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 a lot. She shows up, gets things done, keeps life moving… and still quietly wonders, Why don't I feel like myself anymore?
Shannon Denniston is the founder of RISE, with a deep background in behavior change and the human side of transformation. Through RISE, she explores what real transformation actually looks like — the patterns underneath what we do, the beliefs and roles we've carried, the relationships that shape us, the systems that support us, and the identity shifts that happen when our old ways of functioning stop carrying us.
A lot of what gets called "starting over" isn't starting over at all. It's learning to notice what's been running in the background, reconnect with your own voice, and move forward without erasing who you've become.
No reinvention. No pretending you need to become a whole new person. Just honest conversations about finding your way back to yourself, with faith as an anchor, and learning how to live from that place.
The RISE Experience
The Awkward Middle: Why Understanding Comes Faster Than Change
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Shannon Denniston explores why we can understand a habit or pattern immediately but still repeat it within a day, focusing on the gap between insight and actual change. She compares understanding to getting a map of an old road, while our "feet" keep taking the familiar groove unless we deliberately practice a new path, often clumsily and repeatedly. She names this space the "awkward middle," where progress feels like failure because your brain knows better but your body is still defaulting. Using the example of jumping in to fix things when someone is venting, she explains that change often looks like noticing the wrong road sooner — at the end, halfway down, then at the fork — until you can choose differently. She warns against endlessly chasing more insight when what's missing is reps, and closes with Philippians about God carrying the work to completion and a prayer for grace and practice.
You'll Learn
- Why understanding a pattern almost never arrives at the same speed as actually changing it
- What the "awkward middle" actually is — not before you knew, not after you've changed, but right in the middle of doing the thing while watching yourself do it
- Why catching yourself a little sooner each time is the real, invisible progress, even while the pattern still shows up
- Why chasing more insight can quietly become a way of avoiding the practice that's actually needed
- What Philippians means by God "carrying" the work to completion, and why that's different from finishing it in one sitting
Episode Chapters
- 00:00 Welcome and Setup
- 01:04 Why Awareness Isn't Change
- 02:10 The Map and the Road
- 03:28 The Awkward Middle
- 04:22 Real-Life Example: Jumping In to Fix It
- 05:26 Catching the Fork Sooner
- 06:46 Less Insight, More Reps
- 07:38 Philippians and Being Carried
- 08:31 You're Not Failing
- 09:20 Prayer and Closing
Memorable Quotes
- "That's not you failing to change. That's just what change is actually made of."
- "Right there, mid-sentence, watching yourself do the thing while you're doing it."
- "More understanding isn't actually what's missing. What's missing is reps."
- "Being carried and being finished are two different moments, and you're allowed to be in the first one without treating it like failure."
- "You are not failing because you still do the thing you understand. That was never the goalpost."
Resources Mentioned
Philippians 1:6 — being carried to completion
About the Podcast
The RISE Experience is a show for women whose old way of doing life has stopped working, and who are figuring out how to build one that actually holds. Here we talk about identity, faith, and the quiet inner wisdom that gets buried under all the doing.
Follow & Connect
If this one made you think of somebody, send it to her.
Your next step: https://msha.ke/risewithshannon
Read the blog: https://www.risewithshannon.blog/
Come hang out: FB: Shannon Bell Denniston / IG: @risewithshannon