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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
If I haven't created the skill of mobilizing, or emotional expression, or vocalizing, I don't have any new ways to process this, and now I'm retelling it, I'm reliving it, I'm just gonna get the same patterned response. I'm gonna recreate the repression. I'm gonna recreate the whole neuro tag. My filters of the world might start to change. I'll have that activation inside, and I don't have any way to process it.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so I'm essentially then just retraumatizing myself over and over and over again.
Kate Northrup:I have such a rich episode for you today. Today, I got to really nerd out with Elizabeth Kristoff, who is the cohost of the Trauma Rewired podcast, which is one of the top ranking Apple podcasts that explores complex trauma, and we went so deep on the nervous system. Elizabeth works with people to really understand that every single thing they do is as a result of their nervous system, which is their body's operating system trying to keep them safe. She works with entrepreneurs, athletes, and high performers of all kinds to increase their resiliency, emotional regulation, and ability to show up fully and presently in their life. Her own story of healing is absolutely miraculous going from an eating disorder and all sorts of different results of having adverse childhood experiences to creating a business that is thriving, absolutely thriving and helping thousands of people around the world to tap into the power of their nervous system to show up fully.
Kate Northrup:In today's episode, we talk about money and the nervous system, the misunderstandings we have around mindset, some of her concerns away around the way somatics and the nervous system is portrayed in social media, and so much more.
Speaker 3:Listen in, and you are going
Kate Northrup:to be absolutely blown away by the information in this episode. Enjoy. Blown away by the information in this
Speaker 3:episode. Enjoy.
Kate Northrup:Welcome to Plenti. I'm your host, Kate Northrup, and together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of hunting. Let's go fill our cups. Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrop brand.
Elisabeth Kristof:Hi, Elizabeth. Hey.
Kate Northrup:Thanks for being here.
Elisabeth Kristof:I'm so honored to be here and so excited to have this conversation. Thank you.
Kate Northrup:We are gonna nerd out. I'm so excited. Okay. So one of the things that I have found fascinating, and I'm curious your take on this, when I started learning about the nervous system and and trauma, really, but but more specifically, the nervous system, I wrote a book I I wrote nope. I read a book called Patriarchy Stress Disorder by doctor Valerie Rein, and then I read, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van Vanderkolk.
Kate Northrup:And as I was reading, I was like, gosh. This is so interesting because I was so deeply fascinated, and I became somewhat obsessed, I would say. And
Elisabeth Kristof:I thought that was you yeah.
Kate Northrup:I thought that was odd because I would not identify as someone who actually has a lot of, like, if I were to take the ACE, you know, that if you were to look at my history, the ACE, the adverse childhood experiences, like, my score wouldn't be particularly high. So my question is for you, like, in in the experience you've had with all these, you know, 100 thousands of people that you've worked with, and now you've trained all of these people too, why do you think people get so obsessed with the nervous system? Do we always have to have a history of intense trauma or not? I don't think we have to
Elisabeth Kristof:at all. I mean, our nervous system is our operating system. You know, our brain and our nervous system drive our behavior, our health, our mental health. And I think we should want to know how we work and why things are happening. And even if we don't have typical, like high a score, high levels of trauma, we live in a pretty dysregulating world.
Elisabeth Kristof:It's not set up to be really conducive for nervous system health. And so there are also big structural things that you were talking about, the patriarchy and systemic racism and oppression and all of these constructs, emotional repression that runs through our society. And so even if in our family unit, in our individual lives, we don't have a huge trauma history, We're still living in a society that has a big impact on our nervous system. And I think for so many people, when we start to learn about this and connect these dots of like, oh, this this is a root behind my anxiety or this is a root behind my pain, it's like, why didn't somebody tell me this sooner? Why didn't I know more about this?
Elisabeth Kristof:And then it's really this journey of really knowing yourself, like, at that deep, deep level, know thyself. What what makes my system run better? What makes my brain function better? What makes me feel more present and alive? And I think we wanna know ourselves at that deep level.
Elisabeth Kristof:What are
Kate Northrup:some of the biggest misunderstandings people have about being a high performer and what it takes to be a high performer and the route to get there?
Elisabeth Kristof:I mean, I work with a lot of high performers, and I don't wanna broadly generalize here. Right? Because everybody's different. Everyone's nervous system is different. But a lot of what makes us really successful and I was someone who performed pretty well in life, And a lot of that success comes from some dysregulation.
Elisabeth Kristof:There's perfectionism and this need to constantly be doing trouble resting and in stillness. And so a lot of times we can be really successful externally, but there's an internal cost to that high stress state. And a lot of times, too, for kiddos who do have a high ACE score, we learn a lot to perform really well, to mask our emotions, our needs, and, you know, be doing all of these things externally to create that sense of safety. But it's at a cost of of regulation and an internal sense of safety. So I'm, like, trying to manufacture it outside, and that is successful for a while.
Elisabeth Kristof:Right. But it there's usually a back end cost to that later.
Kate Northrup:And that's, like, either a later back end cost that can be seen, but, certainly, a back end cost that can be felt by the individual. Yeah. Which is something that our society doesn't really talk about enough. We're, like, always focused on the external success of, like, did they make money? Did they raise through the ranks?
Kate Northrup:Did they have all the achievements? Does their house look right? They have the right, you know, partner. They have the right amount of kids, drive the right car, like, right, and those are all the kind of, like, success things Checking the boxes. When underneath
Elisabeth Kristof:Underneath, there's I mean, worst case scenario, there's, like, disease later, autoimmune, cancer, these things that show up after years years of dysregulation, chronic pain. There's mental health consequences, but without even those big ends of the spectrum, there's an emotional numbness, like an inability to really feel and process our emotions. There's a lot of behaviors. So, like, things looked pretty good on the outside, and I was binge eating all of the time in a really painful way. I couldn't really have intimacy with people.
Elisabeth Kristof:I was a real deal workaholic and would just cycle through my life in these periods of big exertion, big output, and then crash with a binge, with a migraine. And it was just rinse and repeat. And you're never really present. You're never really living an embodied life. And that's a huge cost.
