Why Your Nervous System Won't Let You Rest
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired September 6, 2026 Dr. Charleanea Arellano has spent over 30 years as a clinical psychologist and leadership coach, but the framework she's best known for now, the Embodied Narrative Framework, didn't come from a textbook. It came from putting away laundry five years ago and noticing her own body bracing for impact, for no reason at all, at age 55, after decades of actually being safe. Dr. Arellano built her career studying how high-achieving women lead while carrying nervous systems shaped by trauma, and by the added weight of managing how their race, sexuality, or gender is...
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Why Business Leaders Need Negotiation Skills
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 23, 2026 Annette Mullin spent 24 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, nine of them as a crisis negotiator, eventually leading one of the busiest negotiation teams in the country — averaging over 100 call-outs a year. She worked patrol, sexual assault, internal affairs, and homicide, becoming LVMPD's first female homicide sergeant, before spending her final years as the department's director of employee wellness in the aftermath of the October 1 Mandalay Bay shooting, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Now a negotiation instructor and coach...
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Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 16, 2026 For over a decade, Dave Mowry couldn't get out of bed, couldn't shower, and couldn't walk to his own mailbox without waiting until dark so a neighbor wouldn't catch the look in his eyes. In 1994, a psychotic break sent the successful businessman and family man into a depression so deep it cost him his house, his career, and 14 years he calls his "lost years." He slept in his clothes for months at a time. At parties, he'd stand against the wall and pray no one came over to talk to him. Then, at his wife's urging, he walked into a stand-up comedy class for people...
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Phoenix and Flame Podcast
A midlife crisis isn't actually a crisis. That's the challenge Jody Brooks puts to anyone who's ever felt lost, restless, or quietly convinced something's wrong with them somewhere around 40 or 50: what looks like burnout, and what people love to write off as a freakout, is more often a calling. His own arrived at lunchtime at the office, buzzing canteen and all, when he found himself sitting in a restroom cubicle, crying so hard he could barely breathe. No brutal meeting that morning. No disaster. Just the quiet moment his body picked to file its formal complaint: burnout wasn't a "rough...
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Phoenix and Flame Podcast
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How Your Body's Intuition Can Heal You (Rebecca Russell)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Four years of chronic pain. A fibromyalgia diagnosis. Muscle relaxers, pain pills, migraines, MRI after MRI. And through all of it, my guest this week kept hearing the same quiet voice: something doesn't fit. Rebecca Russell listened to it anyway, tracked down a neurosurgeon, and asked for one test nobody else had run: a discogram. It found the bulging disc that had been the actual problem the whole time, and eighty-five percent of her symptoms disappeared after surgery. Rebecca is a metabolism and lifestyle coach, certified essential oil specialist, and author who's spent more than three...
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Phoenix and Flame Podcast
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Why Loneliness Hits the Young Hardest (Dr. Anthony Silard)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a hand-written sign taped to a bus stop in Japan: "I'm 87, I don't have a family. Would some family take me?" No one answered. He died a couple of months later. That story, from my guest this week, is the starkest snapshot I've ever heard of what loneliness researcher Dr. Anthony Silard calls a global epidemic, and the twist is who it's hitting hardest: not the oldest of us, but the youngest. Anthony is a professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and an internationally recognized authority on relationships, emotional intelligence, and personal transformation, and he's the...
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Avoiding Failure Guarantees It (with Mark DeCarlo)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a high school track meet: a sixteen-pound shot put thrown the wrong direction, a burst spleen, three weeks in a hospital bed. That's how my guest this week learned, at sixteen or seventeen, that avoiding failure is exactly what guarantees it. Mark DeCarlo woke up after three days unconscious to a doctor telling him ten more minutes and he'd have been dead, and he's spent every day since orienting his choices around one question: will this make me more happy or less happy? Mark is an Emmy award-winning comedian, bestselling author, and in-demand corporate speaker and leadership trainer...
info_outlineFirst aired September 6, 2026
Dr. Charleanea Arellano has spent over 30 years as a clinical psychologist and leadership coach, but the framework she's best known for now, the Embodied Narrative Framework, didn't come from a textbook. It came from putting away laundry five years ago and noticing her own body bracing for impact, for no reason at all, at age 55, after decades of actually being safe.
