#076 Creating Change (Part 2) Willpower, Self-Sabatoge, and the Mind Body Connection To Create Change

We explore why willpower fails when your emotions and physiology aren’t aligned and show how heart–brain coherence makes change feel safe and sustainable. Practical tools help you clean your inputs, build awareness, set intentions, and rehearse new patterns that stick.

• heart coherence as the body’s synchronizer
• emotions informing the nervous system and behavior
• survival wiring, generational stress and negativity bias
• filters, beliefs and missed opportunities
• habits on autopilot reinforcing old identity
• why thoughts alone can’t override physiology
• awareness practices, meditation and journaling
• input audit across media, people and environments
• intention setting and gratitude as daily anchors
• rehearsing new responses during neuroplastic windows
• aligning routines for homeostasis before deeper work
• anchoring change with a strong why and self‑compassion

To get notified as soon as groups open at the beginning of the year - sign up here:

https://stacy-baker.mykajabi.com/opt-in-9cffc5f4-f006-4adb-a0a7-6c33a0698b4b

Resources mentioned:

Mycircadian APP DOCTOR (code)
Ra Optics (Code DRSTACYND) blue light blockers!
Bon Charge (Code DRSTACY) red light panel and circadian bulbs
Higher Dose (my FAV sauna blanket with low to no EMF) code DRSTACY
CGM (Code DRSTACY and DRSTACYAPP for app only)
Analemma Water (structuring)
Spring Aqua (my FAV water system) 

To work one-on-one with me, you can apply HERE!

For more from me, follow me on IG @dr.stacy.nd

This information is just that; information only - not to be taken as medical advice. Please contact your primary care before changing anything to your routine. This information is not mean to diagnose, treat, or cure disease.

Transcript

Why Willpower Keeps Failing

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy. I am Dr. Stacy reminding you that health is found in the things that we repeat the most. And so when you want to change the outcome of your health, you have to change what you are constantly exposing your body and mind to. And that's what we're going to dive in today with part two of creating change. How to make sure that our mind actually matches our physiology and our thoughts and how we can bring those things all into coherence together to finally create change and avoid things like relying on willpower or the self-sabotage that happens when we only rely on willpower. We have to make sure that everything is coherent, everything is working together. So we're gonna dive into a little bit more depth with this on today's episode So Hang Tight. We'll be right back. Okay, so I'm so excited to continue the conversation of creating change. It is something that I find so many people get stuck in, even in myself for a long time, to like really understood these concepts. And I am one that loves and embraces change. But when I find myself getting into a this place of stuckness or old familiar patterns, even though they're dysfunctional, start to creep back in. It helps me refocus and realign and reset so that I can make sure that my physiology is matching my mindset and really working together because otherwise we're literally just, you know, we're going against the stream, so to speak. And I know so many of us have things that we really want to change and we just can't think our way there. So we're gonna talk about what that actually means and how we actually can create change. Um, so let's dive into it. So before I go into some of these concepts, I want to talk for a second about heart coherence. I'm gonna have a whole podcast episode on this, but you have to understand the connection of the heart and the brain. Now, this is so much more than just like, oh, just positive thinking. Like, this is truly what gets our body and our mind working together in a place of coherence. The heart is the synchronization of all systems, and it's not nearly talked about enough. The heart is the most electrical um part of our body. And so, if you don't believe me, when you have a heart episode, what are we doing? We're looking at the electrical impulse, the electrical, you know, um activity of the heart within EKG, right? Um, the heart has more voltage and also a stronger electromagnetic field than the brain. And so what that means is it's a self-regulating system. It's so much more than a pump, right? That's such an underestimation of what it's capable of doing. The heart is the most powerful synchronizing agent in the body. And what it does is it informs the nervous system and not the other way around. Okay. So we have to understand that the nervous system is responding, yes, to our external environment, to our internal environment, but the strongest signal is what's coming from the heart. So I want you to remember that as we talk today. Um, but this just now that you know how powerful the heart is and producing its own electromagnetic field and pulling other systems into coherence along with it. And we talked about how healing requires a state of coherence or homeostasis or balance or order, right? That's what I want you to think about. But physiologically, we're going to reject change if the body is incoherent, okay? And the nervous system is constantly responding to the outputs of the heart before anything else. Okay. This is why we can't outthink our problems. This is why willpower is not enough. And this is why we fall into self-sabotage. And let's kind of talk about that. So, our heart, what dictates our heart? Okay. So remember the heart informs a nervous system, and then the nervous system responds and then it kind of dictates what the rest of the physiology is doing. So it always starts with what the heart output is. It's that afferent communication to the nervous system. That's why when I see things about nervous system regulation, it is like it's half the story because we can't regulate our nervous system if we aren't regulating or assessing and addressing the things that the nervous system is responding to on a constant, you know, basis. And so we our information from our heart is derived from the emotional state or our personality that we exist in all day, every day. Like I tell you, hey, health is found, balance is found in the things that we repeat the most. Our emotional state is truly the person that we practice, right? The emotional state that we exist in. It can be learned, it can be something that, you know, if we're open to other influences, it can be definitely be something that's influenced, something that's taught. It can be changed, but it is where we just our initial go-to, right? And a lot of times that's passed down from programming of what we accept to be true, right? The lens that we choose to look at, um, and have never questioned, right? Have never questioned, have never had a reason to question. So just the beliefs we accept as being true, those dictate our emotional state. So that is it puts off a very specific pattern. And that's called our heart coherence and can even be measured with things like heart rate variability. Those are two different things, but that's what those things mean. And I'm gonna do a whole podcast episode on those two topics down the road. But just so you know, the heart is putting off a signal. Okay. Now the nervous system picks up on that signal and also other people's heart coherence, right? That is actually how we communicate with each other, with our animals, with nature. It is truly our heart as this sensory organ, right? That's that is, you know, we're responding to other people's hearts. Our nervous system is constantly scanning and and