Money Mom Podcast

77: From Chaos to Calm: Your Nervous System, Explained (with Eliza Kingsford)

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You’re in for a treat. Today I’m sitting down with licensed psychotherapist and nervous system expert Eliza Kingsford, the woman whose work quite literally changed my life and my marriage. We get practical about what “nervous system work” really means (no jargon, promise), why your reactions aren’t “personality flaws” but state-based responses, and how understanding your nervous system can transform your parenting, partnership, and even your relationship with money.

If you’ve ever wondered why the same argument keeps repeating, why small things suddenly feel huge, or why budgeting feels chaotic even when “the math should math,” this episode will land. We cover Eliza’s “nervous system bank account” (deposits vs. withdrawals), how to spot when you’re in the yellow before you hit the red, and the game-changing phrase: “Story follows state.”

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • What nervous system regulation actually is, and how it shows up in everyday mom life
  • Why couples keep looping the same fight (and how to step out of it)
  • The “nervous system bank account” model for staying out of overdraft
  • How hormones, stress, and state distort tone, facial cues, and interpretation
  • Why mindset alone can’t override bottom-up safety signals (and what does)
  • How regulation impacts money behaviors, budgeting, and financial peace

Highlights & Takeaways:

  • “State first, story second.” Solve the body state before the problem.
  • Learn your personal deposits (they’re different for everyone!).
  • Spot the yellow zone early to prevent red-zone blowups.
  • Money triggers survival wiring, work with your nervous system, not against it.

Resources & Links:

If this episode resonated:
Send me a DM or share your biggest “aha.” And if Eliza’s work is calling to you, reach out to her, tell her Rachel sent you. 💛

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons

Join me for my next LIVE training 'Save $600 On Groceries'!: REGISTER HERE

SPEAKER_01:

You guys are in for such a treat with today's episode. It's a little bit longer, but that is because everything that Eliza shares, I just literally eat up and I we probably could have lasted two hours on this one episode. So we kept it to under an hour for you. But Eliza is someone, and I've shared a little bit about her before, but she is someone who changed my life. The work that she does changed my life, and I'm gonna go into how that happened in this episode. But not only did she change my life, I truly believe that the work that she does will change everyone's life. Um, and and really focusing on the root problem that so many people have without even knowing that they have it, and really diagnosing actually what's going on in your brain and in your nervous system when you're feeling overwhelmed and stressed and chaotic. Um, Eliza's gonna break that down for us in this episode. I am so excited to have her on. She's like the been this like little gem that I've had in the back of my pocket for over a year now, and I am like wanting to share her with the world. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. I hope you learned something from it. I hope you reach out to Eliza afterwards if her work calls to you, because I I just I can't even say enough good things about her. So let's jump into today's episode. Um, enjoy it and reach out if you have any questions. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Money Mom Podcast, the show where we empower moms to take control of their finances, break free from money stress, and build a life of freedom, confidence, and abundance for their families. I'm your host, Rachel Coons, mom, money mentor, and your personal cheerleader on this journey. Whether you're here to save money, pay off debt, or dream bigger for your family's future, you're in the right place. Here, we believe that being a mom is already a full-time job. But your role in shaping your family's financial success is just as important. And the best part, you don't need to sacrifice everything to start winning with money. Let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Money Mom Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Coons, and I have a very extra special guest here today that I have wanted to have on the podcast for seriously months and maybe even a full year because her work has changed my life. So, Eliza, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Um, this is so fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Eliza is a dear friend of mine. So we were friends first before she changed my life. Um, we met in a business coaching container. Um, and it was like pretty instant, like became very, very close. Um and but uh Eliza, before we get into like what how you changed my life, all of these things, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us who you are, what you do?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. You know, this is my favorite question.

SPEAKER_01:

I know it's so yeah, so much. This is a loaded question, I guess.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, totally. Um, I am a licensed psychotherapist and I use the nervous system um as a way to help people overcome many challenges. I'm most I'm I'm best known for helping people who are struggling with weight, body image, and struggling with overweight. Um, but as we'll get into today, uh the work that I do is around nervous system, uh, brain science and neuroplasticity and how we uh, you know, change the structures both in our brain and body that are keeping us stuck and getting in the way of the things that we want in life. That's cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yes, I love that. Well, and it's like, okay, you say these the neuroplasticity and all that kind of stuff, and I'm like, okay, dumb it down for me a little bit. What does that, what does that look like in my life? Like, yeah, because here's the thing for everybody who's listening right here, it may seem like, oh, this is above me, but every single and that I tell all everybody I know about Eliza because I'm like, everybody needs this work. Everyone needs to this, and I'll tell you why in a second, but go ahead and tell me that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you're so good at helping me. Um at reminding me to to explain it a little bit more in the practicalities, which is so important because it is important for people to understand how this impacts us. It impacts us 100% of the people, 100% of the time is what I talk about. Yeah, there's not a single person um who for whom nervous system work would not be beneficial. And here's why: because we all have a nervous system, and all of our, if if you're alive, you have a nervous system and it is structured the same way, there's no exceptions. Now, the expression, the way that our nervous system, we'll talk about it, expresses itself is different for everybody. Yes, that's the key part is understanding how your unique nervous system might express itself. For example, giving an example. Let's say you're a busy mom that has kids. Hello, right? You're a busy mom with kids, and on a particular day, you find uh your kiddo knocks over the cereal box, and your response is, let's call it, a little bit more agitated or full of volume than it would have been yesterday. And you start to ask yourself, well, why? Why did I respond that way? What's wrong with me? Your kid's now crying, you're frustrated that you yelled at him. That is a nervous system response. It just so happens that the way you express your nervous system response in that moment was through volume, a raised, raised voice, tone of voice, and being frustrated with your kiddo. That's everyday life. That's all of us all the time. That's every, that's just everyday life. And so the beauty in learning your expression of your nervous system is that you get to recognize what leads to those responses, what might help with those responses, what might um uh prevent those responses. There's all kinds of things we can do when we understand the language of the nervous system and how it expresses in our everyday life. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Oh my gosh, that's mic drop for that, because it is so true. And that was that was why. Okay, so here's the story. Here's the I feel like I have to kind of just like tell the story of how this work was integrated into my life. So last year, Brad and I had, we had been struggling with our dynamic, our marriage for a little bit. And so we had gone to therapy. And we had been in therapy for about a year and had on and off, you know, gone to the therapist more when it was when we were struggling, and then we kind of backed off, and then we'd go back when things kind of heated up again. And it, I honestly felt like, okay, therapy is wonderful and amazing and great, but we had gotten to a point where I honestly felt like we had graduated from therapy. Like it was only helping us so far. And it was kind of keeping us stuck. Like we would go and we couldn't work, we were working through the same issues, the same problems. And our therapist was wonderful. I have nothing against her, but it just was like, we're why can't we figure this out? Like we're two very emotionally healthy individuals who love each other, who want to make things work, but we're still having these blow-up fights. Like, why is this? And fast forward to last summer, we had an experience that was kind of like a pivotal breaking point for us. And it was a horrible experience for both of us. And I was, it was really hard. It was really hard. We were trying to make decisions of like, you know, I don't want to say we were like looking at divorce, but that that was on the back burner of both of our minds. We had a a then a crazy experience where that brought us together and um healed us like almost instantly, where everything just kind of fell to the wayside. And we were like, no, this is it. We are it, we are here for each other. We want to be together. Okay, so that happens last summer. Fast forward to one month later. I am sitting at the Cheesecake Factory with you, Eliza. Do you remember this? Of course, I do. Okay. So we're at this conference. We go to the Cheesecake Factory, it's like one of my all-time favorite restaurants, and I'm not afraid to say that. I like make us go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner one night. We're sitting in this loud restaurant with a bunch of people. I'm telling Eliza and then another girl, and for some reason, I just feel like I had not told anybody this experience. I and Eliza is one of those people that like you'll just tell her everything because she's so wonderful and peaceful and calming and all the things. She just is non-judgmental. And I was like, I need to tell Eliza this story about Brad and I. And so I kind of share the experience. And Eliza, you just look at me and you're like, Have you ever done nervous system work? And I was like, What I what? Like, what does that mean? What do you mean? Yeah. Yeah, I was I was really kind of confused.

SPEAKER_02:

And you're like, I was confused when I first, yeah. I mean, nervous system work, what does that even mean?

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, I mean Yes, it was like, wait, but I'm I'm doing therapy. I know you're a therapist, right? Like you worked in therapy for a long time. And what you said to me was I worked in therapy for I don't know how long, how long were 20 years? 15 years before I made the switch, yeah. Right. And you said, I worked with patients time and time again where therapy only went so far. And it wasn't until we worked with the nervous system that we found the root cause of a lot of issues. And first that, like, that was like opened up a whole new world to me that I didn't even know that there was something deep. And it was like, that makes sense. That's exactly what's going on. Something deeper is happening, and we can't, we haven't figured it out yet. And so you were like, you need to take my foundations of nervous system course, and I want to work with you and Brad and kind of map out your nervous systems and figure this out together. So that's what we did. So at home, I bought your course, and um, Brad and I went through it together, and then we got on a couple Zoom calls with you, Eliza, and and she helped us kind of map out okay, this is what happened in this scenario, and it wasn't actually the situation that was the problem. It was you guys and your nervous systems were out of whack. And it gave us tools, it gave us the vocabulary, it gave us the understanding of each other because something we didn't realize in our marriage is that our nervous systems are so interconnected. So when one of us is issue has issues with our nervous system, if we're in a in a state that isn't regulated, then it affects the other person. And that's what was happening was like one of us would get dysregulated and then the other one would go into dysregulation instantly because of that. And so now we can recognize it and we can give each other some tool, you know. We know, okay, I know Brad right now is in a dysregulated state. That I'm gonna give him some extra grace. I'm gonna give him some extra, um, you know, just let him have his space and do the things he needs to do to get regulated. And I kind of know what that is for him, and it has changed everything. Like, yeah, I guess it's like uh again, I I could probably do a whole episode on like the changes that have happened in the past year since we've done this work. But I will spring, I will scream Eliza's name from the rooftop because and and the cool thing, we get we're gonna talk about this too. The cool thing about the work you do isn't it's not just in your marriage, it's in everything. It's in your how you handle money, it's in your parenting, it's in how you interact with your friends, it's how you interact with your coworkers. It is in everything that we do.

