The RISE Experience
It’s not always about becoming someone different.
Sometimes it’s about realizing you’ve been disconnected from yourself for longer than you thought.
The RISE Experience is a podcast for the woman who can handle everything — except herself. The one who shows up, gets things done, keeps things together… but quietly feels like something isn’t landing the way it should.
Shannon Denniston is a behavior change coach and the founder of RISE. What she talks about here isn’t behavior on the surface. It’s what sits underneath it — patterns, beliefs, and identity-level disconnects that make consistency feel harder than it should.
A lot of what gets called “starting over” isn’t starting over at all. It’s noticing what’s been running in the background for a long time, and learning how to move differently from there.
Not forced. Not rushed. No reinvention, no reset, just more aware, more honest with where things actually are, and returning to yourself in a way that holds.
The RISE Experience
When Escaping Becomes Control, Not a Discipline Problem.
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When life feels like too much, do you find yourself on the couch with Netflix, in the pantry, or lost in the scroll, and then beat yourself up for it? What if those moments aren’t a discipline problem at all, but your nervous system trying to get you out from under a weight you were never meant to carry alone?
Episode Summary
Sometimes control looks like white‑knuckling your way through a color‑coded day. And sometimes it looks like checking out on the couch with another show, another snack, or another scroll you didn’t really choose. When the kids are loud, the house is chaotic, and everyone else’s needs have been shouting your name all day, it makes sense that you reach for anything that lets you breathe for a second.
In this conversation, we name escape for what it really is: a quiet form of control your nervous system has learned to grab when you’re depleted. We talk about how that constant reaching slowly creates distance from the real you, why this is not a “more discipline” problem, and what it costs when escape becomes the only tool you have. With Elijah’s story from 1 Kings and two simple questions you can ask in the middle of the binge, the scroll, or the second trip to the kitchen, you’ll start to see your patterns as a signal worth listening to and let God meet you in the exhaustion, not shame you for it.
Key Takeaways
You’ll learn:
- How both white‑knuckling and checking out are doing the exact same job: trying to feel okay when okay feels out of reach.
- Why Netflix, food, scrolling, cleaning at 11 p.m., or always having noise on can feel like relief when life is too loud.
- How constant escape slowly creates distance from your own wants, needs, and preferences until you don’t even know what you like anymore.
- Why what you’re facing is exhaustion and depletion, not laziness and not a character flaw.
- How your nervous system quietly shifts into survival mode and starts prioritizing “turn the volume down” over everything else.
- A way to see your go‑to escape as a messenger saying, “This is too much for me to hold alone,” instead of as the enemy.
- Two questions to ask when you notice yourself halfway through something you didn’t consciously choose: “What am I trying to get away from right now?” and “What do I actually need right now?”
- How Elijah’s crash in 1 Kings shows God meeting depletion with rest, food, and presence before anything else.
Episode Chapters
00:00 When life feels like too much
00:59 Control that looks like checking out
04:59 White‑knuckling vs. escaping
09:51 The quiet distance from your real self
12:30 Exhaustion, survival mode, and “just getting through”
15:06 Two questions for the middle of the binge or scroll
16:30 Elijah under the tree and how God meets depletion
17:31 Prayer and an invitation if you’re exhausted
Memorable Quotes
“Escaping is a form of control. It just doesn’t feel like control because it shows up as relief.”
“The problem isn’t that it works. The problem is that it works just enough to get you through without touching what’s underneath.”
“Exhausted women don’t need more discipline. You need help finding yourself again.”
“The thing you reach for when life is too much is not evidence something’s wrong with you. It’s evidence that you’re human and you’re carrying something real.”
“You deserve more than just relief. You deserve to actually know what you need, and to meet it in ways that don’t leave you emptier than when you started.”
Resources Mentioned
Bible – 1 Kings (Elijah’s depletion and God’s response)
About the Podcast
Welcome to The RISE Experience — a podcast for women who are finding their way back to themselves. This is a space to slow down when everything feels loud, to lead from steadiness instead of urgency, and to finally hear yourself think again. Here we talk about identity, faith, and the quiet inner wisdom that gets buried under all the doing. A place to pause, reflect, and rise from clarity instead of pressure.
Listen & Subscribe
Follow The Rise Experience and share this with one friend who’s been beating herself up for the thing she reaches for when life gets loud.
Your next step: https://msha.ke/risewithshannon
Read the blog: https://www.risewithshannon.blog/
Come hang out:
FB: Shannon Bell Denniston
IG: @risewithshannon