The Neurosomatics Of Habit Change

Summary

Trauma Rewired

Episode: The Neurosomatics Of Habit Change

Hosts: Jennifer Wallace & Elisabeth Kristof
Date: January 6, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the science and lived experience of habit change from a neurosomatic perspective—a union of neurology, somatics, and emotional processing. With the new year bringing pressure for transformation, Elisabeth and Jennifer explore why behavior change is so challenging, how the brain’s prediction system influences habits, the importance of minimum effective dosing, and specific tools for making sustainable, nervous-system-honoring change. They emphasize bringing curiosity, compassion, and replenishment to the process, breaking down both the biological and emotional nuances behind why we do what we do.

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Key Topics and Insights

1. The Brain's Prediction Machine and Energy Conservation

[03:14]

• The brain isn’t just reactive, it’s always predicting using past experiences to make us efficient and keep us safe.
• "It's not just reacting to what we're experiencing in that moment, but it's predicting and it's using past experience to form our expectations about what's happening around us..." — Elizabeth Kristof
• Habits are energy-saving “shortcuts” embedded for our survival. Changing them costs the brain a lot of energy and increases stress, often activating protective responses.

2. Minimum Effective Dose & Starting Small

[05:34][11:40][31:58]

• After the holidays, most people have a depleted capacity. Jumping into radical change usually backfires.
• Small, manageable steps are key—minimum effective dose, even “doing nothing” some days, is often the best approach.
• "What is the very smallest thing I could do today? And some days that's going to be nothing." — Jennifer Wallace
• Consistency is built over time, not through 100% perfection.

3. The Physiology of Habit Change

[08:35][14:41]

• Change requires physical resources: sleep, glucose, oxygen. Stress and fatigue hinder neuroplastic change.
• “Willpower is not accessible… if you are living in a state of depletion and survival.” — Jennifer Wallace
• Regulation practices include proper breathing mechanics, metabolic health, and integrating periods of rest and stillness for adaptation.

4. Rest and Integration

[14:41][16:13][44:02]

• Rest can mean sleep, art, gardening, or simply being still. Intentional downtime allows the nervous system to process change, integrate new patterns, and avoid overwhelm.
• “We need rest to integrate the change that we're making, the beliefs, all of the neurotag that we are working with.” — Jennifer Wallace
• Minimum dose applies to rest too: “maybe it's just going outside for a minute or two and just sitting there in the sunshine...” — Elizabeth Kristof

5. Daily Practice, Recommitment, and Celebration

[20:57][31:15]

• Regular recommitment to your vision—no matter how small the action—is essential for lasting change.
• “That recommitment and then the daily practice, this is like so important because every time we're making these little changes we're going to get that dopamine hit...” — Jennifer Wallace
• Celebrating even tiny wins is vital to reinforce new patterns and motivate continued change.

Dopamine and Reward

[23:14][28:52]

• Dopamine motivates and rewards us for actions. Even small moments of celebration create dopamine spikes, supporting habit change.
• “When we celebrate our wins, we get a little hit of dopamine. So that is a great way to get that motivation...” — Elizabeth Kristof
• Chronic stress, overstimulation, or lack of celebration can drive the “dopamine pit,” decreasing motivation and joy.

6. Beliefs, Neurotags, and Emotional Processing

[10:34][32:39][36:31]

• Habits are rooted in beliefs and neurotags—complex networks blending thought, emotion, and physical sensation.
• Old beliefs (“I can’t do this,” “I’m a failure”) often block change and are reinforced by repeated protective patterns.
• Emotional processing is necessary to move through the discomfort that comes with change—sometimes involving movement, expression, and somatic practices.

7. Addressing Self-Sabotage and Avoidance

[38:29][41:19]

• Self-sabotage isn’t a lack of willpower—it’s a protective nervous system strategy against perceived threats, unfamiliarity, or overwhelm.
• “Self-sabotage is a protective avoidance behavior. When something is too stressful... the stress load is too big for our nervous system.” — Elizabeth Kristof
• Awareness and regulation tools (e.g., breathing, movement, body scanning) are more effective than fighting these patterns with “grit.”

8. Real-Life Application: Food, Cannabis, and Financial Patterns

[41:19][44:39]

• Jennifer shares personal stories (ongoing work with food and cannabis habits) highlighting the need for increased regulation and rest during intense periods of growth or integration.
• These somatic and behavioral patterns show up across all areas: finances, relationships, time management.
• “How you show up anywhere is how you show up everywhere...” — Jennifer Wallace

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On gentle habit change:
  "We really want to go at this with like a very minimum effective dose. What is the very smallest thing that I could do today? And some days that's going to be nothing." — Jennifer Wallace [05:35]

• On willpower:
  "Willpower takes energy and it takes a well functioning nervous system and brain that's able to communicate... There's a whole neural component to willpower that's beyond just cognitively deciding that I'm going to be able to do something." — Elizabeth Kristof [12:18]

• On resting as resourcing:
  “Rest to me looks like many different things... It's about like how do I spend my time without a distraction... It's like, how do I slow down and make it safe for myself to be in quieter spaces so that I'm contemplating in my body the change that's happening.” — Jennifer Wallace [14:41]

