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That’s Not Very Ladylike is the podcast for every woman who was told to be polite, stay calm, or stop being so dramatic, meanwhile her hormones, boundaries, and sanity were quietly falling apart.
Hosted by Tracey Willingham, licensed social worker and the voice behind That Hormone Girl™, each episode starts with one rule: Ladies don’t…and then they do it anyway.
Together, we unpack the unspoken expectations, the emotional labor, the generational BS, and the hormone chaos modern women are carrying and we get honest about what it actually takes to feel like yourself again.
If you’re ready to question the rules, trust your body, and stop shrinking to make everyone else comfortable, you’re in the right place.
You're listening to That's Not Very Ladylike, the show where every week, we start with one rule, ladies don't, and then we do it anyway. I'm Tracy Willingham and you might know me as That Hormone Girl. In today's episode, we are staying loud and raising a little hell by talking about ladies don't trust their gut, they outsource it. Welcome back to another episode of that's not very ladylike. Today we are talking about one that I have suffered from, I know a lot of my friends have suffered from.
Tracey:And I do hope you know when I do these episodes, I know it can feel like very always and never and all women. I realize that there are some episodes that are gonna hit and you're gonna be like, Oh, she saw me. She is in my living room right now looking me in the eyes. And there's others who are gonna be like, I don't really suffer from that. But I think there's always a theme that runs through is that the biggest thing I want women to remember is there's always different, there's a different set of rules for us, whether they're spoken or unspoken.
Tracey:And some of us probably get to exercise those rules differently. Some of us are in safer environments where we can push. Some of us are in environments where just listening to this episode and saying, Yes, I feel that on the inside, that's as far as it's ever going be allowed to go. So I just hope you know as you're listening to these, yes, I speak in generalizations, but a lot of times I am talking about society and the idea of what ladylike is. So this week is ladies don't trust their gut, they outsource it.
Tracey:So women are taught early to look outside of themselves for answers. And we're told to trust the experts, trust the systems. The systems are for the people. Why would they ever harm us or not benefit us? Trust people with titles, credentials and confidence.
Tracey:And slowly and most often without realizing it, we learn to distress the quiet voice that's inside our own body. For some of you, it might be that little fire in the pit. Sometimes those are the women who like, Oh, I just feel it in my gut. Or you just know it. You just know it in your head.
Tracey:Or you feel it in your heart. And we're praised for being reasonable. We are praised definitely when we're logical. And please always give some praise when a woman is not too emotional. And in the process, intuition gets framed as unreliable.
Tracey:It's something vague, something impulsive. It's something that needs proof before it deserves airtime. So instead of asking ourselves, What do I think? What do I sense? What do I know?
Tracey:What we do instead is we say, What do other people think? What do other people know? And that habit does not stay small. So I want tell you about, for a year, I served as a co leader of a volunteer organization. They did amazing work.
Tracey:And on paper, I did everything right, truly. If we had the time, but I'm not going to bore you, and I laid out my plans and the work I did and the money I raised, you'd be like, Tracy, you did pretty well. Definitely had moments where I learned, but I did everything fairly right. I listened. I gathered input.
Tracey:I made space for voices. I even paid attention to what the group wanted. But here's something I learned very quickly. Listening and defaulting are not the same thing. And what I mean by that is there was this unspoken expectation that leadership meant outsourcing my judgment.
Tracey:Don't you dare ask me what I think and then don't do it. Suddenly, we've lost the idea that gathering and leaving spaces for voices doesn't always mean I'm going to do exactly what you said. I'm gathering all perspectives to make the best decision that I can make in that moment with what I have at my fingertips and access. I'm making the best decision that I can in this moment. So I started to learn that if enough people feel strongly about something, there's the expectation that that should automatically become the decision.
Tracey:Consensus over clarity every time, harmony over the correct direction that this thing should move. And when I didn't do that, oh my goodness, when I listened and then I made the best decision I could based on experience, data and instinct. And I did not take these decisions lightly at all. And you know it, you know it. You're never going to make a decision that 100% of the people in the room say, Yes, I back you.
Tracey:So you always know somebody in the room is going to think you're the worst leader of all time, you're the worst person, how in the hell did you get elected for this position? And boy, people got angry. I was told I was not being collaborative enough. I was told that you don't honor the group. You don't even speak for the group.
Tracey:And that leadership meant reflecting the crowd back to itself. But what they didn't say out loud was this: They were comfortable as long as I absorbed responsibility of this whole organization for the year. I am comfortable you own that responsibility, but you don't dare exercise any authority. But something in my gut just didn't sit right, and I could feel when a popular idea wasn't a good one and when short term comfort would create long term problems. And I sometimes was even projecting towards, If I do this now, anyone who leads after me, I have created a mess for them.
Tracey:And when what the people wanted, it wasn't what the organization needed. So I stopped outsourcing my intuition. I listened carefully, and then I decided. And that year became one of the most successful years the organization had seen. And I don't say that so that you all can like, you know, send me an email and be like, You knew it.
Tracey:I knew it, girl. Or like, I'm the best ever, man. Everybody should do what I think. But I was proud because there were clearer systems, there were better outcomes, and there was some more stability. And not because everyone agreed, but because someone was willing to trust their judgment and lead.
Tracey:And that experience taught me something that I still carry is that women are often punished for intuition and leadership, and especially when it contradicts the crowd. And why I say that is my co leader for the year was a man. And I am not kidding you when he would say almost word for word what I had just said and people would vote it in. I lived through that so many times that year. I was punished for my role in leadership when I contradicted the crowd.
