You’re Not The Problem: A Nervous System Roadmap For Midlife

Your nervous system isn’t the enemy, and “try harder” isn’t the answer. Jen Lovell sits down with somatic healing practitioner and author Lori Montry to get honest about what midlife really reveals: the coping patterns that once helped us survive can start running the show, leaving us stuck in stress, overwhelm, people pleasing, emotional eating, and that quiet sense of “What is wrong with me?” 

Lori shares her own path from high achievement on the outside to feeling unsteady on the inside, and she reframes the shame loop with one simple truth: you’re not the problem. We dig into nervous system regulation as a real, body-based foundation for sustainable behavior change, including why trauma-informed support matters and how survival mode can show up as both high alert and functional freeze. This is practical and science-aware, from safety and capacity to the role energy plays when you feel exhausted even after sleep. 

Then we walk through Lori’s Freedom Framework: regulate first, discover what’s true for you, then build a life that matches it. You’ll hear an actionable way to start today with simple self check-ins throughout the day, what to look for in your body, and how to respond with care instead of control. We also talk about how authenticity can change relationships, sometimes in challenging ways, and why community support can make the discomfort doable. 

If you’re ready to stop treating yourself like a project and start listening to what your body has been trying to say, hit play. Subscribe or follow so you don’t miss what’s next, and if the conversation helps, share it with a friend and leave a review.

Lori Montry is a somatic healing practitioner, author of You’re Not the Problem, and the creator of the Freedom Framework, a nervous system–based roadmap for sustainable behavior change. She helps people who feel stuck in stress, overwhelm, or self-sabotage understand the survival patterns driving their choices so they can build the safety, capacity, and clarity needed to take aligned action in every area of their lives.

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Transcript

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Midlife Wake-Up And Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey friend, welcome to the Halfway to Dead podcast. I'm your host, Jen Lovell. Listen, you and I have reached that age where we are done with the bullshit. We know that midlife is our chance to flip the script and experience life on our own terms. It's time to reconnect with our higher selves and reclaim our inner peace. Are you ready with an open heart and an open mind? Awesome, you're in the right place. Hop in and ride Shotgun with me on this midlife spiritual journey. Hey guys, welcome back to Halfway to Dead. Jen here. Guess who we interviewed today? We interviewed Lori Montre. Lori is a somatic healer practitioner, author of You're Not the Problem, and creator of the Freedom Framework, a nervous system-based fruit, a nervous roadmap for sustainable behavior change. She helps people like us who feel stuck in stress, overwhelm, and self-sabotage understand the survival patterns driving their choices so they can build the safety, capacity, and clarity needed to take the aligned action in every area of life. Today, we're talking about that darn nervous system again and how she needs regulated. We go over her freedom framework, which is amazing. And it tells you how you build the foundation and build up from that so that we can, you know, cruise to our authentic selves, which is our goal. All right, she shares her story. I share a little bit of mine here and there. And we talk about how we are stuck in survival mode. We talk about how we need to get out of it and what some of the most important ways on a daily basis we can do that. So if you're sitting in it right now, you're feeling all the feels, you need to get regulated. This is gonna be a great episode for you. All right, so let's get in there. Because guess what? Like Lori says, you don't need another self-help book. You need more self-resourcing. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. Hey Lori, thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Jen, thank you not only for having me today. I'm so excited to spend time with you, um, but also for the space that you have created in the world for all of us. Yeah, your show is so meaningful. And, you know, as I've gotten to know it over the last couple of months, you just, you know, have me smiling and cheering and thankful for the work that you do.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Good. And I think you're a perfect guest because we talk a lot about doing the work, right? We gotta do the work here in midlife. Um, because none of us get to this age unscathed. Am I right? We all have stuff from childhood on that's really still causing us some problems.

Lori’s Story And Survival Mode

SPEAKER_00 2:38

So I want to just start with what brought you to this point, like your own journey of how you got to where you realized that you were unregulated.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, yeah. I love I love thinking about realizing that I was unregulated, you know? Because I lived about the first 40 years of my life without even without having any idea that that's what was going on for me. So, you know, I read about uh all of this kind of extensively in in my book, You're not the problem. But in a nutshell, I had a a lot of rough things, like so many of us do, you know, in early childhood. And I did what every other human on the planet does, which is adapt to my environment and my circumstances. So I developed ways of seeing the world, ways of thinking, ways of feeling, ways of nervous system states and behaviors that helped me make sense of my circumstances and navigate them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I want everyone listening just to connect with you because you've been through some stuff. I mean, you don't have to share all the things, but what was going on for you that probably our listeners right now have had going on, possibly too. What was that?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

