The Real Reason Change Feels So Hard

You can understand what needs to change and still feel stuck repeating the same reactions, habits, and relationship patterns—and the reason isn’t lack of motivation, discipline, or insight. In this episode, you’ll learn why change feels so hard at the nervous system and subconscious level, what’s actually at stake when patterns stay unexamined, and how to begin interrupting them in ways that last.

🎧 Listen or watch now via the link in bio.

🔗 Explore Reg’s work and tools here:
🌐 https://www.neuromastersacademy.com

Change doesn’t fail because people don’t “want it enough.” It fails because the body and subconscious are wired to protect what feels familiar, even when it’s uncomfortable. In this conversation, Dr. Supatra Tovar speaks with internationally recognized mindset trainer, NLP expert, and hypnotherapist Reg Malhotra about why insight alone rarely creates transformation—and what actually does.

Reg breaks down how subconscious patterns form through significant emotional events, why habits like procrastination, self-sabotage, emotional reactivity, and relationship ruts follow predictable internal sequences, and how nervous system dysregulation keeps those loops alive. Together, they explore how curiosity opens the door to growth, how environments and emotional “anchors” reinforce old identities, and why safety in the body is required before new thoughts and behaviors can stick.

This episode offers a grounded, compassionate framework for understanding change without shame—and practical ways to work with your nervous system and subconscious rather than fighting them.

Want to know more about Reg Malhotra  visit here: https://www.regmalhotra.com/ , https://www.instagram.com/regmalhotraofficial/,  https://www.facebook.com/regmalhotra/ 

Main Points Covered

• Why knowing better doesn’t automatically lead to doing better
• How subconscious patterns and nervous system responses drive behavior
• The role of curiosity in breaking relationship and identity ruts
• Why environments and emotional anchors keep people stuck
• How trauma responses influence automatic thoughts and reactions
• How NLP and hypnotherapy interrupt and rewire internal patterns
• Why safety in the body is essential for lasting change

Share This Episode

Share this episode with anyone who feels stuck repeating the same habits, reactions, or relationship dynamics. It’s a simple way to say, “I was thinking about you—and this might help.”

#mindset #nervoussystem #nlp #hypnotherapy #personaltransformation #relationshippatterns #emotionalregulation #stressandchange #traumahealing #drsupatratovar #drtovar #supatratovar #drt #anewinsight Podcast #deprogramdietculture #nutrionalpsychology #regmalho

Transcript

dr--supatra-tovar_2_12-03-2025_130804: 0:01

Reg and I shared the stage at TEDx Temecula and I just found his talk so intriguing and I really wanted to get to know him a little bit better. So I invited him on. He's joining us from Australia today. So I'm gonna read a little bit about Reg and then I'm gonna drill him with some questions. Reg Malhotra is an internationally recognized mindset trainer, master of neurolinguistic programming and hypnotherapy. TEDx Temecula, speaker and founder of Neuro Masters Academy. He helps high performers and everyday individuals rewire limiting beliefs, release emotional blocks, and build mental resilience during times of stress, scarcity and uncertainty, something we all need right now. Uh, Reg teaches practical tools to master mindset, regulate emotions, and reinvent how we relate to ourselves and the people we love so that we can thrive regardless of external circumstances. So I would love to hear what led you to this type of training.

reg-malhotra_1_12-04-2025_070804: 0:02

Sure, and thanks for that question. Um, look, like, like many people I had my share of adversities, uh, you know, in the earlier part of life. And, you know, you kind of don't look at those things. You don't address them. You move on, you move to the next thing, whether it's work or marriage, everything that we do. Pretty simple. The other thing I noticed was, you know, growing up and even after. It was like I had this sense. I could see that everyone's at a level of unhappiness and all. We just had to choose what level we want to have. You wanna have zero to 10, you want to have number seven or eight. That's what it appeared to me, Dr. In terms of our mindset at the time, it was, uh, built off a few different things. Um, it was lack of emotional control. Uh, it was reactive, very, very reactive. There was, you know, it was like just. Not having not take, not doing anything in the middle of something happening and me responding to it. Um, it was full of comparisons, which is a disease. I call it a disease now. Full of comparing myself to other people. Um. And it was full of, uh, stories. I call them self stories. Now, self stories, which included images, sounds, feelings of things that had happened. Uh, it was full of self pity and at some level it was also, um, it was also not full, but there was an element of why, why did this happen to me?

dr--supatra-tovar_2_12-03-2025_130804: 0:06

The way that we met was really interesting. We met through TEDx Temecula and uh, both shared the stage there. And your talk was so interesting to me. It was basically about reinventing your relationship, by seeing your partner and your home life through a new lens. Rather than forcing them into the old mold.

