You Are in a Three-Way and You Didn't Even Know It

Jennifer Moore explores the interconnected systems of the nervous system, hormones, and gut microbiome, revealing how their imbalance leads to burnout, fatigue, and health issues. She offers insights into holistic healing and practical steps to restore balance and well-being.

Keywords

nervous system, gut microbiome, hormones, burnout, holistic health, stress, perimenopause, mental health, self-care, neurobiology

Nervous System, Gut, and Hormones

• Unlocking Balance: How Your Body's Systems Interconnect
• Interconnection of nervous system, hormones, and gut microbiome
• Impact of chronic stress and trauma on health
• Rewiring subconscious patterns for healing
• The role of gut health in mental and physical health
• Holistic strategies for balancing the trifecta
• "Your body is true, feel it, allow it."
• "Your nervous system is the master conductor."
• "When systems are aligned, there is a better way."

Chapters

00:00
Understanding the Trifecta of Burnout

04:35
The Nervous System: The Master Conductor

12:03
Hormones: The Messengers of Balance

18:57
The Gut Microbiome: The Second Brain

25:56
Finding a Better Way Forward

27:07
Embracing Transformation and Integration

27:30
The Power of Sharing and Community Support

https://jennifertmoore.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You've done the therapy. You've read all the books. You've listened to all the podcasts. And now you have the career. You've got the house. You've got the kids. You've done all of the work. You've checked all the boxes. You've done everything you were supposed to do to be happy. And you woke up one day and realized that you're not. And you started asking the question, isn't there more? Yes, there is. And I don't mean more information. We have all the information. What we need is transformation. And that is only done when we excavate that whole system and repave that superhighway. We're not skimming the surface here. We're gonna dig in deep and drink the water from a deeper well. We're telling the truth in a whole new language. You felt the nudge, then you hear the whisper. You ignore it, life gets louder, and it will manifest as burnout, exhaustion, illness, injury, anxiety, disconnection, addiction de jour, and drama at every turn. There is a better way, I know, because I found it on my own journey. This story is a part of my story. And I built this toolbox for myself, and I have proven that it works with hundreds of clients over the past 28 years of being in private practice. We're gonna blend neuroscience, psychology, and timeless Eastern wisdom and show you where science meets soul work. This is where we will rewire the patterns that have kept you stuck. I'm Jennifer Moore, licensed psychotherapist and creator of the Therapeutic Coach Approach. Isn't there more? Yes, there is. Each week I'm gonna share practical tools to implement so that you can actually transform your life. Follow now wherever you listen. And if somebody popped in your mind, that's not a coincidence, that's a synchronicity. Send it to them because they're ready to hear it too, just like you are, and welcome home. You've been in a three-way the whole time and you just didn't know it. You say, I'm not that kind of girl. Well, evidently you are. If you're exhausted, you're pushing through the fatigue, mind over matter, hustle, show up, make it happen. You're being dramatic. You're being too much. It's just stress. Everybody feels it. You just gotta show up and make it happen anyway. Well, have you tried yoga? Have you tried to meditate? Have you tried to journal? Have you been to therapy? Yes, I've done all of that. And I'm still exhausted and have the brain fog and the anxiety at 2 a.m. And I don't know why. You've become really good at ignoring the signs and the symptoms that your body is saying, help, I'm out of balance. In this episode, we're gonna raise the lid and look underneath that hood and talk about three systems that are constantly talking to each other and are keeping you in that burnout, exhaustion, overwhelm, brain fog. And they've been talking to you. You've been in a relationship with them, you just didn't realize it. And here's what your doctor, your therapist, your business coach, your boss, your husband, nobody even understands that this is actually what is going on. I call it the trifecta that nobody taught us about. It's how our nervous system is talking to our hormones. Our hormones are managed by our gut microbiome. And once we understand that and we can get into true balance with all three systems from a holistic approach, your energy comes back. You start to show up as the person you were called to be, the leader, the mom, the wife, the friend. And that's what we're going to talk about today in Isn't There More? I'm Jennifer Moore, licensed psychotherapist and the creator of the therapeutic coach approach. And today I just finished hosting a two-day event called Calm in Command. And Calm and Command is for the high achiever who has dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's, shown up and she's making it happen. She's frying it up in the skillet and showing up everywhere. And she feels like Calgon, take me away. Remember that commercial, Calgon Take Me Away? Yeah, except there's nothing coming to take you away. There's not enough wine or Calgon or gummies to take you away. There's not enough sleep. Here's what I want to talk about: is how all three of these systems, our nervous system, our gut