The ROCKSTAR Mom

Reset Your Nervous System with Eliza Kingsford

• Megan Caldwell • Season 1

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Change doesn’t stall because you lack discipline; it stalls because your biology is doing its job. 

In this episode we sit down with licensed psychotherapist and nervous system practitioner Eliza Kingsford to unpack why your system is “ground zero” for every thought, feeling, word, and action—and how to make that work for you instead of against you. 

From the moment overwhelm hits, executive function dims and autopilot takes over. That’s why the salad you packed loses to the Oreos after a tense email. The fix isn’t force. It’s learning your cues and signals and picking the right regulation tools for your current state.

Eliza breaks down the brain–mind distinction with a clear metaphor: the brain is hardware, the mind is software. If your software says “change is hard” or “I always regain weight,” your hardware runs that code on repeat to conserve energy. We dig into homeostasis, automaticity, and the brain’s daily energy budget, showing how identity and beliefs quietly steer behavior. 

The hopeful turn: neuroplasticity and epigenetics prove the software can be updated. Not by chanting affirmations over old code, but by surfacing beliefs, getting curious, and practicing new responses while regulated enough to learn.

Listening to this episode you’ll leave with a kinder framework: map your activation and shutdown cues, build a personal menu of tools, and use curiosity questions to guide real change. If you’re ready to stop fighting yourself and start working with your biology, this conversation offers science, stories, and practical steps.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs relief from overwhelm, and leave a review telling us one cue you’re going to track this week.

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Here's how you can connect with Eliza:

Website: https://www.elizakingsford.com/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/elizakingsford

