By Rachel Hupp | February 25, 2026 | Inner Spring Cleaning Series

Hello and welcome back to Radiantly Rooted with Rachel.

Now, in last week’s episode, we talked about that quiet buildup, what I like to call the lint trap effect, and how it makes life feel so heavy this time of year.

And so if you missed last week’s episode, the lint trap effect is that quiet, invisible accumulation of old habits, unvoiced expectations, and outdated roles that when we don’t address them, they tend to build up behind the scenes of our high-achieving life until they create a sense of heavy, suffocating overwhelm.

And so today I want to add on that and get really specific about why that buildup happens. If you are ending your day feeling completely fried, even if you stayed productive, even if you checked everything off your list, it’s usually because of a few hidden leaks that are draining your energy.

This is Part 2 of my 5-part series: Inner Spring Cleaning for High-Achieving Women.

You can watch on YouTube, listen on your favorite podcast platform, or keep reading below.

Brahmacharya: The Wise Use of Energy

Now in yoga, we have a beautiful concept called brahmacharya. Traditionally brahmacharya was linked with celibacy and renunciate paths, but we’re not going there. Don’t worry, because in today’s household life, it is often practiced as a wise use of energy, and so that’s the lens that we’re going to be using here today.

So this is not about celibacy, it’s not about restriction. In the context we’re working with, brahmacharya is about the wise use of our time and our energy.

It’s a reminder that your time, your focus, and your presence are all sacred resources. They aren’t infinite. And when we don’t treat them as sacred, we leak them in ways that keep us feeling untethered, unanchored, uprooted.

And so you can think of your energy like the soil in a garden. Before anything new can grow this spring, that soil needs to be tended. But most of us have our inner soil so crowded with obligations that don’t necessarily even belong to us. So what we find is that there’s no room for our personal desires to take root.

Today we’re going to look at three specific ways that we steal energy from our future selves without even realizing it. And these are the hidden energy leaks that are draining your energy.

Energy Leak #1: The Strong One Identity

So the first energy leak that I want to share with you today is the strong one. This is that “strong one” identity, you know?

I catch myself doing this all the time. I will spend the morning teaching yoga, coaching, recording a podcast, and then instead of taking a break or going for a walk, I sit down at my desk and start fixing tech things or answering emails. And I realize, oh my gosh, I have a really tough boss. I’m my own boss.

So we get into that “I’ve got it. I’ll handle it” mode. Because we’re so used to being capable and dependable, what we forget is that:

• We are allowed to take a break (our nervous system needs a break)
• We’re allowed to ask for help (we don’t have to do it all on our own)
• Other people are perfectly capable of producing high-quality work as well
• We can let something wait until tomorrow (and this one’s tough!)

That constant handling? It is such a massive leak.

Can you relate to the strong one? Let me know in the comments!

Energy Leak #2: The Productivity Worth Loop

Leak number two. This is the productivity worth loop. This is the energy leak where we tie our worth to our to-do list.

You know, the other day I found myself with about 10 minutes between things. Do you know my very first instinct was to open up my laptop and knock one more thing off my list? And I actually caught myself thinking, “I don’t have time to just sit here.”

And I’m pretty good at noticing my thoughts these days. And so I had to laugh because it was 10 minutes. But there’s this little voice that says that rest has to be earned first. You have to earn your break.

And so if you feel like your worth is measured by how many boxes you’re able to check off, you’re never going to feel like you’ve done enough to deserve a break.

My husband actually laughed at my text the other day and he said, “You will never be satisfied with how much you have done in a day.” And it made me realize how sad but true that is.

Even as a coach, even working on this stuff all the time, I still let my energy leak with this productivity worth loop.

Energy Leak #3: The Automatic Yes

All right. The third leak that I want to share with you today is the automatic yes. So all my people pleasers out there, raise your hand for me.

This shows up for me when someone asks for something and I say, “Sure, I can do that” before I even check in with my schedule or check in with how I feel.

And then later I’m looking at my calendar and I’m realizing that time has to come out of my rest or my workout or my quiet time at home. You’ve probably done it before too, right?

So we say yes because we don’t want to disappoint anybody, but we end up disappointing ourselves instead, don’t we?

And so this is why I talk so much about the power of the pause, because it’s about that simple check-in. It’s about asking, “Do I actually have the energy for this before answering?”

Try This: The Power of the Pause

And so when someone asks you if you can do something, if you can take on another responsibility, if you have the capacity to do something, before you automatically say yes:

• Take a breath (the power of the pause)
• Check in with your energy
• Check in with your body signals

If you need to say, “Let me check my calendar and get back to you,” don’t do the automatic yes if it feels misaligned. If you’re already overstretched, give yourself time to think about it and see if it fits in.

Plugging the Energy Leaks: Your Next Steps

Now I know that naming these energy leaks can feel a little confronting. I was confronting myself when I was writing out this episode.

It’s one thing to realize that, you know, your lint trap is full, like we talked about in the first episode, but it’s another thing entirely to realize how much of your sacred energy, your sacred time has been slipping.

And so this practice of brahmacharya, of honoring our energy as a sacred resource rather than a commodity for others to use, actually helps us to rebuild our self-trust.

Get Your Free Spring Reset Guide

Now, like I mentioned last time, I have put together a soulful guide called the Spring Reset Guide, which will help you to figure out your energy leaks.

And because I know your time is sacred, I’ve actually recorded a bonus episode for you where I walk you through the guide, step by step.

We’ll look at page five together, step two, release with compassion, and I’ll help you name one habit or role that is making your soil too crowded to breathe. So you can listen to that walkthrough whenever you finally have those few minutes of me time you’ve been craving.

What’s Next: A 3-Minute Grounding Practice

And let me tell you that naming these energy leaks is just one step towards plugging them. But I know that for a high-achieving woman, just knowing why you’re tired isn’t enough. You need to actually feel that shift in your body. You need to know that it’s possible to stop that ping-pong ball feeling (been there) and come back to a place to feel solid and more calm, more grounded.

And that is the radiantly rooted way. That’s the radiantly rooted version of you that we are building towards.

And so in next week’s episode, I’m going to be sharing a tiny three-minute grounding practice with you. It is a tool that you’ll be able to use right in the middle of a busy day to immediately reclaim your energy and feel more like you again.

So I will see you there.

Continue the Series

This is Part 2 of the Inner Spring Cleaning series. Catch up on:

• Part 1: Why You’re Overwhelmed (It’s Not What You Think)
• Spring Reset Bonus Guide Walkthrough

Rachel