multiple people out there. The same thing with business. You have to believe that you are deserving of having a healthy, high-functioning business, and the clients are out there. The parallels have been really interesting, for sure.

Or you won't try, or you'll stay in a loop or a pattern that is not serving.

Yeah, for sure. I actually had a conversation with a client earlier today who's trying to build a business, and he was like, this is so different to my corporate work. Because at corporate work, I just showed up, put one foot in front of the other, didn't have to manifest, didn't have to think about anything. Just got the job done, got my paycheck, got my bonus, went home, forgot about it. Why is entrepreneurship so hard? I'm like, because you are kind of operating outside of the matrix. Again, it's a very different world. The power of your mind and your subconscious beliefs, that's what's going to dictate the success of your business, and I would argue, the success of your marriage, truly.

Yes. So talk to us about this myth. Some people might be aware, some people may just have felt the struggle, but maybe didn't know it was a thing. Give us a little bit of an insight, just that this is something you struggled with, and then the people that you work with, you noticed it was a commonality. Is there anything else you want to say about how these two don't always seem to go together, as far as having a successful career and a healthy, lasting relationship?

Yeah. I think so many of the really talented, smart people that I work with, they got to their level of success through a process of dissociating from themselves, really. There's an element of: I'm going to grind and I'm going to do the long hours. I mean, I'm so guilty of this myself. I'm talking about myself in my past life, and even now, I still do it sometimes. But there's a type of self-abandonment that often happens when it comes to building your millions or building. I have a client right now whose net worth is over $400 million, and he's onto a crazy exit and doing really, really well. But the amount of self-abandonment and fundamentally loneliness that comes with that—being able to show up every morning, waking up at ridiculous hours and having to roll your sleeves up and keep showing up and keep doing that work—and then that drive, that kind of ambition that fuels that self-abandonment, so much of that is unfortunately coming from a pretty unhealthy place. It's coming from those wounds of not feeling good enough, or feeling like you're so afraid of failure, feeling like you have to prove something because you didn't really feel that you're worthy. Again, I was very much guilty of this.

So when we are performing, when we are playing this role in corporate or in entrepreneurship to get to a certain level, we can absolutely win on that level. We can achieve, but at what cost? When we think about having a healthy, loving, meaningful, vulnerable, authentic relationship, you can't self-abandon. You have to be deeply connected to yourself in order to connect to another. You have to be able to be vulnerable with yourself. You have to allow for failure. You have to allow for these more sensitive, tender pieces of yourself, which frankly don't really have room in many corporations or in many businesses.

So the kind of the people that I work with, they might have achieved a lot of external success. But the marriage is perhaps falling apart, or maybe they're just feeling really lonely throughout it all. Often, people don't admit they're lonely. They use the language of like, I feel really unsupported, or I feel really misunderstood, or it's lonely at the top is something I hear a lot of the time. It's lonely at the top. I know I always found it very lonely at the top, not because I was a multimillionaire entrepreneur. But academically speaking, I was pretty gifted, and it felt lonely. It was like, no one understands me, they will think I'm a freak. So I'm just going to sit in the library and just do my thing, and again, self-abandon.

So all of this is happening unconsciously, but it's no wonder that our romantic lives aren't what we want them to be or what they deserve to be. So much of my work is helping really high-achieving smart, ambitious, wonderful professionals. I honestly believe we need more of people like that in the world, because they can do so much good in the world. My own selfish agenda with all of this stuff is, I think the world needs more healthy, high-functioning, smart people to go and fix the world's problems. I firmly believe if we were all securely attached and really successful, I don't think we'd have climate change. I don't think we'd have horrible wars happening. So that's kind of my agenda, because my background before this is all philanthropy.

But all that to say, that I do believe that if you can come home to yourself and reconnect to yourself and connect to that deep-seated, authentic version of you, you're still going to be ambitious. You're still going to be successful. You can still make the money. But it's going to flow in a much more easeful way. The vision might look different. My vision right now of my life is so radically different to what it was in corporate. But I'm making more money, I hate to say it, because I'm actually in flow. I think that's the fallacy that I sometimes have to grapple with of: Well, I don't want to be less ambitious. Well, no one's saying you're going to be less ambitious. I don't want to give up my drive. No one's saying you're going to give up your drive. You are just going to be driven in a way that isn't self-abandoning, in a way where actually you can go to the bathroom and take a bathroom break, where you can actually have a lion, and again, work at a more productive pace because you're well-rested. Where you can actually have a loving relationship at home and be more productive at work, because you're not ruminating over the argument that you had and how much you hate your spouse. You can be productive and be happy. They're not mutually exclusive.

