What if your body has been warning you about stress long before your mind catches up?

Karen Canham is a Board-Certified Wellness Practitioner and founder of Karen Ann Wellness, where she helps individuals and organizations move from stress and reactivity to regulation– clear, confident and connected. 

In this episode, she explains how chronic stress can show up through your breath, tension, exhaustion, numbness, and other signals we often ignore. She reveals why high-achieving women can become disconnected from their bodies, how simple practices can bring you back to the present moment, and why awareness is only the first step.

Listen to the end to discover how somatic work and parts work can help you understand the patterns behind your stress and reconnect with your authentic self.

What you will learn from this episode:

  • Learn how to recognize the physical signals your body sends when you’re under stress.
  • Discover simple ways to reconnect with your body without adding another complicated practice to your schedule.
  • Understand nervous system regulation and how to move out of chronic fight, flight, or shutdown patterns.

“The body would know that you are in stress. It feels unsafe for some reason and it’s trying to communicate that to you.”

– Karen Canham

Topics Covered:

01:15 – What stress really looks like: Karen explains how stress can show up as constant pushing, exhaustion, depletion, and shutdown.

03:05 – Learning to listen to your body: Discover why noticing your feet, breath, and physical sensations can be the first step toward reconnecting with yourself.

06:15 – Using neurotools to regulate stress: Karen explains how simple practices can stimulate the vagus nerve and help bring your nervous system back into the present moment.

08:00 – Understanding nervous system regulation: Discover the difference between heightened, shutdown, and regulated states—and why all of them have a purpose.

12:00 – Karen’s personal journey: Hear how her experience with an eating disorder, therapy, yoga, and corporate leadership led her toward somatic work.

14:15 – What is somatic work?: Karen breaks down how paying attention to sensations in your body can reveal patterns you’ve been overlooking.

16:00 – A simple tool for calming your system: Learn one practical neurotool Karen uses to help shift out of heightened or shutdown states.

21:00 – Reconnecting with your authentic self: Karen explains why the goal isn’t to eliminate these parts, but to understand them and choose how you respond.

Key Takeaways:

“When we override that body, eventually we come into [these] chronic patterns.” – Karen Canham

“The ultimate source of being able to live the life that I wanted to live was really being in my body.” – Karen Canham

“When we ignore these signals in our body, some of those things can then turn into that chronic state of stress.” – Karen Canham

Ways to Connect with Karen Canham:

Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown:

 

Full Episode Transcript:

(AI helped us put this together, so if you see any weird grammar or missed words—just know we nailed it during the actual chat.)

Karen Canham

The body would know that you are in stress. It feels unsafe for some reason and it’s trying to communicate that to you.

Sarah E. Brown

Hello everyone, welcome to the KTS success factor podcast for women where we talk about challenges senior female leaders face in being happy and successful at work.

I’m your host, Dr. Sarah E. Brown. 

My guest today is Karen Canham. She is a board-certified coach, specialist in neurosomatics, and founder of Karen Ann Wellness, where she helps individuals and organizations move from stress and reactivity to regulation. 

Her path to this work has been a journey in itself. Over the past 18 years, Karen has evolved from fitness and nutrition coaching into yoga, functional medicine, meditation, energy work, and ultimately somatic and parts work therapy, exploring every layer of what it means to truly heal. 

After years in corporate leadership, including roles within Fortune 50 and tech companies, she began to see a pattern. Even the most capable people were living in a state of chronic stress, disconnected from their bodies and their truth. That realization led her to nervous system regulation as the missing link between striving and sustainable well-being. 

Karen’s approach is both deeply personal and practical. Having recovered from anorexia and years of disconnection from her own body, she understands that healing begins with safety, not self-discipline. 

Through her coaching, workshops, and trainings, she teaches people how to regulate, reconnect, and rebuild from the inside out, leading, communicating, and creating from grounded presence and self-trust rather than survival. 

Welcome, Karen. 

