Survival mode doesn’t always look like chaos on the outside — sometimes it looks like the “strong one,” the over-functioning one, the one who can read the room before anyone says a word. In this episode, Tenya shares how growing up with a bipolar mother, constant emotional chaos, and unspoken expectations put her into survival mode long before she had language for it. We walk through anxiety, depression, the moment she considered crashing her car just to get a break, and how the “acceptable” healing paths — meds and talk therapy — left her numb but not free. Desperate for something different, she Googled “holistic emotional healing,” found the Emotion Code, and stepped into energy work, muscle testing, and inherited trauma release. What she discovered? She’d been carrying emotions that didn’t even belong to her. We talk about energy, grief, complicated mothers, boundaries, and the radical idea that you are your first job — not your kids, not your parents, not your partner, you.

🎙️ What We Talk About

• How survival mode started before she was even 8 years old
• Growing up with a bipolar mom, chaos at home, and learning to walk on emotional eggshells
• The moment anxiety and depression resurfaced when motherhood “slowed down”
• How she used work, TV, drinking, smoking, and distraction to outrun her feelings
• Being offered “more meds” and “a CBT app” when she was already numb and overwhelmed
• Googling “holistic emotional healing” and stumbling into the Emotion Code
• What muscle testing actually is (and why your body is way more honest than your mouth)
• Inherited emotions: carrying your parents’ and ancestors’ stuff without even knowing it
• The difference between conscious work (journaling, therapy) and energetic work — and why both matter
• Grieving a mother you weren’t close to, and why grief doesn’t always look like people expect it to
• Setting boundaries with parents and family without buying into “but they’re your mom/dad” guilt
• Redefining self-care as “I am my first responsibility, my first best friend, my first priority”

🔑 Key Takeaways

“You’re worth spending your time on. Period.”

“Our bodies want to thrive — they’re just buried under everything we’ve absorbed.”

“You don’t have to ingest something to begin healing. Sometimes you start by listening.”

“Just because someone is family doesn’t mean they get unlimited access to you.”

🙌 Why This Episode Matters

So many women in survival mode blame themselves for not “getting better” with the tools they were handed: just talk, just pray, just take the pills, just push through. This episode cracks that wide open. We talk about the parts of healing people still whisper about: when meds help but also numb you, when therapy isn’t enough on its own, when grief is complicated because the person you lost also hurt you, and when choosing yourself means disappointing the people who think they own you. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing “all the work” but still feel blocked, stuck, or disconnected from your own body — this conversation will help you see that you’re not failing. You’re simply ready for deeper tools, better boundaries, and a different way to exist.

💬 Connect with Tenya

🌐 Website: designyourexistence.com

✨ Instagram / socials: via her site

🔗 Resources & Links:

• 💣 Download the Survival Mode Exit Blueprint
• 👉🏾 Join the Survival Mode Exodus Membership
• 🎧 Subscribe to Survival Mode Disrupted: The Podcast on YouTube
• ✍🏾 Subscribe to Survival Mode Disrupted: The Newsletter on LinkedIn
• 💬 Book a 1:1 Session with Leticia
• 📖 Order Survival Mode Exit Plan Book
• 😉 Join the free FB Group Disrupting Survival Mode