2 days ago

You Can't Push Your Way to Peace | Natalie Newhart | Mountain Soul Hikes

For most of her life, Natalie Newhart lived by the rules of high performance: push harder, train more, stay disciplined, keep moving. It carried her through nearly a decade as a professional athlete and fitness coach, until the pushing landed her in the hospital, and her body made it clear it could no longer keep pace with what her mind demanded. That collapse forced a question she'd never thought to ask. What if peace is the one thing you can't force?

In this episode of The Tap Intuit Podcast, host Ravyn Robinson-Barco sits down with Natalie to trace the long, uncomfortable work of loosening her grip on perfectionism, body image, and the pressure to always be "on." Natalie is candid about the turning points that reshaped her path, and about how the same drive that made her successful kept resurfacing as overwork and attachment to outside validation.

The shift wasn't trying harder. It was learning to slow down and actually listen.

Their conversation moves through the difference between normal and natural, why peace can feel so unfamiliar in a culture built on constant striving, and how practices like Tai Chi, Qigong, and time in nature help bring us back into the body.

Natalie reflects on the teachers and community that carried her through transition, including the trip halfway around the world to a Qigong retreat she nearly abandoned for a gym, and on why the point of a practice isn't to perform it perfectly, but to let it change the way you live.

This one is an invitation to stop treating peace as another thing to achieve and start recognizing it as a way of being.

Topics Explored:

Why Peace Can't Be Forced: The shift from pushing harder to learning how to surrender.
Normal vs. Natural: What the culture rewards versus what actually nourishes us.
Body Image as Identity: The slow work of releasing an attachment the world tends to praise.

About Natalie Newhart

Natalie Newhart is the founder of Mountain Soul Hikes, where she guides people through nature-based experiences: Tai Chi and Qigong walks, spirit walks, and practices designed to reconnect them to their bodies, their hearts, and the natural world. Her work blends movement, stillness, and inner awareness to help others slow down and come home to themselves.