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi, my friend. I'm so excited to share with you today's interview that I had with Eliza Kingsford. This was a pre-recorded interview that was part of the Rockstar Mom virtual event that I hosted earlier this year. And it was so bomb, so powerful, so enlightening that I wanted to share it here on the Rockstar Mom podcast. Together we get into why your nervous system must be ground zero, what the nervous system actually is, what it isn't, and how we can help to shift it out of that state of overwhelm and out of that state of dysregulation, and how to get back into homeostasis and the automaticity that our bodies crave. In this conversation, Eliza helps us really release the load of having to try to figure it out and figure out the why behind things happen and what we actually need to do. We talk about the difference between the brain and the mind, how one is more like hardware, one like software, and why getting curious is what needs to happen when it comes to helping ourselves heal. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I do. All right, Rockstar Moms. I have an amazing guest to introduce you today. Today, I've got Eliza Kingsford. Eliza Kingsford is a licensed psychotherapist and nervous system practitioner who helps clients understand and regulate their nervous system so they can get out of their own way, remove obstacles, and overcome self-sabotage. Eliza's work has been featured on Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, NBC Health, CNN Health, Health Magazine, Mind Body Green, and many more. She's the author of Brain-Powered Weight Loss and holds advanced certifications in neuroscience, neurobiology, trauma, and stress resilience. Eliza combines the latest behavior science and neuroscience with cutting-edge intervention to create lasting change for her clients. She believes true healing comes when we find the intersection of the mind-body connection. Eliza, I am thrilled to share all of your goodness and expertise with our listeners. Thanks for being here. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this. I'm really excited too to see where this conversation goes, talk some of the science behind all of this as to how do we really truly create lasting change? Because I know that we live in this world of quick fixes and just want the magic pill and the magic button. And you've really figured out kind of the secret sauce behind what allows us as women to find lasting change. So I'm excited to dive there. First, though, would you just share a little bit about how you got into this work and what drives you and continuing to support women in this space?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, actually, you beautifully just said it. I mean, that question truly how do we create lasting change beyond these quick fixes and band-aids and, you know, things that move the needle just a little bit, but don't quite get that lasting transformation that people are looking for. That was the driver for all of my work. It has been the driver for all of my work. So, you know, it started for me personally in probably my teens and early years when I was really struggling with my own struggle with body image and trying to figure out how to be comfortable in my skin. That was the ultimate driver, which led me to graduate school. I was trying to ask myself that question. How do I feel good about myself? How do I change this thing that is so that I'm struggling with so intensely? And that question had a lot of different iterations and has continued to have a lot of different iterations in my career. But that's what led me to graduate school. It's what led me to postgraduate training and truly where it changed into the question of why it's so hard to change, because it seems simple. It's like we want it, we want different. So let's just go get the help we need, and then we'll get the help we need, and then we'll be able to change. It is so complicated. And people spend their entire lives chasing this goal of transformation that some people will look back and say, I never quite reached that goal. And my the driving force behind all of my work has been what makes it so hard for us to change? What are the mechanisms in the way? And my trainings have all been about trying to answer that question, you know, which to your point led to a model of change that I have developed that seems to work pretty well for.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I know you've impacted so many thousands and thousands of women's lives. And I think that so many in our audience today can really relate to this because we are high achievers. We are smart women. We are moms who are able to juggle a lot of things at once and oftentimes figure the stuff out on our own. And that's where things can get really frustrating as high achievers, as recovery perfectionists, as people pleasers, right? Is I know what to do. Like I know what I want. Why can I not do it? I quote unquote should be able to figure this out myself. So I'm gonna ask you that hard question. Why is it so hard to change?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, man. Okay. So, and I was hoping you'd ask me that question. It's my favorite thing to talk about because so, in my view, and I'll just broad brush, I will I'll paint with a broad brush the the mechanisms that it really boils down to of why it's so hard for us to change. Number one, first and foremost, is the nervous system. And I can go to as much as little. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I can't wait to go deeper there. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Nervous system is is ground zero. Uh, a dysregulated nervous system will keep us quite literally out of the ability to be able to change because the nervous system is in charge of everything we think, feel, say, and do. So ground zero. Our nervous system is is place number one. Our beliefs and identity, which actually is is connected to the nervous system through the brain. The the brain and the mind work together to create our beliefs and identity and paradigms about the world. And when the when our beliefs and identity are not congruent with our desires, that's when we get into a whole lot of trouble and it keeps us out of the ability to change. Not from a sort of positive mindset standpoint, but quite really, quite literally, the way the brain functions, the mechanisms in the brain will keep us out of our ability to change, it'll stand in the way of us being able to change. And then number three, our habits. Uh, again, which goes back to brain and nervous system, because we are we're beings that crave automaticity and homeostasis. Our bodies, our brains, our minds, they all like what it can expect, what it can interpret, what it can understand. That's a lot of habits and homeostasis and automaticity. And so these three mechanisms working together are the underlying pieces why truly, you know, people call it self-sabotage or like you said, I know what to do. I just can't get myself to do it. Right. These are the underlying mechanisms that are at play that we don't even know are going on until we bring awareness to it, which is why I geek out and I love, you know, I love talking about it so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love that. I love that you've broken down kind of these foundational pieces. What I'm hearing is it's the nervous system, it's our beliefs and identity, and then it's the habits that we eventually do. And I always like to share exactly what you shared, and I want to just reiterate is we as humans want consistency, right? We want that homeostasis. And so, like on a surface level, that is often what I tell clients, right? Is like we're we're trying to fight change because we are trying to keep our body safe. We are trying to keep ourselves safe so we don't get eaten by the cheater or the tiger, right? And so I know since you are such an expert in this space, I was gonna say it's more complex than that, or there's there's more to it, right? As we actually take a look and break down kind of what the brain is actually doing. Talk to us a little bit about the nervous system. Nervous system has come up in other conversations for this event. And I know that you just have such a depth of knowledge in this space. Start by breaking it down for me and everybody else who questioning how do you define the nervous system? What is it? And why is it so important for us to know more about this in our desire to truly live our best lives and feel like rock stars?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'll try and break it down in a couple of different ways and hopefully use some examples to make it make sense. So when I say the nervous system is responsible for everything we think, feel, say, and do, well, that sounds interesting, right? But when you think about it, what does that really mean in our day-to-day lives? So, for example, sometimes I like to use toddlers because toddlers are a fantastic uh example of the way that the nervous system sort of works and plays out. If you've ever had a toddler or seen a toddler and a toddler's tantruming, you know, that toddler is in a full-blown nervous system state, a state of protection, whether it's activation or shutdown, they're in a state of protection. And as a parent, if you've ever tried to say, just calm down, just listen to me, honey, slow down, calm, listen to me. And we're saying these words to a toddler whose nervous system state cannot, cannot physically hear what we're saying. In other words, they hear our voice, but the state that their nervous system is in, they do not interpret, they do not understand, they do not have the ability to hear what we're trying to tell them. The words we're saying is calm down, but the toddler's nervous system has shifted something's off. Yeah. Exactly. Has shifted active state that has said, I don't know what you mean by calm down, and I'm not able to access calming down or understanding what you're saying right now. This is this is happening for us on a daily basis in, I mean, myriad situations, whether it be through stressful emails or, you know, uh a discord with your spouse or partner, or, you know, feeling uncomfortable in your body when you look in the mirror, whatever it is, we get triggered or activated into these protective states. And when we do, our executive functioning skills are switched off. Not entirely, but just for simplicity's sake, we'll call it switched off.

