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When bad news hits, your nervous system fires into shock before you can think clearly. Leading through the gut punch does not force positivity; instead, name what you feel, let it move through you, and re-regulate before reaching for hope.
Recently, David’s wife was diagnosed with a melanoma on her cheek.
Melanoma!
When you hear that word, your body knows before your mind catches up. Gut punch. She’s ridden the cancer merry-go-round more than once since he’s known her, but this one hit him in a way the others didn’t. And it taught him something about leading yourself when the ground disappears.
Margaret and David discuss how prayer, breathing, and grounding practices help you shift from worry to a calmer state where you can lead yourself and others with care.
Here’s a truth nobody puts on a leadership slide deck: some weeks, you will not be able to function. Not because you’re weak. Because you’re human, and something landed that no framework can absorb on impact.
This is not an episode about beating illness. It’s about what happens in the space between bad news and taking action.
Why does bad news feel like a physical blow?
Because it is one. Your body reads a serious diagnosis (yours or a loved one’s) as danger. And the fear of illness is 100% a danger as far as your nervous system is concerned.
Margaret’s been studying somatic coaching, and she frames the gut-punch reaction beautifully.
There are roughly three spaces in your nervous system. One is where hope and possibility live. But the moment bad news arrives, you don’t get to start there. You drop into the second space where adrenaline, cortisol, and everything else go haywire. Push further, and you hit the third space: overwhelm. The place where you want to climb under the bed and cancel your life until further notice.
Here’s what matters. You cannot pray, ask for help, or look for the gift while you’re still in that fight-or-flight state. You’re stuck there until you re-regulate. Not because you’re doing it wrong. Because that’s how the wiring works.
So the first act of leadership is being honest: name where you actually are. Not where you think a composed leader should be.
What do you do when you can’t function?
You stop pretending you can.
David needed to cancel a few things. Client commitments and meetings with friends. He couldn’t show up for them at his best, and he chose not to fake it. He was saturated. That’s the word Margaret offered, and it fits. Emotions can get so big inside you (especially if you’re sensitive) that there’s no room left for anything else.
From our coach training, we share a practice that is simple to say and hard to do:
- Name it. Call the feeling what it is. Worry. Sadness. The loss you’re bracing for.
- Allow it to be there. Don’t shove it down or bomb it out.
- Let it run through you rather than getting stuck in you.
David sat with the sadness instead of pushing past it. And here’s the strange part: once you tend to a saturated thing, it starts to ooze back out. You can catch your breath again. Room for clarity returns.
If you’re saturated right now, we encourage you to permit yourself to cancel a few things. Not forever. Just long enough to feel it move.
How do you find hope without faking optimism?
You don’t skip the gut punch to get there. You move through it.
Before David shifted into prayer, there was only catastrophizing. Then something opened up, and hope became available. But hope requires belief that your prayer (whatever form it takes) will have some benefit. That’s where a lot of us get stuck. David’s old saboteur, the one he calls the “doubter,” whispers that none of it will matter. And if you doubt whether your contemplation does anything, you’ll have no hope whatsoever.
Leaders ask for help.
Margaret and David were trained in that. But they discuss how to extend that. Leaders can also ask for help from something larger than themselves. Call it what you will: God, Source, Infinite Intelligence, a Higher Power, or your own Creative Spirit. Prayer can be as simple as asking that inner voice for guidance.
Two questions that David asked himself (and God) to help him climb out of his hole:
- What’s the gift here?
- How is this for me?
The gift, it turned out, was this: how often do you get to really reflect on how much you love someone?
This diagnosis hit David hard precisely because his love for Lillian has deepened to a place where losing her would feel like someone ripping out his heart.
That depth is the gift. Terrible messenger. Real gift.
Should leaders think about death on purpose?
The Stoics would say yes. So would the Buddhists, and just about every spiritual tradition that ever wrote anything down.
Marcus Aurelius counseled us to contemplate our own death (and the death of those we love) so that when the time comes, we’re ready.
Our culture does the opposite. We hop past it. (One of Margaret’s favorite images: we bounce through life like kangaroos.) But there’s a skill in contemplating a hard scenario without falling down the worry rabbit hole. Over the years, David watched people close to him disappear into that hole. It’s debilitating. And worry, as far as he can tell, changes nothing about the outcome.
There’s a saying often attributed to St. Ignatius: pray as if everything is in God’s hands, but act as if everything is in your hands. Do what you can. Then turn the rest over to a Higher Power. What’s outside your control is not worth the rabbit hole.
Try holding a hard question, like “What if this were serious?” without collapsing into it. That’s the practice.
Contemplation grounds you in love. Worry just drowns you.
Leading yourself is the first job
Lillian’s path isn’t determined yet. And David still has an unsanded edge. Sad, anxious, and worried in flashes. All of that is allowed to be here.
This episode’s invitation is small, and it’s for you.
Think of someone in your life going through something hard. Perhaps it’s a diagnosis, a divorce, a financial blow. Do your version of prayer for them. If you don’t have one, it can be as simple as: “This prayer is for so-and-so.” May they be happy and well. Or put your hands over your heart and let yourself feel saturated with care.
Just don’t hop past it.
Someone in your life could use a good word from you today.
