Latest / Love Your Gut / Ep. 87: What Grit, Belief, and Safety Have to Do with Gut Healing (& Business Building)

Transcript

Ep. 87: What Grit, Belief, and Safety Have to Do with Gut Healing (& Business Building) · Love Your Gut

• 0:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast.
• 0:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist.
• 0:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain.
• 0:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues.
• 0:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: And now I'm here to guide you.
• 0:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort.
• 0:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good.
• 0:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back.
• 0:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief.
• 0:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: You are in the right place.
• 0:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the love your gut podcast.
• 0:55
  Hello friends, and welcome back to the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.
• 1:00
  Today's episode is one I've been wanting to record for a long time because it's something I see come up over and over again, not only in my clients, but with discovery calls and honestly in myself too.
• 1:13
  This is a continual process for literally every human.
• 1:18
  We're gonna talk about limitations, not the ones outside of you, like your schedule, your bank account, your circumstances, but the ones in your mind and the stories that you tell yourself.
• 1:31
  So what if I told you that one of the biggest things holding you back?
• 1:35
  Isn't about what you don't have, but what you keep telling yourself you can't have.
• 1:41
  I'm gonna say that again because I think once I realized that this was such a big thing, it totally changed everything.
• 1:48
  So what if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what you don't have, but what you keep telling yourself You can't have.
• 1:56
  If you have ever scrolled past someone's story and thought, oh, that must be nice, then this one is for you.
• 2:03
  Because the truth is the gap between where you are and where you wanna be is often not a lack of resources.
• 2:10
  It's a lack of belief.
• 2:12
  And I wanna start by saying this.
• 2:14
  I wasn't always in the place that I am now.
• 2:17
  I wasn't always running.
• 2:19
  A successful business recording podcasts or confidently helping women heal their gut and their hormones For a long time, and a lot of my life, I carried the belief that I wasn't enough.
• 2:31
  I was the quote unquote shy girl in high school.
• 2:34
  The one who stayed quiet, the one who just kind of blended in.
• 2:38
  The one who always got along with everybody I was friends with everybody.
• 2:43
  But I wasn't ever gonna rock the boat.
• 2:45
  I was the kid, the very typical firstborn child.
• 2:50
  Never got in trouble, never did anything wrong.
• 2:52
  No one would have looked back at me and then said she's gonna build her own company someday.
• 2:58
  I was so shy and I just kind of stayed in my lane.
• 3:02
  I was very focused, especially in high school, on swimming, and that was my life.
• 3:06
  I spent hours in the pool and on the pool deck and with my swim teammates, but I just still kind of kept to myself and had this like humble success that I didn't really ever talk about.
• 3:22
  And I had this narrative that I really let sink very deep into my identity and it.
• 3:30
  It shaped how I saw myself in my friendships in school, in swimming, in my career, and even when I started achieving things and getting better or seeing results, there was still a part of me that didn't fully believe I could succeed or that I even deserved to.
• 3:49
  But I wanna share with you just a few defining moments in my life where I decided that I wasn't gonna let those beliefs define me anymore.
• 3:57
  And I promise that this has something to do with your gut health.
• 4:00
  So just stick with me for a little bit.
• 4:02
  And this is also probably.
• 4:04
  One of the more vulnerable episodes that I've ever done.
• 4:07
  Just sharing more about my story and some of the things that kept me stuck.
• 4:12
  So the first defining moment for me was when I first moved away to Texas for college.
• 4:18
  If you don't know, I grew up in Southern California.
• 4:21
  That's where I was born and raised.
• 4:23
  Actually, I was not born there, but I was raised there, and that is where I call home.
• 4:27
  It was a terrifying decision.
• 4:29
  Like I said, I was the shy girl in high school and I.
• 4:33
  Somehow decided to move halfway across the country to go swim in college at TCU, and it was terrifying.
• 4:42
  I didn't know anybody.
• 4:44
  I didn't have family nearby.
• 4:46
  I had some cousins and an aunt and uncle a couple hours away.
• 4:50
  But for the first time, I had to figure out who I was without the people or the patterns or the friendships that I had grown up with.
• 4:59
  I was so lucky to grow up with a really close community.