and responding appropriately to our emotional state, other people's emotional state, the emotional state of the social media we allow into our lives, our podcasts, our shows, our reality TV, all of those things. Our heart is constantly um, you know, communicating and responding back and forth with a nervous system. The nervous system is is, you know, dictating our physiology from that point. So it is really, really imperative that we are looking at, and we'll talk more about this when we talk about how do we do this, but we have to look at what we allow in. What do we allow in? Who do we associate ourselves with? What is our constant, that inner voice, right? That inner dialogue, where does it go? Are we always predicting the worst? Are we always disappointed and frustrated and angry? Are we always in a low emotional vibrational state? Because here's the thing: if that's where we go, and that's where a lot of us do go naturally, um, especially when we're in in survival, because it it remember that we really single in how things only affect us, right? We don't have that broad perspective. We are simply just looking at everything as a threat and we become very narrow focused. And that is a survival response. So I'm not saying that we're wrong if we're going to that negative in a in a survival state that is very protective. And I've talked about that in reference to my family surviving the Holocaust. Like that is generational PTSD that has been passed down. That is programming, where I see lots of my family, lots of my cousins immediately, they're going to the worst case scenario. And in a survival mechanism, that is protective because if you can survive the worst case scenario in your mind, you can survive it in real life. Very protective in a Holocaust situation, right? Not very adaptive in day-to-day handlings of relationships, issues, right? Like if we're tagging every problem as, you know, this threat or a life and death situation instead of one of like, hey, I can, this is an opportunity for me to learn something new, to get creative, right? To solve this problem. And then I'm going to be stronger and more resilient coming out of it. But if we're constantly trying to avoid anything that's uncomfortable and we are looking at everything as a threat, even other people and other people's reactions, and they're not doing what we think they should be doing, or we need everything to be in this perfect order for us to be happy, that's not happiness, right? Like that's control. And so we got to get out of the place of that. But we have to know how this fits into the whole theme of change where you can't say you want something different, but your heart and your, you know, the heart is informing the nervous system. Remember, the nervous system's always looking for equilibrium with the heart and the brain. And when it senses a mismatch, that's where you're gonna fall back into old habits. That's where the unknown is gonna look super scary. And the familiar, no matter how dysfunctional it is, is gonna draw you back in because those two things don't match. If you say you want something more, but you feel unworthy of having it, you are coming from a place of negative energy, negative emotional state, right? Your nervous system cannot intake anything past what your emotional state is. Okay. So if you are constantly bombarded with things like drama and reality TV and gossip and negativity and comparison and feeling like you're not enough and not worthy, and like I said, frustration and anger and all of those things, and you're like, I want to change my life, your nervous system's gonna call you on it, right? Like, sure. Yeah, let's see how far this willpower, this thought will get us when our heart is so much more powerful, right? And so that's where we get stuck. That's where we fall back into old patterns, and then we just beat ourselves up even more from that place of negativity. Like, I knew I was worthless, I knew I could not do this, I knew I wasn't strong enough to say no, right? When it really is that mismatch between the heart and the nervous system. And that's where we need to focus a lot of our effort in today, today's conversation. So I wanted to make sure you understand the connection there, and then we'll talk more in depth with how those things are working for us or working against us when we're trying to create change. Now, one more thing I wanted to, you know, just kind of focus in on is remembering that if our nervous system is constantly taking in information from a negative state, our brain, remember that we have so many inputs coming in. Every second we have like hundreds of thousands of inputs coming in. But our brain, we cannot possibly, right? Like we cannot possibly comprehend all of that information. So our brain is going to block 90 plus percent of reality, right? All those sensory inputs to avoid overload, right? And you, with that being said, it's going to delete, distort, and generalize based on that lens that you choose to believe in. So based on your beliefs from that have, like I said, maybe you've been influenced by other people, you've been programmed, you've never questioned. So it's just like, yeah, this is just how things are. And you've never took a step back and been like, is that really how things are? Or is that just what I've been told or what society is telling me, right? You never see the world as it how it truly is, you see the world how you are. And that's why when like the things that frustrate us and other people are generally a projection back, like a mirror back of the things that irritate us about ourselves, right? And that is really powerful, right? But like I said, that that's how we create change. We have to bring awareness into that, right? So we can only take in information that is equivalent to our current emotional state, our personality, right? So if we want to see more possibilities and opportunities and things like that, we have to be able to think greater than that negative baseline that we always exist at. And sometimes we don't know because sometimes, I mean, most people don't have any time in the day where they're practicing awareness or taking a step back or they're just listening to that inner dialogue of like, dang, I why did I go there? Right. Like, why did I just think that? Why did I just judge that person? Why am I comparing my life to this person? Why am I jealous of this person, right? Like when they're just showing me what's possible. But unless if you you never practice awareness or never take a break from your mind and that thinking pattern that is all based on this, like what we value and what we've chosen to believe as being true, how could we ever create change, right? You can't, we're taking in 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day. 90 plus percent of them are the same as the day before, but also those are reflective of our emotional state that we exist in all of the time. So, in all essence, if we want to create change, and we're gonna talk about how we're gonna do this, um, we have to be able to think higher than the emotional state we are existing on. And if we have no idea where we exist, we have to go there. We have to practice awareness. We're gonna talk about how to do that. So let's talk now that we know conceptually what we're thinking about. We also need to talk about, okay, if this is my personality, this is my emotional state, then my habits and behaviors are really what ingrain that into the body, right? We talked about a stream as forming last time, how that like the more the water flows down the same place, the deeper the grooves, right? And the same comes