SPEAKER_00:

Can you just break down and for for listeners that are maybe not as familiar, what are executive functioning skills? Yeah, so are you? Just quick, no, not to take us too far off course, but I want to make sure we understand this.

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely, yes. And and I was gonna give you some examples of so executive functioning skills are responsible for decision making, attention, memory, being able to rationally think through and solve a problem, emotion regulation. So to make that even more simple, your executive functioning skills are the things that are online when you decide am I going to eat this for lunch or this for lunch. Your executive functioning things are the things that are online when you decide I have to get through this project. And so therefore I'm going to focus on this right now. Your executive functioning is responsible for, oh, someone just said this to me, and how I'm going to respond to that requires executive functioning skills versus reacting or exploding or you know, feeling like that person was attacking you. Your executive functioning skills are responsible for essentially how you move through the world, how you communicate with people, how you sort through problems, how you make decisions, all of these really important things. And when you are in a protective response, it switches off your executive functioning skills. So all of a sudden, when you're going to the refrigerator and you're, you know, you had all these great intentions in the morning about eating this wonderful salad that you prepared for lunch. And 15 minutes ago you got a crazy email from your boss and you've switched into protection mode. You find yourself, you know, grabbing for the Oreos. Exactly. Half a bag deep for the Oreos, and you're going, why can't I just control myself around food? Well, the issue started somewhere up the line. And the more we try and control ourselves around food, guess what? The more that triggers our protective responses from the nervous system. And round and round and round and round we go. So we're trying to deal with life circumstances or the challenges that we're having from the wrong place. We're using the wrong mechanism.

SPEAKER_00:

So to bring it, yeah. So it's that makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. It's when I remember one of my biggest ahas in my own wellness journey is when I started working with a therapist seven or eight years ago. And she just basically called out and was like, Megan, you are living in this constant state of overwhelm where your nervous system is on high drive 24-7. And so until we learn to bring down the nervous system, it's going to be really hard for you to function in the way that you want and to bring down the stress levels, right? And so that makes a lot of that makes a lot of sense to me. And I'm sure so much, so many of our listeners can relate to that. And I also just want to acknowledge and call out the state of the world that we live in, right? It could be the email from your boss or that your child said something that triggered you or whatever it might be. But like we all right now in 2025 are living in a space where there's a lot of external stress. And so to be aware of that, so then we can can make some of these changes moving forward.

SPEAKER_01:

No, you're absolutely right. And you make such a good point. And one of the reasons I love working with the nervous system is because it does not require us to have to come up with the reason why. This is this is one of the biggest challenges people have is sometimes they'll go, but I don't know why I feel this way, or I don't know why that happened, or I don't know why I'm irritated, or I don't know why. Working with the nervous system, we don't have to know why. We just have to be aware of our particular signals that tell us whether or not we're in a protective response, whether that's activated or shutdown. And so when your therapist was reflecting to you that you're in a state of overwhelm, that very likely was your activated system. It could have been your shutdown, we don't know, but it was usually overwhelm is in in our activated system. And all we need to know is our cues and signs and signals that we're in that state. And then we can do a whole lot with it. We don't have to know why. We don't have to know why we got there or any of that. And that really to just like you said, it takes the pressure off people.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what I was, that's what I was just thinking is that, you know, we as high achievers and our moms who are juggling all of the things, we already have so much mental load and stimulation. So for you to just stay that straight as it is, that like we don't have to know why, but we do need to have this concept of awareness as to, as to what is going on. The why actually isn't going to help us change at this moment.