Karen Canham

Thanks, Sarah. Excited for this.

Sarah E. Brown

Well, there’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s start with the basics. How do you define stress? This is a really great question, and I’ve actually never been asked this question before. It’s just out there so much, I think people just assume what it is. But for me, it’s really operating from a place that’s in this either go, go, go, do, do, do, push through. not present type of energy. 

And then most of the time, and then it’s going from that type of energy into an energy that’s a type of shutdown energy. So just exhaustion, depleted, kind of numb. And so, yeah, that’s really how I see stress showing up in the body. Okay.

Sarah E. Brown

And so what do you mean by being disconnected from your body?

Karen Canham

Yeah, what I mean by being disconnected from your body is that we’re not listening to it at all. And so 80 percent of the communication is coming from our body up to our brain and 20 percent is coming from our brain down to our body. 

And in society, we’ve really been taught to do this type of mindset work and try to override, you know, thoughts and and push through those types of things and completely ignore those communications that are coming from the body. 

And so It really is, you know, not something that we knew a whole lot about. And when we override that body, eventually we come into these chronic patterns. 

So things that would be examples of not being able to understand what’s going in our body is we have no awareness of what our breath patterns are. 

So is it shallow? Is it deep? Are we breathing fast? Are we holding our breath? That’s a main one that I get a lot, that there’s just no awareness of that breath cycle at all.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. so does the body know that I’m in stress?

Karen Canham

The body would know that you are in stress. It feels unsafe for some reason, and it’s trying to communicate that to you. 

So these are all things that are happening in the body, are all just communications of trying to tell ourselves, giving us information. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. So how do I become aware of what my body is telling me?

Karen Canham

So the basic steps and most people that I work with come to me they haven’t been in their body for a very long time. So it’s starting small and where I start with most of my clients is just taking even five seconds to notice your feet on the ground. It’s kind of I would explain it that’s comparable to a mindfulness practice. 

I also have kind of the same type of clientele as you people who are you know in corporate careers, high-achieving, they may be mothers, there’s a lot going on in their lives.

And so I like to communicate to them that this is not something that we need to add to your plate. So we don’t need to sit down for 15 minutes and meditate. We can stack these habits into our daily lives, like as we’re walking to the bathroom and taking that break, we can be mindful of our feet on the floor, the right foot and then the left foot, and feeling that energy come up to the body.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay.. And what could I be sensitive to signals from my body to tell me? I get the being conscious and aware when I’m walking and feet on the ground and all of that. But what could I be attuned to, so to speak, from my body to let me know that I’m actually in stress if I don’t really know that?

Karen Canham

Yeah, so something that just we can use this example of like walking to the bathroom and feeling our feet on the ground. When we start to do that, there’s going to become more awareness that comes in that are like, oh, my feet kind of actually feel pretty tight. That’s interesting. 

And, you know, there’s a whole Chinese medicine and Eastern medicine that comes from everything lives in the feet and comes up. Just having that simple awareness starts to open up more awareness into the body of like, I have a lot of tension that I’m holding in my feet. My legs might feel tired. The energy might feel slowed. 

So we start to gain the little simple things that we do. We start to expand that awareness of what’s really happening in our body, and then we can start to understand. all the way up into like my breathing pattern is you know really shallow and that can it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re in a chronic state of stress it can mean that you’re in stress at that moment but when we ignore these signals in our body, some of those things that I just mentioned, it can then turn into that chronic state of stress because your body is just continues to shut down more and more of like, I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t feel safe. So I’m going into this alter or protection mode.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, so you’ve mentioned two things that we can do immediately, and none of them take a whole lot of time. 

One is being aware of our feet on the floor and what do our feet feel like. The second is to be aware of our breath. So for the person who’s just getting started with this, is there anything else that we ought to pay attention to?

Karen Canham

Yeah, I mean, I like to use neurotools in the beginning, and even throughout the experience, I still use neurotools. 