• 5:04
  School friends, church friends, neighborhood friends, friends that to this day I still keep in touch with and.
• 5:11
  Call my best friends.
• 5:12
  In fact, I'm going back home this weekend to see two of those friends.
• 5:17
  So something inside me knew that I needed to do that for myself, to prove to myself that I could do hard things because I had an offer to swim at a college.
• 5:29
  At actually two colleges close to my home.
• 5:31
  And I just knew that if I did that, I wouldn't fully immerse myself in the experience.
• 5:37
  And that move to Texas literally changed my entire life.
• 5:41
  I ended up swimming division one.
• 5:43
  I actually was president of my sorority.
• 5:45
  Fun fact, and also slightly embarrassing.
• 5:49
  And I learned that confidence isn't something that you're born with.
• 5:53
  It's something that you build through evidence, and that was college for me, was finding little bits of evidence that I could be a leader and that I was a confident person and that I didn't have to be the shy girl and that I could step out in faith.
• 6:10
  So that experience taught me that when you put yourself in new environments, your brain starts to create new pathways.
• 6:17
  You can start to see yourself differently.
• 6:19
  My college friends started to see a much more confident version of myself, of Heather, and I was the same person.
• 6:28
  I just had a lot more confidence and that really laid the groundwork for.
• 6:32
  Everything that came next.
• 6:34
  The second moment was when I finally stopped doing the same things that weren't working for my health.
• 6:40
  You all know my story if you've listened to really any of my stuff, but for years I tried to outsmart my gut issues, new diets, new supplements, more restriction, more exercise, more of this.
• 6:54
  Cutting things out of my diet, and I remember setting up my very first appointment with a functional medicine doctor, deciding to possibly try something new because I felt like I had exhausted all the options.
• 7:08
  I kept kind of having that narrative like, well, I'll just check back in with my GI doctor one more time, and knowing that I wasn't gonna get a different answer.
• 7:16
  And honestly, it wasn't my GI Doctor's fault, which that's a whole episode for another time, but.
• 7:21
  Everything was normal.
• 7:23
  My colonoscopy was normal.
• 7:24
  Everything was normal, and so that's where I had to look outside of the box and look at who could actually help me with these symptoms that are definitely not normal, even though my blood work and my colonoscopy is showing otherwise, and I had to cancel out that.
• 7:40
  Fear that I had of what if this functional medicine doctor tells me that everything's normal too?
• 7:46
  I told myself for so long, it's too expensive.
• 7:49
  What if it doesn't work?
• 7:50
  What if they can't help me?
• 7:52
  But underneath that was actually something deeper.
• 7:55
  We often make a lot of excuses for ourselves of it's too expensive, or what if it's not gonna work?
• 8:00
  But the actual belief underneath that is, what if I find out this is my fault?
• 8:05
  What if healing isn't?
• 8:07
  Actually possible for me.
• 8:09
  What if I mess this up?
• 8:10
  I didn't have trust in myself, and months later I scheduled an appointment with this functional medicine doctor that I had been.
• 8:20
  Told to go.
• 8:20
  See, I was still scared, but I knew I couldn't keep living the same way.
• 8:25
  I had just met my now husband.
• 8:27
  I was in my early twenties.
• 8:29
  Life was supposed to be so fun.
• 8:32
  I was in weddings and traveling and working at my first job.
• 8:36
  But behind the scenes, I was exhausted.
• 8:39
  I remember a moment where I was literally sitting on the couch with one of my roommates and falling asleep, like mid-sentence, talking to her, and she like looked at me and was like, are you okay?
• 8:50
  And I was like, what just happened?
• 8:52
  Like I was.
• 8:52
  So on another planet, I was bloated, I was frustrated, I was stuck.
• 8:58
  And the decision to finally try something new really changed everything again.
• 9:03
  And not that that doctor fixed everything, because my journey was definitely not short.
• 9:10
  It wasn't like I saw her for a couple months and everything was fine, but that's what finally catapulted me to start believing that things could actually change, even though I didn't find full resolution.
• 9:21
  With that provider, but it did start things.
• 9:25
  It wasn't just about running a stool test.
• 9:27
  It was about saying to myself, I deserve answers.