• On celebration and rewiring dopamine:
  “It is actually creating dopamine. It's helping to rehabilitate that pathway. And it becomes a more embodied experience over time...” — Elizabeth Kristof [28:52]

• On pattern recognition:
  "How you show up anywhere is how you show up everywhere. So if you're finding a pattern in your food, you're probably going to find it in your finances." — Jennifer Wallace [46:48]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:14] – The brain as a prediction and energy-saving machine; why change is hard.
• [05:34] – The need for minimum effective dose; why less is often more at the start.
• [10:34] – The role of beliefs, neurotags, and emotional re-patterning.
• [14:41] – The multifaceted necessity of rest and regeneration.
• [16:13] – Realistic ways to integrate rest and gradual change.
• [20:57] – Daily recommitment and why celebration matters.
• [23:14] – How dopamine drives behavior and how to celebrate wins.
• [28:52] – Rewiring celebration and rehabilitating the dopamine pathway.
• [32:39] – Processing emotions and neurotags through somatic practices.
• [36:31] – How deeply held beliefs and trauma can block positive change.
• [38:29] – The protective function of self-sabotage and avoidance.
• [41:19] – Applying tools and pattern recognition to food and substance habits.
• [44:39] – Financial habits and the "everywhere" aspect of nervous system patterns.
• [46:48] – How working on one pattern facilitates global change and empowerment.
• [49:10] – Closing encouragement: slow the pace, process emotions, make change one moment at a time.

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Takeaways & Tools

• Honor your nervous system’s limits by focusing on minimum effective dose.
• Celebrate every win, no matter how small, to reinforce new, adaptive patterns.
• Rest and slow integration are not just allowed but essential.
• Notice emotional and bodily cues—work with, not against, your nervous system.
• Generalize your insights—patterns in one domain appear across life.
• Daily recommitment counts: Change is exponential, not instantaneous.

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Trauma Rewired makes a strong case for a science-backed, gentle, compassionate approach to habit change—one that honors both the nervous system and the complexities of trauma and belief. The conversation combines research, lived experience, and practical tools, making this episode a timely guide for anyone wishing for real, sustainable transformation.

Transcript

[Elizabeth Kristof]

The new year often brings a lot of focus on change, setting goals, making resolutions, striving for personal growth. And that is exciting. But it can also backfire when we push too hard, when we exceed our minimum effective dose. And that can be followed sometimes by some big shutdown or a shame spiral can lead to frustration and just those protective outputs of our nervous system kicking in under too much stress. So in this episode, at this time of year, we're gonna explore the process of habit change from a very brain based neurosomatic perspective and leave you guys with some tools and some insights to maybe make more sustainable shifts that honor your nervous system and support a more lasting transformation. Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system, how trauma lives in the body and what you can do to heal. I'm your co host, Elizabeth Kristof, founder of Brainbase.com, an online platform that integrates applied neurology, somatics and emotional processing for behavior change, trauma re patterning and personal growth. And I'm also the founder of Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification, an ICF accredited course for therapists, healers, practitioners to bridge the gap between cognitive and somatic work.

[Jennifer Wallace]

And I'm your co host, Jennifer Wallace, a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integration guide. I bring your nervous system into your peak somatic experiences, maximizing your potential for healing and growth. And I'm also one of the educators at the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification and I'm really excited to explore habit change today and really just kind of talk a little bit more about the science behind it. And it really is such a great time of year with everybody hitting their changes pretty hard.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

We have a special holiday gift for you. At Brainbase.com, we've created a 90 day journey designed to give you foundational nervous system health and rehabilitation. We get requests all the time from people. I want to start to train my nervous system, but I don't know how. And this is a clear, expert designed framework that's rooted in neurosomatic intelligence. It's going to teach you over the course of 90 days how to regulate and modulate your nervous system, how to resource your body for expanded capacity, how to rehabilitate deficits that are driving chronic stress, and how to integrate these tools to improve brain function, focus and capacity. We'll teach practices for emotional processing, how to use your voice, set boundaries, and neurosomatic tools to boost your higher order thinking systems for more fuel and more focus. And the best part is that you can start your journey for free. @rewiretrial.com you'll get your first two weeks for free. You'll get a class a day, strategically laid out, designed to be really effective and to make the work easy for you. So this is your opportunity to take the first step toward building a resilient, thriving nervous system. Go to rewiretrial.com and you can start your trial today. Collectively, we rush into that at this time, don't we? And there's like, it's a nice time to personally reflect and think about ways that we want to grow and move forward. But I think in order to set ourselves up for a little bit more success, it is good to look at some of the reasons why this is a little bit challenging for the brain and for the nervous system and to really start to understand this from a neurosomatic perspective. So there's a couple different things that I want us to touch on today and many facets of habit change that we'll probably end up exploring. But one of the most important things to remember just from a brain based perspective is that our brain is a prediction machine, right? It's not just reacting to what we're experiencing in that moment, but it's predicting and it's using past experience to form our expectations about what's happening around us and then create appropriate reactions. And these patterns run really deep and they're initially there for our survival. Am I safe? Is that first most important question of the brain all the time. And until we have new ways to create regulation and safety or to get the areas of the brain and the nervous system, the fuel and the activation that it needs can be really stressful to move out of those patterns, even if we know we want to. And it's also really energy costly. The patterns are in place to conserve energy. And our brain is a very energy intensive organ. It consumes about 20% of our body's energy, even though it only makes up about 2% of our body's mass. And so there's this very high demand for, for fuel that drives our brain's need for efficiency. And it does that by creating patterns, creating shortcuts. So all of our habits are these well worn paths that allow our brain to conserve energy by reducing the need for always having to make decisions, always having to be learning. We would be very overwhelmed if that was the case. And so when we attempt to change a habit, we're changing these patterns and that's more energy costly for the brain. And, and it's also moving Us out of some predictable reactions, predictable responses maybe that are happening below the level of our consciousness. And so starting to change that can really increase the stress load. So we want to really make sure we have capacity in our nervous system for that, ways to process the stress. And also that our nervous system is resourced that we have fuel that we need to try to move into some of these new behaviors.