And what those neurotools do is specifically stimulate your vagus nerve. So your vagus nerve runs from the bottom of your brain down into most of your organs into your body. And this is where I was talking about that communication. It’s a loop that’s going from the brain into the body. And again, 80% of that communication is coming from the body up. 

So those neural tools that we can utilize will stimulate that vagus nerve and kind of like wake it up and tell yourself like, oh, okay, you’re listening to me now. I’m here. 

And so some of those things that we can do is take a pause and orienting would be one of those neurotools. So we can look at an object in our environment. We can scan our environment and start to really hone into those five sensations. What are we seeing? What are we smelling? What are we hearing? And that starts to create safety into our body that it’s like, oh, OK, I’m safe here in the present moment.

Because where we’re living is a place either of usually it’s a place of that we’ve lived in the past, right? So all of these things that we’ve experienced in our past, they live in our body. 

And that’s a lot of times what we’re operating from when we get into these chronic stress modes. 

So just doing a little bit of that skill work brings us back into that present moment, into that awareness, into the body, and it tells the body, okay, I am safe in this present moment. 

And it starts to rewire those patterns in our brain.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. And what is nervous system regulation? 

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I hope you are enjoying this episode and gaining some tips and inspiration on how you can be happier, more successful and experience less stress at work. 

If you would like to learn more about how you can take control of your career and do it your way, visit sarahebrown.com. There you will be able to download a free chapter from my book, Let Your Personality Be Your Career Guide. It contains information and exercises on how you can identify your unique interests, strengths, and needs, and translate that into career goals that are just right for you. 

Now, back to this informative episode.

Karen Canham

Nervous system regulation, and I hesitate using this word because we all will be in different states. So I can explain it on a scale. 

So if we’re in like a one area, we’re more of in the shutdown type of energy, more depressed, 

And then if we’re in the 10, we’re more in this like really hyperactive, anxious, pushing through type of energy. 

When we’re in the middle, we’re in that like, regulated, or we can call it that ventral vagal state. It’s normal for us to be in all those states. It’s healthy for us to be in all those states. We need those things. 

You know, anxiety can be a really good thing for us, especially as high-achieving women, to do the things that we’re doing. We can compare it to, like, a strength that we have of honesty. 

So honesty is normally looked at as a really good thing, but when we’re overly honest and there’s too much honesty, it can start to cause harm. 

So I think it’s really important just to point out here that it is normal and it is crucial for the body to be in all those states. It’s when we become stuck in either one of those extreme ends of states is when it becomes an issue and can start wreaking havoc on our relationships. 

That’s where a lot of autoimmune diseases start to form in those places. And so this regulation piece is really developing that awareness of where am I on that scale and being able to bring yourself back into more of that middle place. 

Part of that regulation work as well is to start expanding that capacity so we can look at it as like this window of tolerance that I have. And so how much can I go into this zone of like this anxious type of fear zone or how much can I go into this like relaxation more of this like shutdown mode that feels comfortable, right? and so how much can I tolerate of being in these places because There is a huge part of, like, as humans, and again, what we’re taught in society, is it’s not okay to be in these places. 

And so when we recognize that, it’s either, like, we’re trying to, like, cover it up or we’re trying to, like, get out, instead of really allowing ourselves to be in those places and explore those places even more of, like, what are these things trying to tell us and getting curious.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. So when you say being in those places, you’re talking about the extremes?

Karen Canham

Yeah, I’m talking about being in this dorsal vagal shutdown is what we call it. So in this one type of zone, or being in the sympathetic state, which would be up into the higher 10 type of zone.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. And how did you get, you mentioned in your bio, there’s a little bit about this, but tell us about your personal story and how you got discovered all of this.

Karen Canham

Yeah, so I’m naturally a sensitive person. 

I’ve been highly attuned since I was a small child. With that comes a lot of strengths, again, but it can be really difficult to manage throughout your life as well. I did have some trauma as a child as well, and I developed an eating disorder when I was about 10, but got pretty serious when I was in my teens, and that really, like, did a lot of damage on my brain from not eating.