SPEAKER_01:

No. And in fact, the why sometimes gets in the way. So we again, I'll bring it back to children. So we see this in children a lot when I'm helping folks with working with the nervous system of their children. A lot of times parents will say, they'll pick up on a cue from their child, whether it be their face or, you know, body language or something, and they'll say, Well, honey, what's wrong? Well, as soon as we ask that question, the child then, the brain starts to go look for the answer. And the brain has to search and understand, well, mom just asked me what's wrong. So I gotta figure out how I can explain. Well, a lot of times it's a nervous system experience that they're having, they don't know what's wrong. They don't know why they're there, they don't know how they got there, they don't, they can't explain what's wrong. And so all of that happens so quickly and they end up saying, nothing, I'm fine, nothing, I'm fine, right? Because they don't more frustration for both mom and child. Exactly. And so, even from a from a parenting perspective, there is great value in understanding just the cues and signals of the system to be able to reflect that in a different way. And so, you know, example for my own life, I oftentimes with my 12-year-old sweet little teenager, right? Right there with you. I can tell you, and I'm sure you know then that there's oftentimes that there's some nervous system dysregulation that you can pick up on, but you're gonna ask that teenager what's wrong, and they're gonna say, Stop, mom, I'm fine, leave me alone. So instead, it becomes, I'm noticing this, or I see this, or I sense this. Is that correct? And all we're doing then is making them aware of their own cues and signals and asking them, am I right on here? Are we on the same page with these cues and signals? So we haven't asked what's wrong, what happened, tell me about it, explain it to me, talk to me. And there's a lot of communication going on back and forth. So I digress there, but the importance is working with the nervous system allows us to not have to stay in our cerebral cognitive space that requires thinking it through, telling what's wrong, trying to figure it out and how much, especially as moms, how much do we try and figure it out? We're always trying to figure it out, figure it out, right now. And sometimes we just need to bring awareness to what are my cues, signal signs that I am moved into this state. Ah, and now I can try and do something. I don't have to know why I got here or even how to get out of here. Just knowing that I'm here can help me do something different with it.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, absolutely. I always share with my people, with my clients and those that I work with, like this whole awareness step and being able to recognize those cues, that then is a very clear first step to change. Because again, so so many women in my sphere like get caught with heads-down autopilot, just kind of grinding through. And if we don't slow down enough to even acknowledge how we actually feel and we can get off autopilot, it's it's hard to make change. So the I want to give kudos to those that are listening to this interview right now, because this is you taking time to learn to check in a little bit differently and and approach things a little bit different way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, without a doubt. Agreed. And I think so. You know, what is the nervous system? So most people don't recognize that the nervous system is actually comprised of your brain. The actual physical part of your nervous system is your brain, your spinal cord, and then the bundle of nerves, the network of nerves and nerve fibers that run throughout your entire body. So all of the nerve, nerve endings, nerve fibers that run through your whole body connected to the brain and the spinal cord. That is your nervous system. And so that thing, that combination of those three things are sending these signals faster than you can even, than you could ever imagine. So a recent research study that came out in December of 2024 said that our brain, our brain processes information at the speed of 10 bits per second. That's kind of the units of measurements that they're using. And that the nervous system, so the combination of the firings between brain, spinal cord, and the nerve endings operates 10 billion times faster than trying to think of a word or you know, think of what comes next, or decide what to say, or decide what to do, you're operating 10 billion times slower than your sensory system, than your nervous system is. And what that means for us is that if we're always trying to muscle through things, think our way through things, force our way through things, just keep doing it, just keep going, to your point, the overwhelm, the overwhelm, we are essentially we're operating inefficiently because our nervous system operates so much faster and processes information so much faster and sends signals to us about what we need so much faster than our brain can process information on its own. And so when we learn to work with the nervous system, I think you said something earlier that was so beautiful about we have to, especially now in this day and age, start to work with our systems. And so much of what we've been taught is about we're fighting ourselves, forcing ourselves, constantly fighting ourselves to, you know, have this outcome or move this way or do this thing or just do it or push through it. And our nervous system that is so much more efficient and so much faster than we are, uh, we're never gonna win that bad. We we, you know, yeah, ousted and burned out. We're never gonna win.