• 9:31
  And even though it took time, that was the first step towards believing that my body wasn't broken.
• 9:37
  So then the third moment came a few years later when I decided to leave my first job, my clinical job on paper, that job was safe.
• 9:47
  I had a steady paycheck, I had benefits.
• 9:49
  I had.
• 9:50
  The approval of everyone around me.
• 9:52
  But honestly, I was miserable.
• 9:54
  I knew that I wanted to do something different.
• 9:57
  I think I always had had a dream that I would be an entrepreneur.
• 10:03
  I would see people as a kid, like people like Katie Couric.
• 10:06
  I remember going and seeing her on the Today Show and wanting to meet her, and I would see these really successful women.
• 10:12
  I remember telling my mom a couple weeks ago, actually, we were watching the Parent Trap with my.
• 10:17
  Daughter.
• 10:17
  And I remember thinking, I always looked up to the mom in parent trap because she just seemed so successful and that she loved what she was doing.
• 10:26
  And my mom's like, that's so interesting that as a kid, that's what you took from that.
• 10:31
  But that always just kind of stuck with me.
• 10:33
  I'm getting on a tangent, but I took a risk and accepted a position at this eating disorder treatment center, which was a completely different career path from clinical dietetics.
• 10:43
  It scared me, but it also stretched me, and it forced me to grow as a clinician and to look at people through a more compassionate, holistic lens, and honestly catapulted me into what I'm doing now because that's where I was really forced to look more deeply at gi, not only for my.
• 11:02
  Self, but for my patients.
• 11:03
  And that's when I finally made the decision I have to figure this out because if I can figure out why so many people are so constipated and so bloated and not getting symptom relief with low FODMAP and all the things, and I can figure it out, then I can help all these clients too.
• 11:21
  So that leads me to.
• 11:22
  The fourth moment, the big one.
• 11:24
  This is the biggest moment, the day that I finally went all in to pursue my own business.
• 11:29
  I had been running my private practice since like 2012.
• 11:33
  Sometimes full-time, sometimes part-time.
• 11:36
  But people thought I was crazy to leave that job that I had.
• 11:42
  I had friends asking like, why are you gonna leave a stable job to build a business online?
• 11:48
  And I remember I had a small online presence and hiring a business.
• 11:53
  Coach at the time, it felt like the biggest financial risk I'd ever taken, but I could just see the vision and I knew that if I didn't try that I would, it would always be something that I would look back with regret on, and I know I knew that I wanted to build something so meaningful.
• 12:09
  I couldn't keep playing small or waiting for the perfect moment, and I knew that I needed support.
• 12:14
  And I was willing to bet on myself because I finally had the confidence because of those moments in my life that gave me the confidence to believe in myself.
• 12:24
  So that decision to invest before I felt fully ready was.
• 12:29
  Seriously, one of the most important of my life, and I thanks a lot to my husband for really encouraging me and supporting me in that as well.
• 12:38
  But it's that same mindset that's also helped me heal my body and grow my business believing that something is possible before you actually have proof.
• 12:49
  And that is the biggest shift that you have to make when you are looking to heal your own GI issues.
• 12:55
  So.
• 12:57
  When I talk about limitations, I'm not talking about theory.
• 13:00
  I have lived them.
• 13:02
  I have wrestled with the fear of being seen, the fear of failing, the fear of investing in myself.
• 13:07
  And I've seen firsthand how those fears can manifest in your body because when your brain starts to believe that you're stuck, your nervous system follows and it keeps you in Survival mode.
• 13:18
  And survival mode might keep you safe.
• 13:21
  But it will never help you grow.
• 13:23
  Survival mode is the safe doing the same thing over and over again?
• 13:27
  Checking the boxes, but you'll never get to where you wanna be.
• 13:30
  So the first step in healing, whether this is related to your gut health or your life, is creating safety in your body and belief.
• 13:39
  In your mind that you can change, and that is what we're gonna dive into today.
• 13:44
  How do we actually do that?
• 13:46
  That was probably the longest intro to a topic ever.
• 13:50
  I think we're at already 13 minutes, so let's start there.