Elisabeth Kristof:That's a huge cost.
Kate Northrup:When did you start to learn about the nervous system? How did how did this work come into your life?
Elisabeth Kristof:So I started originally down the road of applied neuro. I was I had some movement studios in Austin, and we were focused on athletic performance and chronic pain and knew I wanted to bring neurology into that brain science. I knew that was the future of movement science. So I started studying probably in around 2010, and that took me down a long road of of education and neuro. It wasn't really until I had my own experience of life kind of falling apart.
Elisabeth Kristof:It was a really high stress time. And in that high stress time, that's when I got sober at a pretty early age. My adolescence was like pretty volatile. But once I got sober, stopped drinking alcohol, things kind of evened out, looked successful on the outside, but there were still all these patterns underneath. And that kind of collapsed down around me in 2018.
Elisabeth Kristof:And at that time, all of this unresolved childhood trauma also started to trickle up to the surface and really started going down the path of somatics, reading all the books that you mentioned, body keeps the score, learning about complex trauma. And I just kept seeing this connection between everything that I'd learned about the brain and the nervous system in my applied neuro education and how that was so integral to the things I was learning in the world of somatics and how they could be woven together in this way that could be really powerful. And that's when I really started working on my nervous system in a different capacity, not just to run faster or jump higher, but to work with my interoceptive system, to be more embodied, to feel the signals, to start to make rest safe, to be able to process emotions. And that was really that was really when things started to shift for me in my life, when I was actually able to move out of some of those patterns and then begin working with people that have a lot of that same history.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And so for you, like, let's say today, compared with a decade ago, what were some of you you had mentioned binge eating, workaholism, not able to really be fully present, difficulty maybe in connection. So what are your what are you experiencing now? Like, I I know for me with the work that I've done, there are moments that would have just completely tweaked me out, and now I'm just, like, here experiencing them. Woah, this is a freaking miracle, you know,
Speaker 3:and it's
Kate Northrup:maybe not as dramatic, but it is really dramatic, the difference. And so I'm curious, what are some of those things for you?
Elisabeth Kristof:That's, like, the biggest thing, to be able to be present for my life, however it is.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Elisabeth Kristof:Like, I I feel alive. I feel here. Like, I'm here with you. You know? And, I mean, honestly, I'm a pretty different person from that in so many ways.
Elisabeth Kristof:But I will say some of the biggest I mean, the outputs that I experience have shifted. You know, I I don't remember the last time I binged. I have good boundaries with work. I'm in a partnership that's we communicate. We show up.
Elisabeth Kristof:You know, I have a pretty high ACE score. And so I had a lot of trouble with dissociation. I had a lot of trouble with physical intimacy. I have autoimmune. And now I can stay present for physical intimacy and emotional intimacy.
Elisabeth Kristof:I process emotions. Like I know how to scream and cry and shake and mobilize things. And I stay in my body. I stay, you know, I would check out so much, and I'm I'm here. It's amazing.
Elisabeth Kristof:Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a huge gift.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. It's really, really beautiful.
Elisabeth Kristof:Can you for those who don't
Kate Northrup:know about the ACE score, would you mind diving into that a little bit
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:More deeply?
Elisabeth Kristof:ACEs are kind of the original study that helped people start to link adverse childhood experiences with the development of behavioral issues like addiction, but also, you know, big physical health outcomes, autoimmune, cancer, chronic pain. And it was a study done on I think it was around 17,000 participants with Kaiser Permanente, and there was a guy, doctor Vincent Folletti, was the original ACE, study originally conducted the ACE study. And he had been doing it actually first as an obesity study. It's not a word that I love, but, that's what it was. And started to see that a lot of the participants would respond really well to the protocols, but as they started to lose weight, they either started experiencing some other big outputs or they would reach a point where they couldn't keep going.
Elisabeth Kristof:And then he started digging into their background a little bit more and found that they had almost all of them had early childhood experiences. A lot of it was sexual abuse experiences and started to connect these dots. And then eventually with some work was able to get Kaiser Permanente to do this big study. And they started seeing that the higher your ACE score, the more likely you are to have these unwanted health outputs. And there have been many studies.
Elisabeth Kristof:There've been many studies since then. There's one from the World Health Organization that applies a little bit more internationally, looks at, like, war and, community violence, and it just really links. It's it's been a big catalyst in helping us, I think, collectively to understand, like, the waters that we're swimming in in development, shape our nervous system, our stress levels, and then that leads to all of these outcomes later in life. And if you have an a score of 6 or higher, there's a truncated lifespan of 20 years, which is a really big deal.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. It's expected Expected. Unless you do this work.
Elisabeth Kristof:Unless this is a really
Kate Northrup:We right. We don't know what someone's meant to be in this life and how long they're but, like, the work that you do with people, for sure I know you don't have the data on this, but I I would bet my life that for sure the work that you're doing with brain based and NSI is extending lifespan. Like, it would have to.
Elisabeth Kristof:That's the whole reason that I do this, that I've gone into this world is I love there's so many people I love with highest scores, and there's so many people with complex trauma, and they're beautiful human beings that have so much to offer the world. And I think it sucks that these are the outcomes and that the trauma compounds. And because of everything I know about the nervous system in the brain, I know we're neuroplastic beings. I know adaptation is always possible. And when we understand how our nervous system works, we can work with it intentionally to create change in the way we process information, in our skill of regulation, in our ability to process emotions.
Elisabeth Kristof:And when we can do that, it doesn't have to be that way. Like, these do these are not fixed outcomes. Nobody's set any one way in stone. We're super dynamic beings. And I think people just need the opportunity to understand more about how they work and what they can do and have some agency, and then that change becomes possible.
Kate Northrup:Right. And that it's not always you know, that it's not an issue of, like, oh, you need to work on your mindset, not at least as a starting point. And it's not an issue of, like, oh, you need to just change your behavior, at least not as a starting point. Right? And, and and that it doesn't mean, like, medication forever, though that may be supportive.