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, mind blown a little bit. This is this is so great, Eliza. Is I love, I love that that we really need to learn to work with our nervous system and with our bodies. Again, I think so many women have such a disconnect between one, how they want to feel and how they currently are feeling, but also just truthfully like being in tune with our whole selves, that is physical body, that is emotional well-being, that is our mental state. It's all the pieces of that. And so just wanted to say that for those in the back that may not have heard is we are really looking to find ways to work with ourselves and make this easier and find ourselves in more of a sense of flow because we know that trying to do the whole the same things over and over again, expecting different results, that's insanity. It's not gonna happen. And so, okay, the nervous system is such a big piece of this. So, for those that are thinking, okay, this is great. Like I know that my nervous system is at like a hyper-exaggerated state because of all of my roles and the world and all the things. Do you have any quick tips or starting points that women can start to, I was gonna say start to think about, if not the thinking, right? But start to do to help actually regulate the nervous system.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, there are, you know, dozens, hundreds quick tips. I will say one of the things that I have seen because a nervous system has gotten so popular, right? Right. There's a lot of quick tips given out, except that let's see if I can simplify this. One of the mistakes we make is that we, because we want it to be quick and we want it to be effective, understandably so, we'll hear someone give a quick, you know, do this, uh maybe hum to tone your vagus nerve. Yeah, something like that, right? Right, right. And while that may work for some people, if you don't know your cues, signs, and signals of your nervous system and your specific flavor of it, and you don't know whether you're in an activated state or a shutdown state, and you don't know which tools help regulate you back to a safe state, then you can be trying all kinds of tools and they won't quote unquote work for you. It's not because the tools don't work, it's because they're not the right tools either for your system or for your system at that time. And so, while yes, there are a lot of quick tips, I would say my best advice is to be able to either, you know, of course, a practitioner, there's all kinds of you know, people out there who are who are doing this type of work to understand your nervous system, the states your nervous system are in, how to identify them, and then what tools are appropriate for you. Now that might sound like a little more quote, work that you want to do, but I will tell you sometimes we have to slow down to speed up because you're gonna spend all the same mental load trying all these tools, and maybe this one, maybe this one, maybe this one. You end up spending more time and energy on tools that may not be appropriate for you versus slowing down just a little bit to understand the context of the nervous system and your nervous system in particular, understanding those tools so that then you can speed up and spend your time efficiently and effectively using the tools that are right for your system. By way of one quick example, even in clients that I've worked with, there are clients for whom going out to dinner with friends is that is all I need, right? Like I know that fills the connection. Yeah, connection. And for a different client, that would absolutely drop her down into disconnection and overwhelm. Because in that moment or wherever she is in her nervous system state, it's too much sensory output. And what she needs is a, you know, a different environment. So it's not the tool connection with friends. It's actually how your system responds to the tool and how you can tell whether or not that's going to be something beneficial for you or draining for you. And so it's it's that's why it's hard for me to give these quick tip tools because I can't tell you how many clients I've had say, Yeah, I tried that thing. That was terrible for me. And they tell me just a little bit about the context. I say, Well, of course it was. You were in a dorsal shutdown state. You're doing something that was activating that was never good enough.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so powerful because again, it comes back to the whole concept of like we live in this culture and society and space where we have been ingrained to think it's it's just like a one size fits all approach, or she or he or that business has the thing that's gonna work, right? And it's not always about the tool, but it's about the foundation and the framework and how we as individuals then use those tools. And I always say it's like a science experiment. Here's here's as nerdy as I get in the science space, where it's like when we're looking for change, we have to try something. We have to see how it, how it works for us, if if it helping us go in the direction that we're looking to go, whether it be any area of our life, awesome. If not, how do we tweak it to then move in a different space? So I love that. I love how it's like Megan. I'm not gonna just give you here's here's five things you can all go do today, but it's more of an invitation to explore this. Like if this is something that's that you are curious about, I know Eliza will share in just a little bit the free, the amazing free gift that she's offering all of you. We have to figure out how to truly tune into ourselves. Yeah. Because we are the one and only for ourselves. And the way I operate is gonna be different than the way you operate versus every single listener out there.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think I'm, you know, I I sometimes it it can feel like going against the grain, but in a world where we are ever more truly the way our brains are being shaped right now by the internet and by, you know, social media and quick tips and five hacks and tips and tricks and stuff, we are being trained to not be able to explore something deeply. And that, and so, in in many ways, I'm going against the grain when I say actually, we we don't want to lose our ability to be able to explore something deeply. And the way that we're trained right now by tech and social media and clickbait and headlines and flashy, it's training us to need this stimulation of if I'm not always in stimulation, then I'm either doing it wrong or I'm bored and I'm moving on to the next thing, which unintended consequence of that is that true change, lasting change, the thing that you really want is going to require neuroplasticity, which means you're gonna have to explore it deeply. And if we lose our ability to explore it deeply, then you're not gonna be able to get to that change. And so sometimes, you know, there's marketers or or business people will say, Oh, I'm gonna, you know, you can't say that because then nobody's gonna, you know, want to do the work.