And as as I name some of those things, I want to be very careful because the feedback that I often get is, oh man, my life wasn't anything like that. I had it great compared to you. So I don't have the excuses for my behaviors. And I just want to name that while I will definitely share my own personal circumstances, you had your own too. And I don't care if it was not getting invited to the uh kindergarten birthday party or, you know, it's something as seemingly small as that impacted you. So I just want to hold space for everyone to have their own story, even if it doesn't look like mine.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yes, I hear that a lot too, that people don't feel like their problems are valid compared to huge problems. Because I had some big stuff too, but also a lot of little stuff that caused trouble. I talked to a lot of people where it's like, well, I wasn't abused, but they still have some stuff, right? I mean, we all do, because big or small, our nervous system stores it, right? Because our nervous system didn't know that it could be worse, it just knows it's bad, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Exactly, exactly. And I'll say, you know, if you broke your leg, you wouldn't not go to have it treated because, you know, on the way there, you see somebody with two broken legs or or a broken leg and a broken arm. So you wouldn't turn around and be like, well, my leg isn't as bad as whatever they're going through. So, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna treat it. Yes, yeah. You know, that's why my framework really looks more towards the experiences and how you adapted, as opposed to does my experience meet some imaginary definition of trauma? We all have our our experiences.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah. Because even if you don't have those big T traumas, yeah, of course a whole bowl full of little T's will do the same damage.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Absolutely. Which is which is so often the case. Um, but you know, I was born into um a family who was already overwhelmed by the time I arrived on the scene. I was the six out of seven children. My mother was completely overwhelmed and very dysregulated. And frankly, I was too much. I really, you know, sent things over uh the proverbial edge here. And I was a burden in a lot of ways. And I felt that. I knew it. And from all of the the cues, you know, the rage at my needs, the, you know, all the things. And I developed, adapted ways of relating to that. And then for a period of time when I was four years old, I was sexually abused and had nowhere to go, nowhere safe to go. And that was, you know, hugely impactful, not only the abuse itself, but not having anywhere safe to go and to help me understand and process. And so, you know, again, I learned adapted ways of being. I learned into survival mode. Yes, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And so, you know, I saw myself the way I perceived the world. I was a burden. And if I keep my needs tucked away, um, if I can perfect myself, you know, then those things will help me be safe. So I became an overachiever, a people pleaser, a someone who denied my own needs and and really just my internal landscape was a very scary, chaotic place. And so I learned how to essentially shut down from my internal experience, which is emotional eating, in order to provide um the relief, the company, the the love and care that I needed. And so I went on to build an entire life based on these adaptations. And so, you know, in some ways, you might look from the outside and look at this life that I created and think, oh, she's doing great. You know, I graduated from the Harvard Law School and practiced law for a number of years. I was married, I have six beautiful children, the big house. Like everything looked pretty convincing. And inside, I was a wreck. And I I did not like myself at all. I continued to battle with food in my body in a variety of ways. And I not only did I, I wasn't living a life that was authentic, I didn't even know what that would look like. I didn't know who I was, and up until about 40, I never even thought to ask that question. I was just trying to get through the the day, survive the day with the tools that I had. And it was very, very painful.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And you were busy. It sounds like we were very busy, and this is what we do. We bury it, right? And then we get very, very busy with the kids, the career, the just all the things. So we don't even we don't even think about authenticity. Like that word is part of our vocabulary, right?

Why Midlife Forces The Truth

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Right. And then that's I think that's why that's so important. Would you say that's why you're finding a lot of women hitting midlife starting to do this work because things are becoming more clear. Why do you think that is? What is what's your take on why midlife really starts pushing this on us?

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons, and for any individual, it's probably a combination. I'll take myself, for example, and you know, here I am. I'm on this track and I'm using these adapted ways of being for so long because I think they're going to give me the life that I want, the peace that I want, the satisfaction, right? And I keep turning to them over and over and keep finding myself no closer to the peace and fulfillment that I want. And I think that as we approach mid-age, we have been doing it so long that we come to a realization like this isn't working. You know, we can't fool ourselves anymore because I have done it for so long without result that we start to look at it and be like, maybe this is not the way. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

As that evidence builds. And this is exactly what we talk about on the show. This is typically for a lot of my listeners, you guys know what these moments are for you because this is often when we start heading into this spiritual awakening, also. Because this is part of it, right? Part of this finding our authentic self. What's our purpose? How do we finish this life strong? How do we change all the things we've been doing? Because, like you said, they're not working. I gotta get back on the path I planned on being on, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:13

And I also think hormonally, too, you know, the the changes that we experience in midlife kind of lend us more towards being internal. You know, the the falling estrogen helps us, you know, maybe we're not quite as focused on everyone else. And and and can, you know, start to to turn that that lens inward a little bit. And, you know, there's just something about the pain and and getting really exhausted of being in in pain all the time. So I think there's a lot of things, but those are some of the big ones that that I I talk to a lot of women who are like, it's the health problems.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Absolutely. Because now our body, we're full, we're full to the rim with this pain, with this trauma, with all the things we've been burying. And then our body goes, Whoa, like, how am I gonna get your attention? You're gonna have to get sick. So we need to get regulated. Am I right? And this is one of your specialties. So you have this freedom framework. Would I be right in assuming this book feels like part one, like phase one of the whole journey that we're embarking on when we do this?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