[Jennifer Wallace]

I think it's really all about the resourcing and really understanding. I think it's number one. I don't think it's the time of year to be hitting for all of these really driving through really big change. I just don't even think if you're listening and you're set yourself a big goal right after the holidays, like I just don't even think that's a great idea because often after the holidays we are depleted. And it's so exhausting to get through the holidays for one reason or another. And it's just so stressful. And then so we're going into this idea of making a really big change with already a depleted capacity, a depleted nervous system, a nervous system that's overwhelmed. And then we're gonna ask something that's inherently threatening of the brain and the prediction. If the prediction is you do this every year, you go through this every year, right? And now the brain, now your brain and body is like, oh, this is just going to be a few weeks of time, it's going to be really hard. And then like we're going to slow this down. And so there's a couple things here like I want to talk about. I know we stress the importance of a daily practice all the time, but when we're talking about any habit change, wherever that falls on the spectrum, we really want to go at this with like a very minimum effective dose. What is the very smallest thing that I could do today? And some days that's going to be nothing. Some days that is really going to be nothing. And then other times you're going to make steps towards your vision, your goal. But really every day for me, when I think about habit change, it is about the recommitment. Why am I doing this? What is my end game? Why am I doing this? Is this. For me, it what's the energy behind this? And then how do I have a practical guide to this? Because I think one of the also really wild things that happens with people is like there's a lot of times we see with resolutions, it's around like food and body. So let's just say the goal or the, the goal for 2025 is going to lose £20. Okay. We've literally got all year to do this in a really sustainable, lasting way. Right. But people hit it so hard in the very beginning and then they burn out super fast because you're already burnt out because you're depleted from the holidays. And so the daily practice is really where all of the magic happens. Well, I want to use the word consistently because consistency is also something that is a practice that builds and it's not, we're not intended to be a hundred percent, 100% of the time. So it's like building a consistency into a daily practice. And that is where all of the change is going, going to collect and build up. And then one day you're just like, that's different for me.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Yeah, there's a lot there and one is that it's a really good point that we're starting a lot of this change coming out of a period that is very energy costly. We have relational patterns, we have expectations. It's just a full time. And we know that the nervous system and the body need time to integrate any kind of change. There has to be time for positive adaptation to occur and we have to have capacity. And so some of that is like at a really practical level too. So we need sleep and we also need glucose and oxygen. And a lot of that has to do with repatterning our breathing mechanics and are working on our metabolic health so that we have the capacity to have neuroplastic change. Because if I'm trying to do something and either my threat bucket is full, my stress level is way up here. And so I don't have a lot of capacity to add the stress of behavior change without moving into protective outputs. I'm setting myself up for failure. I'll push through it. I'm coming out of a time period of stress. And so now I'm going to start to drive into these new behaviors and I'm going to experience protective outputs. Could be pain, could be migraine, could be dissociation, chronic fatigue. And then also too, if I haven't addressed some of the fundamentals of nervous system health and fueling capacity. That's why we spend so much time in the work that we do with clients, working on resourcing the nervous system through breathing mechanics, through CO2 balance in the bloodstream. Like all of this is really, really important at a very foundational level. Otherwise this other stuff is too big of an ask. And then we find ourselves replaying these same patterns.

[Jennifer Wallace]