Kate Northrup:Right? I am curious as you say that, though, the question that came up for me is, like, what about personality disorders? Do you have any experience with that? And what do personality disorders have to do with the nervous system if at all? And is that a a thing that can be shifted with plasticity?
Kate Northrup:And I don't know. Okay.
Speaker 3:I
Kate Northrup:mean, that's a big thing. To it, Wendy. Is not your area.
Elisabeth Kristof:No. Well, I'm I I do have a lot of experience with this, and I just wanna caveat this by saying, you know, I'm not a licensed mental health professional, and people should always consult with their doctors. And in the world of applied neuro, we don't really believe in personalities. So I am hesitant to believe in a personality disorder. Right?
Elisabeth Kristof:There's no one fixed way of being. It's a frequently occurring reaction.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Elisabeth Kristof:And I wanna understand, or I I would love for people to understand, that everything that our brain and nervous system does at that subconscious level is for our protection. These are all protective outputs. It's the way that we learned to survive, not just physically, but also emotionally and socially. And when we are swimming in developmental waters where there's high stress, where we aren't getting our attachment needs met, which is a real survival need, we will come up with ways to adapt. And then those patterns play out into adulthood.
Elisabeth Kristof:And I myself am someone who is diagnosed bipolar, diagnosed borderline personality disorder. I mean, my adolescence was, it was volatile, like I said. And also, like, if you meet me today, I'm pretty grounded, pretty even keel. And so much of that has to do with rehabilitating my nervous system, the patterning of my brain, how I take in information about the world, how I respond to it, what filters am I seeing the world through, and that that can be changed. It's it's possible.
Kate Northrup:It's so hopeful and so beautiful. I love I love that perspective. Thank you. I think that's really healing for a lot of us. And, also, right, like, that's personal responsibility.
Kate Northrup:Right? You you took that upon yourself Yeah. To do this work. And so, of course, that doesn't mean that if we are in relationship, that is tricky in that way that, like, we can ever force someone else to do it. And I am curious the difference in which this comes up in your practice.
Kate Northrup:And with the people you work with, it comes up a lot for in in my work with people around their money where it's like, okay. I'm doing this, but my partner won't come on board. Or, like, how do I get my mom to do this? Or how do I get my difficult sister to whatever? And it's like, well so I'm curious what do you say to people who are, like, wanting other people to heal their nervous systems.
Elisabeth Kristof:Yeah. It it doesn't work great. Unfortunately, it's gotta come from it's such a personal journey. And the best thing that I can do is live the work myself. Right.
Elisabeth Kristof:And allow people to see the changes in me. And hopefully they will gravitate toward that, you know, plant the seed for some curiosity. And if it's there, I mean, especially working with your nervous system, it takes it is a journey. You know? It wasn't like a quick fix to get from point a to point b.
Elisabeth Kristof:And it's it's not, like, super sexy. It's so not.
Speaker 3:It's quite
Kate Northrup:funny. You really want it to be about, like, the quantum leap where you're, like, screaming and running across the cold, and, like, you're totally different overnight, but it's it's not
Speaker 3:it's not
Kate Northrup:like that.
Elisabeth Kristof:It's like I'm doing weird things with my tongue or looking in different directions with my eyes and making weird vocal sounds, and it's it can be, like, a little bit tedious. Yeah. It's a daily practice. It's like taking care of your teeth or getting movement, and it it takes time. It does compound on itself and it, yes, but so it has, someone has to really want it and be curious about themselves.
Elisabeth Kristof:And yeah, I think also too, you know, the state of my nervous system impacts someone else's. We're always responding to each other's nervous system. So sometimes I have big shifts in relationships because I change. You know? My relationship with my mom is is different because I'm different.
Elisabeth Kristof:And it's not that she's necessarily doing neural work, although she does sometimes now. Oh, that's
Speaker 3:really cool.
Elisabeth Kristof:But, like, when I'm present with her, she has a different level of presence with me, and it creates more space in our dynamic for there to just be something new.
Kate Northrup:That's so beautiful. Amazing. When you showed up today, I was sharing with you that my husband is having a minor compared to where we've been, but a flare with his skin. And thanks to learning from you, I was like, hey, babe. Did you know actually that the output of your symptom is not an indicator that, like, we need to necessarily attack the symptom.
Kate Northrup:But, it's an indicator. It's a protective mechanism, whereby your nervous system is basically being like my threat and stress bucket is too full. And so I'm gonna give this output of pain, inflammation, discomfort so that you will take it down a notch and protect yourself and stop getting more stress and threat input. So can you explain why that is and what some of those outputs are that people at like because our culture is so fast to, like, give a pill or, like, for us, it you know, anytime we mention our journey with eczema, everyone is always trying to give us a topical. And it's, like Me too.
Kate Northrup:Thank you and right? Like, I'm grateful. And, also, it gets so much deeper than that, but it's not even deeper on the level of, like, oh, it's a food allergy then.
Elisabeth Kristof:Right.
Kate Northrup:Right? It's like, okay.
Speaker 3:What else?
Elisabeth Kristof:It's the whole system. Yeah. So simplified version of how we approach the nervous system is really looking at it as input, interpretation, output. And so I'm always taking in information about the world around me through all my different sensory systems, my eyes, the balance system in my inner ear, my body mapping system, my interoceptive system, that's letting my brain know what's going on inside of my body, my temperature, am I hungry, am I thirsty? All this information is coming in all the time.
Elisabeth Kristof:And then my brain is taking that information and interpreting it and making a really important decision, safe or unsafe, and then generating an output. And so really everything we start to see is outputs. My pain, my behavior, my relational patterns, my posture, like all the things are outputs from that cycle of input, interpretation, output. And so when the quality of my inputs aren't great, then that's adding a lot of stress to my nervous system all the time because my brain really needs that information to have a clear picture of what's going on in my external world and what's going on inside of me. And so if I can start to work with my nervous system to make that information more clear, more accurate by doing this practical rehabilitation of these sensory systems, then I'm under less stress all of the time.
Elisabeth Kristof:And then that allows me to now experience different outputs. Because when I'm under too much stress for too long, my system is going to start to try to protect
Speaker 3:me.