A thousand percent. Yes. Um, this the first book is really that foundational piece that we need in order to do anything else. So I think of it like our life is this beautiful mansion that we that we want to build now. And this starting point, a well-regulated nervous system, a healthy nervous system, is the rock solid concrete basement upon which we can build everything else. When we go after our behavior or, you know, I want this thing tomorrow. We're trying to build a second floor balcony without anything underneath it. And that's why we try so hard and we feel like we fail again and again, and we try to convince ourselves, I can't do it. It's not for me. I must be really broken. It's just that we haven't started with the foundational piece that is so essential, and that is the nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

And I think a lot of people do skip that.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

And we think we don't know about it. Who we don't know who has taught us about it that we would even know, you know, it's out there, our mindset work and our motivation, and that's what we've been taught our whole lives. And we're so we've been missing this essentially. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

And you approach this from um, because you're a somatic healing practitioner. So just for my listeners, tell us exactly what that means.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, so it just recognizes the importance of the body and the nervous system in in the work that we're doing. It recognizes that if your body doesn't feel safe, you don't have access to the parts of your brain that can form new neural pathways, new ways of thinking and feeling and being. Yeah. You can't even do it. You may try, you may put so much effort in, you know, you may go to talk therapy forever, you may be doing your mantras over here, you may be doing so much and not getting anywhere. And it's just what we're talking about. So the somatic piece, it's not that we don't work with the thoughts in the mind, it's that we also understand how the body plays into that and how to bring that piece as the most important piece, honestly. Um, the compass, if you will, of everything.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And you and also, I think it's important to find someone who's trauma-informed when you're doing this work. So explain that briefly too. Tell us exactly what that is and why that's so important to you to work with someone who's trauma-informed.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah. So there's a lot of reasons. One is just the kind of the understanding of why you have your current patterns. We have to be able to identify where did I get these? Where did they originate? Because if we don't pay attention to that, then we're going to be standing in a moment where we're like, I don't want to think this way, I don't want to feel this way, I don't want to feel insecure in my relationship, I don't want to, you know, keep turning to these coping mechanisms, etc. But without understanding what need that is providing, you're not going to be able to break those cycles. And so we have to, for both for origin, right? But also it's so important because when you open up and start to offer, you know, to use the body in this work, the body is holding all of those past traumas. And when you open up to it, it can be a very dysregulating experience. It can be very scary. And we can actually just stay closed to it and and not be able to open to it. And so someone who is trauma-informed understands this and has, you know, the the ability to not go crashing through the door and saying, we're gonna heal this trauma right now. We're gonna, you know, get over it, whatever. They know how to be, how to meet you where you are and and that stored energy.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yes, I love it. I wanted to start because I know everyone listening is like, all right, what do I do? Where do I start? Let's talk a little bit about what we were talking about earlier with how we all learn to adapt, that adaptation piece of it. Tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah. So, you know, as I shared in my personal example, I adapted in all of these ways, right? In order to make sense of my circumstances and to navigate them. And then we go on to build a life around those, right? And and we take those strategic behaviors as well, you know, my emotional eating followed me long after, you know, the the original impetus for for that behavior. It followed me right for for the r rest of my life until I was almost 40 years old. And so these adaptations, we think of them like, oh, why am I such a loser? Why can't I get my crap together? You know, and we see them as ways that were broken, as ways that we're the problem. And actually, they're just a response, a brilliant response, actually, to what we have experienced. And when we can see these things as adaptations as opposed to faults and brokenness, then we can look at how do I adapt again? Right. What conditions do I need in order to adapt again, this time towards my truth, my wholeness, my my sense of of well-being. And then the work is about that.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

It sounds like what I'm hearing you say is we've got to go back. We have to identify these things, right? What are these survival mode adaptations that I did, which again aren't bad, right? No, they got us where we are today. We love those things that happened. We just now have to we have to appreciate them, thank them, send them on their way. And get some fresh new ways of doing things, right? Yeah, and that's that isn't a one-day process, everybody listening. No, don't we wish? Okay, so let's walk through this process because you've got this freedom framework, which I love because it's is it it's three phases, correct? Okay.

The Freedom Framework Explained

SPEAKER_00 17:12

So tell us a little bit about each phase. And again, you guys, this book, you're not you're not the problem, which I love that title, right? Like because we do all think we're the problem. It must be me. And listen, sometimes, sometimes we do have to do some adjustings. We do have to look in the mirror, is what I'm saying, right? But not because we're a problem, but because we need to rework some things. Yes. Right. Rework some things.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah. Uh it's not permission to not have, you know, self-awareness and and responsibility. It's just an understanding that your behavior makes sense. And so you get to look at it and say, do I like this? Is this serving me? Is this authentic? Is this within my value system, my integrity? And the answer is no, then you get to, you know, assume the responsibility and adapt again. But but it's not about you know shirking responsibility or giving permission. Well, that's just how I am. So I get I can do whatever I want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