The final thing I'll say, I do think that there is this narrative that we've been fed, it may or may not be a symptom of capitalism, but that tells us that we have to somehow grind and hustle and neglect ourselves and our personal lives in order to be successful. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think you absolutely can have both. It is just a different paradigm, and it might look different to you showing up in a corporate job and numbing out. So that's my little spiel there on my belief system.

I appreciate it, and I'm resonating with what you're describing. I can recognize my own accomplishments academically, even though I've never identified as an academic, that I've had to utilize certain aspects of myself. So I wonder if you would agree. Because as I'm listening, there's the self-abandoning, and there's also lines of development, that perhaps we develop certain traits or aspects of ourselves. I don't know, Ken Wilber's theories and how he talks about it. So you could be a genius kinesthetically or be a professional athlete, but you might not have the culinary genius or art. So we have these different lines of development. So when we excel, we grow ourselves and develop ourselves. There's also this shadow, perhaps what you're referring to, is where we will be imbalanced as we are in pursuit of that development or that achievement, and what that requires, the sacrifices. That perhaps, there is a different paradigm. So it's not as though we have to ask that to go away. That you can utilize all that development, utilize all that skill, and uplevel, perhaps have a different paradigm around how there's more balance, how there's more health and wellness and wholeness, to then be in this flow that we can access that achievement, but from a very different place. Am I hearing you?

Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of like the analogy—again, I'm so guilty of this myself—that I think we get fed this narrative that there's only really one way to succeed, and the way that it looks like is X, Y, and Z. The way it looks is like bloody Margaret Thatcher sleeping three hours a night and living off coffee, and having to kind of elbow other people out the way and fight your way to the top. It's kind of the scarcity. 

It's going to feel more easeful, and the top might also look different. I'm not saying it's going to be any less successful. But maybe the top is actually your business as opposed to becoming the COO of a global bank, for example. I've been working with some clients who are in the corporate sector, and these are incredible women in their 40s who I look at them, and I'm like: My goodness, had I not discovered this work, that probably would be me. These women are super smart. They're up, COOs of global banks, global law firms. They're in their office, they don't have time to go to the bathroom, endless Zoom calls. They kind of joke, it's like coffee, coffee, coffee, then wine, wine, wine in the evening. They don't see their spouse. They don't see their kids. Their spouse is kind of a stay-at-home husband assistant figure. Of course the attraction has gone down, of course resentment has built up, and they feel like they're being denied something. Because they've got the golden handcuffs at this point, and they've come to this point where they're earning a salary that frankly their husband can't earn.

There's this fear of like: Well, what do I do if I step down? It's like, well, you can get that salary. It might involve you having to build a business with your husband. Yes, let's not kid ourselves, there probably will be an interim period where maybe things have to shift a little bit. But that just requires smart planning. That's just smart planning. You don't have to sit at the top lonely, disconnected from your partner, heading towards divorce, where frankly, all of that wealth you've made anyway, you're going to lose in a divorce settlement. So there's this tunnel vision, I think, that we get fed, which makes sense, because we need to be good little workers in society to make society run. I don't actually think that's true anymore.

Well, you're speaking to possibility, if I am hearing you, in that if we are thinking that this is the terrain and these are the bounds, then I'm having a difficult time seeing a different equation around this. You're actually reminding me of clients I used to work with, that exact scenario. I think she was a VP at the time, and same family structure you're describing, and just some of the difficulty around that. So how do you help people? You've spoken a bit about subconscious mind and the mindset. You've talked about wounds and not enoughness, and you've talked about flow and also a different paradigm. I mean, this is probably largely your work. Also, do you want to give people a sense of what that shifting looks like?

Yeah, great question. I think there's three main bulk components to how I work. One is on the psychological front. Simply put, in layman's terms, I help people become securely attached. So that's what I've trained in, that's what I specialize in. It's a combination of hypnotherapy, NLP, working with the subconscious mind, and actually reconditioning the mind to not have these core wounds that I call them, and become more secure. There's obviously somatic work. Whatever it takes to get someone to feel more secure, that's one pillar.