Elisabeth Kristof:So a little bit of stress is good. We need it for adaptation. But if you think of your nervous system like a bucket and you think of all your life stress going into that bucket, our systems are quite intelligent, and they know it we don't want the bucket to overflow. That's too much dysregulation for too long. That's chronic disease.
Elisabeth Kristof:That's inflammation. That's severe mental health outputs. And so your brain, your nervous system, your body will start to generate protective outputs to get you to reduce the water level in the bucket. So pain, for example, is a great behavior change tool of your brain. If I give you some pain, you're going to take smaller steps.
Elisabeth Kristof:You might go lay down, you might call in sick to your high stress job. You might block out all the lights, and now you have less inputs coming in. If those inputs are threatening, blurry, unclear, that's good in that moment for your survival brain to have less because they're stressing it out. So your system creates an output that's gonna get you to reduce the intensity of your life to to keep you safe in that moment, because our survival brain is really concerned in the moment. Am I safe?
Elisabeth Kristof:What do I need to do right now to lower the water level in this bucket? And so that could be inflammation. It could be pain. It could be all these different things that
Kate Northrup:we see as outputs. So what risk do we run by pushing through pain and other symptoms?
Elisabeth Kristof:Well, what we do, we get better at. And so there's 2 important things here. One is the said principle, specific adaptation to impose demand. That neurologically, it means that's becoming a more well worn pathway. So my brain's going to start to go to that output more frequently because it's less energy costly, and it gets, it achieves that behavior change goal of reducing the stress.
Elisabeth Kristof:So now it's going to start to take less and less stimulus for me to start to experience that output of pain or whatever it is that I'm trying to move out of, could be dissociation. And then, the other important thing I was going to say about that is, when we do, we get better at and our system is trying to get our attention. It's trying to create change. So if this isn't working, it's either going to have to get louder, you know, it's going to turn the volume up on that output to get what it wants, or it'll switch to some other kind of output. So maybe I push through the pain, but now I'm starting to get vertigo.
Elisabeth Kristof:I'm getting dizzy. It's, you know, it's gonna find the path that achieves the result of getting us to reduce the stress and protect ourselves.
Kate Northrup:Okay. What about Yeah. So many questions. This is great. So in my understanding of the nervous system and one of the things that I describe a lot, and I just really wanna get your take on this.
Kate Northrup:And just for context for listeners, I became aware of Elizabeth's work about a year ago and have gone through 3 modules of her certification. So and, like, listen to a few podcast episodes. So that's, like, that's where I'm at. And so a great deal of my nervous system education came beforehand. So I'm so curious about, like, okay, if the way I describe this is the way you would also understand it.
Kate Northrup:So one of the things that I have come to understand is that our nervous system has essentially a thermostat set point, and that thermostat set point is, and is in and I'm I'm sure it's connected to the neuro tag, so feel free to fill that in. But that it is based on our previous experiences. And so it was kind of the the water we were the developmental waters we were swimming in. Right? So in my environment growing up, there was just a a consistent sense of stress and pressure and running out of time and some degree of financial pressure.
Kate Northrup:So that was just, like, in my development, that was the energy, that was the vibe. So my body developed in an environment where that felt like home. And so when I have and I've continued to work on this. This is literally the basis of my work. But when I have, experienced in the past greater degrees of calm or stability Because my thermostat setting was to stress and pressure, I would unconsciously recreate any kind of scenario and unconsciously do these behaviors such as overspend or launch too many things at the same time or pull the rug out from my life in any variety of ways to essentially feel that same level of, stimulus that made me feel alive.
Kate Northrup:Even though it didn't feel good, it did feel familiar. Mhmm. And so given that, I'm just curious, like, am I missing any pieces from your understanding?
Elisabeth Kristof:That's very accurate. And, absolutely, our brains function on pattern recognition and prediction to generate those outputs to keep us alive. And so our brain wants to know that I'm safe in this environment, and that's what it knows. So it's gonna drive us in familiar paths because it knows it knows how to handle this. It knows what to do.
Elisabeth Kristof:It's predictable. And so when something is unfamiliar, even though it might be what you cognitively want, there's less predictability for your brain. And so in that way, it actually feels not as safe.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, it's such a mind fuck. So, okay. And then and this is, you know, you were so kind to come as a guest expert in relax money, and then we did this coaching call today together. And and a similar question came up many times, which is, okay. I'm now out here beyond my previous thermostat setting in terms of my income, in terms of, my experience of community, in terms of my experience of manifesting and magnetism and, like, calling in dream clients or whatever.
Kate Northrup:And And now I'm freaking out, or I noticed myself go into old behaviors. What do I do about that? So when we experience something in our lives that takes us beyond our previous thermostat setting, right, beyond the predictable, and it's technically what we want, but our bodies freak out. Our brains and bodies freak out. Like, I tell the story a lot of, when I was offered my first book deal.
Kate Northrup:I was standing in the lobby of the, w hotel in Union Square. Louise Hay herself says to me, we would like to publish your book. And it was like this dream moment, and I went across the street to a cafe, and I had a complete and total meltdown, like, sobbing, snot, completely freaking out, and I was having this shame spiral of, like, I or I would call it a guilt spiral of, like, I should I shouldn't get this because there are so many other people who want it more, and I'm wrong, and I haven't earned it and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 3:blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Kate Northrup:blah blah blah blah blah. Right? So, like, complete not enjoyment of the moment, and there were a number of other things that happened. And now I understand what was happening, and I needed tools. Right?
Kate Northrup:I didn't have any tools, so I just sat there and cried. And that was also an effective strategy, actually, for regulation, which we can come back to. Actually, that was great. But that's, like, a practical example of something that happened in my life. I was like, I want this, and yet I'm experiencing it as a threat.
Kate Northrup:So what do we do if we wanna expand our reality beyond our previous thermostat and beyond what all the people in our life have ever experienced and all the people in our lineage have ever experienced.
Elisabeth Kristof:I think one of the key pieces is really intentionally working with our nervous system for presence. Right? If I can start to understand my nervous system, understand how it works and how to communicate with it through sensory input, that's really the language that the nervous system speaks in these little moments. I can help my whole system, my whole being to be more present with what is. And if I do that over and over again, maybe it's just for like a minute a day.
