Naturally High

In the second part of the Return on Investment mini-series, Jeanne Foot continues the Return on Investment (ROI) series with a powerful exploration of how lasting change really happens. Moving beyond willpower and surface-level behaviour change, Jeanne dives deep into the subconscious mind, emotional drivers, and the neuroscience behind self-limiting beliefs.

Jeanne explains how our earliest conditioning shapes the way we see ourselves, relate to others, and make decisions, often without us realizing it. Through practical examples and relatable storytelling, she shows how awareness, responsibility, and emotional regulation are essential to creating sustainable transformation in recovery and in life.

This episode invites listeners to become curious about their inner programming, challenge long-held beliefs, and reclaim personal agency. By understanding how thoughts, emotions, and behaviours interact, we can move from surviving to truly thriving with more freedom, joy, and fulfillment.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
  • Why all meaningful behaviour change is emotional and driven by the subconscious mind
  • How early childhood conditioning (ages 0–7) shapes beliefs, identity, and coping strategies
  • The role of adaptation, people-pleasing, and self-editing in adult relationships
  • Core NLP presuppositions that can radically shift how you relate to yourself and others
  • What it means to be 100% responsible and a “cause” in your own life
  • Why there is no such thing as failure, only feedback
  • How to separate fact from fiction when your mind tells limiting stories
  • Practical tools for navigating triggers, stress, and emotional dysregulation
  • Why desire alone isn’t enough, and how decision, action, and integrity create change
  • How awareness creates freedom and opens the door to more joy, love, and purpose
This conversation is a foundational guide for anyone ready to stop living on autopilot and start designing a life aligned with their highest values.

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Contact Jeanne Foot | The Recovery Concierge: 

Creators and Guests

Host
Jeanne Foot

What is Naturally High?

On Naturally High you’ll receive transformational tools and hear inspirational stories that will guide you into holistically healing trauma in every corner of your life. You deserve to invoke your inner healer. I'm so glad you're here!

Jeanne: [00:00:06] Hello and welcome back everybody. This is episode two in the Return on Investment series, How to Increase Your Equity and Build Up Capital in Your Own Recovery. And today we're going to be talking about rewiring your brain and breaking free from self-limiting beliefs. So if that isn't a ticket to freedom, I don't know what is really. And really the reason this is so important is because nobody's talking about it, not in the clinical and traditional medical world. They haven't really incorporated this kind of neuroscience, which was typically first expressed as spirituality, and now it is an essential part of change. So this is why I think it is absolutely necessary that every human understands how our mind works, so that we simply can increase more joy, more love, more fulfillment, more freedom, more purpose, more passion. Like, why wouldn't you if there's a little secret sauce that we our code that we can uncover that would give everybody really a better opportunity and enjoyment of life? And so this really starts with the understanding that all behavioural change is emotional and it comes from your subconscious mind. And we talked about this a little bit in episode one. But here today we're going to go a little bit deeper of what that actually looks like. And make sure that you can understand how just having awareness can change your way of viewing life and what things mean for you. So we want to learn how to utilize the power of the subconscious mind.

Jeanne: [00:01:39] And this is an evidence-based practice for sustainable change. So typically, what happens, as you know, that when we want to make a decision to make a change, we decide that we're just going to do it. We're going to willpower our way into it. We start with some of the behavioural changes, and then we think, okay, we've got momentum. And that works beautifully until it doesn't. Which happens once we're tired, sick, stressed, fatigued, whatever that pressure or stressor is coming into our life that is when it will fall apart, most likely. Now, if somebody listens to their mind and says, hey, I'm sick today, I've got all these things coming in all at once, then for sure you're going to end up doing what seems most logical at the time, which is not to take on that thing or make that behavioural change. But this is where you have to double down. You absolutely have to double down and not listen to yourself. I actually don't listen to myself when I'm under a lot of stress or I'm fatigued. That's just my non-negotiables. Because if I do that, I will probably make a poor decision at that time, so I don't. It's really that simple. Okay. So what are we talking about here today? So really the fundamentals of neuro-linguistic programming is really a language. It's a mind language as well. But there's some basic fundamental rules that challenge our beliefs around our programming.