reg-malhotra_1_12-04-2025_070804: 0:07

Sure. Uh, yeah, that talk was, um, uh, it was very important to me to get that message out and it was doing this work, uh, you know, helping people change how they see life, uh, change their own stories, uh, and behave and think differently for the rest of their life. Kind of inspired that, 'cause I was watching that with myself and my wife, Andrea, who you met, is that before we did all this work on ourselves as well, we, we had a different idea of who we were and who each of us were to each of us. It's a wonderful story. It's a wonderful story that I'm not wanting her to be who she was. This is opposite to what everyone says. Like really, people say, Hey, I remember when we first met, you used to do this and you used to do that, and now you don't do that any longer. Okay, let's think about that for a moment. We don't hold each other to who we used to be, but we allowed this and we enjoyed this and we, what if there is like a, I kind of postulated really what if there is a three, five year cycle where if. You know, partners allow each other to learn new things, to produce new behaviors and not hold them to who they used to be.

dr--supatra-tovar_2_12-03-2025_130804: 0:10

I actually think that that is probably the secret because so many people. When they've been with someone for so long, they get into kind of a rut of thinking where I think she's gonna say this the same way. I'm gonna react the, you know, in this same way, but you're not taking into account all of the ways that you've actually changed and you're also not inviting growth. And I think that when you invite growth and you bring in curiosity, especially if you're seeing your partner do something or act in a certain way that's out of the norm, try to be curious about what they're doing and see if you can learn something new and grow and change as well. I think it was so interesting in your talk that you mentioned it was so important to actually change the environment. Can you talk a little bit about that and give people some tips, you know, on how they might be able to do that, wether it's affordably or you know, just go the full gamut and completely change their environment and how that might change the way that you see your partner.

reg-malhotra_1_12-04-2025_070804: 0:11

Sure. Yeah. And that's something we stumbled upon as well as we were. You know, we had two children, or you know, long time ago who are now grownups and there was a lot of things we brought into our environment started with furniture. Um, and these things, you know, they're reminders and they were good reminders by the way. Remember when we, when, when, you know, Jay was little and we would talk like that, but we noticed something when we would move homes as we do, we get rid of some things. And we would bring in new things into the environment and it came up for discussion a few times. You know, out of all the things we've ever had. Things are anchors. Things can become anchors. Even places in your house where you had a argument, there was heated debate, there was emotions. Uh, from an NLP perspective, even that room can act like a negative anchor. I often raise this in our programs, and when I say to people, did you know that if you, if you've had a lot of heavy arguments in your bedroom and you felt a lot of emotions. The bedroom itself could act like a negative anchor for you. We often, Supatra, we often recommend to people to move homes every three to five years because you kill off all the negative anchors, new areas new. So it came from that and I realized that, um, you know, these external things.

dr--supatra-tovar_2_12-03-2025_130804: 0:13

Right, so changing that lens, and it can be small, everyone, and it doesn't necessarily, if you can't afford to move, of course you shouldn't move, but you can do certain small things changing just one corner of your house, changing up the pictures, the, the, the furniture in that little corner and seeing what happens to your energy and what. What comes into your relationship as a result? I think that that was a really, uh, novel and, and profound idea, and of course, why it made it to the TEDx stage is, know, you, you don't realize how your environment, when you're seeing it over and over again in this same way, how that's actually keeping you stuck and trapped. So speaking of that, I think so many people feel trapped in stress and scarcity and uncertainty. Why do you think that mindset work is essential now more than ever?