microbiome, and our hormones are all talking to each other. There is an interconnection there. All three systems are deeply connected and interdependent. And one cannot heal without the other is a domino effect. So how the hormones are affected by the gut microbiome and how the nervous system is affected by all of it. That's the tri trifecta. All right. So let's dig in. First, I want to talk about the nervous system. What is the nervous system? How is it, how does it function? What's it running on? So you know, whenever you have that anxiety, that fight, flatter, freeze, the fawn. How many of you have heard of the fawn? It's when you go around and you're trying to make everybody else feel good. Do you have a drink? You have your food, you got everything, and you rec realize that at the end of the party, you haven't sat down one single time and you haven't even had a real conversation with anybody because you haven't been present. You've been making sure that everybody else was okay. That's actually a nervous system reactivity. So when we are in fight, flat or freeze or fawn, the nervous system is agitated. We have been activated in some way, triggered in some way. When the nervous system is activated, then we go into those systems where where we've taught, where we learned to survive. We learned those coping mechanisms before we were even seven years old. That's when we had that set point was there. And if we grew up in a home like many of us did, where there was any kind of emotional, financial, relational dysregulation, then we thought that that was normal, where there was chaos. And so now every time there is quiet or calmness, that is scary. There could be something lurking around the corner to come and get me. But what happens in the body when you are in that constant stress mode is your heart rate is constantly elevated and your digestive system can never rest and reset. Your immune response is different, your hormones are different. Your sleep, if you're not sleeping, you are dysregulated. And the sleep is the foundation of our health. So your capacity to connect with people is diminished. Your nervous system is like the master conductor. Every single thing that happens inside of your body goes through the nervous system. And most high achievers have been running on survival mode for so long. And you can push through, you can hustle. And the things that got you here will not get you to the next place. Because here's what happens in perimenopause and menopause. Once those hormones shift and the nervous system is already activated, you're already in survival mode, and now your hormones are shifting and it's affecting your gut microbiome even more. You don't have that same energy to keep showing up, to keep pushing through. That chronic stress and that chronic fatigue gets louder and heavier. The brain fog is real. And now you're tired and wired in a whole different way. In a whole different way. And you say, Oh, that's just my personality. That's who I am. I'm just too much. I've been told that. I personally have been told that many times. You're just too much. You're just too much. And I've learned what to say. Well, if I'm too much, maybe you're not enough. I don't actually say that out loud, but I do think it sometimes. It's become a thing. You're too much. I have a big personality. I have a lot to say. I got a lot to do. And that can come on really strong. And part of it is my personality, which we will get into. We're going to do a deep dive into the Enneagram. And I cannot wait for that episode. But I digress. We're getting back to the nervous system, where we are with the nervous system. Yes, you are wired that way, but you are wired that way as a safety mechanism. You learn to survive by using those coping mechanisms, those defense mechanisms when you were a young child. So the nervous system learned that these are the ways that I'm safe. These are the ways that I'm safe. And the lens in which you see that is different depending on what your Enneagram type is, which we'll get to in the next couple of weeks, I promise. Here's what most people don't know. Your nervous system was set at that set point, a baseline before you were seven years old. And so again, I go back to if you grew up in any kind of emotional, relational, financial, energetic chaos, maybe your mom had some anxiety, maybe there was money issues. I remember my dad used to always balance the checkbook on Sunday mornings. And so you could feel the energy in the house would shift when he would sit at the dining room table to balance the checkbook. We always had enough money to put food on the table and everybody always had shoes on their feet and clothes on their back, but we certainly did not grow up in an uber wealthy home, to say the least. We had our food, we had our basics. I grew up on a big farm and had we had lots of food and lots of love in our house, but I wouldn't say that there was money growing on trees, to say the least. So there was some financial insecurities. And so that set point was set for me at a very young age. And so even if there was a flat tire or a car issue, I remember watching how my mother would respond. And so that set point was set in me at a very early age. So I've had to do a lot of money mindset changing in the subconscious program to change that set point. Because as the big leap teaches us, we all have an upper limit problem, and which we'll get more into in another episode. But today we're talking about that set point because I want us to get