No. That worked, that worked for a while, didn't it? Yeah. But that that won't keep working when we get to this point. So the so the foundation for your methodology. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about it because I feel like you do some parts work, some IFS type stuff in there. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah. So the the foundation, we can think about the framework being like that example of our house. And the first phase is this beautiful nervous system regulation, the basement, the rock solid concrete basement. And we asked the question, you know, what do we need to adapt again? What do we need within our systems in order to build this solid foundation? And it's three things it's safety, capacity, and energy. And when I talk about energy, I'm talking about at the mitochondrial level, at the cellular level, whether you are producing energy in the form of ATP or whether your cells from being stuck in survival mode for so long are in what's known as cell danger response. The best example of cell danger response is when we get the flu, right? We have no energy. We are on the couch. We don't want anything to do with anybody or anything, right? And that's a good healthy thing because we know we're compromised. So it keeps us there on the couch, recovering, right? But when we've lived in survival mode for so long, ourselves, it's the same exact thing. And maybe we find ourselves lacking any motivation, you know, barely able to get through the day, exhausted, even though, you know, we slept 10 hours, and basically just kind of checked out. And that can be, and the cellular energy is definitely a part of why we might be feeling that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

No, that it's this is science-based. I mean, like this is a very well-rounded thing we're talking about, you guys. There is a literal down to your cellular level, like you said, your mitochondria reason you feel this way. Yes. Right?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yes. Yeah. And that's another part of the somatic approach, is that we have to understand the impact on our biology that all of those years of living in survival mode has taken on us. And, you know, there are many examples of of how the body reacts and and functions differently as a result of our experiences. So these three pieces, safety, capacity, and energy are the essential pieces for us to have the regulation and to feel resourced enough, right? I call it switching from our adapted self to our expansive self. Our expansive self has what we need to then go on to phase two, which we could think of as this first level of our mansion. And in phase two, it's called becoming you. It's figuring out, oh my gosh, I've lived this my whole life not knowing who I was. This is an authenticity piece. Yes. And and all of the the old limiting beliefs. I'm a burden. Nothing ever works out for me. You know, I can't find love. I'm I'm not successful, whatever the beliefs are. And we get to to we get to identify them and figure out what's true for us. And once we do that, it's it's not as simple as identifying the truth, right? Now we have to live it. We have to actually live according to our new beliefs as opposed to our adapted beliefs.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yes. Boy. Yeah. And that's the goal, right? To embod be embodied and live authentically just in daily life. And it becomes, I'm going to assume through this process, it becomes less of a struggle and more of a just an embodiment. Like it you just absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

You're you're you're you're feeling your intuition. I'm gonna assume more, and going with that gut.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. Exactly. You feel that clutch. Clarity, like you have a compass and you know where you're headed. It's it's kind of like, you know, okay, I now I know where my North Star is and I can steer by that. I don't have to arrive there, you know, right now, but I know how how to be steered. And once we have that piece, once we know who we are and what we want, yeah, now it's time to own it, right? You've done the work, now go build the life. And the reason why we need that as part of the framework is because, you know, you're gonna discover some dreams, some ways that life isn't fulfilling, some things that need to change, something, and and it can be incredibly overwhelming, you know. Your life hasn't been organized around these things. So, how do we take the actual action steps to start to organize your life around your truth? Now you have the energy that you need, the motivation, the clarity, you have everything you need. Now, what are the steps actually going to look like so that you can bring that into being?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

So these feel like action steps really for manifesting the life you've been wanting. This is what this feels like, right? This whole thing, honestly, your whole freedom program feels very much like setting the coursework for manifestation. There's a million different definitions and and ways you can say this stuff. But basically, like we talk about, we're wanting to finish our life strong. And so we've got to make some changes, right? We gotta make some changes right now. I think we all need a process because I often say we can do this on our own, but why? But why? Right? When there are people who've walked the path, know the steps that are gonna probably work well for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah, why not do that?

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Why not go that direction?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah, my own journey, like one of those corn mazes around Halloween time. Like just so nope, turn around that way, nope, dead end, you know, and and it took a long time. And I think partly because there's not a lot of you know places where we can go and get all the different pieces and the different modalities that, you know, and and this this understanding of of the foundational piece. And so, yeah, this is this is fast track because it is all of the the pieces under one roof.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, what are some tools that you use that you recommend to help start regulating your nervous

Regulation Is Listening Not Hacking

SPEAKER_00 24:23

system?