Elisabeth Kristof:I'm giving it some sensory stimulus. I'm allowing myself to be present that can expand on itself so that I'm able to stay embodied and aware and have all of my systems functioning. And when I have that capacity and I have trained, really trained those skills for myself, as I move into new situations that are unfamiliar, I have the option now of, like, a different path, of a different response, because I've I'm better at sensing into the present moment and responding to what's really there instead of going reflexively into the old patterned path. So part of the reason that I am so diligent about working with my nervous system is because it allows me it allows my brain to function better. So I have more fuel, more capacity.
Elisabeth Kristof:I can view my life with altitude. And in those moments where that is stressful to be in a new situation, to be trying to relax, to maybe receive something. Instead of reflexively going into the patterned protective response and the old behaviors, the old physiology inside, I can take a beat and give myself a little bit of space, maybe provide some direct sensory to my nervous system with some tools to keep grounding into that. And then from that space, suddenly more is possible. Yeah.
Elisabeth Kristof:And, like, little by little, those things build on themselves. And I think as you were talking before too, I was thinking about the the constantly seeking of the stress. And I do think, like, homeostatic set point and familiarity is important. And I think also too, though, sometimes being with our body and our internal sensations is very threatening. You know, dissociation is a protective output that a lot of people experience because the situations were just too intense to stay there.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so that becomes a patterned well worn protective response. And if we can stay distracted in all these other ways in our life, we aren't feeling and in tune with those signals, and they might carry a really high threat load. So part of getting out of that pattern too is working with my interoceptive system, and in a minimum effective dose, creating regulation and safety around feeling my internal sensations, and being able to mobilize and process some of those emotions so that I'm not always having to create all of this externally to not be able to be there with my body and myself.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So for someone who's just coming to this work and, you know, maybe they're experiencing a high level of anxiety, which is which is sort of common, you know, in the world for sure, but certainly for my listeners, or just a high sense of, like, pressure and stress or a fundamental, like, deep feeling of, like, I'm just not okay. Like, things aren't okay, and I'm not gonna be okay. Where where might they start? Like, what does a daily practice look like knowing that, of course, everybody's nervous system is so different?
Kate Northrup:But are you spending, like, hours a day with your you know, in your practices? No. Yeah. What are some examples of how this might go in daily life?
Elisabeth Kristof:The thing about NSI and neuro work is that it's it's really easy to make it very practical. It's, you know, daily throughout the day, taking little bits of time to create regulation and safety. And that can be as simple as some sensory stimulus for your feet or a breathing exercise or doing something to get a little bit more fuel and oxygen into your brain. Like these little simple tools that are really directly communicating with the nervous system to create a different physiological response inside in that moment. So if we're already coming into the work really overwhelmed, a
Speaker 3:couple
Elisabeth Kristof:of things to think about with anxiety specifically. One is there's a lot we can do at a very physical level to start to address anxiety so we don't have to reroute all the beliefs and that that takes a lot of capacity to work through all of that. And it can be as simple as I'm a chronic hyperventilator, and that's creating stress all of the time. I might have some sensory mismatch, which is where different sensory systems are communicating differently to each other. Like my eyes have a little bit of a deficit or my vestibular system.
Elisabeth Kristof:So that's my brain is having to decide all of the time, which one of these inputs do I rely on to make that prediction, to decide if I'm safe and what to do next. And so when those signals are conflicting, it's very energy costly for the brain, and that really produces a lot of anxiety. When I don't have a clear map of where my body is. I'm moving through the world kind of blurry, very threatening for the brain. And so there's all these little practical things we can start to rehab that really do a lot to alleviate the stress load of anxiety.
Elisabeth Kristof:And again, it's not about spending hours a day rehabilitating these systems. It's finding a couple of tools that work really well for you and just weaving them in throughout the day, especially when you might start to feel those first subtle signals of like, Oh, I'm starting to brace a little bit, or my heart is starting to race, or I can feel changes in my breath, or maybe I'm dissociating a little bit. Is there something I can do in that moment to to regulate, to repattern, and, again, just let that build on itself?
Kate Northrup:So powerful. You know, I was first introduced to an NSI tool last year. I was teaching a retreat. I was leading a retreat. The retreat was a bit of a shit show.
Kate Northrup:Everyone who went to the retreat continues to be in the group saying it was amazing. However, I was having a deep experience of an this of unease. Yeah. And a lot of it had to do with the retreat venue, and there was this tropical storm. And the venue was, like, not well equipped to support my people.
Kate Northrup:And I
Elisabeth Kristof:have been there.
Kate Northrup:It was crazy. So Carrie Montgomery, who is how I met you, she's a dear friend of mine, and she sat me down in our because I ended up rooming with her as, you know, as part of the tropical storm scenario. So there we were in our jammies. And she I so I was telling her that I was having a really hard time, and she led me through this drill. And it was such a powerful immediate expansion of, oh, now I'm here.
Kate Northrup:And the racing thoughts and the deep sense that things were not okay and that I was doing a terrible job evaporated. And I had had that experience many times from being in nature or, you know, but it didn't feel quite as, like, on call as and this particular experience was called helical breathing that she led me through. And for me, that's a really high payoff tool, and it just gives me
Elisabeth Kristof:instant access
Kate Northrup:to my full self. Yeah. And I
Speaker 3:was like, oh,
Kate Northrup:there I am. Yeah. And as someone who, you know, historically, I do have a tendency to run anxious, and I have been on medication in the past. To be able to find something, not just that one tool, but any number of nervous system healing drills, tools, whatever you wanna call them, that can signal to my body, like, we're safe now. Actually, all is well.
Kate Northrup:That doesn't require cognitive energy because our cognitive energy is not enough or it's not the right input. You know, you can explain it, but it's just basically like the idea that we could change our reality with our thoughts alone is quite misleading, even though there's something to it. So I'd love to hear you talk about what's missing in the concept that if you change your thoughts, you can change your reality.