And it wasn’t something that I was willing to admit that I had. But people around me, not to give too much information here, and this was like part of the environmental trauma was like, something’s wrong with you, like you’re not right. 

And having mental illness in my family, I went to see a psychiatrist and said, ‘Yeah, people are telling me there’s something wrong with me, this runs in my family.’ You know, then asked me questions more about that, like specific diagnosis. And it was like, yeah, I mean, well, maybe, I mean, my thoughts are looping all the time. I’m ruminating. I didn’t know those words at the time. But I thought, well, maybe that’s, yeah, I’m, I have racing thoughts, right? 

So I went through a lot of misdiagnosis. No one ever asked me, like, hey, are you eating? 

And then I finally just decided in my late 20s, like, I do not want to continue to live this way. I was functioning. I had a successful career. I was living on my own in a metropolitan environment. But there was a lot of me that was just very unhappy. Going back and forth between these states of like anxious into depression. 

And then that’s finally when I admitted like, yeah, I’ve been using this eating disorder to cope for a really long time and took myself to eating disorder treatment. 

That was the first time that I was introduced to yoga and yoga was my gateway to all of this. It really started to open up my eyes of like, wow, I haven’t been in my body like ever. Not that I remember, right? 

It was the only thing that I could do exercise-wise that really wasn’t triggering to me. It really didn’t feel like an exercise practice to me. It was more of a spiritual type of practice and I became a yoga teacher and taught yoga and could care less about what your alignment was. Just like, hey, just don’t hurt yourself. 

But it was all about being in your body and just a lot of like the wisdom that I gained throughout the therapeutic environment. I had a really great therapist that I did a lot of work with. 

I went back into the corporate game when I got out of therapy and I was still teaching yoga on the side and that kind of evolved into coaching and in my corporate career that’s really what I did. 

I led teams like out in the field and I love that part of it being able to coach but there was always this like pull of like I don’t like this industry, you know, it would go so far as to like, I can really, I love being with the people and being able to see them grow. 

But this industry and, you know, all this red tape is was really like a friction within me. And so I ended up moving from Los Angeles to Florida. 

I decided at that time I was going to quit my corporate career and take this fulltime. And that’s when I decided I wanted to get a little bit further education in that functional medicine. 

That’s something that I am really passionate about. Just a holistic view of, you know, there’s so much that we can do as ourselves that can help us to help us stay out of these patterns of, like, these ups and these downs. 

And then I went into a neuroeducation course and did, like, somatics and trauma-informed breathwork as well. Those were all things that I had experienced throughout my therapeutic experience or just like coaching on my own or, you know, what I was doing to continue to grow myself. 

And so it was just all of those things led me to the place of the things that worked for me the most and what my experience was, was I shouldn’t say the most because there’s so much that goes into it and all of those things were so helpful along my journey, but I found the things that were the ultimate source of being able to live the life that I wanted to live was really being in my body, so doing that somatic work and the parts work therapy. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, define somatic work. 

Karen Canham

Yeah. So somatic work is experiencing the sensations that are going on in your body. 

So a little bit of like what we talked about, even with those neuro tools or in the beginning with the oriented or finding your feet on the floor, we can go deeper into our body and really get curious about one specific area in our body or scan through our body. And then we want to go through the sensations of what we’re, what we’re feeling.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, so you’ve given our listeners three tips around building awareness so far. 

So paying attention to your feet, paying attention to your breath, paying attention to what your vagus nerve is signaling, and getting curious about what’s going on in your body. 

But once I’ve done that, is there anything that I can do as just a layperson to calm down?

Karen Canham

Yeah, the neuro tool, just if you’re in a state where it can be calming down, so if we’re in a heightened state, that would be a place to use a neuro tool to bring you back more into that regulation place. 

Same thing that we can do is if we’re in a more of a shutdown place, we can use a neuro tool to kind of like bring us out of that and get us into a more regulated place. 