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah. And when I talk about nervous system regulation, I always want to be really clear because I think there's a lot of confusion out there about nervous system regulation. Um, I think a lot of the information out there makes it almost like a hack. Like, do this tool, regulate your nervous system, and then everything's gonna be okay. Now, the biohacking, right? Is there a supplement for this, Lori? Right. Yeah. No, exactly. Do this breathing tool, and you're, you know, and and yes, there are tools, and yes, there are things that support your nervous system. But at the end of the day, what we really want to do is have the right perception of the nervous system. It's actually a compass rather than something that we need to control. We need to understand it and let it inform us as to what we need. So it's almost like that our caretaker in some ways, right? As you were talking about it earlier when you said sometimes the body has to produce an illness in order to get our attention. Hey, you have to stop giving yourself away every day. You have to stop running yourself ragged in order to, you know, prove your worth in the world or whatever. But if we don't get that message, then the body has to speak louder and louder, right? And the answer is not to, you know, take an aspirin. The answer is to fix the underlying cause, right? So when we turn to the nervous system, we're turning to it to understand what's going on for me and what do I really need? And your nervous system serves as the barometer. So we don't just cover it up and say, calm down, right? We say, interesting. What are you telling me? What do I need to know here?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Yeah. So give a real life example, real quick. Like, so what would an example be of a moment where you would think and stop and say, ooh, like, did I act that way? Would it be if you overreact about something? Or are you feeling it in your body first? Are you stopping when you're feeling like an emotion you're not loving? Whether that's fear, anger, sadness, are we trying to stop and get to the core of it first? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah. So it it's it's kind of a spectrum, right? Where we start, we may be starting from the standing point, from the standpoint of we're not even really aware that that that's happening or that I'm reacting to something. We're we're kind of unfortunately a lot of times in the very beginning, we're kind of oblivious, right? We're not connected enough to even know, whoa, that was a reaction. Let me get curious about it, right? So we may have to start from the standpoint of saying, okay, well, let's let's take a look at life because your life circumstances are telling you, you know, what your behaviors are, certainly, but what you're feeling and what you're thinking and the state of your nervous system. So sometimes we have to start there and start to look for the clues that help us understand what is going on, what are my patterns? What are my adaptations? Because adaptations don't feel like adaptations, they just feel like truth. They feel like who we are. And so any individual may have the awareness, like, whoa, that's me people pleasing again, right? But for a lot of people, it's like, no, I have to. I have to say yes. You don't understand. Like it's it's not a choice, right? So I understand that this might be kind of confusing. Okay, so where do I start? How do I bring all of this conversation into something practical, meaningful that I can walk away with and do something with today? And so this is this is something, obviously, that um I talk about a lot. And so a while back I created a resource called Your Nervous System is Talking, Learning to Listen. I would love to offer that. It's a free one of the free resources on my website, lauriemontry.com, and then it's forward slash guide. But what it is, is it's a a check-in process that you do for yourself throughout the day, five times a day. You stop and you answer a handful of questions. So, regardless of where you are on that spectrum where I was talking about, I may have some awareness, I may have no awareness. This can be a resource for for everyone. And you start by checking in and rating your system on my graduated cylinder model from one to 10. And it explains the nervous system and and how to kind of tell where you are on the graduated cylinder. And then you start to gather some information. What's going on in my environment? What's going on in my body? And pausing to notice, we realize, oh my gosh, there's a constant pit in my belly that I've been ignoring for 50 years. Or why are my fists clenched? Oh, wow, I didn't even notice.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Or your jaw, I've realized I'm a jaw clencher. It took me a long time to realize to stop and go, wait, why is my jaw clenched right now?

unknown 29:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Right? Because I don't I don't feel like I'm in an extra stressful situation. But boy, it's clenched. Yeah. No, that was one for me, a pattern. The jaw clenching, the pit in my stomach.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah. And these are informing your nervous system all the time that something's not okay. So you may be having a great day. Everything is fine, but your patterned tension that you've been holding for so long is feeding your nervous system cues of danger. And so you're staying activated, even though you can't identify anything outside of you that's going on to make you feel that way. And that's how we bring the past one of the ways, right? We're just constantly bringing the past along with us. And so recognizing these things and getting curious about them, you know, we learn a lot of information about our nervous system. And it will tell us what we need. And that's both inside the moment needs and outside the moment needs. So, what I mean by that is you may have that tension in your jaw. And so you can immediately respond in a caring, loving way by doing a practice, a somatic practice, such as, you know, just a massage or letting your face rest in your hand, or, you know, many of the other hundreds of tools that we have available. But you also ask the question, where is this tension coming from? And as you get to know it and you understand, it comes from the fact that I don't speak my truth. I'm always, you know, pushing down what I really need and what I really want to say. And so then you get to meet that need as well. So we have these tools and practices that help take the edge off and help our system regain, you know, that resourcefulness that we're looking for. But we also get the bigger picture that tells us what needs to change about my life.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