Elisabeth Kristof:So there's a lot here. That was a beautiful example. And one of the things to think about in trying to understand, yes, it's really important to think about our mindset and our thoughts, but if we're not bringing our nervous system and our body along with that, that can actually create a lot of cognitive dissonance where what I'm feeling inside is very different from the affirmation I'm saying out loud. So you're out there and you're like, everything's fine. It's going to be okay.
Elisabeth Kristof:I know everybody's taken care of, but inside of your body, it does not feel like everything is fine, and that's actually creating more threat load for our
Kate Northrup:brain because it doesn't match. So affirmations that are not a match with what our body is feeling is actually creating additional friction and potentially making things worse.
Elisabeth Kristof:Yes. And I would say also to, like, eroding a little bit of that, like, self trust.
Kate Northrup:Totally.
Elisabeth Kristof:You know? Like, no. Everything is not okay. You know? And creating more of that separation, just trying to, like, blunt force push through it.
Elisabeth Kristof:And also to fuel supply wise, if we're in an activated state in a threat response, most of our fuel and activation is going more toward the back parts of our brain where those autonomic responses are happening. And I don't have as much fuel and capacity to stay in my cognitive mind and my higher order thinking systems. And so it part of our prefrontal cortex job is to inhibit those reflexes. But if I don't have enough fuel and capacity or if I'm in a big threat or survival response, it's not working the way that it should to inhibit that. So I'm trying to inhibit it cognitively, but the reaction is still occurring inside.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so instead, if I can work with my nervous system, which again really doesn't speak English or French or German or Spanish, it speaks the language of sensory input. So instead of saying to myself, you're fine, I'm going to create new inputs through my sensory systems with touch, with breath, with vision exercises, with stimulus for my inner ear, that is stimulus that my system responds really well to, that gives it the fuel and activation that it needs to be able to regulate and modulate and create a different state inside. And then I'm also driving more fuel and activation to my frontal lobe, and I can suddenly look around and say, yeah, I am okay, I'm okay in this moment. Because again, I'm coming back to the presence, right? The presence through that sensory that takes me out of the survival response, and now I can have a different reaction.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so if I can pair those things together, working with the nervous system, with the body, along with the mindset, it's much it's a much different experience.
Kate Northrup:How much does it matter that we are cognitively, consciously aware of the content of our memories or our beliefs or our whatever, whoever, as we do some of these tools to unravel old patterning. Like, let's say someone wants to change their money story, and they have a history of being rooted in lack. They they come from a family that there was a lot of struggle, and they find themselves repeating financial struggle over and over and over again. And, of course, always there are larger systemic things going on here, so it's not always just personal responsibility. And we also are always contributing to our scenarios.
Kate Northrup:Right? So it's both. Right? And they're, like, wanting to change their money beliefs. How important is it that we bring to mind the actual limitations or the actual old memories or the actual content as we practice our nervous system drills?
Elisabeth Kristof:I think sometimes it can be helpful to understand where things are coming from
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Elisabeth Kristof:But you certainly don't have to. You know? There's a lot of people who have only somatic memories of experiences, or like you were saying, it could be collective. Yeah. Or ancestral.
Elisabeth Kristof:We ancestral. We could go back and find so many different reasons for these reactions in our body occurring. And so within SI, we're pretty forward focused, like we're, again, really trying to stay in that present moment. What is the pattern? How's it showing up in my life now?
Elisabeth Kristof:What can I do to make changes in that pattern in this present moment? And can I do that over and over again through repetition and load to start to use neuroplasticity to make changes in the pattern to have them stick so that I'm just moving through the world differently? And I don't always have to go back and understand the source of the pattern or relive the trauma. Sometimes that can actually do more harm than good because, especially if our body, our nervous system isn't equipped to be able to process it differently. Yeah.
Elisabeth Kristof:Right? If I haven't created the skill of mobilizing or emotional expression or vocalizing, I don't have any new ways to process this, and now I'm retelling it. I'm reliving it. I'm just going to get the same patterned response. I'm going to recreate the repression.
Elisabeth Kristof:I'm going to recreate the whole neuro tag. My filters of the world might start to change. I'll have that activation inside, and I don't have any way to process it. And so I'm essentially then just retraumatizing myself over and over and over again. So until I learn new tools or I have more capacity in my nervous system, it might not serve me at all to do that.
Elisabeth Kristof:Yeah. And then even when I do have that, I I mean, personally do. Like, I have to be careful of, like, always diving back in and trying to figure it out and figure it out. It's like, I don't have to figure it out. I just have to repattern, rehabilitate, regulate.
Kate Northrup:That's so I don't know. I find that really freeing, honestly, because sometimes it just can be so heavy to go back. And it's just like Too
Elisabeth Kristof:much sometimes. Sometimes, you
Kate Northrup:know, I I recently learned some things about my grandmother's history. My grandmother has now passed, and and it made a lot of sense as to why I had some outputs in my past that have some of them have changed without me having to have had that information of, you know, potential patterning that lives in my body as a result of, you know, the whole thing about how the egg that forms us was in our grandmother's at 4 months gestation, so that's, like, wild.
Elisabeth Kristof:It is wild.
Kate Northrup:It's wild. Okay. What I wanna ask you about next is meditation. I get asked a lot or people tell me, oh, I'm already meditating. So I'm doing nervous system work, and I understand that it's actually different and not always for everyone the optimal place to start.
Kate Northrup:What's the difference between meditation and nervous system healing tools?
Elisabeth Kristof:So this is a great question. What are the commonalities? Yeah. Meditation is a great tool. It can absolutely I mean, it's so useful for so many people.
Elisabeth Kristof:There's lots of science behind the ways that it impacts our brain function, and it's great. And there's a couple of things I see that happen with meditation, and one is that for some people, it is not it is threatening to sit still and just to, you know, if we're in a state of dysregulation, we're in a state of fight or fight, our body is prepared to move and to discharge and to stress process, and we're trying to sit still, maybe it doesn't feel safe to close your eyes, maybe you're in a room with other people, maybe focusing on your breath or feeling those internal sensations still carries a very heavy threat load and really activates the system into a protective, reflexive trauma response. And so by really pushing yourself to do that, you might feel worse. And I see it happen all the time, and then there's like the shame of like, I can't meditate, and I fail so much later. After, and I would really encourage people to start to be the expert of your own nervous system and assess and reassess what works for you.