for our neural networks in our brain. And those eventually just become like autopilot. We've repeated these habits and behaviors for so long, we don't even know. You know, it's kind of like driving to work and not really remembering what you actually did to get there, right? Like kind of scary, kind of just autopiloty, right? So, with that being said, those habits and behaviors program the body into that emotional state. So, with that being said, we can't have the same habits and the same behaviors, and now you know the same emotional state and create something new in our life, right? Everything that we repeat is reinforcing, even our thoughts are this like baseline running of things that we've already done. They are reflections of the past, right? And if we aren't listening to our heart, and we're gonna talk about how to do that, we're not taking in any new information. We're just recirculating the past over and over and over in our mind and thinking it's predicting our future. And it may end up predicting our future if we con if we never, you know, bring in a new stimulus. But our habits and behaviors are reinforcements of those past experiences, things that we've only experienced already, right? And so we can't live one foot in this new life that we want to change, and then one in the old because we still have the same habits and behaviors, reinforcing that personality into our life, right? That's another thing where the nervous system is gonna be like, yeah, you don't want this, right? Let's just go back, let's start on Monday, right? Like, let's start after the holiday, actually, like the Monday after the holiday, because this is just too much, right? And so that's what's happening because the nervous system and the emotional state are not in the same place. And so your nervous system sensing that imbalance and it's responding appropriately. And we live in such a world that is addicted to stress hormones. Oh my gosh, stress hormones are so addictive, right? Because they put out so much of a more powerful chemical and hormonal response and it ramps up. It's like when you have coffee or caffeine, right? Like it ramps everything up and it's so much more addictive, or that like that hit of dopamine from you know, seeing a uh argument on social media, right? Like it's like a train wreck. Like you, you want to look away, but like yeah, you're drawn back in, right? And we are addicted to stress hormones. They're so much more addictive because they're so much stronger. Um, but those are draining to our energy systems in our body. They're very dysregulating, right? The heart's gonna start to put off a very dysregulated pattern, which is when we start to see symptoms and that nervous system piece of things, right? Because the nervous system's like, oh my gosh, the heart is completely out of coherence. I'm just gonna start firing off all of the stress and survival things I can because the system's not all running smoothly, right? Like it's not all running together. And so not only there, so we start to draw in, right? Like we mentioned last time, our focus becomes very narrowed. We see limited possibilities. It's kind of like, you know how um when you have your windows open on a beautiful day and you might have the bottom window completely open, and then the like a fly is at the top window and it's like banging up against the glass, and it can't zoom out and see that the bottom is literally just completely open. It could fly right out. That's what we're doing to ourselves all day, every day, right? Like we cannot see potential and possibility because we've narrowed our focus end so much because we're constantly running on stress hormones and negative emotions. These emotions are signaling to the nervous system constantly. That inner dialogue, like, have you ever tried to shut it off? It is going, right? It is going, unless you are really like, even if you're meditating, it's still going. But the point of meditation is to let them pass, right? But for most people who are running on stress hormones, we're ruminating the same things over and over and over again. We're predicting the absolute worst case, like I said, out of a survival, um, you know, out of a survival response, and we just end up creating more of the same. And this is why our thoughts are not enough, right? The feelings are what are informing the nervous system. Those have to come first. They are stronger signals. If you measured and you can measure the electromagnetic field of the heart, it is so much more powerful than the one of the brain, right? And so, like I said, that alone shows you how powerful and how much our feelings are dictating our thought patterns. And then from there, our physiology, the rest of our physiology, right? They have to be a match. So our thoughts and our feelings are really reflective of the emotional state that we hang out in the most. Okay. The feelings inform the nervous system, and that is your starting point for change. So, you know, it's really important that we start to learn how to create space, like we talked about last time. If you missed it, definitely go get caught up. We gotta get space in there. We have to get reflection in there. If we don't, then we just end up recreating the same day over and over and over again and wondering why nothing in our life is changing. You have to have that state of awareness and practice. Now, we're not gonna listen to our internal dialogue all day, every day, but taking those breaks in those times of like, dang, I didn't realize that, like, I, you know, I try to say that I want XYZ, but then I'm irritated all day long and frustrated. And, you know, the only time I'm at peace is the few minutes I'm meditating and then I'm out of it the rest of the day. What do you think is more powerful, right? Obviously, what you're repeating the most. And so it's really important to start once again assessing where that dialogue's coming, like where it's going, right? Out of a place of non-judgment, like I said, this isn't who we are. This is what we've chosen to believe or just what we've accepted to be true based on society, the things we allow to influence our life, how we were raised, all of these things, right? Where did these thoughts even come from? And these feelings and these emotional states even come from. Like I grew up in a household that was extremely stressful. All the time. I mean, a family of eight, there's a lot of stress going on, right? There's a lot of incoherence going on. Um, my mom physically didn't feel well. I know she didn't feel well, right? And so there was a lot of frustration and a lot of shortness and a lot of, you know, for the impasse in our family, like we're constantly sensing each other's, you know, nervous systems, and our nervous system is constantly on edge and constantly like overstimulated because it's all reliant on, you know, the heads of the household, what their emotional state is to dictate if we're gonna have a good day or not, right? Like that's a really hard place to be. That that is how it is, though. You know, we're constantly reading other people's behaviors. And so when we take this non-judgmental step back in that place of awareness of where our emotional state, and we can usually get a good gauge of that based on how we think and how we feel all day, every day. Are they even our thoughts, right? Like, and even just questioning them makes them less real and gives them less power. Like, is this even my thought? Like, why do why did I even go there? You know? Um, are they ones that we took on from, like I said, our past experiences or even current, right? Like social media, everything on