• 13:54
  When you see somebody who has what you want, maybe a calm gut, steady energy, a thriving business, a balanced life, whatever it might be.
• 14:04
  It's easy to assume that they had a headstart.
• 14:06
  Maybe you think they probably had more time, they had more money, they had more support, but that honestly is rarely the full story.
• 14:13
  Every client that I've ever worked with and even my own journey began in the exact same place, tired, frustrated, unsure of where to start.
• 14:22
  Everybody is just figuring it out, one decision at a time.
• 14:25
  So that must be nice of like easy for them creates separation and it tells your brain they're different from me.
• 14:33
  They have something I don't.
• 14:34
  And the second that your brain believes that story, it shuts down the idea that change is available to you.
• 14:42
  So the alternative is just curiosity.
• 14:44
  You don't have to change your thought pattern first.
• 14:46
  You just have to get curious about it.
• 14:48
  So instead of saying.
• 14:49
  Oh, that must be nice for them.
• 14:51
  Ask, how did they do it?
• 14:53
  How did they make that happen?
• 14:55
  That one question keeps your nervous system open instead of defensive, and it shifts you from comparison to possibility because you're not totally changing the belief of this is gonna happen to me.
• 15:08
  You're just curious, how did I make that happen?
• 15:10
  And that possibility is where healing begins, because here's the truth, must be nice, or some version of that phrase doesn't apply to most transformation.
• 15:20
  Healing is really hard work.
• 15:22
  It's grit, it's consistency, it's continuing with it, especially when you don't see immediate payoff.
• 15:28
  That is something that all of our clients go through.
• 15:31
  None of our clients have.
• 15:33
  Absolute linear growth.
• 15:35
  I mean, sometimes we have some really quick wins and it follows that linear path, but there's always setbacks, so it's showing up for the unglamorous stuff.
• 15:45
  Drinking water, prioritizing meals, managing stress, saying no, asking for help, believing that what you're doing is gonna matter even if it doesn't feel like it yet.
• 15:56
  So when you look at someone else's transformation and think, oh, that must be so nice for them, you are seeing the.
• 16:02
  Outcome, not the process.
• 16:04
  What you don't see are the tears, the self-doubt, the nights they questioned if it was even working the dozens of times they had to regulate their nervous system to just keep going.
• 16:14
  Your nervous system has to be able to withstand challenge.
• 16:18
  It has to learn.
• 16:20
  That struggle doesn't mean danger.
• 16:22
  That slow progress that you're having at whatever you're doing does not mean failure.
• 16:28
  And discomfort is a part of growth.
• 16:31
  It's not proof that you're broken.
• 16:33
  Being able to sit in discomfort is growth.
• 16:37
  If every time something feels hard, your body goes into fight or flight, your brain will start to equate that with a threat, and that's where kind of that.
• 16:45
  Self-sabotage shows up.
• 16:48
  So skipping meals, abandoning a protocol, well, it didn't work.
• 16:51
  I'm a weekend, I'm not gonna do it anymore.
• 16:53
  Going back to old habits or just deciding like this is not worth it.
• 16:57
  When you're able to start building resilience, when you practice staying calm, when you face challenges, when you breathe through frustration instead of quitting, you're not just being disciplined.
• 17:10
  You are teaching your nervous system.
• 17:12
  That consistency is.
• 17:13
  Safe.
• 17:14
  You are rewiring your nervous system to hold the belief that long-term change is actually possible for you, and that is the part that people don't see.
• 17:23
  Nobody sees you doing the internal work.
• 17:25
  Healing and success aren't about who has the easiest path.
• 17:29
  They're about who can keep showing up, who can stay grounded, who can keep believing that it's working even when there's no quick win to prove it yet.
• 17:37
  So back a little bit to my own story about getting scrappy.
• 17:42
  When I first started healing my gut, I was not running a successful practice or doing any of this.
• 17:48
  I was in my first job out of school, literally making.
• 17:52
  $37,000 a year as a dietician, that was not a lot, especially while I was in grad school and on my own and didn't have the time or energy to take another job because I was in school also.
• 18:06
  So I was babysitting on the weekends just to pay for groceries and the supplements that I was trying to use to help my health.
• 18:13
  Thinking about going back to school to get a doctorate, and I remember back to that functional medicine consult.