Jeanne: [00:03:03] So between 0 and 7, most of you know this, that we are imprinted upon by our environment, by our family members, could be even political views. It could be a sign of the times that you grew up, whether you're growing up in war or COVID or October 7th, post October 7th. Like it doesn't matter what it is. What happens is these things that are coming at us are most impressionable between 0 and 7. We don't have our own mind. We're operating on that program until we challenge that program, when we have a look at it and say, is this still working for me or not? Now, taking certain values from people who programmed on you, it makes sense. But what happens is if you've learned to adapt, and we'll talk about that in a second, if you learn to adapt because really, you wanted to keep your life more safe, more predictable, such as children who live in maybe, I don’t want to say more dysfunctional, but it could be. It could be literally dysfunctional homes. It could be high conflict homes. It could be addictive homes where there's a lot of substance use and misuse and abuse or addiction even going on. So all of these things are going to press a child. So what they would do is they will find a way to keep their life as predictable as possible, and that might be getting good marks.

Jeanne: [00:04:19] It might be taking care of everybody. It may look like, you know, being an all star athlete, if it gets his parents’ attention. It could be many different attributes that the child adapts to. Could be the funny guy, whatever, to get attention from their parents. And so what happens is when we keep using these patterns as we get older, so if we're overextending ourselves as a caregiver, as a people pleaser, as just going along with everything because you just don't want to have an opinion in case there's a fallout from that comment, you're going to play it safe. So it could play out like, what do you want for dinner? I don't know, what do you want? I don't know, what do you want? You know what you want. I didn't do this for years. I was just easygoing because I knew someone had to be more easygoing. And that suited me at the time because I wanted less conflict in my life. And I didn't want most of the time what my partner wanted. But that doesn't really matter. That's not the point. The point is, I withheld part of myself in order to edit myself so I could fit into someone else's life easier. So adaption is something we learn as young children, and unless we start to challenge it in our life later, like for me, I was just taught to be a good girl. I was valued for being a good girl.

Jeanne: [00:05:42] It was said you are a good girl and I knew that when I was a good girl, my mom was nicer. She was just really nicer. So it was easier for me to be a good girl than not, because I didn't know what was going to be coming at me if I didn't. So there's some fundamental, what we call presuppositions of NLP. And what they are basically is they are fundamentals, like rules, as to how we create our world and create meaning to our world and the language and the stories that we tell ourselves. So the number one thing you want to do is we have to be 100% responsible. Now this gets tricky because especially in relationships, you think it's 50/50. No, but we have to be 100%. It's very hard when the other person may not be owning their stuff. And, you know, they have stuff because they're human and that's just the way they are. And they don't think they do in their own, in everything. I think that was very much a part of my story for so long, which is why it kept me stuck. And I didn't want to do my part, which was being 100%, no matter what the other outcome is. That's really hard. So we want to be 100% responsible and be a cause in our life. A cause, to create cause is really not to allow life to happen to you.

Jeanne: [00:06:56] Because if we're at effect, meaning that whatever is happening is what we go along with, we just get tossed around like a ball all over the place, like almost like a ping pong ball, just zipping around all over the place. So if we're over here doing something for somebody else and then we're over here, it's just a very chaotic life. That's typically what it translates to. So we want to be able to take whatever is being presented to us as an opportunity, a responsibility, to be curious as to see why is this coming, what is happening for me in this process, and how am I feeling and be able to communicate that for no other reason than to state how you feel. Now, most people want to communicate for change, and that's fine, but sometimes we just need to state what's going on for us rather than try to affect the change that we desire, we will get there. People seek to understand rather than be understood, and we need to understand what's going on for ourselves as others without anything else. And being 100% responsible is no one else's responsibility but our own. So we have to do that if we want to see the changes and the results that we want in our life, we can't go around blaming other people. We can't wait for tomorrow because tomorrow never comes and tomorrow is someday. And someday means nothing or never sometimes. So we really have to take that responsibility to ourselves.