SPEAKER_02:

It is. And would you say, I'm curious, would you say that um when you were talking about how uh our our nervous systems impact each other, and they do. We're all we're constantly interacting with nervous systems around us. We can talk more about that, but especially with your partners and your children, you know, your your um nuclear family, the the people closest to you, people you live with, all that, you're you're interacting with their nervous systems, whether you're aware of it or not, all day long. You say that one of the things it did was it depersonalizes it. So if you know that Brad's nervous system is in a state of dysregulation, all of a sudden it makes it, it's not about it's not about Rachel. There's nothing, Rachel didn't do anything wrong. It's not about Rachel, it's about Brad's system. And so then it and then it allows us to step back and go, okay, how can I support this system or this, you know, interaction, each other, rather than wonder, well, what did I do? How do I fix it? What's wrong with me? Why is he mad at me? What this is the thing that couples constantly do is what's wrong? Why are you mad at me? Why did you do that? How is it about me? And the thing that the nervous system does, I at least what I've seen in couple, well, in in every interaction, is that it creates this level playing field. We all have a nervous system, we all have the way that they express themselves. And so there's no, it's my fault, it's your fault, it's that, it's that it there's a level playing field. Would you say that you guys experience that?

SPEAKER_01:

And and that's what I say when it like gives me that great, like it gives me extra grace for him. It gives me extra grace for every person that I'm interacting with. Because when someone blows up at me, I'm like, oh, that's not about me. That's that's their regulation. Their nervous system is all screwed up, and that's why they're acting like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

A hundred percent. Interactions through, is you you can't help but then start to filter it through. Oh, you know, I wonder what's happening in their nervous system, or I can tell that that's dysregulation. And it's not from a place of um judgment. Judgment of other people's, I think it's recognition. I think it's humanity, it's shared humanity that we all have a different way that it presents, but it's I can now recognize it as someone else's or even my own, you know, dysregulation rather than um rather than the internalization of it. I think that's what happens in therapy. It's what you were talking about. Um, when I say we can only get people so far because to to bring in the neuroplasticity piece, so so to make that kind of an everyday thing or a uh uh to explain it in a way that that makes more sense, we go into a therapeutic environment and we can get really good at just telling our story about, you know, he said this and then she said this, and then our pattern is to do this, and we we tell the story, which can further entrench the story. It becomes this this pattern, the way that the brain works becomes this pattern. I know who I am in the story, I know who you are in the story, we tell the story, and we did it again, we did it again, we did it again. It just deeper entrenches our uh belief in who we are. But if we look at it from the nervous system lens, and instead of saying, you were saying earlier, it's not about the circumstances. So instead of saying, Well, Rachel said this, which made me feel this, right? That's about the circumstance. If we can start to learn the language of the nervous system, it actually looks like here's what it looks like in my body, my tone of voice, my temperament, my responses, my language when I am in each nervous system state. And so we're in that way, we're just when you said the word mapping, we're just uh looking at it, uh explaining what each of our personal states feels like. And then Rachel says, Well, this is what it looks like when I'm in my state. Mine might look like raised voice, Brad's might look like complete shutdown. Yeah, both are a nervous system state response. Neither one is right or wrong. We're just learning about each other, going, Oh, when when you're dysregulated or activated, you do this, but when I'm activated, I do this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

