Ep 31 - Rewiring the Patterns That Shape Your Life

We often think of commitment as something we consciously choose.

But what if you’re already deeply committed… to patterns you don’t even want?

In this solo episode of Rewired, Tiffany explores how our daily thoughts, habits, and emotional patterns become unconscious commitments—reinforced by the brain through repetition.

Grounded in neuroscience and real-life tools, this episode will help you:

• Recognize the hidden commitments shaping your life
• Understand how your brain strengthens what you practice
• Interrupt patterns that no longer serve you
• Intentionally shift toward what you actually want to grow

You’ll also be guided through a powerful reflection process designed to help you slow down, reconnect to the present moment, and bring more intention to what you are nurturing in your mind, body, and life.

✨ Download the Reflection Guide:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O0IenqzkViBnShGITZHPL1NdGYmq5aqD/view?usp=sharing

This simple, thoughtful toolkit will help you notice what you’ve been “watering”—and gently shift toward what you want to grow instead.

If you’re feeling ready for deeper support in your own rewiring, individual and couples coaching is available at YesEmpower.com

🎧 Use code Rewired to receive 20% off coaching through April 20, 2026

This isn’t about perfection.
It’s about awareness… and what you choose to return to.

Because what you practice…
what you notice…
and what you water…

will grow.

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Empowered people empower people. Live intentionally. Lead thoughtfully. Grow through awareness.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome to Rewired. I'm your host, Tiffany Grimes, with Empower Coaching and Training. It's episode 31 of Rewired. Welcome back, listeners. I'm so glad to be here with you. I want to just take this moment first and celebrate episode 31. This is so exciting. This has been a fun project to take on. I am very much enjoying it. It's been really fun to be connected with you and build this community. It was an unexpected benefit of starting a podcast. So I want to thank you in advance for joining. I know you have a lot of options when it comes to the podcast world. And so thank you for tuning in. Thank you for your five-star reviews. Thank you for the um emails we've been getting and the questions you've been sending in. It's been really lovely. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Before we dive into today's episode, which is rewiring the patterns that shape your life, I'm really excited about this topic. It's a popular one in the world of coaching. Um I do want to remind folks that at Empower Coaching and Training, we have a team of amazing coaches. You will hear a few um advertisements throughout this podcast that mention some of our amazing coaches working with individuals and with couples. And want to remind you, Rewired listeners, you do have a promo code that you can apply to any of our three or six session packages. It's just promo code Rewired. That's R-E-W-I-R-E-D. And it takes 20% off an already very affordable coaching package. So makes it really something that I think is a great accessibility point for so many folks. So I hope that you explore that, take that, take us up on that offer. It is good through April 20th, 20% off through April 20th, and you can find all of that information and do your research on our ICF Accredited Coaches at yesempower.com. All right, let's get into today's episode. I want to start with something that might feel a little confronting, if you will. And this is this is the concept, this is the idea, which is that you are already deeply committed to something. You are already actively practicing some commitment, consciously or unconsciously, that you have made to yourself and to how you want to experience life. Not just to what you want. I want to hear this, I want you to hear and really underscore this other part of it, but to the parts that we don't want. We practice it. And sometimes we are more committed to what we don't want than to what we do want. Because what we don't want is what we're already practicing. It's what we already know, it's predictable, it's safe, and moving towards goals that we have, identities that we want to embrace, new beliefs that we want to embrace can be very vulnerable, can feel maybe socially unacceptable by family or friends or workplace. And so, in many ways, that we practice and recommit every day to creating what we don't want. And so we get a whole lot of what we don't want versus what we do. So let's dive into this a little bit. We say that we want peace, but we rehearse stress. So as I say this, I want you to think about it. And whatever your word is, like I want calm, I want ease, I want space, I want whatever that is. But every day we get up and we rehearse and practice stress. We say, I don't have any time, nobody understands me, I'm so overwhelmed, we doom scroll, we don't prioritize things that might take 30 seconds but build more resiliency, right? We practice stress, we rehearse it and we recommit to it. We say we want confidence, but we practice self-doubt. So we're apologizing all of the time. I was just in the airport. Oh, we were on spring break. We went up to North Pole, Alaska, which was so amazing. And I saw the Northern Lights, which has been a long time bucket list. And anyway, we were flying back home, myself and my family, and I ran into this, not literally ran in, but you know, saw this woman. She stepped in front of me. Oh, I'm sorry. But it was totally her pathway. She said, Oh, I'm sorry. And then I went to go get in line to fill up my water bottle. And she was in front of me, and as she turned around, she said, Oh, I'm sorry. And she did it two more times because we were sharing the same gate. And I just thought, what are you sorry for? You're apologizing for existing, for having planned better than me and gotten to the water fountain before me. So we rehearse this, we practice it all day long, this self-doubt. We say we want connection, but we practice and commit to withdrawing, overthinking, deciding what people think about