So what I'm hearing, it really sounds like one of the first steps is reacquainting ourselves with ourselves because we don't know who our authentic self is. So we almost sounds like we need to start getting the habit of checking in with, we check in with all of our loved ones our whole life. We make sure everything's good, everyone's fine all day long. So it sounds like we have to do that for ourselves now. We have to check in several times a day and say, how am I feeling? What's going on with my body today? What's happening? Because we are actually getting to know ourselves on a very basic level at the beginning, right? Because we don't know, we don't know who we are. And then through this process, you're gonna get to a point where these things become more obvious, right? And then you're gonna, that's when you're gonna really utilize these somatic practices, right? And at some point, yep, you're probably gonna have to go dig into that childhood because you're gonna say, why do I feel like that? Yeah. And then it sounds like that's when you're gonna get into some parts work, right? You're gonna meet your different parts and figure out when this happened, how you adapted. And then it sounds like eventually we're gonna reframe it, right? We're gonna say, No, I'm gonna change the way I do that now. I'm gonna change the way I react when my body feels like that. Is that a sense kind of what you're saying? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Yeah. I want to live not according to my adapted ways of being anymore. I want to live according to my expansive, authentic ways of being. Who would I have been if I had, you know, my needs met, if I didn't have those experiences? Who would I have been? And then we get to build a life around that.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

I was thinking about how we have to reframe things. This is really one of the hardest parts for me. I'll just be personal. Finding a way to reframe things in a new way. And I, you know, I spent a lot of my life in that numbness. And you said something in there about how your numbness wasn't weakness, it was your nervous system trying to save you. And again, that brings it back to we were in survival mode, right? And that's not a bad thing because we survived. Like an animal out in the wild, they got to do some things to survive. Okay. So we did what we had to do, and I appreciate that about myself. And I appreciate a lot of my parts that had to come about to help me do that, right? Like you said, the overachiever, the humor. There's a lot of different parts I got going we all got going on. And I appreciate those, but then we have to figure out how to work with them in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Essentially, that's that's part of what Lori's helping one everyone do here is we have to breaking habits. Would that be right, Lori? Yeah, I think you're you're right on with that.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

And I think one of the pieces about reframing that is often missed, the way I practice it is we we have these parts, as you've said, you know, my my people-pleasing part, right? Or whoever it is. And if I want her to be willing to think and feel and act differently, I have to make her feel safe enough to do that. So if we think about people pleasing, why is she people pleasing? Because she thinks that she has to to be loved, to be worthy. So in the reframe, if we just say, I don't want to do that anymore, I I'm I'm done with that, whatever. And if this part is not feeling secure, she's like, Nope. We that the the we're gonna die essentially if we if we that's what our body thinks. It sounds dramatic, but it really does. It really does. Because survival system, your survival brain doesn't operate on with language or in story, it is sensation and feeling. So she's not differentiating between saying no to someone and being um chased by a tiger. It's the same in our in our system. And so we have to to tend to her, we have to have a relationship with her, we where she trusts us. And when she we build that relationship and she trusts us slowly at her speed, um, that belief can start to soften, and she's more and more willing to try on something new. But you know, often we're like the self-sabotager. We're adversarial, and that makes her more nervous and and clench the steering wheel of life even even harder. Yeah. And then we're frustrated because nothing's changing, and we think it's self-sabotage, but it's not.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yeah, I think the safety is a really, really big part of this. And when we hear safety, I know people are listening thinking, are we talking about physical safety, mental safety? Yeah, all the safeties. Because yes, if you had childhood traumas, you absolutely don't feel safe in situations. But also it doesn't, like you said, have to be something that big. It could be you were the unpopular kid in school, and now you're making all the decisions to say yes because you just want everybody to like you, right? Like, so again, there's big traumas that cause us to be unsafe, but also just a lot of little things that make us feel unsafe. So is there one practice people could start today to start trying to feel safer? I think it's a big job to make our body and our parts feel safe. And yes, we have all these somatic practices and we've got breath work and we've got tapping, we've got all these things. But is there something day-to-day that you recommend we do to just really start letting our our inner our inner child essentially know we're safe?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's checking in. Yeah. Um we cannot feel safe if we aren't connected to our body. Yeah. It's it's just something that we we have to have. And it makes sense because if our body is our GPS, right? If we have to get in the car and we have an appointment somewhere across town, we have no idea where it is, set the GPS and then turn the volume off and put a blanket over it, right? That's that's what it feels like when we're trying to drive through life without our compass. And so being in our body, being aware of our body's sensations is a prerequisite for safety. And so the practice, the check-ins are a great way to begin feeling into that, noticing how are you right now?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Because I think we we always are hoping someone will check in with us.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Don't we sit around sometimes as midlife women and we think, like, why has no one checked on me? Why is no one asking me, like, are you okay? Do you need anything? Because that's what we've been doing our whole lives. So we want that check-in. And what also just came through for me is if you are trying to, you know, bring that safety back and you do have any kind of childhood trauma, imagine I was imagining it like this. If little Jen, if little me, was sitting in a corner in a room, all covered up in a little blanket, right? A nervous dam wreck. If I never come and check on her, what is she thinking? She's thinking, of course nobody cares. They don't even check on me.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Versus if I think about, if I go check on little Jen a few times a day and I see what she needs and how she needs nurtured, even just checking in, she's like, Whoa, like you know I exist. Like you you actually care that I'm sitting in this corner. And so sometimes if you think about things differently like that, I feel like then you start understanding this nervous system regulation.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

100%.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Yeah because some people hear check in with myself. What the hell do you mean? You know what I mean? Like what? I'm supposed to stop and be like, How am I feeling? It feels a little bit cheesy sometimes. What is she saying? Check in. But no, even just stopping for a minute, being like, Oh, how do I feel? Like my neck hurts. What do I need? I'm hungry. What's a choice I want to make right now that's like good for me, but also it's gonna make me feel good, right? Yeah, like checking our choice, our relationship with food with people around us. Do I need do I need a bit more sleep tonight? Damn, I'm tired.

unknown 38:54

Right?