You're not wrong, you're not right. We're just different. And then we can recognize and meet each other where we are rather than try to change the other person or expect them to do it differently just because our system does it a different way, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. Well, and and putting words, the language, like you said, the language of the nervous system helped make sense to what was actually happening. It gets to that deeper root cause of like I thought it was so fascinating, and you talk about this in your course a little bit, is that it has been scientifically proven that when you are in a dysregulated state, you interpret tone of voice differently, you interpret facial expression. Like this is this is science, right? My brain hears tones differently when I'm dysregulated. So when I'm in a dysregulated state and Brad says, Rachel, why did you not take out the trash? Bam, things blow up. If I'm in a regulated state, I wouldn't hear that in a tone of voice that would be condescending or rude or whatever. And and so that has helped, you know, when we talk about for my own self, that has helped me because I can acknowledge, you know, we're gonna be dysregulated, right? You talk about the the understanding when you're in the states and sitting, allowing yourself to be in a state, right? Like if I'm in a dysregulated state, it's like, okay, I know, I know I'm sensitive right now. I know I'm frustrated right now. What can I do to help myself get into a regulated state, but also not let things blow up because I know I have a warped view on reality at this time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's one of my favorite things to to teach because when it lands, it really lands. We call it um, I call it uh putting on fear-colored glasses. So we have all heard that, you know, what is that? The um, what do they call it when you the the quip when you say you're you're looking at life through rose-colored glasses or you know what that means. We know that it's sort of like I'm putting on these rose-colored glasses and everything seems sunny. Right. Well, that's what dysregulation does in the opposite direction, which is okay, now I've pretend like you've put on fear-colored glasses and you are seeing the world, you are hearing the world, you are interpreting everything around you from a totally different perspective. And so one might say, Well, is it correct the way that you're hearing it or the way that I'm hearing it? And the answer is it doesn't matter because the way we are hearing it is dependent on the state that we're in. So if Rachel hears, why didn't you take out the trash? And I heard, why didn't you take out the trash? There's no right or wrong. It's just that her ears, because she's in a dysregulated state, are quite literally tuned to pick out the volume, the tone, the qualities of danger, not the qualities of safety. And so she's gonna hear, see, feel, think, believe different things when she's dysregulated than she is when she's regulated. It's it's a fascinating um when it really lands in you think, man, it is really important that I know what state my nervous system is. Because if I know that I'm not thinking clearly, if I'm dysregulated, am I really seeing the world in front of me the way that it is? Or am I seeing it through the lens of dysregulation? That's a little, it's a little trippy when you get into that, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, a hundred percent. And well, I I also think I think this will land for people who are listening, is like we know when it's that time of the month when everybody pisses us off and we want to kill everyone. Like, it's probably because there's also some dysregulation there, right? Like there's we know there's dysregulated hormones, but there's and and doing this work, I've been able to notice myself, okay, I know for these three days, don't mess with me. I am not in a good place. So I just really and let's talk about the bank account because I think that's also life-changing. Those three days, I'm like, I gotta fill my bank, I gotta focus on my bank account because if not, shit's gonna hit the fan, right? So, so can you tell us about the bank account? Because I think this really helps kind of make it tangible for people.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think so too, which is why, um, which is why I teach that in there. It it so you and I talked about this before we started, but the nervous system is is so much of a buzzword these days. And there's a lot of different ways that people are taught to work with the nervous system or learn about the nervous system. Um, and if I'm really honest, the my first couple of years being trained in the nervous system, I thought it was a little too complicated for, you know, sort of the every person who just kind of wants to know how it's going to benefit their life, which is most people, right? Interesting for a practitioner, perhaps, but you know, not terribly, terribly useful day to day. But I I think I think the thing that overcomplicates it is also a um a lens toward fixing the nervous system or or always being regulated, or um, you know, how do I get back to regulation? It's always this trying to move away from the discomfort that we're feeling, right? It's constant, how do I fix this? How do I change this? How do I get better? How do I feel better? Which no, there's no problem with that. But the reason why um I came up with the balancing your nervous system bank account analogy is because there are circumstances, people, situations, things in life constantly that are out of our conscious control. And so if we can learn how to balance our budget better, I mean, who better to talk to about better, right? We can learn how to do that better, then what we realize is that it's not so much about, you know, make sure I'm always regulated. What happens if I'm not always regulated? Oh my gosh, I have to stay always regulated. It's about managing the flow in and out, right? There's both you pull levers different ways. And so I'll just, you know, lay out the analogy, which is your nervous system is like a bank account. And the more money you have in your bank account, the less stressed you feel about withdrawal, about an overdraft, right? About not having enough money. So the more money you have, the less stressed you feel about not having enough. Okay, that makes sense from a bank account perspective. So the idea is to put money in so we can keep increasing the money, or to stop taking money out so that we can increase the amount that's in there, right? You can either put more in or you can stop taking money out. The whole point is that as you