The WakeUp Protocol
Something inside of you knows… there’s more. You’re right!
The WakeUp Protocol is a podcast for sensitive, curious souls who know there’s more to life than what we’ve been taught.
Hosted by Nadja Haldimann, this is a space for big questions, deep remembering, and honest conversations about what it means to come back to your true self, beneath the conditioning, beyond the mask, outside the matrix.
Each week, you’ll hear from guests who are in it too, navigating their own awakenings with courage and grace. We talk about grief, near-death experiences, psychedelics, illness as initiation, visions, and the mysteries that science hasn’t yet caught up with, but our bodies and hearts already know to be true.
This is a space for remembering and fierce truths. For sovereignty, soul, and the kind of conversations that leave you changed.
If you’re waking up... welcome home.
The WakeUp Protocol
022 ~ Mary Cadera ~ The Happiness Trap: Awakening Beyond Achievement, Anxiety & False Safety with Mary Cadera
In this episode of The WakeUp Protocol, host Nadja Haldimann sits down with Mary Cadera, a psychotherapist and longtime executive leader who listened when her nervous system told the truth her job could no longer hold.
Mary spent years in high-profile roles doing meaningful work on paper… while living in a constant state of hyper-arousal. Always bracing. Always scanning. From the outside, it looked like success. Inside her body, it felt unsustainable.
Her awakening wasn’t a single moment.
It was a slow, honest realization that the cost of success wasn’t just time or energy, but sleep, presence, and safety inside her own body.
What followed was a courageous, intentional transition out of corporate leadership and into work that aligns with her values, her purpose, and her capacity to feel regulated, connected, and at home in herself.
Together, Nadja and Mary explore what it means to build a life that actually feels safe from the inside.
They talk about nervous system regulation, the myth of constant happiness, money and safety, and why true fulfillment begins when we stop overriding ourselves and start listening.
This episode explores:
✨ The nervous system cost of high-performing careers
✨ Hyper-arousal, vigilance, and chronic stress
✨ Burnout as a signal, not a failure
✨ Money, success, and the illusion of safety
✨ Listening to the body instead of overriding it
✨ Regulation as the foundation for alignment
✨ Redefining fulfillment beyond status or payoff
✨ Creating a life that feels safe, present, and true
Mary’s story is a reminder that awakening doesn’t always look dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like choosing yourself quietly, steadily, and for good.
If you’re feeling the toll of chronic stress, questioning the pace of your life, or sensing that your work no longer matches who you’re becoming, this episode is for you.
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Connect with Mary
🌿 www.cadera.me
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