Elisabeth Kristof:How do you really respond to that? And maybe it is a great tool, but maybe it's not the right tool for you right now. And we could do some work to rehabilitate the interoceptive system, to help the nervous system get better at modulation, and then it might be a better experience. Or maybe it's just not the right tool. Maybe you need to walk and be present.
Elisabeth Kristof:Maybe your mindfulness practices need to have some type of movement so that there is some stress processing. And then I would say another big difference is I do also come across folks who are kind of using meditation to disconnect from the body. Totally. Right? I like this because it gets me out of my body.
Elisabeth Kristof:And that's not where we're going with neuro training, you know? It's really being able to reconnect to the body, to the sensations that we feel inside, and to restore mobility, to be able to actually feel and then process and discharge emotions, to be I don't want to disconnect from all of that. I want to be able to be with it and to be able to process it. And that inherently emotional regulation and emotional processing, it has to involve some movement. Our bodies are wired to express this energy through movement or vocalization or crying or sounds or there's, there's got to be that component there too.
Elisabeth Kristof:So that we just wanna be careful that we're not leaning into meditation as a way to disconnect from ourselves.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So you're a very diplomatic person, but I'm curious. I wanna know. Like, so you have this, you know, you have this top charting podcast, Trauma Rewired. You go deep into the data.
Kate Northrup:You've been doing this work for many, many years in a way that's that's unusual. Like, it's it's really different than what I've seen out there in the somatics world and in the trauma world. And I wanna know what drives you crazy about some of what you hear, particularly on social media, about the way people talk about trauma and the nervous system?
Elisabeth Kristof:There's a couple of things that concern me. Great. Okay? And one is that I some of the nuance of, like, the nervous system gets lost, and this idea that, like, these this blanket tool is going to be the one tool that will fix everyone and make their nervous system better is not great because everybody's nervous system is really different. We all have different movement patterns, different breath patterns, different past experiences, different deficits, certain things are going to be overwhelming to some people that work really well for other people.
Elisabeth Kristof:And everybody's nervous system is so unique and we need to understand more about our own nervous system, how it works and how do we assess what's really working for us and know that there's nothing wrong with you if this tool doesn't work for you. It's just one tool. It's like one bit of sensory stimulus. And I think people try these things and it doesn't work, and it can really reinforce that narrative of I'm broken, or they might start to experience some strong protective outputs from it. And because they don't know how to calibrate, they don't know how to gauge, like, the right dose of stimulus for their nervous system, and that can sometimes push people into a lot more dysregulation or pain or whatever it is that they're experiencing.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so I think before people just learn all these blanket tools, they need a little bit of understanding about how their nervous system works and how to assess. And then the other thing that I see that is I love somatics and I love processing emotions and you see these big experiences and it looks very cathartic and it's wonderful, and there does have to be some capacity there to have these big experiences. And for some people, that might work wonderfully, and for other people it can really leave them quite lost and in a big state of dysregulation, and they don't have any path back. They don't know any tools. They don't know about their own nervous system.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so they go seeking this healing from a big experience, and and it can be really unsettling
Kate Northrup:for god. So that big experience could involve, like, a hero's dose psychedelic experience or, like, a big deep process work or some kind of big cathartic feeling your feelings event.
Speaker 3:Yes. Is that
Kate Northrup:what you're describing? Yes. Okay. Great.
Elisabeth Kristof:Yeah. And I just get a lot of people that come in to work with us that are left in states of big dissociation, real mental health crisis, suicidal ideation. And it's just these big experiences. There's no preparation before, there's no real plan for integration, like integration at the level of the body and the nervous system after. What am I going to do with this information that came through?
Elisabeth Kristof:What am I going to do with this experience? Is dissociation and emotional repression a well worn path, and now all
Speaker 3:of a
Elisabeth Kristof:sudden this big thing is happening? How's my body gonna react after that? And do I have, like, the support and the tools to be able to navigate through that?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Thank you for answering that question.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So as you know, as we kind of, like, wrap up here, as you know, I work with people around money and the nervous system. I'm curious in your work, while applied neuro is, like, you know, originating really in physiology and, like, physical performance. Right? It's brain science.
Kate Northrup:Right? And so it's, like, might feel like, okay. Well, that's, like, a different topic. But I'm curious in working with clients, in, in, you know, working with your NSI practitioners, What have you noticed, if anything, in people's relationship to money and work and worth when they invest in working with their nervous system in the way that you teach?
Elisabeth Kristof:It's really powerful, actually, because all these patterns, they trickle into all areas of our life. Right? And we do a lot of work with attachment patterns, relational patterns, and these things show up in my relationship to money as well. Right? If I if I don't have good boundaries, if I don't have the capability to set boundaries, I'm going to be overextending myself, undercharging.
Elisabeth Kristof:I just can't have boundaries around my business because that's all relational boundaries, too. And if I don't have the ability to rest and relax, how can I come into a state of relaxed money? You know, if I'm pushing all the time and that feels unsafe, it's really difficult to start to shift some of those dynamics. Maybe also, too, there's past financial trauma, stress at that level, and every time I sit down to make these changes, I'm dissociated, or I'm really tired, or I experience a migraine. And so as I start to work with my nervous system, one, I can increase my capacity so that I can handle the stress of making these big changes, of taking new action without the same protective outputs.
Elisabeth Kristof:And then also too, I'm actually starting to change my responses to stimulus to things. And that's that could be in conversation with my partner or in conversation with my banker, and the way that my system is responding to the world and into my own internal state shifts, and that bleeds into all areas of life.
Kate Northrup:I actually have more questions.
Elisabeth Kristof:Yeah. Yeah. I love questions.