get closer to overdraft or having a zero account balance, you're gonna really start to feel that. Just like a financial bank account, as you start to get closer to zero, what happens? Everything starts to get tighter, more difficult. You know, one little trip to the grocery store becomes a really big deal. Well, the same thing happens with a nervous system. If you have quite a bit of margin in your nervous system, then someone frustrates you, not a big deal. The closer you get to having an empty nervous system bank account, your husband breathes wrong, and it's like we're drawing up papers, right? It's the same type of thing. And so it's not so much about I have to heal or fix myself, it's about knowing how to manage. We talk about putting little deposits in and we talk about what things are withdrawals, and how it opens up this space for I think a lot of people think nervous system work can be about, well, you know, do I have to go on vacation and quit my job and meditate for an hour and and and you know, all these things to fix our stress? But it's actually more about balancing your life, balancing your nervous system bank account better by managing the withdrawals. Who is really withdrawing from you, right? Is it your kids, your friends? Is it your you're overcommitted? Who knows? And then little deposits. What are the little things that I do to take care of myself every day? So I manage that balance better. Um, which I think helps people, I'm not sure if this is what you felt, but I think it helps people find the way to feeling real relief without assuming that it has to mean these huge sweeping changes and something that that's not accessible to them every day, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, and I think, yeah, that's what you you talk about, is like finding it in the day-to-day life. Like, what can I do day to day that feed into the bank account, but also noticing when that bank I think the biggest, it's like, you know, you're in the green, you're getting yellow, and you're in the red. And red is dysregulation. And it's for me, it helped me more notice when I'm in the yellow, right? So I don't have to get to the red where I can be like, I can tell that I've had too many withdrawals today or this week or whatever. And what do I need to do to get myself back into the green? So it's in that, it's in that kind of low bank account balance that has really helped me because before I would just keep trucking and I would just keep doing, and I, you know, I'm a grinder, so like let's keep going. And then it would end up in, then I would be red and it would blow up. And you know, I'd yell at the kids, I'd yell at my my husband. It was just all a mess. Now it's like, okay, I know I I'm starting to feel that the withdrawals are hitting hard. I need to go focus on myself. And again, the language of this has helped our marriage because Brad comes home from work and he's like, hey, I need, I need deposits. I've had a day that has, you know, just wrecked me and it's been withdrawals after a withdrawal. And I say, I get it. I know exactly what that feels like. You need to go get deposits, whatever that is for you. Yeah. And so again, that language that we now have between each other is not like before what would happen is he would come home and he'd be like, I'm I'm annoyed, I'm stressed. I'm he, or he wouldn't say anything, and then he was just in impatient and annoying. And and I was at the same place, right? Where I was like, Well, I've had a long day too, and the kids did this, and I've had to make dinner and all these things. And now it's like, okay, we can we can both need deposits and let's both help each other to get the deposits that we need. And what's even cooler about the work that you do is not it's so individualized, right? What I need is not what Eliza needs, is not what Brad needs, is not what my kids need. Everybody needs different things in order to have a deposit. And so figuring out what that is for you specifically is where the work really lands.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm glad you said that because I think that's the other part about nervous system work that is that can be so difficult when it's just thrown around in a general way because someone will say, to your point, well, a deposit for me, you know, is is um uh time with my girlfriends and you know, going out on a Friday night and you know, being with people and I'm super extroverted and I want to do all these things. Whereas someone else, that would be a withdrawal, right? Someone else would that would take from their bank account balance. Um, or for example, there's a lot of people teaching nervous system tools, right? And which is fantastic. Like I all want, I want us to all have tools, except if their toolkit does not hit your nervous system as a deposit, then you're gonna think, well, this nervous system stuff doesn't work, right? You know, nervous system stuff is not for me, and this is why I say nervous system stuff is for everyone. I love that you bring up the it needs to be individual because yoga may be amazing for Rachel, but if it's a withdrawal for me or whatever it is, then all of a sudden I'm gonna think, well, shoot, I'm not gonna have success with this. You are, you just have to understand how to find yours. We call them glimmers, you know. We have to we have to understand in and everybody's unique. We they're my nervous system, just like you said, my husband's, my daughters, and mine all look very different. We all have different things that, you know, uh help us have uh deposits, and we all have different things that are withdrawals, and not to make things more complicated, but the withdrawals change in their magnitude depending on, you know, whatever else went on during the day or whatever's happening in other people's nervous systems, right? So you have to, it cannot just be this toolkit of things that you say, okay, this is my nervous system toolkit, and I just do those things and I'll be okay. You have to learn how to work with your own nervous system bank account. And like you said, I love how you explain it the green, yellow, red. I think I need to steal that and put that. Okay, you can noted. Uh credit given to because that's the perfect way to say it. Is that more powerful than just learning, you know, nervous system terminology and tools to fix it? Much more powerful is learning about your personal blueprint, your fingerprint on it, and how to flex and shift and change with it. That's much more powerful. Um, because learning how to get out of it when you're in the yellow is much easier than recovering from the red. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