past, understand what your set point is, and understand that we can rewire it. But when we have that set point, if there is any kind of chaos, then that becomes our norm. And so calm feels suspicious, stillness feels dangerous. And so you unconsciously recreate it. You recreate it. Think about the girlfriend or the friend that you know that had the bad boyfriend, that he always go back to the bad boyfriend because every time we get a good boyfriend, go back to the bad one because she was bored with the new kindness because she felt comfortable with the chaos. That set point was there. And so if there was calm, that didn't feel safe. Your subconscious mind, your body remembers, oh, this is what normal is. This is what normal is. So if normal is chaos, that's what you're going to continue to create. So look around your life. And I always say where there's drama, there's some unprocessed trauma, unprocessed trauma. I had a client years ago tell me about getting hives. And I got I used to get hives in high school whenever I would have to make a speech or get on stage, I would get the hives. But this client was telling me about getting hives on a Friday night because the next day there was no work. And rest and quiet meant something could happen. I'm not safe when there's rest. I'm not safe when there's calmness. That's the set point that I'm talking about. And there is no amount of meditation or journaling or thinking your way out of that. You cannot think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system. You cannot think your way out of trauma. So we had to do a deep dive to reprogram the subconscious mind. So let that sink in. Think about a time in your life when you have created some kind of drama, created some kind of experience, and you're like, wherever I go, there I am. What's the through line here? Hmm, hmm. All right. Next in the trifecta is the hormones. The messengers your body stopped trusting. The connection most doctors miss, my doctor included, I spent over $5,000 seeing a hormone specialist trying to understand what was really going on with my hormones. Well, got the patch, got all the things, did all the supplements, did all the labs. Oh, your labs are normal. Your hormones look normal. For six years, my hormones looked normal. Well, guess what? The gut microbiome was out of balance. And so until the gut microbiome was got into balance, the hormones could not be in balance. So until one is fixed, the other cannot be fixed. But most doctors miss this. And so if you've got that chronic stress, then you've got cortisol running high. And when you have that, it affects the gut microbiome. Or let me ask you another question to think about. Were you on birth control? I know I started on birth control in high school because I had dysregulated periods and I was having ovarian cysts. So I was put on a contraceptive to help with the ovarian cyst. So 17 years old, get put on birth control, fast forward years and years, and the cumulative effect of having a synthetic hormone in my body, yeah, that's going to affect your gut microbiome. It is going, how could it not affect the gut microbiome? Those synthetic hormones are putting toxins, it's chemicals that damage your gut microbiome. So you say, okay, you started on that when you're 16 years old, 17 years old. Maybe you started on it because you had acne whenever you were a teenager or when you were in your 20s. Well, you multiply that times 10 years, 15 years, 16 years, and the cumulative effect on from your hormones that's going to affect your gut microbiome. How could it not, right? So your nervous system and your hormones are not separate systems and they are in constant conversation. When your nervous system is in constant activation with that cortisol running high, your body thinks the threat is never over and it steals the building blocks that your body needs to make progesterone, estrogen, thyroid hormone. The hormones regulate your mood and your metabolism, your sleep, your libido, and your ability to think clearly. Let me say that again. The hormones regulate your mood, your metabolism, your sleep, your libido, and your ability to think clearly. So you go to the doctor and you say, I'm exhausted. I can't sleep. I've got brain fog. I've gained all this weight. What is wrong with me? I'm eating healthy. When I first started going through menopause and I went to the doctor and said, Why have I gained all this weight? It was like overnight. Literally, I had gone to a trunk show on a Tuesday night and had bought these cute little pants. And then we went to New York that following weekend. I took my cute little pants that no longer fit me. Within six days, I had gained this weight. And I was like, What is wrong with me? They were in the lab said everything's within normal range. Do you want an anti-anxiety medicine or an antidepressant? Or and this was before everybody and his brother was on a GLP one. I'm not judging anybody for being on GLP one, but this was like six years ago. And she asked me, Do you want to get on a GLP one? It's like, no, I want to understand what's going on in my body. Why am I gaining this weight? What is happening? Run the labs, everything's normal. So do you want this GLP one? Do you want anti-anxiety medicine? You want antidepressant? Do you want SSRI? Like, what kind of pill do you want? Nobody was connecting those dots that the hormones are downstream from the nervous system and the gut microbiome is directly connected. And you cannot fix a hormone problem without