Kate Northrup:Like, I'm like, I thought we were done. We're not. Okay. So something comes up and has come up several times over the last few days with some of my clients, and it's similar, which is like, okay. I made this investment, and it didn't pan out the way I wanted to.
Kate Northrup:Maybe I lost money. Maybe it was a a large investment in some sort of coaching something or other, and I feel like the coach let me down. Or I I I invested in this mastermind, and it had all these promises. And then and then it didn't, you know, it didn't pan out the way I thought. And and every time I think about it, I feel, like, resentful.
Kate Northrup:I feel constricted. I feel hooked. What is your advice or recommendation to repattern that kind of response to, either financial regret or financial resentment?
Elisabeth Kristof:This is a good question. So, 1, I would say, process some of those emotions. Like, first and foremost, let them out. You know, get yourself a good pillow screen session and move around, do the things. And then also, too, when we start to shift, like, I think sometimes some of that comes from, I'm afraid I'm going to make the same mistake over again, right, and I'm getting stuck in this loop.
Elisabeth Kristof:And I know that if I can start to work with my nervous system, work with my brain to start to shift some of these patterns, that I'm now moving through the world differently. Like, I'm a different being as I create these changes in my nervous system, and so I can enter into new containers differently. So my experience will be different. I might not go pair up and be in the same relationship with the same type of people because I have more I'm more in touch with my intuition. But also even if I go into another container that isn't maybe what I want it to be, I'm different.
Elisabeth Kristof:And so there's more that I can get out of it and there's more that I can take in, and I can also have the skill of hearing my intuition, hearing my internal signals, I can take action when I need to. And maybe that's the experience. I've actually had this experience of now I get to go into something, This time, I realized that it's not the right fit. And I get to have the experience of setting a boundary and taking a new action. And, like, in that moment, I'm repatterning.
Elisabeth Kristof:I'm doing the thing.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. I love that so much. What do you think about the nervous system and manifesting? I have a theory.
Elisabeth Kristof:Okay. I'm really curious about your name.
Kate Northrup:My theory is that it's not the more regulated I become, but the more, facile in my nervous system. There's a better word for that. It also starts with an f, and I can't think of it, but that's not the word I'm going for. Flexible? Flexible.
Kate Northrup:There's also another one. It might come or it might not, but flexible is good. But, like, the more able I am to move in and out of states of activation and down regulation and up regulation and, and come back to my wholeness, I have found that the synchronicity in my life is increasing at a rapid pace from a from a like, it is an unbelievable, the sorts of encounters I have, the ease of communication, the like, oh, literally the moment I'm thinking of that person, they're now texting me and I had these things before. But either I'm now more aware of them because I'm healthier and more present, or they're I'm speeding up the rate at which I'm attracting them. I'm not sure it doesn't really matter.
Kate Northrup:And I just want to know what you think about this.
Elisabeth Kristof:Well, I think it's very possible to create change, like what you're talking about, because I think, ultimately, like I said, the reason that I do this is to be present, to be, like, tuned in to myself. And I think the more I'm tuned in to myself and my instincts, our our bodies are communicating so much. We have so much instinct and knowing. But if I'm disconnected from that because I'm in threat response or I'm dissociated, I'm I'm missing all of these signals. Right?
Elisabeth Kristof:I'm I'm also not as attuned to you. I'm not as present with other people and responsive to their nervous systems. And so as I have a healthier nervous system function, that ability to modulate, to have the appropriate response for the moment at hand, I'm better at hearing and feeling and responding to the signals of real time from another person and from inside of myself. And I really think that that opens up a lot more opportunity to to know our truth, to know the knowing, the next right action to take when something is unfolding to step up and be there for it because there's so many signals that are a guide, you know, that are coming from other people and coming from ourselves. And there was one other thing I was thinking about that too.
Elisabeth Kristof:I don't know. I lost
Kate Northrup:it. It'll come back if it needs to. The word that I was trying to think of does not start with an f. It starts with an s, and it is supple. Yes.
Kate Northrup:So supple. Case anybody was wondering. System. I was trying to go for a supple nervous system. Okay.
Kate Northrup:This has been great. Thank you so much for being here. Much for having me. Rich conversation. Thank you for answering all of my questions.
Kate Northrup:I'm happy to, anyway. I have a 100 more. So but yeah. I think it does need a part 2. I agree.
Kate Northrup:I mean Yeah. I hope you come back. So where can people find you to learn more, to dive into some of these practices, and to begin their own healing journey?
Elisabeth Kristof:Well, if you're an individual who's just looking for these tools and a framework to start rehabilitating the nervous system, You can find brainbase.com. If you go to brainbase.com/kate, we have 2 free weeks. Amazing. And I'm on there live. I teach classes.
Elisabeth Kristof:You can do on demand, and then we have the certification program for coaches, therapists, professionals that want to weave this into the great work that they're already doing, and that's neuro somatic.com. Neuro somatic dotcom? Yes.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Great. Neuro somatic.com. Amazing. I love it.
Kate Northrup:Thank you so much. And, also, your podcast, Trauma Rewired,
Elisabeth Kristof:is a great interested in diving into the Yeah. World of neuro and trauma, great free resources, Trauma Rewired.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. It's absolutely incredible. The depth of knowledge that you are just given away for free is mind blowing, so definitely head over there. It's it's one of the top rated podcasts in, I think, the self improvement category.
Elisabeth Kristof:Something like that. One pick up.
Kate Northrup:It's top rated. Perfect. Thank you, Elizabeth. All the links will be in the show notes.
Elisabeth Kristof:Amazing. Thank you so much.
Kate Northrup:What is neurosomatic intelligence? NSI is the ability to recognize how sensory and cognitive inputs affect your nervous system and intentionally shift those inputs to create positive adaptations. This work allows for deeper regulation, improved performance, meaningful behavior change, and trauma repatterning. Learning to work with my own nervous system through NSI has completely transformed my life and my business. I've built resilience, shifted old patterns, and now have tools that help me and my clients thrive.
Kate Northrup:If you're ready to experience this change too, early registration for the next NSI cohort is open now. Don't miss the bonuses. Check out neurosomaticintelligence.com/kate to learn more.