A hundred percent. Like being in the red requires so much more deposits, right? Way bigger, more, you know, intense things to get yourself back into regulation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And the way the physiology is designed, you are correct. It does, you know, it really does.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and that's that's something that is I think we could talk about too, because there is this like blurred line. So we learn I learned about the nervous system in science, you know, in my degree. Like we talked all about the nervous system. And so sometimes I think people are like, well, I don't understand like how the nervous system is what we're talking about, but what we're really talking about is like emotions and how does that interact with each other? But like that's why this is so universal, is because we all it's scientific, right? So can you explain a little bit about like what actually happens in the body with the nervous system?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And and you know, you know me well enough. Stop me if I if I go down a rabbit from. Um, but let's try and keep it as as simple and easy to digest as possible, because I think that's where it becomes really powerful when we go, oh wow, that's me, right? Um so I think most people at this point, because nervous system is such a buzzword, are familiar with the concept that we as humans are built to always scan our environment and look to see if there's safety or danger. So people are really familiar with this sort of fight or flight, you know, the body's always looking for danger, cues of danger, that kind of thing. But what does that actually mean? So we have a our our body is set up, that the nervous system is set up to, when I say scan the environment, um, it's doing that, uh, what we call inside, outside in between. So it's it's inside our internal organs. So if your palms are sweaty or your heart's racing, or you know, you get a little sweaty under your armpits, you're that is your nervous system at work going, is this a is this what type of environment it's is this, right? So that's inside. Outside would be you and I are are talking on this podcast together. We are close friends, we're very much in love, and so therefore, my system feels very safe with you. And so it's very easy to have the flow of a conversation. But my nervous system is constantly checking how does it feel with Rachel? How does it feel with Rachel? How does it all the time? We can't turn this off. It's just always checking. Um, and so then so that's between, and then outside in our environment, the nervous system is checking is it too hot? Is it too cold? Is there, do I feel somebody? You've ever felt that, right? Somebody's coming up behind you, and you can kind of feel the hair stand up on the back of your neck. All nervous systems cues. Nervous system is checking inside our body, outside in the environment, between you and other systems all day long. And all it's looking for is is it safe? Is it safe to proceed or do I need to back away? From an evolution standpoint, it makes sense. We needed to survive. So safety is what it's checking for first, which is very important for our day-to-day because it's not defaulting to safe, it is defaulting to danger. And that impacts us more than we could possibly know. So it's scanning the environment, asking, is it safe? But it's sort of like, you know, we've heard of innocent until proven guilty. It's actually the opposite with the nervous system. It's sort of like unsafe until you can prove to me that it's safe. So we're we're out in the environment with each other, with friends, with new people, with people we know, and it's constantly going, is it safe here? Is it safe here? Is it safe here? So you might wonder, well, how does that, you know, how does that translate to emotions? Well, if there is any cue, any signal, any sign that there could be a lack of safety. And that could be anything from I don't like the look you're giving me to um, you know, an actual person coming up behind me with the hair on the back of my neck, on the back of my neck, anything from that, everything in between, then the system will go unsafe. We're gonna move all of our resources that let you just have a nice, peaceful conversation, and we're gonna remove all of that, and we're gonna throw you danger signals and we're danger signals, constant danger signals. Okay, so from that perspective, when I say danger signals, this is where it gets really important individually, because the way the body might throw danger signals to Rachel might be to have her hear things with certain tones of voice and and certain noises and certain, you know, I don't know, even colors, right? The way that I might hear it might be to don't listen, shut me down, back away, whatever it is. So when the when we learn our bodies danger signals, we start to connect um the ways that we have responded to someone or have had emotions or um the way we've gotten our feelings hurt, we start to we start to understand that differently as a signal of a lack of safety somewhere in the body rather than um a sort of personal interactions with people. Is that making sense? It's rather 100%. Yeah, okay. So rather than sort of um, you know, Rachel and I had a had a fight or something, it would be this is the way that my body is throwing up these danger signals saying, hey, this doesn't feel safe, and this is what I'm experiencing that tells me it doesn't feel safe. When we don't know that, when we don't know the language of our body that's trying to tell us it doesn't feel safe, we end up creating stories. And this is where I was going with all of this. It takes a little bit of context to bring all the way through, but we end up creating stories because without the knowledge of our nervous system responding to safety and danger cues, our brain has no choice but to start to make a story. Well, what does this mean? Well, what does that mean? And why did she say this? And why does her face look like that? And why did he do this? And why did she say that to me? That's the brain's job. Without an explanation of don't worry, this is just the nervous system responding to your environment, the brain starts to create its own story. And this is what I saw in therapy over and over and over again is that I think you and I talked about this at one point. We start to change sort of beliefs or affirmations or something, it becomes an it becomes a little bit like a whack-a-mole. It's sort of like, oh, I changed that belief over there, boom, another one comes up over here. Oh, I change that affirmation over there, boom, another one comes up over here. And you can spend your life kind of like whack-a-mole trying to trying to change your stories, change your beliefs, change your affirmations. But when you recognize that they all stem from a signal of a lack of safety in the nervous system, you end up being able to, I don't know, almost change a lot of the dominoes at once, because now you're not dealing with each individual story, each individual injury or hurt or frustration or anger or whatever. Dealing with this, um you're dealing with the state instead, the signals that your body's sending instead of each individual circumstance.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and the physio, like what we know about the body is that the physiology in the body is different, right? Like there are things happening in your body, chemicals being released, hormones being released that are making it so you're acting the way that you're acting or you're experiencing life. Like you, again, you're in a flight or flight state, which means your body is releasing epinephrine, it's releasing cortisol, it's releasing all of those things, which, yeah, of course you're going to react a different way when you're in that state. So that's why I think this work is like, yeah, this is the underlying cause of all these things that we've been talking about. The states that we're in depend, and you always say this what the state tells a story. What is it? Yeah, yeah. Story follows state. The story follows state. And Brad and I say that to each other all the time. Is like if we have a story about what went down, we're always like, what state were we in when that story was created? Because chances are if you're having a story that is not congruent with someone else, it could be because you were in a dysregulated state. And you always say attuned to the state first story second. So what that means is like when you're having an, you know, an argument or something that is not in a positive lens, what state were you in? Attuned to that, or if you're you're currently in that state, what can you do to get out of that state and then focus on the story, then focus on the circumstance?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, how many times have you had a fight, the collective view had a fight with your partner, and you might be saying the same thing over and over and over again? But as soon as you take space or had space to calm down, or both of you, you know, and you come back and you're still having the same conversation, but when you're having it from uh uh you may have not known it, but now you're in a regulated state, you can hear them completely differently. And now what they're saying makes totally different sense than it did an hour ago when you were really frustrated. And you know, the point that you were making is so powerfully true when I'm when I mentioned as soon as the nervous system picks up a cue of danger and says, Oh, there might there might be danger here, and it moves all its resources. That's what you're talking about. All of the systems in the body start to attend to danger rather than safety. All of the resources. So, you know, we're talking digestive tract, we're talking about, you know, uh uh um your cardiovascular system, every single musculoskeletal system, every system in the body attends to danger. But most importantly is our cognitive system, our prefrontal cortex, that is responsible for you know decision making and problem solving and creativity and coming up with new ideas and thinking through things in a healthy way. All of that goes offline. So if you're having a conversation with your partner and it triggers a something that is frustrating in your nervous system, you can automatically assume I have gone into a dysregulated system. How do I know that? Because a regulated system is just to oversimplify it, synonymous with more positive feeling emotions, right? So even evolutionary from a speaking from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense. Positive feeling emotions, you know, uh uh friendship, connection, peace, joy, love, ease, whatever, you don't have to run from a tiger when you're feeling those things. You can you can do that. Well, as soon as your body gets a sense, I might have to run from a tiger, you can see how that would change immediately to more negative feeling emotions. So now you've got fear, frustration, anger, um uh uh overwhelm, anxiety, all those types of words are in in my world, those are descriptors of a dysregulated state. And as soon as your body puts you in a dysregulated state, you don't have access to those skills anymore. How to solve a problem well, how to work through it with your partner without, you know, being really frustrated with them, coming up with different solutions for a problem that you're struggling with with your kid, you know, um, and working together on trying to fix it. Your access to those skills are shut off. So as you stay in the fight and the struggle and the frustration when you're dysregulated, you're just perpetuating it, which is why, as you mentioned, I teach everybody state first. We have to attend to our state first, not just because we want sunshine and rainbows everywhere, but because you're not thinking with the same brain that you're thinking when you're dysregulated.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