The second pillar is a social sciences pillar, and that's actually where I look at gender. That's what I did for my master's degree. I looked at masculinity, I looked at femininity. This whole polarity malarkey drives me bananas, because I really just don't like how simplified it is. I love that you're nodding at this because it drives me nuts. But looking at what is healthy. What is healthy womanhood? What is healthy masculinity? No surprise, it's a 360-degree version of your whole humanity. So it is like reintegrating yourself with who you are fundamentally at your core, which is going to be a balance of masculine and feminine energies and identities, and again, it's part of becoming secure. But I think when I'm working with a lot of high-achieving people, there's these narratives of: Oh, this is how I have to be, this is the paradigm that I'm lumped into, this is my identity, and this is how it has to work out. No, it doesn't. You're a human being. So let's deconstruct all of that and actually find your own unique role.

Then the third aspect is more of, again, it's social sciences, but it's taking a step back and looking at the world at large and just opening your perspective. Because when you've been in corporate for 20 years, that's kind of pretty much what you know. The idea of starting a business or something feels so radical and so scary and big. It doesn't have to be. It absolutely doesn't have to. Equally, if you've been a founder your whole life, then you know one certain paradigm, and there really is something about let's start gathering data and evidence of alternative ways to be. I have a client who's been monogamous his whole life, he was engaged. Terribly miserable. Because I don't think he's meant to be monogamous. I just think he doesn't actually vibe with that construct. But in his paradigm, it's like: Well, how can I possibly not be in a monogamous relationship, when everyone else is? I'm like, no, they're not. No, they're not. I just lived in Ibiza surf for two years. Go to Ibiza, there's not much monogamy happening there, I'll tell you now. There's other ways to be.

So to your point, it's about, let's recondition your brain and your subconscious and help you become secure. Rewire, as pop culture would say. But let's challenge the paradigms of your gender identity and actually help you get rid of all of that nonsense, and actually just connect with who are you at this point in time. Then let's look at other ways that you can actually begin to construct your life. The world is your oyster. I mean, if you are listening to this podcast, if you have the funds to even go online and find yourself a coach, you can live the life that you want to live. You are extremely privileged. 

It's from that place that, lo and behold, you're going to have the best relationships, the best marriage, the best long-term partnership, the best polyamorous, whatever it is that you want. But you have to come home to yourself and you have to find yourself.

Yes. Well, it sounds as though when you describe these three aspects, that the first has a lot to do with recognizing the subconscious or the wounding or the not enough to really give support to process that, to get the rewiring and the stability with self. Then the clarity around if I could have a life that I love on all dimensions, and who I am and that authentic self and that connection, that that if you will, becomes a bit of the blueprint. But then how it's expressed, that sometimes we have a sense of that clarity around what we want, but if we've never been in that territory, we might even not know that it's possible or how that could possibly emerge. Sometimes it's uncharted territory, but sometimes no. Like you said, there are other models and things to glean, and we might build one step at a time, and it might be a unique expression, or it might be something that's replicated. But that there's possibility there. Am I hearing?

Absolutely, I love the way that you actually broke that down. That's a really lovely way of saying it.

Okay, you're welcome. Thank you for that feedback. So I wonder, part of my training with the Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and looking at secure functioning in relationship, where do you feel like relationship starts to become, looking at intimate relationship? Is that in any of them, or is it more of the second, like a life that they would love?

What do you mean? Like, at what point do we look at the romantic relationship?

Yes, when we start looking at intimate relationship. Because we're talking about the myth that we could have successful career and have a happy fulfilling marriage, so to speak, however that's designed, when do you start helping people look at the balance or how those things can exist together?

That's such an interesting question. Because you know, I actually don't even take them separately.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

Yeah. I'm a relationship coach, fundamentally. I'm playing with this idea now that as I do more and more executive coaching and I move into more corporate spaces, because fundamentally, the work that I do is about your relationship with yourself. Yes, I am informed by the Gottman Institute, and there's like different Imago dialogue, and there's relationship skills I can help teach. That's not all that I do, though. I mean, I do do couples' work, but that's not all that I do.

So to me, it boils down to yes, it's about your relationship with yourself, and then looking at how does that relationship with yourself play out in the different arenas of your life. I have a client right now that we're tackling his work-life balance, his marriage, and his chronic migraines. Does that mean that I'm a health coach? No, not at all. But they're all interconnected. 