• 18:21
  I remember when I booked that, I was literally just saving money for that stool test.
• 18:27
  It felt like such a huge investment, but I knew that deep down, if I figured this out, I couldn't move forward.
• 18:33
  Not in my career, not even in my.
• 18:35
  Relationship with my now husband because my symptoms were all consuming.
• 18:40
  They dictated my mood, my energy, and honestly my confidence as well.
• 18:44
  So things did not happen for me overnight, like I mentioned earlier, and I surely didn't expect them to.
• 18:50
  But what I did have was the belief that I'm getting answers, and I'm going to see this through.
• 18:57
  Even when the progress looked slow, I just looked for little pieces of evidence that things were improving.
• 19:02
  A little less bloating here, a little bit more energy there.
• 19:06
  Those tiny signs just kept me going.
• 19:09
  And there were so many moments where I could have said, well, that must be nice for that person to not struggle with this.
• 19:14
  But instead, I just asked myself, what can I learn from that?
• 19:19
  What's the one thing that I can try right now?
• 19:22
  And honestly, when I began building my business, the same pattern showed up again.
• 19:26
  I didn't have a team.
• 19:27
  I didn't have extra time.
• 19:28
  I was a new mom.
• 19:30
  I didn't have the perfect plan.
• 19:31
  What I had were nap times, late nights, and a belief that if I could help even one person get her life back, it would be worth it.
• 19:39
  So you get scrappy.
• 19:41
  You learn how to build systems, you learn how to do things, you learn how to, uh.
• 19:47
  Move forward when you can see the actual vision.
• 19:50
  And it's so wild to me, just the parallels like, but the same mindset that helped me grow a business was the same mindset that finally helped me heal my GI issues.
• 20:00
  Because the moment you stop defending your limitations, you can start expanding what is actually possible for you.
• 20:06
  So when I stopped saying, I can't afford that, or I don't have time for that, and started asking, how could I make this work because it's worth it.
• 20:15
  Then everything changed and I've watched so many clients experience the same thing.
• 20:20
  One woman told me she almost didn't join, got together because she didn't think she had the time or the money, but then she realized that not feeling well was costing her so much more energy, joy, being present with her family, and within three months she was.
• 20:35
  Feeling so much better.
• 20:38
  She had energy to not take naps during the day.
• 20:41
  She was going on bike rides with her kids.
• 20:43
  She was able to go on date night with her husband and not stress about what she was going to eat for the first time in years.
• 20:49
  And that shift didn't start with supplements.
• 20:51
  It started with actually believing that it could happen.
• 20:55
  So let's talk about why this is true from a.
• 20:58
  Physiological standpoint, because I think sometimes it's like, oh, this is so woo woo, you know?
• 21:04
  But this isn't just mindset talk, it's actual science.
• 21:08
  Your nervous system is always scanning your environment for safety, literally every second of the day, your nervous system is asking, am I safe?
• 21:17
  Am I supported?
• 21:18
  Am I okay?
• 21:19
  And here's the thing, it's not just listening to your environment, it's listening to your thoughts.
• 21:24
  And I don't know about you, but sometimes the mind can be a kind of scary place.
• 21:28
  So every time you think This isn't possible for me, or I've tried everything, or this is not gonna work.
• 21:34
  Your brain takes that as truth.
• 21:36
  It's not judging you, it's just protecting you.
• 21:39
  And it says, okay, we've been hurt or disappointed before.
• 21:42
  Let's make sure we don't get hurt again.
• 21:45
  And so it builds a neural pathway to keep you in that familiar story and to protect you.
• 21:51
  So neural pathways are like trails in a forest.
• 21:54
  The more you walk one, the more automatic it becomes.
• 21:57
  So if you have spent months or even years.
• 22:00
  Reinforcing the story that healing isn't possible.
• 22:03
  Your brain gets really efficient at keeping you there.
• 22:06
  Not out of cruelty, but out of protection.
• 22:09
  So the problem is your brain thinks change is unsafe or impossible.
• 22:15
  Your body will listen to that.
• 22:16
  It won't invest energy and healing.
• 22:19
  When it's stuck in survival mode.