Jeanne: [00:08:24] Always respect the other person's model of the world. And that's what this is really about. Like you are allowed to express what's going on for you, as is your other person in your life or your environment. And that is important. Rather than we get into content, not context. So a lot of times as miscommunication and we argue that somebody didn't do something or they did do something, rather than them understanding how it feels to be on the receiving end of someone not promising to deliver something when they said they would. That's it. We're not trying to fix everything at once. We're trying to let the other person know what is going on for us. And if we don't do that, what happens is we have malfunctioning relationships and they don't always feel so good. I want to make sure we're doing that. Simple. Behaviour change has to be evaluated in terms of context and ecology. So this is really an important one. It's important because basically not a lot of people understand it. What I think is good for you is none of my business. What you think is good for you is your business. So how we affect change is when we really can be in an open and honest dialog about what's really going on for someone and then work from there. I always say this, this is one of my favorite sayings, but everything is grist for the mill.

Jeanne: [00:09:42] That's what it means. It's grist for the mill. Every disappointment, every win. The weather's not sunny, whatever it may be. Someone's late. It didn't happen. It should have happened. Whatever. It's all part of our greatest evolution. Our highest truth. Our highest purpose for our own teaching and learning. That's a beautiful gift. And if we bypass that, we bypass the meaning and the lesson that comes from that. Okay, so people are not their behaviours. We think they are, but they're not. So for example, let's use addiction. People can be addicted, but it doesn't mean they're flawed as a person. They're not their behaviour. Just because they have addictive patterns doesn't mean that they're less than, they're not worthy of. Okay, so we get really tied into labels and we just call people names, and then we identify and they identify. And trust me, they already are feeling bad enough about how they feel. They don't need an external validator telling them how they feel. And this is something I struggled with. This says everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have available. Behaviour is adaptable and the current behaviour is the best choice available. Behaviour is motivated by a positive intent. I may have more capacity than someone else, and someone else may have more capacity than me. So what my results may look like would be very different than someone else's. So basically we have to assume they are really doing their best.

Jeanne: [00:11:12] And just because we may do something that seems illogical to get there doesn't necessarily mean that the other person is. So we have to assume that people are really doing the best they can. They may not look our way and that is okay, but they are doing the best they can. Okay, I'm not going to read all of them to you because there's a lot here and this is like an intensive training. But I think the most important ones that you want to get out of, being able to understand how you make meaning to the world is really understand some basic assumptions to be able to create profound shifts. If you understand that you are 100% responsible, if you find that people are not their behaviours, if you can say, this is what I feel and communicate not to necessarily have a solution, but to be understood so they could be greater awareness in anything. All of these things are really important. They can change the whole paradigm between yourself and the environment that you're in, or within yourself and others. Okay? So when we want to make change, we tend to think that if this is logical and makes sense, then we're going to go with that, right? And so that's okay. But it doesn't always get us the results we want. So when I say that you know you want to change, but just because someone knows they want to change doesn't necessarily mean they can or will.

Jeanne: [00:12:36] Okay. So change really starts with because it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you do. And change is really starting with desire. A decision. And you can have desire but may not change. So I wouldn't even say that. It starts with a decision. It's a decision that you're going to take action of some type to move yourself closer to your goal, your desire, whatever you stated. And that is the fundamental requirement for change to happen. Now, how do we stay in the game after we've made that decision? These other things come into play. It's like I'm 100% responsible, so if I want to cheat the system, I'm cheating myself. Basically, that's who I'm cheating. So do I really want that or is the goal I want more important? Which might be really true. People are not short on information. They're short on implementation. So we live in a time where there's information coming at us from every. Even babies are programmed. Even babies are programmed now for information overload. Whether it's television or whether it's a phone, or an app, or kids’ iPads, they have them for like little ones now. And yes, they're learning, they're educational and they're good, but they're actually hijacking their brain. They're not leaving their brain to be creative and natural and figure things out for themselves if they're overstimulated like we are as adults.

Jeanne: [00:14:05] So basically, we make that decision and then we change. And there's some we have some good times and some people never look back. So never question the decision. There's an old saying, because if you start to question the decision, you're going to the paralysis of the analysis and you never get back. So if you made a decision, question what is being presented to you, like what is the feedback of your world? There's no such thing as failure. There's only feedback. So if you're getting that, you're feeling this is really hard. That would make sense because you've always done it one way, and you've always done it in a very comfortable way that made whatever, socializing, for example, is usually a big one. You've always socialized under the influence and everybody else is under the influence. So there's really no pure interaction happening, actually, because if everyone's under the influence, they're really not their real selves. So showing up at an event or restaurant or just a small gathering or summer cottage or a holiday or whatever can be very challenging. So we have to know how we're going to behave in that world in that time. But before we get to that part, we're going to have a stimulus around the environment that will trigger a thought, and then the thought will go, oh, this may be a good idea to have a drink. I'll use that in this example. Then you start to go, oh, oh, I forgot, I'm in recovery.