us, projecting our thoughts. And so they must be facts and true for the world or for other people. This isn't a character flaw. Part of it's just our survival mechanism. It's conditioning. It's what we practice, it's what we rehearse, our brain-like sufficiency. It really loves habit. And so we just keep doing it. And we probably saw it practiced, we picked it up from our culture, from our society, from you know, wherever. It's conditioning. So I just want to like let that swirl around in you and have you think about what you are committing to every day? What are you moving towards every day? What do you want and value and hear yourself saying that you wish you had? And how are you practicing that? Your brain is designed to automate what you repeat. This is part of our survival mechanism. It's what we've called the comfort zone. I call it the habit zone. This is neuroplasticity. Your brain strengthening pathways based on use. Neurons that fire together, wire together, right? That's an old saying. It isn't technically true, but it serves the right purpose. The more that we practice, the easier and faster it is for us to be doing these things, thinking these things, believing these things without even consciously being involved in them. So whatever you practice, that becomes your default. Think about that. Whatever you practice, those statements you make about how you're approaching your day and how you think about yourself and your body and your relationship with time and your goals and that thing that we practice day in and day out becomes our default. Not because it's true, and mostly not because it's helpful, but because it is familiar, which means that it feels safe for the brain to keep traveling that pathway. So let's name something honestly. You may not be consciously choosing stress or overthinking or self-criticism. I mean, I think most of us would say, nah, like I'm not committed to that. I don't want that. But if you're practicing these things daily, then you are reinforcing them. And when I say you, I say we. This is everybody, this is humanity. So this concept is what I mean by unconscious commitment. It's not about blame. It's not saying, you know, if you don't want this, then stop doing it. It's not about blaming, it's about this understanding and self-observation of this unconscious commitment we are making. It's it's about awareness. It's really about self-awareness. Most of this doesn't happen in big dramatic moments. It's not like one day we just start talking to ourselves negatively or deciding we don't have any time. It happens in these micro patterns, these micro practices that we do that ultimately become daily micro rituals. I think about how often I will hear myself say, Oh, I don't have any time. I don't have any time. And then when I do literally have five minutes, what I will do is pick up my phone. I've shared this in a podcast previously that I teach a lot of workshops and in-person workshops as well. And so it'll be about intentional living and you know, stress management and really mindfully creating life. And people will share how overwhelmed and how busy they feel, and how are they supposed to do this? And then as soon as the workshop is done, they're on their phone. They're or even during the workshop sometimes. And so, and I'm part of that. I do that too, right? I get to the bus stop five minutes early to pick up my son and I get on my phone. So that's a micro ritual that I have. Replaying a conversation loop. So I have time in a walk or on a car in a car ride. And rather than thinking about how I consciously want to move forward or how am I doing on my goals or breathing, I'm playing a conversation loop over and over again because I can't believe they said that, or I feel really frustrated about this. We brace for what could go wrong. We predict and rehearse the unimaginable and things not going well, and we work through those things when they're not even real or present. We're talking to ourselves in ways that we would never speak to someone else. These are all, and hopefully you can find some of your own practices in these. These are just some examples, but they're very common examples of micro rituals that keep us stuck. These are practices, and practices create patterns. And when we say patterns, what we mean are neuropathways. We are literally wiring ourselves to continue to do these things. This is what eventually our brain feels like is safe. It becomes part of who we are and how we spend our time and what we believe. And so as we try to move towards change, like I'm gonna use this time to journal about this vision board I created and where I'm at on it and how I'm doing here in April, as we're four months into the year, that maybe starts to feel less exciting or feels far off. Like I can't do that in 10 minutes, and so I'm just going to not instead of starting the process or doing it daily. So these are all practices. And I want to say it again: practices create patterns, neuropathways, that unconscious commitment. So here's the shift. If your brain learned this, it can learn something new. It feels uncomfortable, it might feel outside of what you normally do, and your brain will meet you with things like you don't have time for this, this is stupid, this is not who we are, we don't do this kind of thing, which is just its mechanism to try to stay safe. But we can relearn. That's the neuroplasticity, that's the beauty of having these amazing human brains of ours, is that we can rewire what you practice, what you notice, and what you return to matters. It's shaping your brain, it's shaping your nervous system, and it's shaping your experience of this one precious life. At Empower, we created a simple reflection tool around this idea. We put the free tool, it's a three-page workbook. We sent it out in our April newsletter. It's called What Am I Watering? You know, for our spring listeners, it will resonate with you. It's seasonally appropriate. And we will also put it in the show notes so you can grab that. And if you ever want to get on our newsletter, you can go to yesempower.com and just add your email there to get our monthly newsletter. We don't do anything wild and crazy