• 22:21
  It stays in that fight or flight response.
• 22:23
  The same one your body would use if it were being chased by a bear.
• 22:27
  And in that state.
• 22:28
  Here's actually what happens Physiologically, your digestion slows down.
• 22:32
  That's not a good thing.
• 22:33
  Blood is pulled away from your gut towards your limbs, so you can run inflammation rises, so your body's producing more cortisol and stress hormones.
• 22:41
  Your hormone balance shifts.
• 22:43
  Reproductive and thyroid hormones take a backseat because your body's priority is short-term survival, not long-term repair.
• 22:50
  Detoxification and bile flow slow, so the liver will divert energy away from cleaning up because there's a more immediate threat.
• 22:59
  Secretory IGA, your gut's first line of immune defense will actually drop, so that means you become more reactive to foods, more vulnerable to pathogens, less resilient overall.
• 23:09
  And then digestive secretions like stomach acid and enzymes, and bile decrease, which is why so many people in a chronic stress state have bloating or reflux or constipation even when they're eating clean, quote unquote, or taking the supplements or insert treatment here.
• 23:28
  So your body literally prioritizes survival over restoration.
• 23:33
  And that is why you can take all the supplements, you can eat perfectly, you can do all the things, and you can still not feel better.
• 23:40
  And I can tell you that that is the case for so many people, including clients that we work with, where we have to have a conversation with them of like your nervous system.
• 23:50
  Is on high alert all the time.
• 23:53
  What are we doing to change the thought pattern?
• 23:55
  There is a reason that we have nervous system work built into our programs.
• 24:00
  We even have nervous system experts and coaches come in to offer sessions to our clients.
• 24:05
  For this reason because it's so important.
• 24:09
  So we have to get the nervous system to feel safe, both physiologically and emotionally.
• 24:13
  It's foundational for healing.
• 24:15
  And here's the good news, you can actually rewire your brain, and not only can you.
• 24:22
  You must do this because creating a new neural pathway is a requirement for healing.
• 24:28
  So every time you choose a new thought, even if it's something super small, like healing is possible for me, you are carving a new trail in that forest and each time you walk it, that trail becomes more defined.
• 24:41
  So the more you look for evidence of healing, even tiny things like, Hey, my bloating was a little less today, or I actually had energy after lunch, or my mood felt more stable this week.
• 24:51
  The more your brain starts to associate healing with safety.
• 24:55
  So this is why we have our clients track micro wins.
• 24:59
  They probably think we're just doing it to be annoying, but we are helping them to look for those neural pathways and creating new neural pathways because your brain.
• 25:09
  And your nervous system need evidence.
• 25:11
  And if you're only looking for proof that things aren't working, you're gonna keep reinforcing that old pathway of frustration.
• 25:18
  If you intentionally look for proof that change is happening even in the smallest ways, you will start to rewire the belief at the biological level, which is literally so cool.
• 25:30
  I hope you love this as much as I do.
• 25:31
  I think it is so amazing how our brains work with repetition.
• 25:37
  You can create new pathways that become your brain's default.
• 25:41
  You probably know people in your life like that where they just seem calm and regulated and they don't get flustered very easily.
• 25:48
  They have created pathways that have allowed for that.
• 25:52
  So you can't, you can start to expect healing instead of defending against it.
• 25:57
  You start to notice possibility instead of proof that you're stuck.
• 26:01
  So this is, I wanna be super clear.
• 26:05
  This is not about toxic positivity.
• 26:08
  It's not pretending that everything is fine or forcing yourself to be happy.
• 26:11
  There is a big difference.
• 26:13
  It is about neuroplasticity, your brain's ability to change and adapt when you have consistent, safe signals.
• 26:21
  You cannot bully your body into healing, but you can teach it that healing is safe, and when your brain and your body both believe that.
• 26:29
  Everything changes.
• 26:30
  So if you're listening to this and you're realizing that you've been stuck in, that must be nice or I've tried everything spiral, that is where you can start changing that story.
• 26:41
  And I want you to hear this really clearly is you are not broken for thinking these thoughts.
• 26:46
  Your brain is simply trying to protect you, and that is how we are wired.