Jeanne: [00:15:27] I'm trying to not drink right now. And then you go into the paralysis of the analysis and then you'll never get out of there. You will never get out from that space because you're dysregulated. You're obsessed. You're already, your brain’s hijacked. It's already gone into a sympathetic state and it's really like freaking out as opposed to being able to make a decision calmly. We cannot make decisions when we are overstimulated or dysregulated. It just doesn't work. I use the analogy of trying to find your keys when you're under pressure, or where you put your phone when you're under pressure, you can't. So you have to come back to neutral. And then from there you can say, okay, what is going on for you? Oh yeah, I'm anxious. My heart's beating. Yeah, this would make sense. I haven't done this before. What can I do for myself right now? And it could be in your… I'm not trying to problem solve that problem, but you could reach out to a friend. You can go to the bathroom and read. You can get yourself a drink and know what drink, nonalcoholic drink, you're going to have ahead of time. For me, I'm going to have a ginger beer and lime if that's available, because that usually is, and it's something that will keep me happy and satisfied. Okay? So these are things that you can do. But the point is, is that knowing that this is going to happen helps you navigate it.

Jeanne: [00:16:40] Now we want to separate what I say fact from fiction. So what is the fact that's going on right now and what is the story I'm making up about it? Okay? What is fact? What is fiction? So what is true? What is not true? And then from there, what is the story I'm telling myself about it? Let's keep on the same example. So the fact is I'm socializing sober for the first time. So that is a fact. That is the truth. What's fiction is the story I'm making up about it that I cannot socialize sober. Is that true? Is that 100% true? Do I know that to be 100% true? Do I have evidence to support that? Yes or no? And if there's no, which is usually the case, what is the turnaround I can say about this? Oh, as long as I know what I'm drinking, I can socialize sober because when I am drinking, I'm not really there. So I have way more presence. I have way more interest in engaging with people, so I actually have better quality time visiting with them. So that is the truth. But if your paradigm has been running on, “I can't socialize sober,” what do you think is going to happen? Nothing, right? Like nobody is going to sign up for that unless they actually try it and test your own hypothesis. That's what I say. We're our biggest science experiment.

Jeanne: [00:17:58] There's feedback all over the place, in everywhere, in every aspect, with others, with ourselves. And it's constantly changing. So you want to be curious about what's alive for you. And as you become more conscious, what's going to happen is these popcorn nuggets. I call them kernels. They're going to like, just drop down out of thin air and you go, oh my God, I just had this weird insight. I have no idea where it came from, but it's really interesting and that's what you're going to do. Okay. So you get more and more and more of that as you become more conscious, as you start to understand how you work, as you understand what are your motives? What are your triggers? What is your body communicating? That's a whole other part of this language, is soma, right? What's our body saying to us? Our body is saying, oh my God, I'm feeling very stressed right now and restricted. I feel pressure, I feel pain, I feel heat, whatever it may be. And it comes in a hundred million different ways for each and every one of us. And it's not always the same in the same situation for each of us either. So, you know, that's why we have to know what is true for us, because we're in such information overload. There's so much stimuli. And if we don't really question what's going on for us, we're not going to understand how we operate and why we make the decisions we do.

Jeanne: [00:19:16] This is all great if you're loving your life, but even if you're loving your life, you can enhance it more. You can still have more. More freedom, more love, more joy. Like, I think we all want that freedom, especially in today's world. We want more joy. Yeah. Happiness. Joy. Love. Intimacy. Wow. These are amazing concepts. So there's no downside on learning how you work or what's going on for you. And so we have to be really discerning about what's coming at us. And that's why we want to be in our own self-inquiry. We want to really be an inquiry. Is this true? Especially now we even have more problems in terms of information overload. It's not even credible. We have artificial intelligence now. How do you know this is really me? It is. But I'm just saying, you know, like it comes to the point that we're reading the news, we're listening to our media channels, even if it's our national news, it's changed. And not just in Canada, but everywhere. So there's not really many places left in the world where sacred sources of information are coming at us. So all the more reason we need to be doing this. You put the brakes on when you find yourself in this overwhelm triggered situation and you go, okay. Halt! Hungry. Angry. Lonely. Tired. Am I any one of those things? And if so, what am I? And I would say stress as well.