reg-malhotra_1_12-04-2025_070804: 0:14

Yeah, I think mindset work has always been important and you are quite right. Uh, now with where we are in history. Uh, you know, the rate of change, the percentage rate of change coming up in the next 12 to 24 months is going to be bigger than the last thousand years combined. Right. So mindset has always been important, and let's break that word mind and set. Means it's a set. It's a set of ideas, beliefs, and convictions that we hold to be true. Notice what I said there, that we hold to be true. Right? Are there things that you believe when you were 12 years old that are actually no longer true? What if I told you in five years from now it's possible that a lot of them will no longer be true for you? If you already know that, then, then it is how you hold these things in your mind, how you see things and you wanna be flexible. So with everything changing around us, the way we communicate very soon, the way we work, the way we do business, uh, the way we, uh, think about our future. Your weapon of choice, your torch with which you shine the light, the way you interpret. I mean, how is this even optional? I think I would be a hot mess, Dr. Supatra, if I didn't completely become aware of what I'm thinking, why I am thinking this. Is it true? What else could this mean? Who put this in here? Is it relevant any longe? If I didn't have these series of questions and, you know, pro thought processes, uh, I, I'll just be at the, what do you call it? While I'm just stubborn or I'm just anxious, and you might not be that at all. You were just conditioned into that. And when you break down the thought processes itself, a thought elicits a feeling, and then that feeling elicits a certain behavior. So if your thoughts are primarily like, I'm worthless or uh, I'm not good enough, those are probably the two most common thoughts that people tend to develop over time. You feel terrible, you feel depressed, you feel inadequate, and you tend to behave in certain ways that are similar to that. And I think it's so valuable to take and shine a light on that and ask yourself, how is that helping me? Is that even true? And of course, when you examine the thought, I'm worthless, you can absolutely 100% come to the conclusion that you are worthwhile. Everyone is just because they are born. And when you change that thought. The way that that thought makes you feel like I'm worthwhile or I'm lovable, makes you feel warm, makes you feel hopeful, makes you feel loved, and you tend to act differently. And when you realize how powerful that is, how much you can change your life just by changing one single thought. That to me is amazing. And I think a lot of people to tend to poo-poo that a little bit. And they should really take a deeper look at that. And this is, uh, you know, core, central part of the work that I do with my clients. So I wanna know how you use neurolinguistic programming and hypnotherapy to help people shift those kind of less helpful mindsets and into something that is more empowering. Yeah, neurolinguistic programming. It's a big, fancy, uh, title I suppose, but it's really just, uh, you know, an ability to unpack. The key word is unpack. How do you do things inside? Right? Uh, you know, if you give advice to people, Hey, change your thoughts and think this way. A lot of the time it doesn't work for people. And that leads to a feeling. So there's a process that occurs, it's step by step. That negative feeling got me up from the computer over to the coffee machine, and I wasn't back till 45 minutes. And mind you, this was every day, if not every second day. So it's the unpacking and, and in, in this field we can I love this. I've, in fact, I've had, you know, clients who were suicidal. I'm not a suicide prevention expert, but, but I will tell you, I was able to decipher the exact, we call it an internal syntax. Heard my father's voice, said to myself, why am I even here? I'm loser. Got extremely negative feelings equal to I should take my own life. And we were able to help him interrupt that sequence. Instead of him getting that negative feeling, he had an image of his wife massaging his head. Can you believe that that?

reg-malhotra_1_12-04-2025_070804: That led to a different outcome? So I, the key word is unpacking. And the, the second element of this is these, you know, beliefs and these ideas, as you would know from CBT, um, they're lodge through what we call as SEEs: 0:22

significant emotional events. We all have a series of events that have happened in our life that are not just, you know, the odd person, you know, cutting me off on the road. They're significant. How do you know that you can think of that event from the past and you can feel emotion in your body now? If me too, I would talk about an old event and I would have tears in my eyes. Well, that's not a very good thing. That means it's a lie. So all of the NLP and hypnosis, they work, let's call it for the, um, uh, you know, for the purpose of this talk, the subconscious mind or the, the deeper mind is where this data is lodged and we go out and unpack all of that. It never really works when you're, you know engaged in these trauma responses, I like to help people understand that the trauma response is a nervous system response. And if they can really learn how to regulate their nervous system, they can create safety in the body. And when we have safety in the body, when we can program these new thoughts and when we're programming the thoughts centered around a safe nervous system, it changes everything. It makes you understand that it is possible to change those thoughts. It makes you more objective and makes you understand when you are going into these old trauma responses automatically

reg-malhotra_1_12-04-2025_070804: 0:25

Yeah. I want to tap into your point about safety. I think you're quite right. It's, it's really what everything comes down to. What? What is the survival mode? The brain's saying, I'm not safe, and you also spoke about calming the nervous system down or regulating it so we can think with clarity again. And so what hypnosis or hypnotherapy, uh, is very useful for is taking your old ideas, your self stories, your limitations and your fears, and inserting in that state of trance, which is a really just a very relaxed state. Like you said earlier, the behaviors would have to change. I mean, how do you explain a smoker who's been smoking for 20 years having a session with one of my trained practitioners for 90 minutes and never ever wants to smoke again? Smoking is a pattern. What else is a pattern? Self-hate, self-sabotage. It's really hard when you are stuck in that fight or flight, freeze mode to even conceive of your body feeling calm. I'm so excited. We're, uh, we're out of time for this half though, and I have a million more questions for you. You guys, you have to come back. This is a fascinating conversation and we hope you come back for the second half of this amazing interview with internationally recognized mindset trainer, master of neurolinguistic programming, and hypnotherapy, fellow TEDx Temecula, speaker and founder of Neuro Masters Academy, Reg Malhotra. Thanks, Reg.