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Like, right.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Well, if you're never checking in, you don't even know you're tired. So that's why, you know, in the check-in practice, there's there's a few things specifically and worksheets that you can, you know, use to kind of check off because you're right. When I say, if I were just to say check in with yourself, that's nobody's gonna follow up on that. No one's gonna do anything, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah, we don't know what you mean. We exactly right.

Support Options And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 39:20

So here's the deal. So, Lori, you are a somatic handler practitioner. Do you work one-on-one with people?

SPEAKER_01 39:26

The programs are are already in place for kind of walking through the framework. I work in groups as well as one-on-one. One of the groups that I that I recently created, um, while I was writing the book, you know, I kept having this voice that said, you know, books like this that ask something of people, they have a tendency to collect dust on the nightstand. They just do. It's we're already overwhelmed and overloaded. And so, you know, having something else to do and and doing it consistently is hard. And the work, like you said, you know, in this channel is all about the work. And so I said, I have to provide some kind of additional support for my readers. I know that the book by itself, it's an essential piece, but it's it needs more. And so we have what I call the reader circle. And that's a place where we meet every week to stay engaged, to stay committed, to get support, to get questions answered, and just continue, you know, to show up for the work in a way that that feels supported and guided. You have a little quiz that people can take on your on your website too, right? Yeah. Absolutely. When I was going through my own just my initial phases of kind of opening up and asking these questions, I didn't yet think that I deserved help. And I certainly was not in a place where I could tell another human about the things I did because I was so ashamed, you know, the way I used food, the way I, you know, showed up in the world. So I relied on people's free resources. And so I have built the website kind of with that in mind to kind of give back to all the people who provided things that that helped me so much. So there's a lot on there. And the quiz is a great starting point as well because it can give you some clues. Am I dysregulated? Am I uh am I more in the sympathetic, in that activated super stress mode? Or am I somebody who might be above that in the functional freeze where I'm kind of shut down and unable to really, you know, be active in my life.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Yeah. Okay. So you've got the quiz so we can just start getting in there to even figure out what the heck's going on, right? So share at the beginning of this whole thing. Then you've got where you can start knowing how to check in with yourself, right? This whole freedom framework. So you're definitely gonna want to get a hold of that. But it sounds like if this is resonating with you, you might want to be in one of these groups, either the larger one just to kind of dip your toe in and see what's going on, or maybe you're ready to jump in and get this smaller mastermind group going. And again, this isn't an overnight process, like she just said, you said it's the six months, right? But listen, my opinion is we need a lot more than six months, but that's a real good start.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

It's a great, and that's phase one, right? When we're gonna build that basement.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Okay, we gotta build that. We gotta get the base going first. Yeah, because if we try and hop up to the second floor of our mansion, no, that's it's gonna all fall to shreds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

I got together. I've got it.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Yeah, that's a little bit of what we talk about as spiritual bypassing around here, Lori. And you forget you've got to do all the foundational work first. No, that never works. Do you have anything new coming up? I mean, I've got all the links in there, and obviously, you guys got it going on this book. I'm sure you're working on book two and three because people are gonna need those when they get done with the first book.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Four. And four. Damn. Yeah. Four is gonna be so fun because four is all about, okay, now you've built this relationship with yourself, right? This this beautiful place where you know yourself, you you care about you, you understand your needs, you're committed to building a life for yourself, right? And and you have this caring place for your parts, then they can come and get cared for. And now we're gonna take that whole framework and we're gonna extend it to your relationship. Damn, okay. Yep. Yeah, to our relationships.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

But also, it's it is my belief that once you do the work on yourself, when you make the changes, when you become embodied, you figure out who you are authentically. I believe that energy ripples out already. And I think your relationships will get better regardless. But I love that once you know that you're fully like feeling authentic and embodied, then you can start an actual practice towards making those relationships better. I think they'll get better anyway, just because you're getting better.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Um, they absolutely do, one thousand percent. And you know, sometimes some of our relationships go away too. Yeah. Yep. That was the case for me. Um I did get divorced. After, you know, 20 years and figured out who I was, I didn't fit there. And and that's scary to think about, I'm sure, for for a lot of people. But authenticity is not something that is always going to be comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

