Living in Survival Mode and Learning How to Exhale Again | 179

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Transcript:


Most people think stress is about what’s happening right now. Their schedule, their workload, their kids, their health symptoms. But your body is not only responding to the present moment. Your nervous system is responding through a lens that was formed a very long time ago.

Between the ages of zero and twelve, your subconscious was learning what was safe. What strength looked like. What you were supposed to do with pain. Who you were allowed to trust with your body. And most of us have never been taught to look back at that. We just assume stress is something we need to manage better.

So I want you to pause for a minute and reflect. What was the narration around health and wellness in your home when you were a child. What happened when someone was sick. Was the message to push through. To wait it out. To toughen up. Was the message that doctors know best and questioning them is irresponsible. Was your body something you learned to listen to, or something you learned to override.

I grew up watching my dad live in a lot of physical discomfort. Pain was normal. Exhaustion was normal. Food was just food. Whatever was on the grocery store shelf is healthy, otherwise the government wouldn't allow it to be there. There was a lot of pushing through. A lot of grit. And there was also a deep belief that when something was wrong, the authority lived outside of us. If you had an ear infection, you listened to the doctor. Not your body. Not your intuition. That was strength. That was responsibility.

And none of this was wrong. It just was. But those messages didn’t stay in childhood. They became the backdrop of how my nervous system learned to function.

And this is where things get really important.

Because those early beliefs don’t just influence how we think. They influence how our bodies respond to stress. They influence whether we trust ourselves during healing. They influence whether we push through symptoms or pause and listen. They influence how safe change feels in our bodies.

Without realizing it, many of us are trying to heal while still operating from a nervous system that believes rest is weakness, symptoms are something to suppress, and intuition can’t be trusted.

And that shows up everywhere.

You see it so clearly in weight loss journeys. Someone sets an intention. They have clear goals. They find a strategy that works. They commit. They start seeing progress. And then suddenly food cravings get really loud. Like an obsession. The foods they were moving away from feel impossible to resist. Their mind can’t stop thinking about them.

This is not a lack of discipline. This is not failure. This is the subconscious saying, this change feels unfamiliar. The old way felt safer. Let’s go back.

Your subconscious self is so powerful and with good intentions, but it will sabotage you if you don’t have the awareness of what’s happening. 

The same thing happens in healing from the microbiome outward.

You see progress. Symptoms improve. Energy shifts. And then your mind starts whispering. We were doing fine before. This is a lot of work. Do we really need this. So supplements get missed. Food boundaries loosen. Old habits creep back in. And then symptoms flare really hard.

Not because healing failed. But because the cycle reactivated.

Or maybe it shows up when you go on vacation. The voice says, let’s just live a little. And without awareness, you don’t pause to question it. And when symptoms flare afterward, the shame sets in. And the spiral begins.

Or maybe a flare comes up out of nowhere. And suddenly everything you learned disappears. Your confidence collapses. Fear takes over. You forget why you chose this path. You start testing again. You feel pulled back into doctors and protocols and polarized information. You freeze. You don’t know what to do. 

That freeze is not indecision. It is a nervous system response.

And I want to pause here, because there is something really important to recognize.

When you are unwell, or when your child is unwell, your nervous system often lives in pure survival mode. Not for days. Not for weeks. For months. Sometimes years.

I lived in survival mode for two and a half years while my son was sick. Every decision felt urgent. Every symptom felt like a threat. My nervous system never fully came out of fight or flight because it didn’t feel safe to. I was constantly scanning, researching, second guessing, bracing for the next thing to go wrong. And our children co-regulate with us. So on top of experiencing all of the symptoms that made his body feel unbelievably uncomfortable to be in, he was also living inside my nervous system. He could feel my fear, my urgency, my vigilance, even when I tried to hide it. Not because I was doing anything wrong, but because that is how deeply connected we are.

Gaining this awareness changed everything for me. Not because it gave me something new to fix, but because it gave me permission to soften. To realize that supporting his healing also meant supporting my own nervous system. And that I didn’t need to wait until he was fully healed to begin creating safety for both of us. I could start then. In the middle of it. And that choice mattered more than I knew at the time.

If you are in the thick of this right now, nothing about that means you are weak. It means you are a parent who loves deeply. It means your body has been doing its job. It means you are human.

But this is what I want you to hear.

When you finally find a healing system like rebalancing that actually works, when you start seeing real progress, when your intuition tells you this is different, this is the moment you are allowed to begin stepping out of survival. Not someday. Not when everything is perfect. Right now.

You do not have to wait for full healing to retrain your nervous system. You can begin teaching your body safety in the middle of the work. You can stop second guessing every step. You can lean in instead of scanning for danger.

Your brain can learn that you are no longer in crisis, even while healing is still happening. And that shift alone changes the chemistry of your body. It changes how your immune system responds. It changes how your microbiome heals.

You are allowed to exhale while you heal.

And here is where the cycle deepens if we don’t have awareness.

These subconscious stress responses create real chemical reactions in the body. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are not emotional states. They are biochemical states. Cortisol rises. Inflammation increases. Immune signaling shifts. And those chemical reactions directly impact the microbiome.