social media is designed to give you an emotional response. Why? Because emotions are way more powerful than thoughts, right? Advertising got that down. They are not selling a product, they're selling a feeling and an experience. And the stronger that emotion is tied to that commercial, the more you're gonna remember it. And that is how our lives work too. So you really have to think about what you allow into your mental and emotional space, your thinking and feeling space. What media, what influences, right? And, you know, and how do you know you know how you feel, right? And if you don't know, start to practice some awareness. Where like, is my heart rate up when I'm looking at this person's social media thing? Am I like thinking negative thoughts when I'm looking at them and their beautiful picture perfect life and I'm comparing myself to others and I'm feeling less worthy because I see the highlights of everybody else? If that's the state you're going to, you need to take a break from it, right? Like you have, if you're really wanting to create change, you have to take a break from the things that are drawing you back into that negative thinking feeling pattern. What about how we talk about ourselves and other people, right? Because that is reflective of, like I said, that emotional state. So another reason why we can't think one way, but feel another way, right? Like I said, if we are saying, oh yeah, I want this to be different in my life, I want peace and harmony. And then every conversation we have, we're talking about other people, judging other people, you know, participating in gossip or negativity, or even just scrolling on social media, doing the same thing, we're never going to be able to be the best version of ourself because we're never getting into a higher emotional state from that place of self-love and self-worth. It's always that feeling of lack, right? And we you can't create from lack. This is also another reason why intention setting is such a powerful practice because it gives us something to focus on, right? Like it gives us direction. If now that you know how the heart and the nervous system work, you have to understand that we're constantly taking in inputs from like not just ourselves internally, but everyone else, every influence, every music, everything we listen to, right? Everything is informing that. And so what I mean by that is if we aren't starting our day with an intention or our month or our week or whatever it may be, then we are literally just living for one in the past, right? Because everything that we're repeating is reflective of our past experience. And we are living by default of other people's intentions and just what other people we're we're living in reaction, really, to what everything that's happening to us. And that's why we feel out of control. But when you start to set intentions, then you're directing that subconscious. Remember, it's it's it's trying to help you, it's trying to reaffirm what you believe to be true. So 90% of the inputs coming in are being blocked out. So if you are trying to change something and you're not setting an intention, it doesn't know what to block out. It doesn't know what to show you possibilities or opportunities. It's just gonna do more of the same. But when you guide it and you say, okay, this is what I want, and you know, I'm gonna work on my emotional state, I'm gonna work on my thoughts and feelings, I'm gonna do all these things. But I want my intention for today is X, Y, Z. You are directing your subconscious in that direction to start looking for things to reaffirm that. Now there, it's only gonna reaffirm equal to your emotional state. That's why you have to be doing the emotional work at the same time. And we have to get in that constant practice of awareness of our thoughts and feelings, right? To create that new state. Um, that is how we create change. We create a new state. We literally have to be a biologically, chemically, hormonally new person. And this is why people can't change because they don't understand what is required of that. Like they want change, but want to still continue in the same life that they have. And it literally has to be looked at as like shedding a skin. You have to shed the skin of that old person, the habits, the behaviors, the thinking, the thinking patterns, and the feeling patterns, right? And you have to become a new person. Like, it's just like my one of my favorite quotes that says, Your your new life is gonna cost you your old one. That is exactly what this means. You have to become and be willing to change everything to have these goals that you want. And it doesn't have to be this like doom and gloom situation. It should be exciting to be like, wow, now that I know what's involved and actually creating change, it makes so much sense, right? From a place of self-love. Like, it makes so much sense why I've why I've gotten stuck. It makes so much sense why I've been pulled back. If my, if ever all of my intentions and all of my like actions and habits have always been out of a place of lack or comparison or judgment on myself, or thinking I'm not worthy of having everything I am wanting, or that I'm not good enough to have it, or that I would never be able to keep it, or any kind of negative thought pattern that's happening, it makes sense why you haven't been able to do that, right? So you really have to shed that skin of the past, the habits, the beliefs, the emotions that have been running and dictating your biochemistry, right? Your nervous system, which dictates the biochemistry, which gets its signal from where? The heart, right? The feeling and the emotional state that we exist in all the time. And so, like I said, most of the time, these are unconscious programmed beliefs out that are being driven by outside influences and other things that evoke emotional responses. And if you start to notice, that's what everything is is being is selling you on, right? Fear, like, oh my gosh, if you don't take this, or did you know you could have like this horrible parasite if you don't take this or whatever it may be, right? Fear. That's a strong emotional response, and it's going to make you react, right? Like you're gonna remember that. You're going to obviously you don't want to make decisions out of a place of fear because then you really narrow your focus and you feel like this is life or death. Like I have, I have to do this because this person said I could have this horrible parasite and now I'm scared, and now if I don't do it, I'm gonna die, right? That's you know, that's a dramatization, but not really because, you know, social media, right? But either way, our emotional state and our feeling state is being driven by lots of outside influences, and the more you can clean that up to start, like we talked about last, you know, week's episode, the more you can clean that up, the more aware you're gonna be of how they really dictate your how you feel on a day-to-day basis. And remember too that the and like I said, I'm gonna repeat a lot of these things because they've never been taught to us, okay? So emotions drive our physiology, our nervous system is trying to maintain balance, right? To make sure that the belief patterns and the thoughts match our emotional state. We cannot take in any information that is higher than our current emotional state. And I'll give you an example of that. We like if if you have that family member that loves to, loves to be the first one to give you all of the bad news, right? Like always thrives on like feeling better than that person who has this horrible, like unfortunate thing, or always talking