Tracey:When he brought it up, it was visionary that was insightful. So we're expected to be conduits, not decision makers. We're supposed to absorb all of the opinions, but don't you dare exercise any authority. So let's consider this. Most women, we don't lack intuition.
Tracey:We lack the permission to listen to it because intuition doesn't always come with proof and it doesn't always make sense on paper. I've had so much in my life where I'm like, I I know, but just trust me. We've said that before. Just trust me. And it often contradicts what we've been taught that we should want or do.
Tracey:So when our gut speaks up, because that's a lot of us, we talk from feelings. I feel it. I just know it. We do what we've been trained to do. We second guess it.
Tracey:We explain it away. I'm going to explain it to you for forty minutes until I get that thumbs up from you. I'm going to wait for your validation then. Oh, there came the thumbs up. They think I'm great.
Tracey:And then we override it with logic that keeps us comfortable or even worse, compliant. So ask yourself this. How many times have you known something was off, but you talked yourself out of it because you couldn't justify it yet? I want you to know that's not a lack of intelligence. If any of you right now are like, I know, I've done that.
Tracey:I'm so dumb. That is not a lack of intelligence. That's conditioning. Another consideration that rarely gets named is that your body tracks tone shifts. It tracks when your energy changes.
Tracey:It definitely tracks inconsistencies. Micro signals are sent to your conscious mind. Sometimes those are some really big words for saying this. You start to feel a tightening in your chest. You feel that pit in your stomach, that heaviness or that sudden something's just not right feeling.
Tracey:I just know it. I just feel it. That's data. But women are conditioned to distrust their bodies. We're told we're too sensitive, too reactive, and definitely too emotional to be reliable narrators of our own experience.
Tracey:And I want you to think about that. I'm not even talking about external. We're told sometimes that we are too emotional to be reliable narrators of our own experience. So instead of trusting ourselves, we outsource our authority. And I'm going to tell you, like, certain people let's go with one that I always talk about when I'm working in my business, that hormone girl.
Tracey:Doctors who dismiss us. Or if you dare come in doing your homework and ask questions, oh, how dare you? We have partners. We have or have had partners who minimize us. And we sure live in a world of systems that benefit from us staying unsure.
Tracey:And every time we do, we teach ourselves a very subtle lesson. Other people know better than I do. And here's the cost of that lesson. When you ignore your gut long enough, compound. The So what I mean by that, you stay too long in that job, in that relationship, in that volunteer role.
Tracey:You say yes when you mean and feel no. I don't want to say yes. I don't want to say yes. I want to do this. Yeah, I'd love to.
Tracey:Sure. Put me down. And you override red flags until they become emergencies. And this can be day to day things, but you also know as a female, and I know most of us have, we have been in situations that later on we've been like, Woah, that was close. And you always, when you're telling that story to your friends, you're like, Oh, I just knew something was off.
Tracey:I should have listened to myself. I'm at the age now where I'm like, I don't care if I look crazy. I don't care if I look like a conspiracy nut. If it feels wrong, it's wrong. Period.
Tracey:And then sometimes when you're talking to people, we'll even use the words like, It came out of nowhere. No, it didn't. No, it did not, ladies. We just weren't allowed to trust what we already knew. So this is what trusting your gut actually means.
Tracey:It isn't impulsive. It's protective. It's your body saying, pay attention before the cost gets higher. And trusting yourself does not mean we're rejecting logic. It means we're integrating it.
Tracey:So you're letting intuition inform decisions instead of silencing it. You're letting data and instinct talk to each other. You're letting lived experience count as evidence. And yes, trusting yourself at times can be terrifying if you can't ask someone, Do you agree? Do you think I'm doing what's right?
Tracey:Am I crazy? Is this too much? But you've got to let yourself trust yourself because once you listen, you can't unknow what you know. And you can't go back to pretending something is fine when it isn't. And you can't keep outsourcing decisions that belong to you.
Tracey:But here's the truth: your body has been tracking your reality longer than your brain has been allowed to admit it. So you might be thinking, Ah, this just came out of nowhere. Oh my goodness, I can't get this off of my mind. Your body's been holding on to this weeks, months, years before your brain finally was like, All right, we got to have a talk. So let's do some reflection because this isn't about fixing anything.
Tracey:I hate whenever this stuff is like, Let's fix it. And a lot of times, all we need to do is just a gentle noticing. You don't even have to revamp your life today. So instead of asking other people, What should I do? Try sitting with these questions this week.
Tracey:Where have I been outsourcing my authority instead of trusting my gut? What signals does my body give me when something isn't right? When was the last time I knew the answer but waited for permission anyways? What would change if I treated intuition as information and not emotion? So you don't have to act on any of this today.
Tracey:We don't do homework around here. But I just want you to listen because listening is how trust gets rebuilt. So if this episode is stirring anything in you, let this be your invitation. Pause. Take a notice.
Tracey:Listen to what your body is saying before you talk yourself out of it. Because trusting your gut isn't reckless. It's actually responsible. And that is the most unladylike thing of all. Thanks for joining me today for That's Not Very Ladylike.
Tracey:If today's episode lit a fire, pushed your buttons, or called a little BS on the stories we've been sold, share it with another woman who's tired of being told to tone it down, smile more, or play nice. And help a girl out by making sure you subscribe, leave a quick review, and catch me on Instagram at that hormone girl. And until next time, keep getting loud, messy, and raising hell because being ladylike is overrated.