Six years ago, in a small Barcelona flat during the brutal COVID lockdowns, Betsy started a podcast about discomfort. Her work had vanished, she couldn't leave the house, and it felt like the universe was holding her on her back like a puppy until she stopped squirming. Back then she believed discomfort was something you got through. It ended, you got a calm patch, and then the next one arrived.

Now she's recording the opener to Season 6 in October 2026, with a summer of chemotherapy behind her and a few newly arrived eyebrows (you should have seen the situation a month ago). Her relationship with discomfort has quietly turned inside out. It isn't a finish line you cross once. It's the texture of life, and she's learning to hold it with open hands... most days, at least for today.

This season shifts focus to "embodied leadership in the wild" - how people lead from the gut, the heart, the senses and the nervous system, not just the MBA framework. Expect more solos, less scripting, a little less polish, and video for the first time, which is deeply uncomfortable for her. Expect weird questions too, like "Where do you feel that in your body?" Don't get hung up on the word leader. If you're not leading your own life, who is?

Whether you've been here since season one or pressed play thirty seconds ago, you're welcome exactly as you are, nervous system and all.

In this episode, Betsy explores:

- Why she started The Discomfort Practice during the Barcelona lockdown, and what she believed discomfort was back then

- How an unexpected breast cancer diagnosis and a summer of chemo rewrote that belief: discomfort as rhythm, not a chapter that closes

- Why she's doing more solos, less scripting and video for the first time (and the compliment she's learned to take: "I like listening to you waffle out loud")

- What embodied leadership actually means, and why "I'm not a leader" doesn't get anyone off the hook

- How a leader's nervous system patterns show up in their culture, what fractals have to do with it, and where Mike Tyson comes in

- Why this season's guests will be asked about the body, and why checking in with how you feel is intelligence, not weakness

- Launching the Embodied Leadership Lab in June, at the start of chemo, and the unexpected gift of a membership community

- Your turn: if leadership is a practice before it's a performance, what are you practising right now?

The Discomfort Practice explores the uncomfortable edges where personal growth, leadership, embodiment and systems change intersect. Follow Betsy for more reflections on embodied leadership, living out loud, and what happens when you stop trying to get through discomfort and start learning from it.

Subscribe to The Discomfort Practice wherever you listen - and a five-star review always helps

Follow Betsy's writing on Substack: substack.com/@thebetsyreed

Work with Betsy - coaching and consultancy: www.embodiedleadershiplab.com

Embodied Leadership Lab membership: www.patreon.com/c/embodiedleadershiplab