addressing the dysregulation that created it. And here's what I've seen over and over and over. It just took me a little while to figure it all out and start connecting the dots and putting it together. When you were in your late 30s, I was actually 33, 34, whenever I started going through perimenopause. That's when I started seeing the signs and symptoms. And I thought I was going crazy. I remember calling my mother saying, What is wrong with me? I actually did a pregnancy test whenever I was 34. Yes, a pregnancy test. My husband was like, What are you doing a pregnancy test for? What is going on? He had had a vasectomy years before that, but my hormones were so out of balance that I thought I was like, I was desperate. I was desperate. Nobody knew what it was. I was in the start of perimenopause and I just didn't know it. I didn't know it. And I didn't understand how the hormones and the nervous system and the gut microbiome were all affected and all connected. And as I've done this work and gone in, done my own work and gone in with hundreds of women now over the past 28 years that we've been doing this work, looking at what happens in the body. And these women are running organizations, they are founding companies, raising their families, leading teams, they are wives, they are showing up. And the things that got you here are not going to get you to the next level when perimenopause hits, when menopause hits, because the adrenal fatigue is different. The chronic stress shows up in the body and your body can no longer hustle and push through. Those same coping strategies that got you here will not get you to the next place. You cannot continue to override the no sleeping, the awake at 1 a.m., the constant anxiety. That approach is not going to work. You cannot think your way out of this. So I talk about top-down, bottom-up. Yes, your thoughts are powerful and the mantras matter, mindset matters, but this is about rewiring the system. We have to do a whole, holistic approach. So it's not your fault. You haven't been taught this. We haven't been taught how to rest, how to reset. And your body cannot rest and reset when you're in constant fight, flight, or freeze. And your body is running out of reserves. Once those hormones start shifting, your body starts running out of reserves. And that starts happening in your third ease, my ladies. And it's asking louder and louder, and it gets more urgent and more urgent. And the body is keeping score. The body is not betraying you. It is befriending you. It is a biological invitation. There is a biological invitation. And I fought it. I fought it hard, real hard. Push, hustle, make it happen. Let's sign up for another marathon. Let's go do something else hard. There is a better way. There is an easier way. All right. So the third piece of this puzzle, the third mystery here, we're going to talk about the gut microbiome and the trifecta. The threesome, you know, you're in this threesome that you didn't realize that you were in. The gut microbiome is the third part of this. The brain you forgot you even had, the second brain. So this is the third piece of the puzzle. Your gut is not just where you digest food, it is actually the second brain. So 90% of the serotonin in your body comes from the gut. It is created in the gut. And the serotonin is the neurotransmitter in the body that is associated with you being calm, your mood, your sense of well-being. All of that comes from the gut, not your head. So remember, top down, bottom up, think the good thoughts, but you gotta treat the body. So your gut is always communicating with your brain through the vagus nerve. That is the longest nerve in the body. And it is running from your brainstem all the way down to the belly. And it communicates both ways, bottom up, top down. The gut talks to the brain, the brain talks to the gut. So when your nervous system is dysregulated, your gut knows. When the gut is inflamed, your brain is inflamed. They are not separate conversations. Here's what it may look like in your life: anxiety without a reason. It just is like a in the background, almost like an undercurrent of anxiety or melancholy. There is a low-level, constant buzz. Sound familiar? Of just anxiety. Angst. The mood swings. You feel disconnected, snappy, snippy. God, do I have to go to dinner? Do I have to do this? Oh my gosh, that's getting on my nerves. Or even jumpy, jumpy. I started noticing it. I remember this is whenever I lived in Atlanta, and I remember driving on 285 or 685, coming back from the beach, coming back from Hilton Head. And I remember getting on the interstate, and I would feel my body tense up and I would get all jumpy, just jumpy. That's when it was really like you couldn't deny it. You can't deny. You feel it in your body. All of a sudden, these things that used to not mat didn't bother you. All of a sudden, it's so loud, you can't ignore it. The bloating in the gut, digestive issues. And so people ignore digestive issues. They're like, this is just the way it is. No, it's not. And I want to start a conversation about poop. Pooping a couple days a week is not good enough. You need to digest your food every single day, and you need to have a bowel movement every single day. And I don't mean loose stools. I mean you need to have a bowel movement to cleanse the toxins out of the body, cleanse the estrogen out of the gut and the food sensitivities. So these things, whenever we don't address these things, they get louder and louder. And it can show up as