Your Body Might Be Keeping Score of Every Word You've Swallowed at Work

A conversation with Chanlee Sutoyo, creator of Rage on the Page

There is a moment in every woman's career in a male-dominated industry where she learns, through experience, not instruction, that certain emotions are not welcome in the room.

Don't be too sensitive. Don't take it personally. Don't react. Just focus on the work.

We learn this fast because we have to. And most of us get very, very good at it.

But here is what no one tells you: your body is keeping a running tab.

I recently sat down with Chanlee Sutoyo on my podcast, Rooted in Your Confidence a former government trial attorney, lifetime journaler, and creator of Rage on the Page. Chanlee spent over a decade in chronic pain that doctors could not fully explain. A body that kept saying no, even when her mind kept pushing forward.

And then she discovered the connection between the words she had never said and the pain that would not leave.

The Mask We Wear to Survive

Chanlee's career as a trial attorney ran on masculine energy, adversarial, aggressive, high-output. She described second-guessing herself constantly, being passed over for a promotion she had earned, and performing composure every single day just to survive the environment.

She left that career at 32, in pain and depleted.

That story is not unique. It is the story of many women I work with in construction, trades, aviation, transportation, and other environments where strength is the price of admission and asking for support can feel like a liability.

We don't breathe as much. We don't laugh as much. We perform our way through every room where we might be judged for taking up too much emotional space.

What Journaling Did That Nothing Else Could

After years of treatments that helped only temporarily, Chanlee discovered the work of Dr. John Sarno, whose research pointed to a mind-body connection, the idea that the subconscious mind can produce physical pain as a way of protecting you from emotions that feel too overwhelming to face.

Chanlee recognized herself immediately: perfectionist. People-pleaser. Conflict-avoidant. A decade of unprocessed emotion sitting in her body.

So she started rage journaling. Writing about everything childhood, grief, the promotion she never got, the anger she had never allowed herself to feel. After four weeks, the spell broke.

"I might not be 100% pain free even today," she told me. "But I am free from pain."

That distinction hit me hard.

Why This Is a Leadership Conversation, Not Just a Wellness One

What Chanlee built with Rage on the Page is not soft. It is the hard, necessary work of telling the truth about what you have been carrying so you can finally put it down.

And when women put it down? They make faster decisions. They show up more confidently as leaders. They stop second-guessing themselves in rooms where they once stayed silent.

That is not a wellness outcome. That is a leadership outcome.

Because you cannot build lasting confidence on top of suppression.

The real kind, the kind that holds up when someone talks over you in a meeting, when you are the only woman in the room, is built from the inside.

It starts with telling the truth.

Even if only on paper.

Before you move on, ask yourself one question:

What have you been carrying at work that you have never allowed yourself to say out loud?

🎙️ Listen to my full conversation with Chanlee on Rooted in Your Confidence, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect with Chanlee and learn about her six-week journaling circle at rageonthe. page.

And if this resonated, if you recognized yourself anywhere in this story, my book Your TRUTH Changes Everything: How Women Rebuild Self-Trust, Speak Up, and Get Paid in Male-Dominated Workplaces is launching in April 2026. It was written for exactly the woman reading these words right now.

Because the truth we finally allow ourselves to face is often the truth that sets us free.