You want all your faculties back, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Totally, totally. Well, I mean, and just to bring this home, and this is not going to be everyone's situation, but I will say that when we started doing this work individually and collectively, both Brad and I, we have not gone back to therapy since we since we did this work. We haven't needed it. We haven't like never once have we been like, oh, should we go do a session with our therapist? Never. We like we haven't needed it because we have finally fixed the underlying issues. And like that work, yeah, like that work is life-changing. I I don't want to, I don't want this to go too long. But this was this was only supposed to be the first half of our episode. So this is just for the people who are in money mom club. I really wanted to talk about money in the nervous system, right? Because I think that there's a deeper when people are in a state of chaos with their money, when they feel a lot of emotions with money, I think there is, again, we could go deeper into the nervous system and notice and recognize that there's probably dysregulation when it comes to money. So I'm just gonna throw it out there that Eliza's coming into the Money Mom Club, and that's what she's gonna do with us in the we're right now, we're doing a mindset work for 20, a 21-day challenge to heal your relationship with money. And so one of the reasons I wanted her to come on the podcast today was because again, I think this is one of the things that people need to really focus on when they're trying to heal their relationship with money is the nervous system and and how you're showing up when it comes to money. But so we're gonna do that call for all of my Money Mom Club members listening. We're doing that call inside the membership October, October, sometime in October, right? We we haven't set a date yet officially. Um, but that's what we're gonna do on that call. So um, Eliza, do you want to speak to that just for like a minute? Like give us a little bit of a like prep work, maybe, and then we'll go into that a little deeper with our members.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I I mean, I think the we've we've done a good, we've done a good amount of uh a little bit of background for, you know, laying the foundation. Yeah, laying the foundation. We've done that with well, so that I can say, um, you know, financial issues hit to the core of, you know, if I'm going old school, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In other words, the things that we need to survive are um, you know, a roof over our head and food on the table and things like that. So we've got these, um, we've we've got these sort of hierarchy of needs. And whenever we're working at the lower layers, so we're talking about survival, paying bills, roof over our head, you know, food on the table, those kinds of things, even if it's not actually that serious and dire, but just the money is is the way that we think about how we get our shelter and food and feeding our children and paying our bills and all that stuff. So, money, the point I'm making is it really hits that deep core hierarchy of need. We need it to survive, to survive, to be able to, you know, to be able to function in society. And so if we are, if we are being triggered into a lack of safety, danger cues around money, that is going to impact um well, many areas of our life, but we can't just mindset or affirmation our way through money struggles. We can't because it's hitting a deeper core need, which is at the very biological level. You know, if we were talking from evolution, it would be where am I gonna sleep tonight? How am I gonna find food? How am I going to literally survive? That's what it's hitting at the nervous system level, is a very foundational core need for survival. And so if we're not examining our relationship with money from a nervous system perspective, we run the risk of trying to essentially sprinkle glitter on poop by just saying, you know, I'm just gonna try up here to override the lack of safety by trying, we call it, we're trying to use our top-down, so our brain or our mind, we're trying to use our brain to override the bottom-up signal. So whenever we, whenever you hear someone say, I'm trying to use my top down to override bottom up, it's like we're trying to mindset our way and push down the nervous system signals that are saying, Hey, I don't feel this doesn't feel safe. This doesn't feel safe. You have to learn to work with the nervous system around money. Otherwise, it's all 100% of the time, bottom-up signals are going to be more powerful. 100% of the time, our biological cues, our nervous system cues of danger are much more powerful than our mindset cues. And so if we keep trying to ignore them or push them down or we don't know what they are, then we end up like this in an entangled money relationship. Um, you know, that can, I'll say, well, I don't know if I'd say easy, but can simply be um recognized differently. And there's, you know, really simple ways to work with it. Some of the things we've already talked about today, but we'll, you know, go into it in a much deeper, more practical way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And and that's why I think it's so important why I in the Money Mom Club, we have the tactic money problems, right? Because you're gonna, there's always gonna be a state of stress if you're living paycheck to paycheck and you don't have enough money at the end of the month. There's always gonna be that stress. And we can, we can work through the nervous system, we can work through all that stress as much as we can, but like the still, if the math doesn't math, we gotta get the math to math. So that part is really important. The budgeting, the controlling your money in a way that works for your family and your paycheck and all of those things. That's super important. And I don't want to discount that. But that's a lot of time where the work stops for people, is just like, okay, I did my budget. I made sure the math worked, I made sure the numbers worked. But we don't recognize the deeper level where how are we showing up? How are we self-sabotaging? How are we acting in a way where money is repelled from us or it's attracted to us? There's so much in this deeper work that we can do. And I think that's where the life-changing that's the difference between someone who budgets and has money and and builds wealth and has abundance, and somebody who budgets and just gets by, right? It's like the deeper work that that we do.