The key is, let's drill down from that area, which is the proxy to the core belief systems, to the core wounding, to the wiring. Change that, and then begin to see how it's going to shake out in different arenas of your life. So that's what I really love to do.

It is interesting. Because people ask me: You are happily married, do you practice what you preach? I'm like, yes, I do. Because it's the same bloody techniques that I used to help me and be happy in my marriage, and actually work on my own triggers and work on my own conflicts and all of that, that's actually helping me in my business. Yes, there are nuances, of course there are, like the strategies are different. But fundamentally, it's still an inside job. It's still about my relationship with myself. I always tell people I'm not going to stop doing the work. Not until I'm a multi, multi, multi gazillionaire and I have an animal ranch and rescuing the planet. I'm going to keep going, because there's always more to unravel, I think personally. You could argue that I'm addicted to this work and that's a whole wounding thing. But I don't think I am. I think I quite enjoy it and it brings me joy.

Yeah, absolutely. I will say, people ask me, how do you be with people in their struggle or couples that are really in their disconnect cycle? I'm like, I very much have the empathy side of me that wants to be supportive and be helping and making a difference. But there's also the real passion for what's on the other side and the belief in the process, and really helping people be able to find connection, transform, and really get into places of more intimacy. That is so rewarding. I raise my hand that I am in the practice as well, and that even though it's hard and it's difficult sometimes to turn towards, to do the work if it's not comfortable or it feels challenging, I believe in what's on the other side and what is possible. So to be willing to do the uncomfortable thing in the interest of that development or that growth, it is so worth it.

Absolutely, yeah. I think it's because you see, and I see, the outcomes. It's uncomfortable, but it's like squeezing a spot. Tough analogy. But like, yeah, it's a bit painful, it's a bit gross, and stuff comes out that maybe don't really want to look at. But then once you've cleaned it up and your skin is healed, it's lovely. You've got rid of it. I think because you live in the outcomes, and I live in the outcomes too, we have such conviction that this stuff works. This stuff works, and it's way faster and more cost-effective to do this inner work than it is to not, quite frankly. So why wouldn't we?

Yes. Well, I appreciate your responding to my question about where intimate relationships start to become a focus. Even as I was asking, I was like, maybe it's all part of all three, and it sounds like it very much is. When we look at that first aspect of focusing on secure functioning, with the internal attachment system around core beliefs, but as it relates to others, we typically feel wounding in relationship, and also can feel repair and corrective experiences with others. I mean, really almost everything is relationship, if we really look at it and talk about it fundamentally. So to have the space to be able to reprocess, to have awareness, to find ground, and then to move from a different place to begin to live into more secure functioning. Some of us haven't had that support or that guidance or the slowing it down to really re-pattern. That's huge. Then it sounds like the second place is being able to say, well, what would I love, and then what does that relationship look like and what's possible from that? So it can be a focus throughout. Do people come to you with the pain of like, I long for relationship?

Yeah, absolutely. I work with people who are in relationship, and people who are single as well. The people who long to be in relationship, it's quite interesting. It's a whole range of ages and situations, and that longing, I know it so well. That was me for such a big chunk of my life, yearning for that relationship. I really understand it. I think the one difficulty with that is that I can't predict the timing. I cannot predict the timing, and there is an element of luck and serendipity that is quite hard for me with clients. Because it's like, I wish I could give you a timeline. When it comes to the couple, the people who I work with who are in relationship, that's generally a sense of a timeline. I can't guarantee anything, but I know from experience, if we do X, Y, and Z, and we're all in it and we're all motivated and disciplined and do the homework practices, you will see outcomes over this time period. You just will, for better or for worse. I always say it's a win-win, because even if you end up leaving your partner, great. You've got that clarity and you're onwards to better things, and I'll help you through that. But when someone is single and trying to find love, it's like, I can't give you a guarantee, because I don't know. I don't know. I think that's my biggest challenge there. But I do love helping people find love.

Yes. Do you work with people who are individuals and their significant other isn't engaged?