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm like, but that's the truth. But but that's how we're gonna get there, right? I'm having I'm having a flashback to a conversation I had with a coaching client earlier this week and super high achiever. She's a lawyer and does great and also wants change. And she's like, Megan, I just listened to this podcast. And have you checked out this book and all these things? And I said, you know what, my friend, our next step is to put all of that down for now. And we need to pause and really start to think about like a wanted bit or one one thing or one thing we've been working on and really explore it deeper for yourself. And that's scary. That is scary for for women who have not done that before. I know on my own wellness journey, this whole concept of being able to like pause and slow down and tune inward to how my body is feeling, how I am feeling overall. Like, I don't want to say it's easy, but you have really like help open open the floodlights, I think, to say there is a way to do this for those that are ready and willing to. So awesome. I'd love to I'd love to pick your brain a little bit. I know we talked about kind of three things at the start of our conversation. We just dove pretty deep into the nervous system, which it makes me want to explore and get even more curious in my own journey and and how I support women in that space. I do want to make sure we touch on, because when we were introduced to each other a handful of years ago, this is what stuck out to me is is the brain piece behind this and is the, or maybe this isn't even the brain piece, but the beliefs and identity is that connected to the brain or is that something different, Eliza? Tell us like, yeah, how does this all fit in here?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Okay. I will try to be, I will try to be quick with this because the brain stuff is is it's vast and it and it's and it's deep and there's a lot to it. But yes, the brain is a part of our beliefs and identity. But what's interesting, so the way I like to describe this is we want to think about the well, two things. We've got the brain and we've got the mind. And nothing too esoteric, right? But the mind is the thing that it's a construct. There's no you can't touch the mind, right? There's no slicing and dicing and touching the mind. It's not a physical thing, it's a construct, it's an idea, it's a concept, right? The brain is the thing that is a physical construct. We can, you know, hopefully not, but you can slice it and dice it, you can touch it. We can part of it, right? Brain is physical, yes, the construct.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for thank you for separating that. That was what I was not able to articulate. Because I was like, are we talking about the brain? No, I'm I'm curious to hear more about the mind. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but they they very much work together. So this is the way I like to describe it. So the mind, you want to think about the mind. Like the software programming. So if you think about your iPhone, like let's assume you have an iPhone or a smartphone, okay? If you think about your iPhone, the mind is the software. The mind is the thing that every couple of weeks, it's like, you know, iOS update, it's gonna update, right? Right. That's your software programming. The brain is your hardware. The brain is the actual phone, right? The brain is the phone that you go to Apple and you get it and you take it home. That's the hardware. That's the phone. Your brain is the phone, your mind is the software. Now, what would happen if overnight, Megan, they removed your software and had it back to like iOS 1.1, very first version ever of the software programming for your iPhone. What would happen? You know what would happen to your iPhone. It would probably work. Yeah. Beautiful, perfectly good hardware. Your phone. Your phone is perfect. It's you know, good hardware. But the software programming, the mind, is the thing that programs the phone to be able to work. And the reason why I describe it like that is because our mind is the thing that programs our brain and tells it what to do, what programming, what operating system is able to operate throughout the day or throughout our lives, really. And so why that's important is that the mind is the thing, if it is not running the software program that you want it to run, the brain doesn't have the ability to get it to do what you want it to do because all it can do is the programming that it's programmed with. And here's where people like here's where it drops into a day-to-day sticking point. Your brain, going back to this concept of automaticity and it likes things to repeat, right? Your brain is responsible for balancing your energy budget every day. Your brain, one of the brain's main job is to balance the budget of energy that you have to give to everything that you do every day, everything you think, every decision you make. You know, I'm moving my hands right now, or I'm climbing the stairs. You only have a certain amount of energy all day long. And your brain is responsible for balancing the budget of that energy all day long. And the way that it does that is by repeating behaviors that it knows. So, you know, do you get up and put your pants on with the right leg first or the left leg first? You'll find that you do so many things on autopilot because your brain says, Oh, I did that before, it can't be. I can do it again. I'm gonna do it again. That's what the brain says. Now here's where it gets tricky. If the brain is programmed with, I don't feel very good in my body, weight loss is hard. If even if I lose weight, I'm gonna gain it back. My mom was overweight, so was my grandma. That means I'm gonna be overweight. If the brain is programmed with that software from the mind, right? And the brain says, Great, this is what we're gonna do, right? We're going to continue to do the