SPEAKER_02:

And you explain that so so beautifully. You have to do the budgeting work because, like you said, if you're living paycheck to paycheck or not even quite getting by, your nervous system is gonna stop you from that. I mean, that's okay. That is the nervous system work to make sure that you are creating just the even if it's just bare minimum to get by. However, the other thing that we'll touch on, um, little teaser, is that we can get used to these baseline levels of functioning. So if you are used to being someone who just gets by and you are used to being someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, and you are used to being someone who stresses about money and then pays the bill and then stresses about money and pays the bill, unfortunately, there's also an undercurrent in the nervous system where it can get used to that. We call that that's your baseline level of functioning. You're used to that stress. Yeah. Get used to that stress. The thing that people don't often understand is that learning how to let go of the stress and feeling safe in the joy or possibility or abundance or more or whatever it is that you want. Sometimes that can trigger the nervous system and go, hold on a second. We're somebody who's used to stress. What do you mean we have abundance? What do you mean we have more? What do you mean there's possibility? And we have to learn to work with the nervous system and safely bring it along to the next level of whatever it is that you want in your life.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's so powerful. That's so powerful. Well, Eliza, this is so good. I mean, I learned so I've learned things. I've been, you know, in your corner for a long time. And I still, every time you talk about this, I learn something new and think about different ways that I can interpret the nervous system and and the situations that happen in my life. So thank you for coming on today. If our listeners want more of you, which I'm sure they do, because what why would you not? Where can they find you? How would they, how would they work more with you? Very best.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, yeah, at Eliza Kingsford on on the grams and elizakingsford.com uh is my website. And there's a lot of free resources. Um, yeah, lots of lots of things to dive into and would love to. You you also just started a podcast. Oh, yes, I did. Thank you for it. Yes. Tell us about the podcast. Yeah. Um, so yes, I do have a podcast now, which has been a long time in the making because I love podcasting. Uh, it is called Brain Powered, Brain Powered Weight Loss with Eliza Kingsford. Um, and uh for people who are not struggling with with weight loss, if you're, you know, if you've got things family, money, you know, relationships, all the things that make us who we are, uh, we'll be exploring topics that are relevant, just like this topic um beyond a number on the scale or anything having to do with weight in your body.

SPEAKER_01:

So um hop over there and take a listen. Go check her out. I mean, if you just search Eliza Kingsford, all the things will come up for you. So thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing, truthfully, because I tell you all the time, but it's gonna make me emotional. It changed.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, thank you. Thank you for having me on. And I think what you just said, I mean, that lights me, that lights me the challenge um in people's lives and and especially, you know, people like you and Brad, who are there's so many amazing, incredible people out there who if we just make a couple of tweaks, there's no need for there's no need for that type of discomfort or disruption or whatever relationship to to bring it back. I mean, imagine what the world would be missing if you and Brad didn't have that language, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Or if you didn't do the work that you did. So if you if you called me tomorrow and said I'm done, I would be like, no, that's not. I'm going to push you. You gotta keep going. There's more people for you to help. So you truly are changing the world. So thank you so much, and thank you for taking the time to come on here with this episode. Thank you.

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Rachel Coons

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