Yeah. If anything, that's more common to me. I think it's probably quite different to what you do potentially. I think my biggest frustration when I was getting couples' counseling and marital counseling with my ex-fiancé, was the fact that he wasn't interested in doing the work anywhere near as much as I was, which is quite common. So I spent over a year of that relationship going down the rabbit hole of working with different therapists and coaches, and everything needed his involvement. It felt really paralyzing to me. Because I was like, well, I can't really move the needle in this relationship if he's not interested, if he's not involved. It was only when I discovered attachment theory, and I was like: Okay, well, actually, if I work on becoming as securely attached as I can and take ownership of my side of the street, then whatever happens, the outcome can only be good. Because frankly, I'm either going to outgrow him and exit, which is what happened, or I'm going to inspire him to grow with me and we're going to do this journey together.

So that's my model now, which is, so often I see one person, the high-achiever, who is used to taking responsibility, used to rolling their sleeves up, used to getting the job done. So they're like, I want to fix my marriage, help me do that. I'm like, okay, great. Can't guarantee the marriage part, but I will help you become secure and I will help you become the best version of yourself. From that place, if this is the marriage for you, which 9/10 times, I will say, actually does work out, then great. You are going to end up inspiring your partner to step up.

Because there's always this period where the person working with me starts blossoming to this wonderful version of themselves. They're not getting triggered anymore. They're really loving. They're just wonderful to be around at home. And their partner is like, what the heck happened to you? They start to get a little bit paranoid and they're like, what's going on? At that point, they might share: Well, I'm seeing this relationship coach and I'm learning these different things, and this is actually really great and it's really helping me. At that point, the partner is like: Oh cool, okay, I want to learn more as well. That's when you start to see, the partner might come in and do some couples work with me. Maybe I work with the partner, or maybe they get their own help. It doesn't really matter. But the point is, this joint growth happens.

I have also seen situations where the partner is not very interested. They're a little bit threatened. They don't like this new version of the person. This person is like: Well, I'm growing this way, and this partner is just disengaging entirely. But the friction leads to a resolution. So often, I think people, myself included, spend months if not years of their life in this limbo, where things aren't working, you don't really know what to do. You don't want to go because you know the divorce is going to be horrible, and the consequences and the kids and the money, and blah, blah, blah. But you're also not happy in the status quo, and you know that, looking into the future, it's like, Well, how's this going to work? So this limbo is horrible. Like, what a time suck, what an energy suck. So I always say, let's get you that clarity sooner rather than later whilst you're younger. My father left my mother when she was 57. I'm like: Ooh, I wish he had done it sooner. Because she never found love again. She never found love again, and that breaks my heart. Because I think we want to make these discoveries at a point where we have a little bit more agency and control to rebuild our lives to be better.

Absolutely. Even working with people that are looking to find love, that perhaps in the dating, that there might be a little bit more speed of implementation. Where if you recognize and you're getting the data points that maybe this isn't quite the right match or the best fit, maybe previous patterns would've been to stay. Like, well, maybe we could work this out, and maybe stay a lot longer than maybe was optimal. That it can be a sense of not it, not it, not it, and making more room for an it fit. Not that the person is a not it, but just the fit.

Yeah, 100%. It's like taking that band-aid off. It's scary. That's again, when you feel full of self-love and confident and connected to your true self, which sounds woo-woo and fluffy, but it's not. Fundamentally, I'm talking about self-esteem and confidence here, in corporate speak. When you are in that place, you can handle anything. You can handle anything, and it is always a win-win from that place. It really is.

Yes. Would you like to give an example, just for people listening, around how this is possible and what that can look like?

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a client who came to me, I think it was not quite a year ago, probably like nine months ago. She came to me through LinkedIn, which is where I tend to hang out. She was just very inspired from one of my posts, and we had a very frantic call. I remember she wanted to talk to me that day, and we had a conversation. She was working for a global bank. She told me that she needs clarity deciding whether to leave her husband or not. Because she was like, things are just unbearable. They're no good. They've been pretty bad for coming up to a year now. There's no intimacy. He's really grumpy. They just snap at each other. She's just staying for the kids. She's like, I'm too busy at work to even contemplate a divorce, and if I have to do this, it's going to be a whole drama. She's like, I don't really have to think about it. But I'm also like, I'm just not in love with him anymore, I think we've grown apart.

So her thing was, she had climbed the corporate ladder, gained the salary, breadwinner, become more ambitious, really loved her work, and he hadn't. So many of my clients are married to teachers, which is really interesting. My husband is a teacher as well. I don't know what that's about. She was like, he works, but he doesn't really bring home that much money, and he's more with the kids. She's like, I don't know if I've emasculated him, I don't know what it is. But either way, we've just grown apart.