autoimmune disease, Hashimoto's, thyroid issues, IBS. It could show up as Body injuries because of the inflammation in the body. So as we pay attention in our 30s, going into the 40s. And if we don't fix it when we're well into our 50s, then you can see it in your face, the inflammation, the exhaustion, the bone level exhaustion that no amount of sleep is going to fix. These are not separate problems. They're all simultaneously talking to you. And a nervous system that's been disloculated for this long, it has to be, we have to do the deep dive. We got to do the real work. This is when all of these systems are imbalance. And it's not a one size fits all, my friends. Unfortunately, I wish there was, but there's not because we all learned to survive in different ways. So yeah, we can slap a HRT patch on it, but is that going to fix the gut? No. We have to do a deep dive. Every single body is different. And so we need to do the test. What are your biomarkers? What are your inflammation markers? Where is your serotonin? What's going on in your body? What's going on in your nervous system? And again, it's not a one size fits all. And so whenever you're going and spending thousands of dollars on whatever new quick fix supplements, or you're seeing that hormone specialist, like I saw the hormone specialist, didn't ask me any of the other questions about the history. I did have, I saw an Ayurveda specialist about seven years ago, six years ago. I did a deep dive and I did my master's degree and I did a second master's degree in Ayurveda and I saw this clinician, and she's the one who started teaching me about the hormones and the effect of being on the contraceptives in the impact of my gut. And so that's when I started waking up and seeing the connection between the gut and the hormones. But you cannot regulate your hormones if the nervous system is on fire. You cannot heal your gut if cortisol is chronically elevated because the cortisol kills the good bacteria and feeds the bad. You cannot shift your nervous system set point if your gut is not producing enough serotonin to support the process. So these three systems are a trifecta and they rise and they fall together and they heal together. It is a domino effect, and we cannot slap a piece of duct tape on one and think that we are going to be okay. So yes, supplements are great. Therapy is great, yoga is great, clean eating is great. But let's get to the basics. Are you sleeping? Let's dial that sleep in as a foundation, and then let's look at some of the other ways that we can do this. Let's look at the HRV, heart rate variability. I'll do a deeper dive into that in another episode. But there are ways that we can do this. Mindfulness, meditation, movement, my three basics that I'm gonna talk about every single week. Mindfulness. Pay attention to how you're showing up. Your body is not betraying you, it is befriending you. And it has been doing everything to communicate with you, with the tools that it has. We just haven't been taught to listen. So if any of this resonates and you'd like to do a deeper dive, I've got a couple of resources I'm gonna put in the show notes. I've got a self-mastery quiz that just see where you are with your nervous system. You can join the conversation. I have a free Facebook group called Common Command, a community, or if you'd like to do the deeper dive and join my common command at a three-month program, do real work, re real change, and we do a deep dive into your story, into your system, because everybody is different. And your body is not the enemy. It is not betraying you. It is a loyal messenger. And it's time to start listening. I'm Jennifer Moore. This is Isn't There More? Because there is. There is a better way. There is a better way. And I am ready to help you find that way. Shine a light on those parts, shine a light on that journey so that you don't have to go through the dark night of the soul all by yourself. So, yes, unfortunately, you've been in a three-way that you didn't even realize that you'd been in. 90% of your serotonin is created in the gut, not in the brain, your gut. And that changes everything. This trifecta with your nervous system and your hormones and your gut, when we get all three of these systems in alignment, and it's not a there's again, there's not a one size fits all. Every single person is individualized and different. And there is a better way. So if this resonated with you or if somebody in your mind you thought of somebody you thought they need to hear this, please give me a follow, send me a message. I read every single comment, I respond to every single person, and I know I'm ready to see you become the badass you are called to be. So until next time, namaste, my friends. Before you go, if something landed for you today, don't let that just be information. Let's use it as transformation, integration into your body. Ask yourself, what's one thing I heard today that my body already knows is true? Feel it. Allow your body to experience it. This is where the magic happens. If this episode added value to your life, the best way to support the show is simple. Share it. Forward it to somebody who needs permission to go a little bit deeper. Just start showing up. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you're feeling really generous, write me a raving review. It means everything. All the links and resources are in the show notes below. And I'll see you next week. Until then, you remember just how incredibly powerful you are. Namaste.