And then in the replay of the same patterns. We have those same beliefs around like, I can't do this, I'm a failure. It always works out like this. It's always going to be like this. This is what it looks like for me. And it's like beliefs are a big part of the habits. There is no behavior that we do that is random. There is a reason why we are engaging with the habit that we're actively trying to change. What is that reason? Right. You hear us talk about neurotags so often. So like there's a reason why we engage in this and the reason why we engage in it is going to be something around our beliefs. So it's like you can't just go to a big habit, change something around. I'm just going to stick with food, something as big as a food narrative and just think like, oh, I just have to act like this particular way. That's gonna have to come with a whole new belief system. And that takes time to chip away at that. It's not just gonna be like, I think people, they go hard and it looks like things are going well in their, in their habit changes until this inevitable wall that gets hit. And then it's like a boomerang effect in the nervous system. And I don't think people really understand like self sabotage and what that really is like. It's not that you don't have willpower, right? But if you are living in a state of depletion and survival, willpower is not accessible for you in your higher order systems of thinking. So like fuel rest resourcing, little by little change, this is how we get.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Into, I think in the belief there's a lot of reframing of willpower that helps to make these changes more sustainable. Because so many people look at the outcomes as a lack of willpower. And so we spend a lot of time in NSI reframing willpower as a resource. Willpower takes energy and it takes a well functioning nervous system and brain that's able to communicate and be able to inhibit where it properly should it needs. There's a whole neural component to willpower that's beyond just cognitively deciding that I'm going to be able to do something and that having the capacity and the fuel to be able to do this is so important. And then when we start to shift that perspective, that really impacts the beliefs in general. Right? Because I have these beliefs that I am failing when I can't meet these expectations of myself to change. And so that is part of chipping Away at that belief work is to understand this is an output of my nervous system. And if I want to start to make true, lasting, sustainable change, there's other stuff I need to do underneath here to have the foundation to be able to take these bigger actions. And even if the belief is something that looks less typical, like say my belief is I'm going to slow down more, I'm going to start to rest more this year. This is going to be the year where I have good work boundaries and I take more vacations and I'm more present and I take more space in my life. That's still a big pattern to go against. There's my nervous system has been pushing me in these other directions of doing and moving and productivity for my survival. That's how I've adapted to feel safe. And so there's gonna need to be some other component of being able to create regulation and safety and stillness to be able to work with my sleep habits, process some of the stress so that I'm not just expecting myself to wake up in January and be able to act totally differently than I have the rest of my life to ensure my survival.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Back to that expectation. Like, you know, you give yourself this goal of the whole year, but you just have this expectation that January is going to be different. You've brought rest up a couple of times. Like rest is a huge way for us to resource to resource our nervous systems. Like we need rest to have that positive adaptation. We need rest to integrate the change that we're making, the beliefs, all of the neurotag that we are working with. Rest to me looks like many different things I want to say. Sometimes it looks like straight up sleeping, nap, roulette. I try and play that game at least once a week. Rest to me looks like gardening. It looks like repotting a plant. It looks like art, just looks like being creative and doodling. Like it's. It's about like how do I spend my time without a distraction, right? Maybe I'm like might sit and read but not listen to a book and do something at the same time, right? It's like, how do I slow down and make it safe for myself to be in quieter spaces so that I'm contemplating in my body the change that's happening. What happened yesterday, what happened today. Why do these days look different? How have I maintained success today? But yesterday was a little bit wonky. Like I really believe in the spaces of stillness is when we can hear the messages from our body, when we.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Can connect dots and there's a minimum effective dose component to that too. Right. Like, with everything that we talk about, maybe it's just going outside for a minute or two and just sitting there in the sunshine and finding the right amount, like you talked about a little bit ago, that allows us to do it without starting to create a protective response where we can just every day, maybe one intentional decision to move in the direction of that change, to move in the direction of the vision. Is there one place where I can make a choice in my life that's pushing me in that direction, where I'm choosing a different path. And maybe that is as simple as, like, taking two minutes to go sit outside. Maybe even I have to regulate around that. Maybe it's two minutes with my eye mask on in between a meeting, doing some long exhales so that I'm letting my system gradually begin to adjust to slowing down, to taking away some of the stimulus. And I'm maybe even using some of my tools around that to keep recreating safety and then little by little, building that time up. Or if it was wanting to stop with an eating behavior, maybe it's not stopping fully but taking a pause and saying to myself, okay, for five minutes, I'm going to try to give my nervous system some different stimulus. I might do some sensory. I might do a breathing exercise. I might do some movement and shaking. And then if I still want to engage in the behavior, okay, but I'm interrupting the pattern. I'm giving myself some new stimulus and then letting that shift be a little bit more gradual so that things aren't so black and white. And that way I'm not pushing myself into threat. And I'm also not in such a risk of being like, well, screw the whole thing. I can't do this anyway. Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Wallace]

You know, when I think of, like, when you said black and white, what came to me was a vision of bracing because it's like it has to be this or that. Like, it's a holding on to something. It's not making room for the divine to intersect into this, for just life to happen and to open up to us, which is really also part of what we're changing sometimes. Right. Like, we want to have enough space, this maybe goes into rest, but we want to have enough space for the intervention of what we've done to set into motion even right, for things to come to us in a sort of maybe a natural. What feels like a natural way, even though we've put that into motion. Does that make sense? Yeah.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

There needs to be A time to integrate that a little bit into the body and to yeah, to see it start to come to fruition and be with our behavior and to also to give ourself the experience of that new behavior, that new action. Right. We talk a lot on here about sometimes I just need a few good reps to know that something is possible so that my brain has another pathway that it can choose. Right. It doesn't have to go down the same, well myelinated pathway. It's probably going to choose that a little more often because that's more energy efficient. But now there's other options. I'm starting to kind of open up the power of choice here. And so if I can make it the right amount that my system can feel safe with and not get automatically pushed into some kind of stress response or overly activated or maybe shut down and I can have a good repetition of engaging in the behavior, regulating around that, relaxing my body into that. Now it's possible. Now it's something that my system becomes a little bit more familiar with and maybe the next time there's that moment I'll choose that route again. And then over time the more myelin builds up on that new pathway and it becomes a more well worn path too. Because the truth of neuroplasticity is we all are changing all of the time. We know this and so change is happening one way or the other. Even though we're focusing on the change now and it's not necessarily good or bad, we have to start to be a little bit intentional about creating that neuroplastic change in the direction that we want by doing it at a capacity that we can positively adapt to and then creating regulation and safety around that.