crap about somebody, or like just wants to be the bearer of bad news all the time, but then even talks horribly about themselves, right? Like, oh, I, yeah, I'm out of shape. I am I'm sick, I'm old, I'm blah, blah, blah. And like you just hear them like casting spells on themselves all day, every day, creating their reality, right? Because we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we believe it to be true, as we are, right? But with that being said, you could look at that person and be like, yeah, you know, if you want to physically feel better, just do X, Y, Z. It's so easy, just start bringing these habits and things in. But if that person's thoughts and the the things they talk about and the things they expose themselves to are constantly in that negative emotional state, they literally can't even hear you. They, they, it's just like physically impossible. And that's why, like, you know, my husband's always telling me, like, why don't, you know, why don't you just tell this person what they should do and all this stuff? And it's like, no, given, I would gladly give someone advice, right, on some things to work on. But the thing is, is if people aren't asking me for it, I'm not giving it because I know that they're not emotionally ready to hear it, you know? And it's just kind of a waste of both of our time, right? Because, you know, and I'm not saying that I would never have a conversation with somebody, but um, I've been through this so much. I've given advice to so many people I love and care about, but they can only take in the information that's equal to their current emotional state. And, you know, and I've experienced that myself as well. I mean, how many times I can't tell you, I've taken so many courses and so many certifications and so many things. Um, and then I go back and revisit them or like re-listen to a lecture or something, and I'm like, dang, I never, I didn't even hear that the first time I listened to it. I know you've experienced that because your nervous system wasn't taking it in at that moment, right? Like it wasn't something your nervous system was looking to reaffirm. It wasn't a connection that was made at the time, right? And so that just goes to show you those examples really show you how much filtration happens through our lens and how many possibilities and opportunities we are constantly blocking out if we are not zooming out, changing the emotional state, changing the thoughts and feeling patterns and questioning them and starting to practice awareness of them and starting to create change, right? And the longer we practice those, the more ingrained and entrained they are in our like neural networks, in our hormonal and biochemistry, right? Like it has become a part of us, not to say we can't change, but remember that if we want to bring something new about, we've got to bring that new in and repeat it, right? Like we've got to create new networks. So one is severing ties with those old thinking and feeling patterns and then practicing that new emotional state that we want to exist at. And we'll talk about that too. So we have to let go of who we were in order to become welcoming to who we want to be, right? We want to be a new version of ourselves. Well, this is what we need to do. We have to be in a place of physic, like physiological homeostasis. And that's why that's always where I start with people. So I look at their lives and, you know, because like obviously people come to me because they want change in their health, but there's always more change that needs to happen, right? Like it's their life, right? But their physical body is showing um the disorder and the dysfunction and just coherence overall, right? And then it looks like physical health issues, but it's everything. It's just that their life isn't fitting where they want to go, you know? But we don't address it. We don't go, you know, we're not doing talk therapy and things like that. Now, given, we will definitely talk about emotional health and emotional states and things like that. But remember, when they're coming to me and they're they're completely incoherent physi, you know, physiologically, they're running on stress hormones, their blood sugar is a mess, their circadian rhythm's a mess, things like that. How much information about the emotional state and the nervous system state do you think they're really gonna be able to take in? Right? They can only take in equal to where they feel physically right now, right? And so that's why getting someone into physical homeostasis has to be primary. So my goal is always to look at them and assess, like, okay, how can I get their, you know, create an environment internally and externally that can bring them down to this place of homeostasis so they can start to tune in a little bit more, so they can start to practice awareness so they can notice, right, where their thoughts and feelings um are existing at and how those translate into behavior, right? It's really hard. And I've, you know, I've dealt with this even from my personal training days to watch someone work out so hard and then self-sabotage themselves with food wise because they just, you know, there's a part of them that thought that they could out train their diet, or even deeper than that, there's a part of them that thinks that if you know, if they just work out, then all of their other, all the other things they repeat the rest of the week will just equal out, right? They'll create a this new person, this new version of themselves. And it's kind of like the same analogy is that we are we obviously like the workouts can only take you so far, the diet's really where the physiology changes, and it's the same here. Like our thoughts can only take us so far. Our emotional state and the things that we practice that really drive that emotional state into our physiology are really where the change comes from. So we have to start to notice, like I said, out of a place of self-love, out of a place of kindness, out of a place of grace and non-judgment, we have to start to notice our thoughts and feelings. We have to know what that inner dialogue, where it's going every single day. And we have to know how our behavior is translated from those patterns. Okay. And we have to be aware of the influences that evoke emotions out of us. Those also become learned in the body, hormonally, chemically, and can be very addictive. Like I said, stress hormones are very addictive. Dopamine hits are very addictive. They knock us out of balance, they knock us out of homeostasis, and they make it way harder to be able to start to tune in. The more of a clean slate we have going into it, the more we're going to be able to really start to listen. And so we have to create space to drop all of these little things at a time, these things that are constantly, you know, causing emotional states. And it does affect how we live the rest of the day. We could spend you know some time on social media, start to judge and, you know, be jealous and criticize. Oh, I can't believe that person's doing that, you know, all these things. And then we will be irritated the rest of the day, or we'll feel like we have to control what everybody's doing, everybody else, or we feel like there's something that's been, you know, tinged in us that's all of a sudden we feel like we're lacking because we don't have that body that person has. We didn't have that meal that person had, we don't have their home, their vacation, whatever it may be. Then guess what? We're creating from lack, right? Lack is the lowest energy state we could be creating from. So how how far do you think we're gonna