• 26:50
  So it believes that by expecting disappointment, you'll be less hurt if things don't work out.
• 26:56
  But the truth is that pattern is what's keeping you trapped.
• 26:59
  So here's how you can actually start shifting.
• 27:01
  I'm gonna give you a couple steps.
• 27:03
  So number one, you're gonna catch the story.
• 27:06
  Maybe you notice a thought of this food always makes me bloated, or I've tried everything, nothing works, my body doesn't respond.
• 27:13
  Maybe I can't afford to invest in my health right now.
• 27:16
  When those thoughts surface instead of spiraling, just take a breath and say, okay, that's my brain trying to protect me.
• 27:23
  You are not doing anything wrong.
• 27:25
  Your brain just prefers that familiar thought, even if that's uncomfortable.
• 27:30
  So we're just creating awareness.
• 27:32
  The next time that thought pops up, just imagine yourself literally stepping off of that trail.
• 27:38
  Every time you catch it, you're gonna pave a new one.
• 27:41
  The second step here is asking a better question.
• 27:44
  So after you catch that story, maybe it's, my body just doesn't respond, or I've tried everything, or I can't afford this.
• 27:52
  So after you catch the story, replace judgment with curiosity.
• 27:56
  Instead of asking, why can't I have that?
• 27:59
  Which keeps you kind of powerless, ask, what would it take to make this possible?
• 28:04
  For example, maybe instead of, I'll never get rid of this exploding ask, what could I try this week to support digestion?
• 28:12
  Just.
• 28:13
  10% better, 5% better, 2% better, or instead of, I don't have time for that.
• 28:18
  Ask, how could I create time or make one small swap because this is important to me.
• 28:23
  Or instead of, I've tried everything, maybe it's what haven't I tried with consistency in nervous system safety.
• 28:31
  So these are questions that are re gonna reengage your thinking, the prefrontal cortex, instead of letting your fear brain run the show, curiosity is one of the safest states your nervous system can be in because it's saying I'm open, I'm learning, I'm exploring.
• 28:46
  The next thing is just visualizing safety and joy.
• 28:49
  So this can be a really fun exercise to give to yourself, and each day I just want you to spend some moments imagining what it would feel like to be healthy and calm and symptom free.
• 29:02
  Just go there.
• 29:03
  In your mind, what would the bloat free version of you be doing?
• 29:06
  How would she eat?
• 29:07
  How would she move through her day?
• 29:09
  What would she wear?
• 29:10
  What would she say yes to when she's no longer uncomfortable or self-conscious?
• 29:14
  What would she enjoy?
• 29:15
  Maybe dinner out with her friends, playing with her kids, whatever it might be.
• 29:19
  Your body doesn't know the difference between a vividly imagined experience and a real one.
• 29:25
  So when you visualize health and joy, your nervous system begins to associate those feelings with safety, and you're training your body to believe that this is possible.
• 29:34
  This is where we're healed.
• 29:36
  So I have a story about this actually.
• 29:39
  I've told this before, but we had a client who came to us and she was a couple months away from her wedding and she said, I'm going on my honeymoon.
• 29:48
  And I just, I do not wanna be bloated, obviously.
• 29:52
  So what I told her was, I want you to start journaling every day about what your honeymoon is like.
• 29:58
  When you are not bloated, what are you doing?
• 30:00
  What are you wearing?
• 30:02
  All the things, and she thought I was crazy, but she was like, okay, fine.
• 30:05
  Kind of rolled her eyes at me.
• 30:06
  I'll, I'll try it.
• 30:08
  I checked in with her, she hadn't done it a couple weeks later.
• 30:11
  I'm like, please just do it.
• 30:13
  So I'm like, commit to like doing it for five days and then come back.
• 30:17
  So she came back, she had done it then.
• 30:20
  I asked her to continue it.
• 30:22
  She went on her honeymoon and she messaged me and she said, I cannot believe it.
• 30:26
  I was not bloated the entire time.
• 30:29
  And of course some of that had to do with what we were doing from a gut perspective, but she had to hold the vision that it was possible and see that she could feel safe doing that.
• 30:42
  So it was just so cool getting that message.
• 30:45
  The next option is to just.
• 30:48
  Pair your belief with biology.