[Jennifer Wallace]

And it really does take time. It takes the time that it takes when we are breaking a pattern apart and setting a new pattern. Like you have to walk that pattern consistently, that belief that action like you have to. This is why I think the recommitment every day is so important for people and like having a real like just a morning practice. What even if that means like I have this goal, this intention, this vision, I, I have this written down, I sit with it, I do some neuro around it. Maybe I do a soft meditation or a tap depending on like if maybe my morning starts off really activated. Right. But that recommitment and then the daily practice, this is like so important because every time we're making these little changes we're going to get that dopamine hit, we're going to get the hey, I did this. I'm doing this right. And this is where we also really want to repattern for celebrating our wins. Yes, it's important for us to celebrate ourselves because then that dopamine hit, it actually means something.

[Matt Bush]

Imagine being the kind of leader in your organization, in your business, in your community, in your own life who stays.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Calm, grounded and fully present even in.

[Matt Bush]

The most challenging conversations, truly hearing others and guiding clients or teams. From Reactivity to Resilience At a time.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

When burnout and overwhelm are at an.

[Matt Bush]

All time high, people are craving this kind of leadership. And it all starts with a regulated, adaptable nervous system. If you're a coach, a therapist or an organizational leader ready to elevate your practice, join us for a free online workshop, Rewire and Rise Building Resilient Leaders with Applied Neurosomatic Intelligence. It will be January 15th at noon Central with me and with one of our lead NSI educators, Matt Bush. In this session we're going to go beyond understanding how your nervous system works.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

You'll learn how to work with it.

[Matt Bush]

Directly to calibrate responses and build capacity to lead with resilience. Plus, we'll stay after live to answer your questions and share details about the next cohort of NSI. You can sign up [e-mail] we would love to see you there and connect with you live. A replay will be available after the workshop. You just have to [e-mail] it's really.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Really important to take a moment to feel, acknowledge, celebrate that win. And that is such a crucial, important part of habit change. And yeah, let's talk about dopamine a little bit because we haven't talked about it too, too much on here and it is a huge part of habit change. So dopamine is a neurotransmitter. It's a communication molecule between our neurons and it plays a really key role in motivation and reward. Sometimes you'll hear it referred to as our feel good neurotransmitter and it fuels our brain's reward circuitry. So it's motivates us towards certain actions. And these are actions that typically have like helped keep our species alive, reproduction, high calorie foods, social connection, movement, things that foster proliferation of the species. Right. It's encouraging behaviors that sustain life. And when we engage in certain behaviors, we have a dopamine response and different things create different levels of dopamine. So you might eat some chocolate and you get a little spike in your dopamine or, or you have sex, you get a little bigger spike in your dopamine. There are certain drugs that can affect this chemical. So you, you know, engage in a substance that can really elevate your dopamine level. But then what happens, because our brains are wanting to maintain homeostasis, is we don't just go back down to our baseline level of dopamine, when after engaging in whatever it was that caused the spike, our dopamine levels actually plummet below baseline. So if you imagine your dopamine baseline is like a flat graph, you would dive down below that line. And so then it takes some time to reach just those baseline levels. And during that time, there's a craving for more of what's gonna create more dopamine to get you back to that baseline. So then we engage in the thing again, and we get another spike, but it dips down again. And so if we're not allowing our dopamine levels to get back to that original baseline level, that graph kind of becomes a jagged downward line where our dopamine levels are getting more and more depleted over time, and we can actually have less dopamine receptors. And then we have a lot of intense craving to engage in these activities. Whether it's social media scrolling or sugar or sex or whatever it is, those cravings are there as our dopamine receptors lessen and the our dopamine levels go down. And when we celebrate our wins, we get a little hit of dopamine. So that is a great way to get that motivation from our motivation neurotransmitter is by celebrating our wins.

[Jennifer Wallace]