get with that? Right. The more we hang out in that negative emotional space, the more the nervous system is gonna find that mismatch and be like, yeah, you you don't want this. You don't want change. You wanna stay here. This is what's familiar, this is what's known, right? So we have to start to think about what those thoughts are responding to, right? And where our current feeling and emotional state is. This is more powerful than any thought pattern or any version of willpower we can do because this is the power. It informs the rest of the body and can either bring us all together in that place of coherence or it can keep us completely separate, right? And we talked about that last week about even the brain really defragments. And, you know, when it's in that state of survival, negative emotion, all these things, it it doesn't work together. It's the same with the rest of the body. So whether you're creating change in your life or trying to create change in your health, it's all the same. We need coherence, we need order, we need balance, we need homeostasis. Same thing. We have to do that if we want to welcome change. So, with that being said, so now we've set we've started to practice some awareness. What does that look like? Well, it's different for everybody, right? Some people like to journal, some people like to meditate. Um, some people just want to set intentions to start the day. Looks a little different for whatever makes sense for you. One of my favorite places and ways to create space is meditation, but that looks very different than when I started meditating. Um, and you know, it's a it's like building a muscle. Some days you're gonna have the best days where you really went deep and you know you were actually able to slow your thoughts to that, like where you could separate from them, right? And then some days it's gonna be really hard to sit there for 20 minutes and you know, your nervous system is gonna try to just talk you out of it the whole time. So it's not that like once you get there, you're there. It's a practice. And so it's one of my favorite ways to create space because it gets you out of your thinking mind and gets you into your feeling, right? And that's what we need to practice more of. And so when we start to practice awareness and we start to notice where that inner dialogue goes, now we do the work. Now we think about okay, those thought patterns haven't really served me in creating change at all. What do I replace them with? So, how can I be aware of my, you know, stream of thoughts during the day and what when those come, how can I change them? How can I redirect them? Or even just like I said, practicing awareness of them takes away some of their power because then you're just aware of them, you're not believing them, right? You're starting to question, you're starting to be like, why did I go there? That is giving them less and less power. Remember, we have to cut ties neuronally with those thought patterns. And so the more we just even start to bring awareness to them and question them, then we get into a place where we can start to redirect. And oh my gosh, this is the place where your nervous system, because it it when you're taking away the familiar and the known and those familiar chemical and hormonal and neural networks, and you're like, yeah, no, we're not doing this anymore. Your nervous system is gonna go bonkers for a little bit of time, right? And I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just saying this is the shift. That is the biological death of the old person, of the old version of yourselves, because your familiar is now taken away, right? And so your nervous system is gonna fight back for a little bit of time, right? It's gonna, it's gonna get in your head, it's gonna say, hey, you know, this is let's just like I said, that's your let's start Monday. Let's actually like wait till our vacation and then start that Monday after. Like those are when, you know, your nervous system's gonna frantically like just try to reconnect those neuronal pathways, right? And like really. Really question your habits and behaviors, especially if you're like, okay, well, I want a new outcome. I got to change these habits and behaviors. Your nervous system's really gonna drive you back in. And this is where that on the cuss. But now that you know what's happening, you're gonna be so much stronger because you're gonna recognize it, right? Like when we don't know what's happening, it feels like it's out of our control. It feels like we're just low willpower. And that's not it. That's your nervous system sensing that something's getting ready to change. And it's like, oh, I'm scared. This is unpredictable. Like this is unfamiliar. I don't know. Like, what if we fail, right? Like that's where all this self-doubt comes in. But that is right like that pivotal moment right before you change. And so when those old thoughts and habits and behaviors start to draw you back in, just notice, right? Like this is a noticing game. It's a noticing because when we start to notice, we it loses its power, right? And after we've had a time period of noticing, then we start to shift, right? And then we we cut ties with the influences that we start to feel like are dragging us down or making us judge ourselves, judge others, comparison, right? Like all those, all those other negative emotional states that are right in our face, like real-time running any day, any time of the week, like there's no turning off. We have to actually turn that off ourselves. We have to say, like, I'm not allowing that, right? Like, I'm not allowing that into my influence anymore. I don't like, and I this has been a process over time, even for me. You know, I was very addicted to um to dramas on TV. I was very addicted to, you know, I'm I hate to even admit it, but like the real housewives, um, you know, reality TV, the dramas. My husband and I would like think we're spending quality time together watching, but it really was shaping, and even just from a mirror neuron place, like we're we mirror the neurons that we watch other people repeat, and then we are our subconscious is looking for that in our own lives. So, like, even just from watching dramas in reality, we create more drama in our own lives because our our the neural networks are are are essentially mirroring that. And so we are once again, information to the subconscious to say, hey, this is this is normal, show me more of this. That's exactly what's happening. So you really have to be aware of the things that you allow to influence your emotional state and your thinking and feeling state. And so if you have that negative family member that like once they start to go there, I'm not saying just cut them off directly, although you may need to love from a distance while you're practicing this for a little while, right? But like change the subject or help them flip their perspective, right? That's something that I have to practice all the time. It's like, well, maybe it's not that way. Maybe that's like your survival brain predicting the worst, right? What if you looked at it through this lens, right? Helping them redirect or refocus instead of jumping and engaging in that negative place and that gossip and that, you know, negative discussion with them, because then you're just being drawn back, right? And it's draining, it's very energetically draining. I know you all feel that. Um, and it's draining because it's that heart and the nervous system just being knocked out of balance, right? And that is an energy cost. I know you feel that when you do things like when you do things you don't want to