It's ultimately not going to be comfortable. I mean, just plan on that, right? Especially at the beginning. But when you're in it and you're having to make those decisions become authentic, no, it's not gonna feel great. We talk about that all the time here too, Lori. It's not gonna feel great. And some of your relationships will get better, and some you'll shake them right off the tree and they'll be gone. Yeah. But now you have room for other relationships for authenticity. Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Yeah, for authenticity. Yeah. And now, you know, having found someone who, you know, just is such a beautiful match for my authentic version of me and and for us to have built not just, you know, a relationship, but but a sacred place, you know, that that takes care of us both. And and that is available for us, for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Hey, how quick are these books coming out, Lori? How quick are you clicking these out?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Because Mark's gonna be waiting now.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

You know, one thing that love about me is I practice what I preach. So I have not put any kind of timeline on myself. I have not, I I know exactly how much I can work, but what what good would my advice be if I was over here, you know, violating all of the things that that I'm teaching, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:33

You would not want to read my books, trust me. If that's what I was doing. You're not just throwing this into AI and giving it to us. This is from her lived experience, you guys. She lived experience. She lives every day, you know. Every damn day. Yes. And us midlife women, we know exactly what she's talking about. We all have different lives and different things going on, but essentially, I feel like we're all very much the same. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

That's what that's what I was saying about the group.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

It's so lovely when you arrive there. And in the group, you're like, whoa, wow, you get me. Yeah, like, oh wait, I'm not the only one who thought like that, made those good decisions and bad decisions. Like, yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

I'm amongst my people.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Yeah. And I think that really helps with the discomfort that you named, you know, when I am uncomfortable and bringing it to the group and bringing it to each other and to hold that with you. Yeah. Is wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

My gosh. Okay. And then once you get in there, you're then you're gonna learn all these practices and all of these amazing things. I love it. If this resonates with you, go to the show notes. You've got to click the links. Like I said, I we present you with all of these amazing people. And if this feels like it's pulling at you right now, like I know I need to regulate my nervous system, but I have no idea how. I want to be my authentic self. We throw on that authentic self quite a bit these days too. It's kind of a little buzzword. And essentially a lot of us don't even know what that means. So if you're at the point where you want to do that work, you're ready to start figuring this out, and I know you are, that's why you're listening today, then start clicking around on those links down there and check out what Lori has to offer for you because this may be what you've been looking for, right? Lori. Absolutely, absolutely. Just take one step today, right? You don't have to do the quiz. Yeah, do the day or just figure out how to check in with yourself. Promise yourself for the next week, you're gonna check in with yourself four or five times a day. Right? You're gonna check on your your your little self, your little whatever feels dysregulated, and then do the next step. There's no real time on that. As long as you're moving forward, that's it. That's all that's required. There's no there's nothing more than that required. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

And that that that idea, oh, I'll get to it when things settle down. Things won't settle down.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Nothing's settling down. You need to do this to settle down. Like exactly. I mean, come on, guys. Yeah, your life will never get less crazy at all. Or you could be the opposite. If you are at home right now, not able to even get out of bed very often, you're having trouble taking a shower. You're having trouble getting your shit together. You don't need to wait for that to get better either. Start now, right? Start doing the quick, start checking in from your bed. If that's as far as you can get today, then that's as far as you can get. Check in from there.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Uh a thousand percent. That's really, you know, something that I that I name in the book because it's such a painful place to be in that functional freeze, you know, where all of the survival energy of the sympathetic is system is still there, but now you've lost the ability to respond to it. So it feels like having a foot on both the gas and the brake at the same time. I was there for for a long time. So yeah, I know that it's a painful place. So everything is created for that scenario as well.

Closing Thoughts And Subscribe Request

SPEAKER_00 48:49

All right, guys. As usual, we got more work to do. We gotta do the work. So we but listen. We will be finishing this life strong. Period. End of story. Whether we live one more day or 50 more years, we will finish this strong. And this is just one of those steps. So I'm glad I brought Lori to you guys today. We're gonna grab this book because guess what? You're not the problem. No one told you you're not the problem, as her book is called. Great. Well, thank you so much, Lori. This is good. This is really good timing for me because I'm sitting in some stuff right now, too. So I love that we talked about this today. It feels like synchronicity for me. Oh, it's all came together today. And I bet you guys are sitting here thinking the same thing. This feels like a really good moment to hear this right now. All right.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Well, thank you so much for being here, Lori. This has been amazing. Yeah, same. Thank you, Jen. Thank you for for today and for everything.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Listen, I know your time is valuable, and right now I'm feeling super grateful and totally humbled that you chose to hang out with me today. If this podcast resonates with you, could you do me a solid and hit that subscribe or follow button? That's gonna help you out because you're never gonna miss an episode. And it helps me out because you're never gonna miss an episode. And if you have like 30 seconds more, could you leave a five-star rating and maybe leave a kick-ass review? Thank you so much, and I can't wait to continue our journey on the next episode. Oh, and I can't forget the fine print. You know, the legal jargon. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. We're just two friends on this journey together, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. You get it. See you next time.