Chronic stress lowers stomach acid. It slows digestion. It suppresses immunity. It reduces beneficial bacteria and creates space for bad bacteria, yeast, mold, fungus, and parasites to thrive. Stress feeds imbalance.

And then imbalance feeds stress right back.

An imbalanced microbiome affects neurotransmitter production. It affects mood, thought patterns, resilience, and perception. When there is too much overgrowth, the brain doesn’t function optimally. Negative thoughts increase. Capacity shrinks. Regulation feels out of reach.

Bad feeds bad.

Until awareness interrupts the cycle.

Awareness doesn't mean perfection. It means noticing the voice and pausing. This feels familiar, not true. Awareness looks like staying consistent through discomfort instead of abandoning yourself. Awareness looks like responding to flares with support instead of panic.

So we have covered a lot here in a very short time and I want to leave you today knowing exactly what to do with this information.

First, I want you to start noticing the voice without obeying it. When the urge to quit, pause, test, panic, or abandon your healing plan shows up, you recognize it. This is my nervous system seeking familiarity. That pause alone is regulation.

Second, I want you to anchor yourself in consistency instead of urgency. Healing happens through steady support, not reactive decisions. When symptoms flare, your job is not to fix everything. Your job is to stay the course and support the body through what it’s releasing.

Third, you need to consciously change your internal language. Instead of saying this isn’t working or something is wrong, I want you to practice saying my body is responding and I know how to support this. Your nervous system listens to the way you speak to yourself.

Fourth, it is important for you to apply this same language to your children. Less fixing. More supporting. Less panic. More steadiness. Even when symptoms are flaring, the message becomes safety, not emergency. “You are healing so beautifully. I know this is hard and uncomfortable, and we have everything we need”. Then take time to reflect on all the ways your child’s body already feels better, even if it’s subtle.

And finally, whether you are healing yourself or your child, I want you to repeat this over and over again. You do not have to earn rest. Regulation is not a reward for healing. It is part of the healing.

This makes your mornings really important.

Do not immediately reach for your phone. Before you even open your eyes, think of three things you are deeply grateful for right now. And affirm where you are going. “I am so grateful my body is healing”. “I am so grateful my child is symptom free and their nervous system feels safe”.

Practice your daily anchor. Read a few pages of a physical book. Journal. Go for a walk. Do a short yoga or stretching practice. Sip tea in the sunshine.

These are not optional luxuries. They are nervous system medicine. They are microbiome support. They are how you change the internal environment where healing happens.

This is how you interrupt the cycle in real time.

And this matters so much because most of our children are in that zero to twelve window right now. Their subconscious beliefs are forming. Not from one conversation, but from the energy and patterns they live inside of.

What are the stories being told about their bodies? How do we speak of their behavior? What is implied about their health. Are they broken. Are their symptoms a problem?

When we shift the narration to there is nothing wrong with you, your body is communicating, we are learning how to support it, we change how safety is wired into their nervous system. That impacts their stress response, their microbiome, and their capacity for healing for their entire life.

This work is cyclical because the body is cyclical. The nervous system and the microbiome are in constant conversation. When we support both, the cycle begins to move in the opposite direction. Safety feeds balance. Balance feeds capacity. Capacity feeds healing.

This is not about fixing yourself. It is about understanding why your body has been doing exactly what it has been doing. And choosing to support it differently.

For yourself. And for the generation growing up inside your nervous system.

You are doing beautiful things and I am so proud of you. 

Transformation of the week:

'I want to thank you by the way. My daughter's hands that used to get cracked and bleed from eczema, were healed within a week of using your gut rebalance kit. And her intolerance to gluten and dairy is also fading away. It's so sad that doctors are so uneducated about this. I took her to numerous doctors and dermatologists and all they kept prescribing her was cortisone cream, which never solved the problem. Anyways grateful I found you and I can't wait to start using this for myself and the rest of my family.' 

This right here is why gut healing matters so much. When you address the root, the body responds. Seeing cracked, bleeding eczema heal and food intolerances begin to fade tells us the immune system is finally calming instead of reacting. I wish so badly that doctors were educated and taught about this but unfortunately healing is not part of the equation for the sick care system we have. Topical steroids may suppress symptoms, but they don’t fix the imbalance underneath. Rebalancing does. I’m so grateful you found your way here, and I love love love when this healing extends to the whole family. 

Question of the week:

'Question for you, I was looking at the spectrum kit, the antibiotics aftercare kit.. aren't they exactly all like the children's gut rebalance kit?'

This is a great question. So, they are all built on the same foundation.

Whether you’re looking at the Women’s, Children’s, or Men’s Gut Rebalance Kit, or any of the bundles like Spectrum Support, Antibiotic Aftercare, Acne, or Histamine Regulation, the foundation is always the Ultimate option of the Gut Rebalance Kit.

Everything follows the same rebalancing methodology. We are always clearing overgrowths and toxins while replenishing and rebuilding the microbiome at the same time.

The bundles simply include additional targeted support and come with specific education and guidance depending on what you or your child are navigating. But the foundational methodology is all the same. 

So just to be clear, you’re not choosing between totally different protocols. You’re choosing the same foundation, with added support when it’s needed.