do, when you're around people that you really don't resonate with or people that are constantly negative, that is your nervous system responding to your environment. And so the more you can be aware of that, create space from as much of that as you can, but then also do things that keep you in a higher emotional state, things that give you life, things that bring you joy, things that make you happy. Um, and even just like a gratitude practice is a one of those ways that if you started your day with a practice of gratitude, the rest of your day is going to show you more things to be grateful for, right? Versus you start your day and you open your phone and you're just like judging, comparing, you know, getting activated by the things you see on social media, going through your to-do list in your mind, you're starting off in that survival state versus that place of that higher emotional state, which is a shift, it's a change, right? If you're one of the people that like wake up and jump straight into their to-do list and jump straight into survival, what if you took 10 minutes and you recalibrated everything and you started off in a different emotional state? That's how you create change. But you know what? You got to repeat it because how long have you been repeating that survival state and that you've ingrained that in your behaviors and your habits to follow, right? So now you have a new thought pattern, a new emotional state, and a new habit that you bring in, that in and of itself is gonna produce a change, right? And that looks a little different for everybody, like where they exist, what resonates with them, right? And maybe this is an intention setting practice or even a journaling at the end of the day. Like, okay, where did I get drawn back in? Where did I lose my awareness, right? Like if I did engage in like talking negatively about myself or others, like replay it in your mind of like how you would have wanted it to go and start, especially in that really neuroplastic time of the day, which is like the hour before we go to bed and then the hour we wake up. We're super neuroplastic. We're the most accepting of new information. That's why the intention setting and gratitude is so powerful at those points in the day. And then the kind of re-um reassessing at the end of the day, if that's like in addition to your practice, that can be so powerful too. Of like, where did I lose my goal, like my intention? And like, what will I do differently next time? That's it. It's not like, gosh, I'm a piece of crap. I'm gonna, I knew I couldn't do this, right? Like, don't spiral, just be like, dang, yeah, I got frustrated with my kids. And I kind of, you know, yeah, I wasn't as zen as I wanted to be. I got frustrated with my kids. I got, you know, a little bit knocked back into my place of irritation and frustration, whatever. Um, it probably was due to, you know, the few minutes that I was scrolling and started to judge others. And next, you know, the next day I'm not gonna do that. And I know I'm gonna react differently and I'm gonna remind myself to be patient and kind. That's it, right? And you repeat that. You bring awareness, you recalibrate, you repeat. You've got to create that new hormonal, chemical, and you know, thinking, feeling pattern into your body. It's not gonna happen in just one setting. Look at your habits and your behaviors are in the everything you repeat the most. Are those building your future or are they recreating your past, right? Super powerful. When you when you look at the end of the day um and you're reassessing and and and looking at like, did I even bring in anything new? Or did I just repeat the same behaviors and habits and I'm expecting something new, right? Like just constantly bring in that place of self-awareness. That's how we grow, right? Give yourself grace when your nervous system draws you back because now you know what's happening. You know it's not you. You know that it's the mismatch between your heart and your nervous system, your feelings and emotions and your thoughts. When those are have a discrepancy, your nervous system calls BS. And that's where we get into spiraling into negative thinking, you know, talking ourselves out of change, um, self-sabotage, all those things. But now you know that. And so if that starts to happen, you know, for one, all right, this has been this is a powerful pattern. I can tell my nervous system is not really loving, you know, it's wanting to draw me back in. But now that I know what's happening, I'm not gonna let that happen. I'm in control, right? The more you feel in control, the better you're, you know, just like Dr. Dispenza says, the best way to predict your future is to create it, right? So create the future that you want, but know that big things gotta change to get there, right? And it's not, and I don't want that to seem like doom. I want it to seem like now you know what to work on. Like now you know the states you need to practice, the states you need to be aware of, and the things you need to repeat to create that change. It's possible. And neuroplasticity tells us that it is possible. What are you gonna do when you know you've got to give yourself grace when you can tell your nervous system's drawing you back? What are you gonna do to focus back on? Right. Like, what are you gonna do to guide yourself gently back to that place you want to go? Know those things, write them down so that when you do feel off, you connect back and you're like, okay, this is my why. Like having a powerful why and a powerful intention is an anchor, right? That is your anchor, not just to your subconscious, but to your emotional state. Why do I want this? Right. Um, and it and that emotional state has to be more powerful than the stress hormones and the survival hormones, right? So you gotta go there often. Focus more on where you're going, not where you've been. Remember that thoughts are artifacts of the past. They're never going to bring you new information unless that information is coming from a very calm mind where you are actually meditating and open to new thoughts and new experiences. Thoughts that are ruminating the same 90, you know, 90% from the day before are never going to create something new in your life. So don't rely on the thoughts to change anything. Rely on the emotional state and the feeling state. Where do those exist the most? How can I bring my heart, my brain into balance and coherence, right? And so we'll talk more about the heart coherence part of things. I think there's a lot that you can get, you know, that there's a lot to take in. And like I said, you could listen to this podcast several times, and every time you listen to it, you will take in something different, you know, based on where you're at and what you're able to let in. But the more you practice getting out of your head, getting out of your thinking mind, getting out of your current emotional state, and you create space, and that's where the meditation comes in and is so very powerful. And then you come in with the work behind that, right? Okay, well, my inner dialogue is always doing X, Y, Z. What do I want to choose instead? Right? What is more in alignment with what I want? Well, for one, to not really focus on what everybody else is doing, right? Um, because then then you're just taking on other people's dreams and ideas and what they're in their lens of success and whatever, like what's important to them. The reason why you feel off when you're looking at everybody else's highlights is because there's something in us that is saying, well, they have that. Why can't I have it? Right? Like, well, you