things that keep you overweight, that keep you miserable, that keep you not being able to lose weight, that make it difficult for you to lose weight, right? So the brain is in charge of all of these functions. Remember, the brain is one of the three key pieces of the nervous system, and it dictates everything you think, feel, and think, feel, say, and do, right? So if the brain is programmed with your software programming, and that software programming says, here are all your limitations, the brain just says, Cool, thanks, got it. That's I got the software, I'm ready to go. And that's what keeps us stuck. I'm ready to go. Yeah. We believe that we can override that because we've got this mind that's super powerful. That's why I pointed out that the nervous system operates 10 billion times faster than your brain operates on its own. So this mind that we're saying will just be different. Just don't eat the food, just put down the fork, just don't say the thing. It is so much, it's so much less efficient and effective than this other machine that's running the show. Likes automaticity, that likes, you know, consistency and sameness, that we keep fighting it again. We keep fighting it, right? And it's essentially it's programmed with the wrong software. Yeah. How to go about changing the software system.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if that was simple or not, but trying to oversimplify a big Well, in this in this world of technology, that made a lot of sense in my brain. And I often need it broken down to the bare minimum. So I think that made a lot of sense. We've got our hardware, the brain, the software is more of our belief system. And I just maybe, maybe you go into this just a little bit, or maybe not, but I just want to confirm to our audience that we can change that software. We can change our belief system. Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the whole field, just so we know epigenetics, neuroplasticity, entire fields that are you know coming out with or have come out with a ton of research that talks about how plastic, how neuroplastic our brain is. That same operating system that was just plugged in with the software system. We plug in a new software system and it will change. That's the beauty of it being a software hardware system. So without a doubt, change is is, in my view, change is possible for everyone in any situation because I so intricately understand the mechanism of how this works. That makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Now let me ask, is it as simple as I'm just gonna do my daily affirmations? Absolutely not. Okay, okay. Well, knowing knowing that we don't have four hours to chat together today, what is there one simple thing that that women can start to think about when it comes to thinking about beliefs? Or is that really a whole nother conversation?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, uh, lots of conversations, but I will say, aware going back to your point about awareness, awareness is so key in this process, even just being aware that our what our beliefs and identity are. Like that's the first uncovering. So if you're struggling, anything you're struggling with, the first thing we can do is look at what are the underlying beliefs about these things. And so we can ask ourselves some really good questions. Like it, we don't want to ask why questions, because why questions are a program for the brain. And you know, if you say, Why does this always happen to me? the brain goes, Okay, well, here's the I'll solve it. Yeah, that's done. That this is why this happens to you. So instead, we want to ask better questions, things like, what is this trying to show me? What is this trying to teach me? What are my beliefs about this? What do I believe is possible in this situation? What do I believe is not possible in this? And we like start asking different questions about the place that we're and then we can start to bring awareness to some of the things that are in there. And that is one of the most powerful tools. If we need one simple tool, yeah, just get curious. Solve it. But getting curious will bring up the next steps for what we need to work on and where we need to go.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, so good, Liza. So good. I love this. Yes. Get curious, my friends. If I I hope that this conversation has inspired so many of our listeners to get curious about themselves, about their own nervous system, about their own brains and our own beliefs. And again, I will teach and preach till forever and ever. We must give ourselves permission to take the time to pause to do some of this work if we want to create that change long term. It's not about the quick fix, and you have really scientifically broken that down for us a lot today. Eliza, for those that want to keep in touch with you, I know that you are offering our listeners here on the Rockstar Mom virtual event an awesome free gift. Will you share a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So if you're interested in the nervous system piece, there's a PDF that is there for you that has broken down the pieces and parts of the nervous system to hopefully make it easier to synthesize and understand. And absolutely, hopefully we've made it easier for you there. So take a look at that. And that's that's there for you.

SPEAKER_00:

Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much. Well, Eliza, I have gained so much myself. I know that you have shared so much wisdom of all of your knowledge. Just we've just dove like the top of the iceberg here, I feel like, but very inspiring. Thank you for all of the work that you've done in this space and your passion for helping women really shift and create that long-term lasting change. Before we sign off, do you have any final closing thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man, I think you did such a fabulous job of synthesizing and understanding the big concepts here, this awareness, the working with instead of working against. And I think your clients are lucky to have you. And I'm just grateful this together. Yeah, and inviting me to be here. So thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you so much for being a part of it.