with your emails. We don't sell them. We don't solicit. I promise we'll just send out the newsletter if you want to be a part of it. But this was one of our free tools that we sent out. And we, I love it. It's full, we used it in our mindfulness broadcast this morning, which is a free offering we have on Fridays, of really just building this exploratory, curious method of thinking about what I am watering? What am I where am I placing my attention? What am I giving my time and my energy to? And does it align with what I want? So I'm gonna walk you through a few of these and then again go back and get the link and go download this book. You again, you don't have to do anything, you don't have to do your email, you can just go click and utilize this. So I want you to think as I ask these questions and how I cued this up this morning in the mindfulness broadcast was to really invite you to think about how you might be when you come to a new landscape, or you have just driven over this mountain and there's a pull-out, and you can get to the top of the mountain and you have this beautiful view that you can take in. I say that because this activates, you know, traveling activates a more exploratory, curious, flexible state of mind for us. And so when we bring that into our daily living, amazing things can happen and we can purposefully tap into that. So we can't, you know, if we are traveling, this is a new vista that we're looking at. We don't arrive at that place and go, well, that shouldn't be there. There should be more flowers there. What why is this happening right here? Right? We don't have expectations. We are curious and we're open. And so when we can bring that same curiosity to our lives, we get to access some really cool parts of our brain. So as I'm asking you this, that's what I want to invite you to do. As your mind is producing answers for you, be curious about them. Notice how your brain feels uncomfortable with the exploration. Notice how it might be saying things like, you shouldn't feel that way, you should feel this way, this is not okay, that's the right way, this is the wrong way. It's just trying to shape this back into the comfort zone. So all we need to do as we are mindfully exploring this is to just, I say just like it's easy, but to, I'll say simply, our job in this is to explore it as we would a new landscape. So we might instead say things like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, wow, I never noticed that. Hmm, I wonder what causes that, right? Those are questions we ask while on vacation, while exploring something new. So keep that exploratory mindset as you go through these questions. What thoughts have been taking up the most space in my mind? And uh, you know, I'm gonna say lately. So you can think about the last 24 hours, the last week, month, season. What thoughts have been taking up the most space in my mind? What emotions have I been feeding most often? And really trying to get down to some specifics and emotions. So thinking about overwhelm or hopelessness, it might be hopefulness, it might be optimistic, it might be joyful, it might be heavy, it might be rage. What emotions have I been feeding most often? And then what stories have I been telling on repeat? And when we say stories, we think about those are our versions of interpreting the world. So deciding what people could have done, should have done, what they meant by what they did, how things should be going, how things how you should be treated in certain scenarios because of your whatever role in the family or status or whatever. So those are the stories. So what stories have I been telling on repeat? And then this is the question that changes everything. So again, I want you to kind of play with those three questions. I'll put these in the chat. I'll also put the link to the workbook. But here's the one I really want you to play with. Is what I've been practicing actually aligned with what I want? That's the question. So when you're walking, when you're driving, when you're quiet, what is your mind doing? What are you rehearsing? What are you practicing? How are you feeling? How do you tell stories to yourself that create emotion? What are those stories? And is it aligned with what you want? With how you want to be, with who you want to be. And the amazing thing for many of us is that if we quiet down and hear with curiosity, explore that landscape, explore the answer to those questions, our body will tell us the truth. Tension, fatigue, shallow breath, racing thoughts, more calm, openness, groundedness. Your nervous system, that sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system reflects what we've been rehearsing. This is where we shift from awareness to agency. So I'm obviously moving you through this pretty quickly because we're here in this podcast time and space together. But I really encourage you might have taken enough just from this. But if you haven't, if you want to explore a bigger landscape and have more time, take some time to go do some journaling, thinking, questioning, and really continue to deepen this awareness of self and these daily rituals and practices that we have, and then begin to move to agency. We're very quick to move to agency, to something that we can control, to things that we can be doing, but really taking the time to explore and become aware is a worthy investment before we move to agency. For the sake of time, I'm going to move us forward. And maybe you've had an aha or epiphany in these earlier questions. So when we think about shifting awareness to agency, we want to do this not by forcing a big change. So not by now deciding I'll never check TikTok. I will never get on my phone and scroll, right? Those are just big changes that really are probably not sustainable. So instead, what we will be doing to really think about sustaining this is interrupting and redirecting. And I would add the word gently to that. Gently interrupting and gently redirecting. So what I mean by that is we want to just kind of turn off the fire hose, you know, it that's just blaring on. I we had a, I worked for somebody who for a long time would call it static, right? Like turn