Listening to Your Body Through Every Season

I've been thinking a lot this summer about what it actually means to take care of yourself without burning out trying to do it "right." Not the curated, highlight-reel version of wellness you scroll past on Instagram — the real, messy, season-by-season version, where what worked for your body last year doesn't necessarily work for it now, and you have to keep relearning how to listen.

That's the whole reason I wanted to kick off this summer series the way I did — not with a list of hacks, but with a real conversation. And there was no one better to start with than my dear friend Karli Nichols.

A Friendship That Found Its Way to Me

If you've followed this podcast for a while, you know I love when guests are also genuinely my people, and Karli is exactly that. Our story is a little funny and a little full circle, and honestly, some of it we kept off the mic. But what I will say is that the people who end up in your life sometimes find their way there in the strangest ways, and I'm so grateful ours did.

Karli is one of those people who makes you recalibrate what "busy" even means. Division I lacrosse player turned teacher, yoga instructor, lacrosse coach, newlywed, and now expecting her first baby — a girl. If there's a queen of side quests in my life, it's her. But what I admire most about Karli isn't how much she does. It's how hard she's worked to listen to her body instead of constantly overriding it.

The All-or-Nothing Trap

A lot of us, especially those of us who came from a sports background or just a "go hard or go home" kind of upbringing, learn early that intensity equals worth. Karli talked about this in a way that really sat with me — how her entire identity as an athlete was built around pushing herself to the most extreme version of effort, all the time. And how, years later, she had to do the slow work of unlearning that.

That conversation hit close to home for me, because I think so many of us operate from this place where if we can't do the hardest version of something, we'd rather do nothing at all. Karli's perspective on this — that some movement is so much better than no movement, and that rest is not the opposite of progress but a part of it — is something I want every listener to sit with this summer.

Getting Answers When No One Believes You

One of the parts of this conversation I think a lot of women are going to feel deeply is Karli's journey toward her Hashimoto's diagnosis. For years, she knew something was wrong in her body, and for years, she was told her labs looked fine. If you've ever sat in a doctor's office hearing "everything looks normal" while your body is screaming otherwise, you know exactly the kind of quiet, isolating frustration that creates.

We talked about what it actually took for her to get answers, why autoimmune conditions don't fit into one neat box, and what she'd say to anyone out there who feels like they're being gaslit by their own body or the people meant to help them understand it.

Moving Through Every Season, Including This One

What I loved most about this conversation is how it didn't stay in one lane. We talked about food, about navigating gluten and dairy sensitivities without feeling left out at summer cookouts, and about what a completely ordinary, non-glamorous day of eating looks like for her. We also talked about pregnancy — how she's continued to move her body in ways that feel good, how her relationship with body image has shifted as she prepares to raise a daughter, and the kind of self-talk she's had to actively rework along the way.

None of it felt like advice from someone who has it all figured out. It felt like two friends being honest about how hard, and how worth it, it is to keep choosing yourself in every new season.

This Is What the Summer Series Is About

This episode is the first of my summer series, and it set the tone exactly the way I'd hoped. This season isn't about restriction or doing everything perfectly while the weather's nice. It's about intentionality — choosing what actually makes you feel well, even when that looks different than it did last year, or even last week.

I think you're going to walk away from this one feeling a little more permission to listen to your own body, wherever you're at.

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