Jeanne: [00:20:52] So you can make it. Halt! h a l t s. And if I'm hungry, angry, lonely, tired or stressed, I can't think straight. I know that about me. So therefore I'm not going to do that right now. I'm not going to make a decision. I may not get back to someone. And I just until I've really had a chance to think about what's looking at me, staring me in the face on a fresh mind. Okay? And also a regulated emotional system, regulated nervous system. We have to know how this comes up for ourselves. But what drives the behaviour in the emotional brain? So many of us have the willpower, as I said before, but we're not really sure what we're competing against. And so what's really going on is there's a pattern below the surface that is really what I call the root driver. And it's a behaviour, a saying, a story. I can't do this. I'd never be good enough. Or a repeated paradigm that keeps someone from taking the leap from where they are to where they want to be. And that's the paradigm. That's the pattern. The root driver is what we need to get to. Because once we get to that, everything you want is on the other side of that. Freedom results, achievement, happiness, love, fulfillment. I can't even name it because you know what they are. They're there for you. And so how we do that is we have to look at what's really important to us.

Jeanne: [00:22:25] So instead of “I want to lose weight.” Losing weight is important. It's probably a really good health goal. It's probably a goal that makes you feel happier about yourself and feel good, especially if you're more desirable and attractive sexually. So all of these things would be fine, and that'd be great. But if you don't understand really why you want to lose weight other than to look good, you will never keep the weight off because underneath “I want to lose weight,” there's a story or a belief or a behaviour that plays out, and it can actually be all three. You know, there's a story that, hey, if I'm not leaner, I may not attract someone into my life. And so then you start to do drastic measures to get there. Or you may say that if I'm not leaner, then I'll never have someone special in my life. And so then the emotional is worthless, then you go into a shame spiral, and then you start to act out the very thing that you don't want to do. It's that simple. It's like, I have a story which makes me believe that this is true, even though it's not. And then I do something. And when I do something, you act out the very thing you don't want to do. And then on the other side of that, you wake up to, oh my God, why did I do that? And then you hate yourself even more.

Jeanne: [00:24:02] You start again. So this is really important. So this is why it's important for us to understand what's really important to us. I want to lose weight. I want to look more attractive. I want to have a partner. I want to be healthy. If I'm going for a health goal, then I'm probably going to eat differently than if I'm not going for a health goal. I may just starve myself, but that starving person who loses weight has to eat again, so they're going to put it back on in the wrong way. So that's not a sustainable plan. This is why it's really super important for you to understand how you work. Because the more you understand yourself, the more you're inside self-inquiry with yourself. Be curious with the world and be your own science experiment, the easier your life will become and the more fulfilling it will be with this beautiful richness that we all long for. And I think that's the only thing we want to chase, is how can we achieve that from within? Not out there because we're not going for out there. We're going for within. So I think if you can really understand, because within is a secret sauce, once you have that, once you are being that naturally you can do whatever you want. So please join us for our next episode, Episode Three: Overcoming Barriers and Break Through Your Negative Beliefs.

Jeanne: [00:25:29] So we're going to talk about how we actually do this in the next episode, ROI. And it is a pleasure to be here and serve you. And so I don't really have an agenda with these series, but if you would like to be in some sort of community, maybe lunchtime meetings, lunchtime learning, book study, whatever it may be and support, if you are looking for that, you can reach out at info@theRecoveryConcierge.com, social media handles, whatever, or put some notes wherever you can and just say community. And I look forward to hearing from you. I'd love to hear how this is landing for you, what you love, what was different for you, what you've heard before, and what's new? Okay. All the best. Until then, stay Naturally High. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Naturally High. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or reach out to me through the links in the show notes. Together, we're changing the way the world approaches mental health, addiction, and trauma. Remember to like, subscribe and leave a rating for Naturally High on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode. For more inspiration and resources, follow me on Instagram at the @Recovery_concierge or visit theRecoveryConcierge.com. Stay empowered, keep rising, and I'll see you in the next episode.