off the static, find a channel. And so we want to turn off that static. We want to turn off the hose. So when you notice a pattern, you can pause, which means that you already have to be coming to yourself and to the to your thinking with some curiosity to notice because habits are happening unconsciously. So they're really without us noticing. So we have to be able to notice maybe the signs in our body. So, you know, our heart beating or that shallow breath. But we're noticing, as soon as we notice, we pause. Not shame, not spiral, not like, ah. Doing it again, or I knew that I couldn't trust myself, right? We're just ah, isn't that interesting? Right. Oh, look what I noticed in the landscape. That's interesting. I'm just gonna pause right here. And then we go into some curiosity. So, what am I feeding right now that I don't want to keep growing? That's another question we have in the workbook. What am I feeding right now with this thought process that I'm in? And what do I want to water instead? I love that question. Let's just think about what do I want? Instead of feeling overwhelmed, what do I want? Instead of feeling a lack of confidence in myself, what do I want? See if we can name that, identify that. Maybe it's this instead of rehearsing worst case scenarios. This is me talking to myself here. You practice one moment of grounded breathing. Right? That's just that little shift. So I find myself in a worst-case scenario. Ah, isn't that interesting? Okay, I'm going to just take three deep breaths right now, or I'm going to practice box breathing, whatever it is that I choose. Instead of reinforcing, I'm not enough, I knew I couldn't do this, I can't change, I interrupt it. And even once is powerful. I'm going to interrupt it with something more neutral or kind. Doesn't have to be just the exact opposite. Something more neutral or kind. So gently redirecting. Rewiring doesn't happen when you get it right or perfect, right? It's not like the one time you have it won't rewire until you get it done exactly right. So it won't rewire until you can go a full day without rehearsing tragedy. That's not how our brains work. We are creatures of habit. So if we want to rewire, then we need to keep returning to the practice. And it's why we call it a practice, right? A mindfulness practice. We come to it again and again and again. And that is how we create micro rituals that support us. Here is a five-day simple practice to help you build this. So if you think about just the next five days, not your lifetime, just the next five days. Day one, notice what has your attention. Just let that be cycling through you. Notice what has your attention all day long, multiple times throughout the day. Just like, oh, what am I thinking about right now? What am I placing my attention on right now? Day two, catch one stressful story. That's all. You just have to tap into one of those stories that you're telling yourself, one of those moments. Day three, we start to practice the gentle redirection. So instead of this, I'm going to do this. Oh, isn't that interesting? I just caught myself doing this. I just noticed I was saying all these statements about my relationship with time that don't align with what I actually want. So instead, I'm going to be curious about what I want to prioritize today. So I'm going to replace the statement, I don't have any time, with what am I prioritizing today? And these are just examples, obviously. And then day five, reflect on what shifted. And again, you're just choosing one to gently begin to guide this process. We don't have to become a different person, right? We we don't, we we are great just as we are. What we want to do is instead of thinking about, I'm going to change who I am, we're going to think of, I'm going to become more aware of what I'm practicing. That's it. I want to think about my thinking. I want to practice metacognition because I am wiring all the time, every day. I am wiring, sleeping and unconscious, I am wiring. So what am I wiring? And getting myself involved in that gently is how we begin to shift. So here's what I want to leave you with as we close out today. You are already committed. The question is to what? And if you could shift even 5%, what might become possible? If you want to go deeper, download this free guide that I've got in the show notes. Again, you can you don't have to put in your email, you don't have to do anything, you can just get it and start doing the work. Take your time with it, move slowly, be honest, be compassionate because what you water will grow. And think about ways that is there somebody that you'd like to do this with? Do you have a BFF or a partner or somebody that you want to unfold this awareness together and kind of build in some accountability? This might also be a great place to work with a coach, add empower or otherwise, you know, to really kind of do this work purposefully. This is exactly what coaching is, brain-based coaching, especially. It's what are we thinking? And let's get involved in that. Let's let's wire purposefully. Your brain doesn't change based on what you want or what we say we want year after year. It changes based on what you practice. So go practice, go rewire. I'm excited to hear from you about what you do with all of this. We love your feedback and your comments. Keep your questions coming. Be well, everyone, and I'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in to Rewired, where neuroscience meets real life change. If you enjoyed today's conversation, I'd be so grateful if you take a moment to leave a five-star review. Your feedback helps people discover the tools, insights, and inspirations they need to create lasting change. While you're leaving that five-star review, please also subscribe and share an episode with a friend. Remember, the way you think shapes the way you live. Every intentional thought, every mindful choice rewires your brain and your life. So go live intentionally. Live thoughtfully and never underestimate the power of your own mind to transform your world. Until next time, this is Tiffany with Empower Coaching and Training. Stay curious, stay empowered, and keep rewiring for real change.