This is a practice that has been. I mean, I want to talk about patterning for celebration in this dopamine because this has been a really interesting. Because that was one for me that it really took time for me to understand. I think it took time for me to get out of the dopamine pit that I was in. The lack of dopamine, the lack dopamine pit, I don't know what to call it, but, like, I was under, and it took a while to repattern. And it looked like celebrating with my animals. It looked like me acknowledging myself. Let's start there. It took with, like, I had to acknowledge that I accomplished something. Regardless of how small that accomplishment was. I had to recognize that within myself. And that brought up a lot of other emotions for me to do that, just for me to witness myself and acknowledge, like I did that I'm doing this, and now that's gonna surge in my body also. So it's like I would get dopamine hits. I got to the point where I could really feel it. Like, let me give an example. I'm in integration right now, and it's a really big integration. There are some real beliefs from around, like, my ACE scores that I'm working with, implementing into my life now and really trying to show up in very different ways, particularly in some relational ways, relationship to myself, to that honoring. I mean, even in this space of honoring, like, what I did, what I do. And so some of my new boundaries are around making time and space for myself to rest. And like I said, rest for me is also involving, like, creativity. And so making myself a place where I go do my art. I set up a place that I engage with now every day, and I have to engage with it every day because that's what I'm rewiring for. So I want to be an artist in a particular way. Then I need to engage with that. What does that look like? Who am I in that Persona? How do I visualize my life looking? And then how do I move every day in small steps to bring that to life? Because there was a time where this was the dream, and I had to move in very small steps every day. What does it look like to host a successful podcast? And then, okay, and boom, here we are years later. I mean, I worked on limiting beliefs around voice invisibility for, like, six months straight before the podcast even launched. And then when I got to voice invisibility, I had to work on it all over again in just a different way.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Yep. I want to circle back to beliefs and dive a little deeper into that, but I want to go back to the celebration and how you were saying that you had to really intentionally start to create some celebration, and it felt really foreign. And I absolutely. That resonates so much. So much of life can just become, like, onto the next, onto the next, onto the next. And when we're doing that, we're actually depleting that. That dopamine pathway. Right. Because our mesolimbic pathway, that's our reward circuitry 1, it is affected by stress. So stress actually depletes our production of dopamine. And. And then over time, the dopamine receptors. And so what that experience is like is everything just becomes a little bit more muted. You're doing the same things that used to bring you joy, and it doesn't feel the same way. You know, you're having a social event, or you hear your favorite song, or you do something that's very pleasurable, but you don't feel that same sensation of pleasure. It's just like the volume of all of that stuff just gets turned down. It's still happening, but it's just not the same experience. And so if I want to start to help rehabilitate that pathway, part of that is I'm not going to feel the celebration so much at first. It's not going to be intuitive. I might not have that kind of excitement. But if I start to carve out time and really make an intentional practice of that, it is actually creating dopamine. It's helping to rehabilitate that pathway. And it becomes a more embodied experience over time. Like, there's more emotions that come with it. It's more genuine. But in the beginning, maybe it's just really, I put on the song, I leave a little bit of time. I know that I did something, even though I don't really feel that accomplishment, but I just still let myself celebrate. Or maybe I go out to dinner with a friend to celebrate the occasion. I start to make intentional plans to celebrate that. And it really changes our capacity for joy and excitement and also our motivation to continue moving toward change and growing our life in the direction that we want. Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Wallace]

And if you have animals, animals, love your animals, really want to celebrate with you, so they make it easier. Actually, I found, like you said, putting music on and just being able to, like, look myself in the mirror and be like, good job.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Yes. I do that one too, a lot. Like, I just look at myself. I pat myself, you know, give myself a little self love and good job. Good job. Yeah. Yeah.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Really. At the end of almost every day, when I'm in bed at night, I. I don't want to say I do it every night. Cause I probably don't do it every night, but it feels like every night I hold myself and I'm just like, good job today. You know? Good job today. We did it. We're just going through another day. Tomorrow's gonna be a totally different experience.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Yep. So minimum effective dosing it and celebrating the wins. Also, another reason to minimum effective dose it is so that you can have the wins. Right. Like, make the expectation so small that it almost feels crazy. Like there's no way I could mess this up. Because then we're repatterning that success and being able to celebrate the win and keep moving toward it. And then let's dive a little deeper into beliefs and neurotags and the emotional component of change. Because we know every belief is a neurotag. So there's A cognitive part, there's an emotional part, there's a physical part. And so there's a lot of emotions to process as we're working with these beliefs too.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Yeah, for sure. And I feel like I really like to intercept things in real time. Especially, like, let's say it's my morning time. I like to have my few hours for my morning practice and doing my. My artistic things. Right. I like to really plan my day out so that it's. It's moving with both of these even sometimes, like kind of going back and forth. And what happens for me is that, say I am taking a contrary action, maybe it's kind of scary. And then I can start to feel this fear. And then I can start to feel like I want to hide a little bit. I don't want to take that action. I'm not moving through. I'm feeling like I'm. I don't want to say, like, regressing, but like, I'm just in the spot. I can't move forward. Whatever I'm thinking of is, like, too scary. It's too much. Then I'm able to, like, use my tools in real time to regulate. And a lot of times I am stomping and bouncing around and shaking and moving my body and I am talking out loud about what's actually I'm experiencing. What are the thoughts in my head right now? I just want to, like, get that out of my body. And sometimes I will land on something and then I'm like, that's it. It just came out of my body from me just expressing. And then I can stop, I can tap, I can talk about the feel fear or the. If there's something emotional coming up, like shame or like, why am I doing this? I want to give up on myself. I'm never going to be an art. Like, I'm never going to do this. And it's like, stop. Let's just take a break. Let's regulate. Let's move around. Let's regulate again after we move around and then see about taking the action again and stay as grounded as I possibly can as I move through these processes.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Yeah. I think even with a belief, like, I want to be more creative, I want to be an artist. Right. It's sometimes we don't know the big emotions that are going to come up underneath that because it seems like, oh, this is such a positive thing. This is such a good enhancement to my life. Right. But there's all these neurotags of, what if I fail? What if I'm rejected. There's a high level of visibility, of creating and expressing something that's intimate to your own vision and creation. There's patterning from things I know with you that you were believed growing up about whether or not you could be successful as an artist and the relationship to primaries there. So whenever we start to go against any of these beliefs, there's so much underneath there. You know, even if I'm just trying to change a small habit like my daily routine, maybe that affects, like, time with my partner or something that I talk about with my friends, that now I'm starting to wonder, are my social connections going to stay the same? Is there something that's going to disrupt that attachment? And so there's so much underneath that if we don't have the capacity to feel those sensations, to mobilize them, to move them through the body, and we're kind of driven into these reflexive, repressive behaviors, then as those emotions of the change start to come up to the surface, we're going to find ourselves engaging in the behaviors that we use to repress or in a dissociated state or in that pattern of chronic bracing, because we haven't worked with our body and our nervous system to have that skill of processing and moving the emotions. And then it becomes really hard to continue that change because at some point, our system is like, this is too much. This is too overwhelming, all of the stuff that it's bringing up. Let's just go back to the old familiar pattern.