change it, you look at, hey, they're showing me what's possible, but also, is that really what I value? Is that my definition of success, right? Like most of us don't even go there. Most of us are just like, wow, you know, and and like I said, social media is designed to make us emotional looking through it. In fact, the people that, you know, elicit the highest emotions are the ones that get seen the most, right? And so that can be negative emotions. It's just like what keeps us more engaged, what keeps us more entertained. But if that is something that you notice is keeping you in a negative emotional state, I highly recommend creating space from it, muting people who are making you feel a certain way, um, you know, that sort of thing. So you can clean up your act. So you can clean up your influence, you know, your influences, your, like I said, your media, your podcasts, your books, all of those things are are either getting you closer to your goals or keeping you further away from them. So how do we hang out in more of emotional, you know, uh a higher emotional state so we can see more possibilities and so we can get the nervous system aligned with it? Well, we we hang out there. We listen to things and we expose ourselves to things of people who have become successful, who are motivational, who maybe even have the things we value and we look at what they did, right? And we we know that it's a possibility because they were able to do it. And then we work on our, you know, our patterns and our feelings, reminding ourselves that we can have those things, we can have what we desire, but we have to know, like we get the life, we don't get the life we think about, we get the life we think we deserve. And so if you notice that the things you want in your life aren't really aligning, there's something in that deserving model. There's something in that place of lack, you know, that really needs to be processed and worked on. And and like I said, it's not that you have to go and do all this inner child work and things like that. It's just to know, all right, this is the emotional state I hang out in all day, every day. I'm actually like, I thought I was very chill and I'm actually really irritated and frustrated and need people to act a certain way, need everything and you know, to be a certain way for me to be happy. And that's gotta change, right? That has to change because the you can only create more of the same if that's the emotional state that is producing your outcome right now. So our life changes when we change. And so this is the most powerful change you can make to start the emotional state that drives your nervous system, that drives your physiology. And so if you start there, it's gonna be way more powerful than trying to think your way out of this, right? You can't think your way out of a problem with the same mindset that created it, right? So we just gotta go there. And the more we repeat it, the more it just becomes who we are. And then our new habits and behaviors reinforce that new physiology into our body. So our the things we repeat are gonna have to change. And so that is a place of reflection too. That like sometimes I work with my clients on is like, okay, when we're intention setting and things like that, all right, well, you know, what is it that we do want? What is our goal? Like, how are we gonna direct our subconscious? What is our goal? And a lot of people don't know. And so when you have that goal and that why and that anchor or whatever it may be, your subconscious is gonna work for, you know, with you and for you to reaffirm more possibilities, more opportunities, those sort of things. You have to know what you're working towards. You have to set that GPS, right? And remember, the GPS never says, well, where have you been? You know, um, it never tells you that you're going the wrong way. It just redirects, right? So the more you focus on that goal at hand, the more you have that intention close by, and then you work on that emotional state, you work on that state, you know, you work out of a place of love and empathy and compassion instead of judgment. And this is not just for other people, this is yourself too, right? And that's that's you know, part of the work. You sit there and you remember, you know, all the great things about yourself, you know. Um, and you really go there often. Why are you, you know, like I said, sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming to try to think about like changing programming that we've been held on to from our whole childhood. And it doesn't have to go that deep. It's way quicker if we just create space where we aren't playing that role, right? Where we are truly stepping outside of ourselves in a place of meditation where we really get like kind of that outsider perspective. We really get a break from our personality when we do that. And then we come in with some new new information. That's gonna be way more powerful because, like I said, we can't fix a problem, we can't outthink it, right? We can't outthink the problem. And so if we really want to create change, the less we think about the problems, the more we focus on the solution. That's gonna be our quickest path there, right? And so we direct our heart and our nervous system to match that. Bam, you got it. That's your change right there. So um I hope that this kind of ties everything in that we were, you know, talking about last week, where we're just like I said, creating space for something new. And now we're coming in and um learning what's off. Like, why do we self-sabotage? Why do we um what is influencing our behavior when we feel like we want something so badly? Well, we keep getting drawn back. And this is exactly what's happening. And the more you understand that, the easier you're gonna be able to notice it when it happens and redirect it. And that's the thing. Notice, redirect over and over again until you get this new outcome, until you believe in a possibility that is greater than your current state. And you go there as often as you can and you redirect your emotions into that feeling, that new feeling. Um and practice, right? It's like building a muscle, just like meditating, just like anything else we do, fasting, anything else we do. The more you do it, the stronger you're gonna be at it, the more your nervous system is going to believe you when you say you want something new. And now you know the formula, right? So thank you guys so much for tuning in. I hope this was impactful and powerful. I know it's not that like cookie cutter, this is how we do things, right? But no, no two lives are the same. No two goals are the same, no two values are the same, no two experiences should ever be the same. We're here to have our own unique experience. And my goal is just to show you physiologically how we get stuck and the possibility to get unstuck. And I see it happen all the time. Whether we know what we're doing or not, um people change all the time, but this is the way. This is the way to change where your body and your mind actually work together instead of in opposition because that's where we get stuck. So hopefully this helped you guys. Um, thank you so much for tuning in. I'm gonna be back on in a couple weeks. We're gonna talk about why diets don't work and what does instead, some metabolic things. And then I am gonna work, you know, talk more about heart rate variability and heart coherence and things like that in an upcoming podcast episode. So, for everything else, head to my Instagram at dr.stace. And I can't wait to see you guys next time. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day.