• 30:50
  If you're a more practical, logical person, this is where you can match your mindset to your body and you, you can't mindset your way out of dysregulation.
• 31:01
  Your body also needs to feel safe too.
• 31:03
  So what I mean by this is making sure that you're supporting your biology, eating regular meals so your blood sugar isn't on a rollercoaster mineralized.
• 31:12
  Making sure you support your minerals so that your nervous system has what it needs to buffer stress.
• 31:19
  To support your adrenals, to support stomach acid production, to support motility, activate your vagus nerve, do one thing a day that connects you back to calm, humming, singing, gargling, whatever.
• 31:31
  All of those things are gonna get you into rest and digest.
• 31:34
  And then the last one that I'll share is just to celebrate the micro winds.
• 31:38
  Little, little winds.
• 31:40
  I had more energy.
• 31:41
  I didn't crash.
• 31:41
  My mood was lighter, I felt calmer, whatever it might be.
• 31:44
  Just looking for those little winds.
• 31:47
  So here's your big takeaway from today.
• 31:49
  The biggest difference between the people who heal and the people who stay stuck is not luck or time, or honestly even money.
• 31:57
  A lot of times it's belief.
• 31:59
  It's belief that their body is capable of change, it's belief that they can do hard things.
• 32:04
  It's belief that their efforts are working.
• 32:07
  Even if the progress is not obvious yet, because the truth is that healing takes grit.
• 32:13
  It takes consistency.
• 32:15
  It takes showing up when you'd rather quit.
• 32:17
  It takes holding the vision.
• 32:19
  When you have zero proof, there are days when your stories will try to creep back in.
• 32:24
  When you hear that little voice saying, it's not working, why are you doing this?
• 32:28
  Must be nice for everybody else.
• 32:30
  See, I'm never gonna get better.
• 32:33
  But then you can pause and remind yourself, my body is learning safety.
• 32:36
  This is a part of the process.
• 32:38
  I'm rewiring, I'm not going backwards.
• 32:41
  You can teach your brain a new way to exist.
• 32:44
  And when I look back at my own journey from just being the quote unquote shy girl that no one expected much from to struggling with gut issues that.
• 32:53
  Literally ruled my life to now running a business, helping other women heal.
• 32:58
  The common thread was not perfection, it was belief.
• 33:02
  And that belief certainly did not come overnight.
• 33:05
  And it's something I still struggle with.
• 33:06
  It's something we all struggle with.
• 33:08
  It came from small steps, from consistency, from nervous system regulation, and learning how to hold the vision when the outcome was not guaranteed, because nothing's guaranteed.
• 33:18
  And healing is a lot like.
• 33:19
  That you don't have to see the entire staircase, mountain, whatever visual you want, you just have to take the next step, and that faith will help your body meet you there because your body wants to heal.
• 33:31
  Your body was designed to heal.
• 33:34
  It just needs safety, it needs consistency, and it needs the right support to actually do it.
• 33:40
  So if you are listening to this and thinking that is what I need.
• 33:44
  I need not another protocol, but I need someone to help me rebuild the belief and safety while addressing, of course, the physical side of healing.
• 33:53
  That is part of what makes gut together so different.
• 33:57
  Our team combines functional testing minerals.
• 34:01
  Gut support, nervous system support because we know that healing is not just about supplements and food.
• 34:07
  And the best part is like sometimes you need someone else to hold the vision for you and remind you of what that is.
• 34:13
  And we do that a lot for our clients.
• 34:16
  Because sometimes in the beginning it's hard.
• 34:18
  So we would love for you to apply to work with us.
• 34:22
  You can find the link in the show notes to learn more, and we can help you dig in and figure out all the pieces and how they go together.
• 34:30
  So thank you so much for being here today and just doing the brave work of showing up for yourself.
• 34:35
  And remember that every time you choose curiosity.
• 34:39
  Over comparison or belief, over fear, you are rewiring your brain for healing.
• 34:44
  You are not behind.
• 34:46
  You are building something new, and that means you're on your way.
• 34:49
  So take a deep breath, find something that brings you joy today, and just keep holding that vision, that healing is possible.
• 34:56
  I will see you next week.