[Jennifer Wallace]

This is so interesting because thank you for remembering that about my early childhood, because I. I definitely. I grew up in a house where it was like, artists don't make money. You have to have a real job. So I went down that path. It was a wreck. And then, of course, I consider this part of our artistic creativity, this podcast. So I worked through so many of those beliefs around artists can make money and this and that, but I was still coming up against this bl. And it was sometime last year. We were working in subconscious rewiring, and I wanted to work specifically in my creative block. And what happened was I was kidnapped just two months after I graduated with a fine arts degree. It was a wreck right after I. When I went to college immediately, because that was like, when I believe that artists didn't make money, I had to make a. Get a real job. But then fast forward 10 years later, I ended up going to art school in my 30s, graduating with a fine arts degree, get kidnapped two months later. And that is where my creativity really shut me down because in my subconscious mind, creativity wasn't safe for me. Like, my body really was closing down around my creative expression. So I was having so much bracing in my body from the belief around creativity just really not even being safe. And so back to the emotions of these changes. Right? Like, so there's a belief and then there's an emotion. But it's not just the emotions that we're already repressing and carrying. It's the emotion that's attached into just the belief. Right. If creativity isn't safety, then that lack of safety, my body felt all of that tension, embracing. And then when I got back from Quest recently and I'm in integration, I freed up so much of the bracing. How am I making space for myself now? And it is engaging intentionally with the vision. Right. Walking a path that is really not there.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

It really brings me back to this idea that we talk about on here all of the time, is that our brain and our nervous system, they aren't ever doing things by accident. There's a reason for all of this. Right. And sometimes that's so deeply below the level of our consciousness. So there's this block to creativity and that could show up for people in all kinds of ways. You mentioned self sabotage, and we know that self sabotage is a protective avoidance behavior. When something is too stressful or too threatening, too unfamiliar, the stress load is too big for our nervous system. So it will push us into avoidance behavior. You might just experience procrastination or brain fog or a little bit of shutdown. Like you go to do the thing and all of a sudden you're so tired or you're thinking about a million different things at once, you're super distracted. You know, just all of these ways that our system is really protecting us from. There was actually for you, this deep threat there that you're not cognitively aware of, and yet that's driving the behavior for so long. And so we have all of these patterned neural network responses in our brain, and sometimes we don't know exactly what's pulling up that neurotag, what's triggering that reaction, but there's some kind of survival response there. There's a reason why our nervous system is creating that. And we don't always have to figure out the subconscious thing, but we do have to work with the pattern to create regulation and safety and be able to emotionally express. Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Wallace]

We don't always have to know about it. But I'm just a really big believer that if a story inside of you wants to be Known or shown, it's going to come out.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

It will. And you also go very deep into your subconscious practices, as do I. I mean, we love to explore our subconscious patterns and I think for some people. Yes. And you can just look at the output, right? What is the output here? What is the behavior? When does it come up? What are the signals my body's giving me before? Where does my nervous system maybe need inhibition or stimulus or stress processing or emotional processing to start to re pattern this? Can I just follow the output back, see the signals that my body is giving me and then start to work with my body and my nervous system in those moments to give it new stimulus, different response, different environment that then makes a new output possible. And I don't always, I don't always connect the dots of why that is, but I can sometimes just know, okay, I'm moving into the behavior. What preceded this? What could I do differently next time to create some change at that neural level?

[Jennifer Wallace]

Yeah, it's brilliant. I mean, really, really. And it does create lasting change when we work with our nervous systems. I don't know if this makes sense, but like, you know, one thing that I recognize for myself while I'm in this big habit change stuff is that, I mean, I'm in this integration right now and in this habit change. A few months ago, I wasn't really in a big habit change. I was just, you know, regulating, doing my thing, having goals, working towards it. And then I go to quest. I have this big peak somatic experience. And now that I've gone a layer under, I can see that there's change that I want to make, right? So I'm in this habit change. And food is always the first thing that's going to come for me. It's the deepest one. It is my biggest regulating pattern. And although I don't binge anymore, it could still be. I mean, it wants to happen. Like, I can feel the food. Like I'll go to be doing something and it's like, food, eat something. Stop. You're getting too stressed out, stop. So like, do my drills. No, I'm not going into that behavior. Like, I know them enough now. I've been working with my food patterns for like years now, so they're totally not the same anymore. But so I've also, I've been pretty open on this podcast too about like having cannabis practices. So now that I don't have the food to engage with anymore, it feels like now my cannabis pattern is raging. Just wants me to smoke all the time. You know, and it's like, no, not, not going to do that either. So it's like right now because I'm being called to a high level of change and growth, my regulation practices also have to reflect that. So right now I need more, it's just taking me more to regulate down because all the little maladaptive regulating patterns, they're all just like flaring up.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