So I began working with her. The first thing we did, actually really interestingly, for her own nervous system and for her own sense of safety into doing this work, we actually built a Plan B. That Plan B was figuring out what would a divorce look like. Because she needed to know how will she handle this? How will we handle the kids? How will she handle the finances? What's it going to look like if she wants to actually explore this? So we created this pretty robust Plan B, literally near to the point where there was divorce lawyers and stuff on standby. She felt pretty good with that. She got her head wrapped around the finances, made peace with it. Then we began exploring.

So she wasn't held hostage. She had freed up space, it wasn't that she was trapped and had to. It was like, no, I've explored this, this is an option. This is what it looks like.

Exactly. Again, I love working with corporate people because they're like, let's build a strategy. I'm like, yes, let's build a strategy. 

So creating that sense of safety, we did that, and then we began exploring what are the core messages? Like, what are the subconscious beliefs that she has, what's her wounding, what's her attachment style? And what became really clear was that she was a chronically fearful avoidant. Very, very, very disorganized attachment. So she had a lot of beliefs and wounding around feeling really trapped, around feeling really powerless, around betrayal. She really didn't trust her husband. Again, she felt trapped in the marriage. She felt trapped even in her role in the family. She felt very powerless, which is one of the things that we associate with fearful avoidants. All of these things were negatively impacting how she viewed the relationship. She was projecting, essentially, all of these beliefs and this vision of what her life looks like, onto her partner.

So the first thing we did was, we began dismantling these perceptions and challenging them, and doing lots of cognitive processing and somatic processing, and helping her actually reconnect with the truth of who she is and her role in that relationship. And what she realized, over a couple of months, was that actually she's not trapped at all. She's completely free, and actually, she has a lot of power in the dynamic.

With the betrayal, there was a couple of very clear moments in the relationship that exacerbated a betrayal wound, that she could actually resolve by having conversations with him. So I gave her structures on how to have conversations with him and how to bring these different moments of betrayal up. Lo and behold, as she began to chip away at this, and then began to address the different things that were contributing to her negative experience in the relationship, that relationship began to change. Her husband was really receptive, like super receptive. It was very clear to him. It was like, you're acting really different, you're acting really weird. What's going on? You're talking to me differently. She told him, I'm seeing a relationship coach. He was actually really happy at the beginning. There was a moment where she was vulnerable, because she was really holding back a lot of vulnerability, and she had a big fear around being seen and being heard. Again, very common. When she revealed the extent to which she was unhappy and the different things that bothered her in the relationship, the betrayal wounds that had happened, and she got really vulnerable and actually shared: I have a Plan B, I have a divorce plan. He broke down because he was horrified, he had no idea. That was the catalyst that he needed to really step up and start doing his work.

So within a couple of months after that, she turned around and she was just like, he's a different person. He's an entirely different person. All of these different things that were bothering me, he's not doing them anymore. They were having way more conversations. They were actually reconnecting and building more of a friendship. The last I heard was that they're trying for another baby, which I was like, that is wild. I can't imagine.

So all of that to say, the relationship stayed intact, even though she came to me literally wanting to exit and divorce. But so much of it was, I don't want to say her doing, but her perception of the relationship, and because of that perception, her behaviors, aka holding back how she was really feeling, holding back her vulnerabilities, not really letting herself be seen or heard, making herself feel almost trapped in her own mind. All of those things were actually negatively contributing to the outcomes of the relationship. That's why I love this work so much. Because when you actually start to shift yourself, you will change how you show up in that relationship. You just will.

You don't have to bring your partner in if they're resistant. Because culturally, he wasn't really keen on couples' counseling. He didn't really want to do it. He didn't really understand it. Also, in my experience, when you have one person saying we need a couples' therapist, there's often a lot of defensiveness. Because already, the tone. I mean, you know this, the tone and the energy behind it is so critical and negative, and it already starts on this negative footing. So I really like this idea of, well, let's just work on you. You take ownership of your side of the street. You show up in the most graceful, loving, and best version of yourself. Then, let's see.