Dr. Arellano built her career studying how high-achieving women lead while carrying nervous systems shaped by trauma, and by the added weight of managing how their race, sexuality, or gender is perceived in the room. As a queer Latina psychologist who didn't come out publicly until 2024, and who spent years often being the only person of color at the table, she's lived the pattern she now helps her clients unwind.
We talk about what a chronically activated nervous system actually feels like in the body, the subtle and not-so-subtle ways bias shows up in a room, why "just get a massage" isn't a real fix for high achievers, and the simple, several-times-a-day nervous system reset she teaches instead.
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In this episode
- Why Dr. Arellano's own healing journey, not her doctorate, is what actually led her to the nervous system work she's known for today
- What it felt like to be the only person of color in the room for decades, and the subtle versus overt ways bias and microaggressions actually show up
- How to tell when your nervous system is activated, from bracing for impact to chronic anxiety, and why it starts in the body, not the mind
- The physical toll of years of unresolved activation: TMJ, chronic headaches, fatigue, digestive issues, and more
- Why women and men are socialized to handle stress so differently, and what that means for high-achieving women specifically
- The several-times-a-day nervous system reset Dr. Arellano teaches her clients, and why it only takes seconds
- Balancing connection and protection with family members who caused real harm, and what it looks like to set a boundary without needing them to understand it
Timestamps
- (00:01) Welcome and guest intro: meet psychologist and Embodied Narrative Framework founder Dr. Charleanea Arellano
- (03:07) Her path into psychology: curiosity about human behavior, a high school class, and a PhD by 29
- (05:26) "We are a version of our perfect client": how her own experience as a high achiever managing perceptions shaped her work
- (07:52) The subtle and overt ways bias shows up in a room, from stopped conversations to backhanded compliments
- (11:49) Stepping away from the professional world in 2003 after years of navigating belonging and credibility
- (13:24) What it actually feels like when your nervous system is activated: bracing, anxiety, and the body's fight-or-run response
- (20:35) The chronic physical toll: TMJ, headaches, fatigue, digestive issues, and chronic pain
- (24:30) Why women carry stress differently than men, and what that means for high-achieving women
- (25:57) The several-times-a-day nervous system reset, and why "just get a massage" doesn't work for high achievers
- (33:36) Her books: the memoir Terrible Gifts and The Last Dance, on intergenerational trauma with her father
- (37:01) Balancing connection and protection: boundaries with family members who caused real harm
- (40:06) Where to find Dr. Arellano and her work
About Dr. Charleanea Arellano
Dr. Charleanea Arellano is a licensed psychologist and Board Certified Life Coach with over 30 years of clinical and leadership experience, and the founder of the Embodied Narrative Framework. A queer Latina psychologist, she helps high-achieving women understand how nervous system patterns, trauma-adapted achievement, and the added stress of managing how their race, sexuality, or gender is perceived shape the way they decide, lead, and relate to success.
Her own healing journey, including decades of navigating rooms where she was often the only person of color, informs her work today. She's the author of the forthcoming memoir Terrible Gifts: Finding the Light in the Darkest of Places, and The Last Dance, which explores intergenerational trauma through her relationship with her father.
Learn more at Dr. Charleanea's website, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Favorite quotes
"We are a version of our perfect client." —Dr. Charleanea Arellano
"It starts with the nervous system. The nervous system is online before we have any conscious thought about it. It's running the show." —Dr. Charleanea Arellano
"This is hygiene. This is another form of hygiene — nervous system hygiene that you do throughout the day." —Dr. Charleanea Arellano, on why a 30-second reset matters as much as brushing your teeth
Resources mentioned
- Dr. Charleanea's website: home to her coaching practice and more on the Embodied Narrative Framework
- Terrible Gifts: Finding the Light in the Darkest of Places: Dr. Arellano's forthcoming memoir, currently in the publication process
- The Last Dance: her book on intergenerational trauma, told through her relationship with her father
- Dr. Charleanea Arellano on LinkedIn
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