The bigger the change that we're making, the more energy costly and potentially threatening and emotionally charged that is for our nervous system. So it does have to be coupled when we're in these bigger experiences of trying to integrate big change or deep truths or moving towards a big vision that does have to be accompanied for in my experience anyway by also doubling down on the practices that resource me, give me capacity, help me to regulate. I can't let those things go in the pursuit of the vision because it will not happen. It just, I can't break something like that if I'm in a depleted kind of survival driven state.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Which is why rest is so important. Like rest is so important. I mean, I really can't say it enough. There's been times where I've been so tired when it's like 7, 7:30 at night. And he was like, you know what, I'm just gonna lay here with my sleep mask on. And typically when I go to bed at 8 o', clock, of course I'm gonna want to wake up at 4 o' clock in the morning. And no, I will not let myself get up. I just keep my sleep mask on. I might put some beats, do some drills, drop into parasympathetic. And I consider that like I'm resting.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

It is rest, it's just a different flavor of rest. Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer Wallace]

And I force myself into it. Sometimes I'm like, just go to bed.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

And I think the other things too, there are things that fill you up and those are different for different people, you know. And so also like maybe it's getting some time out in nature, maybe it's getting morning light, maybe it's social connections and making sure you have time to socialize and be with people that, you know, energize you. Time with animals taking a hot bath. Like what are the things that help replenish my system? Yes, neurotools and fueling and respiration training and all that good stuff. But also there are like lifestyle things that you know your system and what makes you feel better and brings you more energy and capacity. And then I think I wanted to touch a little bit on financial goals too. Because I think that's a really big thing this time of year. And I mean, a lot of people have financial trauma, and this is a time where we're really trying to make shifts. I'm going to get to know my numbers, I'm going to grow my business, I'm going to budget more, I'm going to save shopping patterns, all of that. And I think that it is very, you know, these practices carry over into some more nuts and bolts, things like that as well. Like we talk about relationship to food and the body, and it's a little bit easier, I think, to connect those dots, but you can still start to recognize the somatic responses and the neural patterns in these other areas of life too. Like when I sit down to do my numbers or manage my budget, what happens? Do I start to get really heavy, really tired? Do I experience pain? Am I clenching my jaw? And we can start to work with our body and our nervous system in the same capacity. And all these different types of change that we're trying to make, if we start to listen to the signals, know how to work with our nervous system to provide it some new sensory stimulus, increase our capacity, do some regulation, do some emotional processing, and combine that with whatever that changes in whatever direction.

[Jennifer Wallace]

Well, the great thing about patterns is, is how you show up anywhere is how you show up everywhere. So if you're finding a pattern in your food, you're probably going to find it in your finances. Because back to the energy efficiency of the brain, it wouldn't be efficient for us to just have this one pattern over here in food. It's going to show up in love, time, money, relationships, and everywhere that you are. And so really great thing about working with the subconscious mind is that when you're chipping away, even if you have like one focus, you're also chipping away at the pattern that exists everywhere but through the nervous system regulation and like having that daily practice, I think that's what really helps us get that, that cognitive altitude of to be like, oh, my food pattern's happening right now on the shopping, or my food pattern's actually coming up right now in this relationship or with my voice or, I mean, it's everywhere. So getting the pattern recognition, like, concept is so empowering.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

It really is. You can start to identify, oh, that's my scarcity, or that's those feelings of abandonment, or that's my need to overdo and give, give and give and give. You know, my boundary patterns show up in all different areas of life. And when we start to work with them in a really embodied, neurosomatic way, then it does. It reaches out into all areas of life. So I'm creating change in many different places, including, like, my physical health as I'm doing this work. It is inspiring to create change, and we just want to think about how we can do it in a way that is sustainable and doesn't compound our stress load or push us into an emotional flashback or, you know, like, all these things when we start to understand our body and our nervous system, how can I really work with it to create this change instead of having such an adversarial relationship to the. The needs and the capacity of my body?

[Jennifer Wallace]

So you can have hope in your life, right? Like, we can't just be giving up. We just want to be hopeful. Right? I mean, that's how I look at it. And that's why I think, you know, people set these goals, give up in the first three months. Well, if the goal is over the year, we'll just take things slowly and.

[Elizabeth Kristof]

Get some support, slow the pace, celebrate the wins, process the emotions, and make little, little decisions to deconstruct the pattern in little moments throughout the day so that we're really creating, creating that new vision like, one moment at a time.

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This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical or psychological advice. We often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics that deal with complex developmental and systemic trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are in the United States and you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call 91 1. For specific services related relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the show notes.