If we’re not in a place, that’s really the first step, because if we’re not in a place in this, more of this regulated area, it’s going to be extremely hard to do that type of somatic work and to feel into our body. It’s just, there’s too much, we’re too heightened or we’re too shut down and we’re not able to access those feelings into our body.

Sarah E. Brown

Okay, so what would be an example of a neural tool I could use if I were in one of those two extreme states and I want to get

Karen Canham

Yeah, one of my favorite ones is you use the pointer finger of your finger and you want to use the pad of your finger. 

Just be careful if you have long nails. And we want to go into the ear right into where we get that, where the ear is kind of spiraling and we feel that pocket. 

So we want to come into that pocket on the upper part of your ear. Yeah. The upper part of your ear where we feel that pocket yeah and you’ll certainly you’ll feel like listening 

Sarah E. Brown

She’s watching me stick my finger in my ear so well that’s why she was saying yeah okay keep going.

Karen Canham

Well, you’ll feel like a hard surface there, almost like a bone. It’s cartilage. We don’t want to press too hard, just lightly. That feels enough. And we can just start to move in circles. You’ll probably feel like some cracking that’s going on a little bit. 

And as we’re doing this, we want to be present. So it will work if you’re not, because it’s stimulating our vagus nerve. But the more that we can really start to, and I like to close my eyes because it’s helpful for me to become more present. 

And then I just get curious. I start to really feel like, oh, it feels crackling, or it feels hot, or, you know, I feel, like, vibration. And then I’ll move the circle in, like, a different direction. 

You don’t have to do this for a long time. You can do it for about 10 seconds. And then just release, and then you would do the other side. 

Sarah E. Brown

Oh, OK. So you do both sides to be balanced, I guess.

Karen Canham

Yeah. 

Sarah E. Brown

Okay. All right. So, Karen, what did I not ask you that I should have that would help our listeners understand how they can become more in tune to what their body is telling them about stress and then do something about it?

Karen Canham

Yeah, I think the last piece is, and this is where I thought you were going to go in your last question, is like awareness is only one piece of it. 

So we can become aware all we want, but what do we do with that awareness? And the parts work therapy is really that ending piece. 

And so it’s a structured program that I offer that we go through of like using these neurotools to be able to access into the body and do this somatic experiencing. And then we’re able to do this parts work type of therapy when we have more capacity to explore those things in us. 

And the parts work therapy is really looking at patterns that have developed, and most of these patterns developed when we were in childhood. They can be things like the overachiever, the perfectionist, the controller. 

And we start to look at where these things show up, where they show up in the body and getting curious about when did they show up? Why are they here? Are they still serving us a purpose? Is it time to release them? Ultimately, we all have these parts, and the goal is not to get rid of these parts. 

The goal is to understand where these parts are showing up, not only in ourselves and in other people, and that helps us to communicate better. It helps us to operate from a place of our authentic self is what we’re really ultimately trying to do. 

So we don’t want these parts to take over our lives. We don’t want to be hating from this perfectionistic part. We want to be aware of when that part comes in and then knowing why is it here? What is it serving me? What is it doing for me in this moment? And allowing it to do what it needs to do, but being able to come back to that authentic adult self.

Sarah E. Brown

Got it. And where will my listeners find you?

Karen Canham

So the best way to find me is on my website, and it’s just karenannwellnes.com . You can contact me straight through there and find all my socials. Okay.

Sarah E. Brown

And that will be in the show notes. Okay. Karen, thank you so much for being with me today. 

Karen Canham

Thank you. Appreciate it. 

Sarah E. Brown

Thanks for listening to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. If you like what you are hearing, please go to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave a review. And if you would like more information on how we can help women in your organization to thrive, then go to www.sarahebrown.com. 

You can sign up for our newsletter, read show notes and learn more about our podcast guests, read my blog, browse through the books, or contact us for a chat. 

Goodbye for now.

Sarah E. Brown
Sarah E. Brown