Thank you for sharing just an example of what that can look like. It's so important, because as you're sharing the story, often people are using their best mechanisms, either their protective mechanisms or coping mechanisms. It can be a self-reinforcing feedback loop. The lens from which we're viewing or interpreting or perceiving further validates the narrative or the story or the wounding, and so it perpetuates. Then when we add two people in a partnership or in a marriage, how that feels for the other, and then they've got their coping and protective strategies. I don't know for her husband, but I'm imagining, it's easy to just say: Oh, you're not available, so let me work on the kids. So it's almost, not denial, but not necessarily looking as closely because they're not engaging. Or various ways in which, again, we learn to adapt or cope, but further perpetuate the disconnection. So the opportunity, I'm grateful to hear that he was so receptive.

I agree with you that sometimes when people come in to get support, the almost unconscious, or not even unconscious, but the secret agenda is: Oh, you're going to help my partner change. Really, that can just be such a distraction, and people are really caught in trying to describe and point out all the evidence to support why you are in the wrong. So to have people really focus on their experience and what that means to have that support to do that.

Great! Well, I know you wanted to talk about self-sabotage at all. Does that fit with what we're sharing or talking about now? What would you like to say around that?

Well, I think actually, we can even use that previous client. When I talk about self-sabotage, I'm pretty sure we're going to align on this philosophy. 

Whether your needs are safety or happiness or pleasure, or take you away from pain, but it's just doing its best to get your needs met. Meaning, if I'm doing something that feels like I'm sabotaging, I mean, procrastination is a classic one. Like, oh, I procrastinate and I'm self-sabotaging. It's like, well, maybe you're not self-sabotaging.

Maybe your brain is just associating so much pain with the task at hand and more pleasure with cleaning the house or putting away the laundry, or whatever it is that you do to distract yourself from having to do the thing. Actually, your brain is just trying, because it's just geared for survival. Actually, if you can understand that, then it becomes kind of like a math equation. It's like: Oh okay, how do I get my brain to believe and to understand that there is a greater reward, a greater benefit to doing this thing that I'm apparently not doing, and a greater cost to not doing it? It gives you more agency. I think when we talk about self-sabotage, it feels like we're just out of control and like there's nothing we can do. I self-sabotage because I ate that cookie, even though I'm trying to lose weight. It's like, well, probably the diet that you're on is absolutely horrific and giving you a lot of pain, and the cookie is like pleasure and relief. So how can we flip that so that you're not “self-sabotaging”, but you're actually getting your needs met in a way that feels sustainable.

So I want to change the language around that. People say I self-sabotage in relationships, or I end up attracting toxic relationships and abusive man, and that's just me and I'm self-sabotaging. Well, again, maybe you're not, maybe you just have such a fear of vulnerability, that actually, the idea of a healthy relationship with someone who's secure and willing to really see you feels more scary than being in an emotionally unavailable and distant relationship with someone who isn't. So that's what we need to be tackling. Let's help you get your needs met in a healthy dynamic, and debunk and deconstruct the false messages and the false narratives and the stories in your brain that are making you believe otherwise. Again, it gives you more agency than just feeling powerless in your behaviors,

It seems like there's a lot of unpacking and looking at where the tendencies and the motivations are coming from. My brother was interested in and did do some work with Tony Robbins, and he had shared an example or an exercise about looking at something we're avoiding and the pain we're associating. And what I got from that was more of like, sometimes we're so focused on the short-term that we don't look at the long-term. That often, if we look at the long-term cost of avoiding or the long-term benefit of taking action, that that is actually more motivating.

I'm curious. I'm happy to share more, I can put a link to maybe something around that. But what do you think about the concept of, I don't know if you're familiar with Gay and Katie Hendricks and the upper limit? Because I do think our familiarity, it's almost like this paradigm that you're talking about. I think the analogy is a vessel that holds a volume of liquid, and when we start pouring more abundance or more love, and it's reaching the top of the vessel that we've known, it can feel uncomfortable, and that we want to expand our capacity. So I think, from that framework, there is a sense of like, we will stop the flow and that can be an unconscious sabotage. But less about we're trying to hurt ourselves, but more of like, we're trying to stay comfortable in the zone of which we've known. Whether or not it's I don't want to be vulnerable, or whether or not it's this is more than I've known, this is new territory and I don't know how to handle this. What do you think about that? I don't know if you're familiar with it.

Yeah, I love their work. I actually did a LinkedIn post about them on Monday. It's so true. It's so true, and this is why I still do my own work. Because I absolutely have an upper limit, of course I do. We all do.

I was doing this the other day for myself, because I do a lot of shadow work around this, and I was exploring this. This is so dumb, but it was in my own business. I was like, I definitely have an upper limit around revenue. I think most entrepreneurs can resonate with this. There's like a monthly revenue cap that we get to, and then we have to break through that ceiling, and then we get to another one. I was reflecting on my own upper limit and the revenue that I kept hitting. I was like, what am I so afraid of happening when I exceed? The tax man! I'm going to have to pay more taxes, and there's going to be more admin and more paperwork, I don't know where that came from. How am I going to manage it, and what bank accounts am I going to put it into? All these really dumb, pedantic problems that my brain was just like: Eh, no, I don't want to go there. It's too complicated. It's too much hassle.

I remember, two years ago when I was doing this work as well, again, on revenue, one of my earlier fears of getting to a certain point was like, my husband will leave me. He'll think that I'm selfish and I'm spoiled and I'm this horrible capitalist woman. I was like, oh God! So I remember going to him, tears in my eyes, and I actually tapped into this block and I was like, will you leave me if I become successful? He was like: No, why would I do that? But it's like, our upper limits are so irrational a lot of the time, that when we hit a block or a plateau, whether it's in our relationship, whether it's in our health, in our career, in our wealth, I find it great that we can now have tools and techniques to be able to drill down into, what is it that I'm believing will happen? What's the pain that I'm trying to avoid by not going to this next level, and is that actually true? Probably not. Even if it is true, there's probably solutions I can apply to empower me. I love systems, and it just feels like there are systems to get through this. You don't have to be stuck in your upper limit. Apply the system and break through it. Easy!

Katarina, I'm so grateful that you exist in the world, doing what you're doing, and also just helping people expand their light and how they're making a difference on the world, and really helping people evolve in such a dynamic, multifaceted way. Just also helping leaders lead in a more embodied whole way, and I think that is going to transmit to all levels around how that reaches and touches others. So I appreciate that.

Thank you, that's so sweet of you to say. Thank you.

Yes. Well, I know we're winding down our time. Where would you like to direct people that are interested in getting to know more of what you have to offer?

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a very short, I mean short in my terms, it's like a 10-minute little video where I talk about my methodology and how I apply this methodology to help you discern whether you should stay or go, whether it's career, relationship, whatever it might be. Super interesting watch. Because I break down the different steps that I would take people through. So even if you don't work with me, it's well worth watching just to get your head around the process. Again, I love a good system. Then, come find me on LinkedIn. I hang out on LinkedIn. That is my platform of choice, even though there's a lot of AI dribble on there. But if you cut through that, then come find me on there and drop me a DM. I'd love to connect.

On LinkedIn, are you sharing current thoughts? Are you posting articles?

Yeah, I post daily. The posting that I like to do is, I love to do content where I bring in what people are typically thinking, or typical strategies or solutions, and why they might not be working for someone, and then explaining what does work. So kind of educational content, but really tapping into common scenarios and problems that I see people having on a day-to-day basis, and directing them through that.

It's a little bit of an exposure around how you approach and the process. Then for people that are interested in working with you, do you have coaching programs, or is that one-on-one? Do you want to say more about that?

Yeah, absolutely. I've got a group program. So I work one-on-one, and I have a group program. I also do executive coaching too. So if you want to expense me through your company, monthly retainer, it's pretty standard executive coaching. We still do the same work. This is the thing. It's not traditional executive coaching. It's like, we're still going to work with the subconscious. I'm still going to help you be securely attached. We're just going to do it from a more business lens, but we can still work on your marriage as well. So I have one-on-one. I work anything from the three-month engagement. I do say three months is ideally what we want to start with at least, to a year. 

Then I have a group container as well, which is very small, very intimate. Everyone's thoroughly vetted before they join, so it's a very safe space. There's currently like three or four people in there, and that's a six-month program. Anyone who does work with me gets my curriculum. Because I'm a nerd and I love studying, I built a curriculum around my methodology that's called Successfully in Love Method. It's kind of like an LMS. So you can log in, you get all the videos, get all the content. It's a little master's degree in relationships and becoming secure. It's got everything from navigating conflict, to reconditioning your brain, or rewiring as some people like to say, to identifying your needs, to building strategies. The whole thing is up there. So you will get that if you work with me, whether it's one-on-one or group.

Awesome! Great. Well, I'll make sure to put all the links on today's show notes. Thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's been absolutely lovely.