What Fires Together Wires Together | S3E4 (E024)
How do you change neural pathways in the brain? One way is through language patterning. Today we talk about how particular language exercise patterns can help re-wire the brain and help someone feel relief from intense emotions and triggers. And after the world has experienced so many intense triggers for such an extended period of time, this type of work with a practitioner couldn't be more timely. Discover Evie’s experience of neural reprogramming in today’s conversation.
In This Episode
The rise of mindset in health coaching (03:01)
Luge tracks (08:17)
Cause vs Effect (11:35)
Emotion neurology relationship (15:02)
Gestalt theory of psychology (19:01)
Evie’s experience releasing negative emotion (20:50)
Measuring effects of neural rewiring (25:22)
Honoring all parts of ourselves (27:21)
Using neurology to change biology (28:55)
Changing difficult conversations with new perspectives (30:59)
Resources Mentioned
Transcript
Toréa Rodriguez 0:08
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. I am your host, Toréa Rodriguez. And I'm joined by the lovely co host, Evie Takacs. Both of us our Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioners and we love working with women from all over the world, through our virtual programs, helping women not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves, they've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Now, please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you like what you hear today, we would love for you to hit that follow button, leave a review in Apple podcast, share with your friends, and keep coming back for more. Let's start today's adventure shall we?
Okay, welcome back. So today, we want to talk about the importance of the nervous system and why we pay attention so much to the nervous system. And previously, in this season, we talked about parasympathetic tools, because we know that the nervous system and our neurology kind of drives everything that we do from the thoughts that we think, to the beliefs that we have, to the emotions that we have, to the biological processes in the body. So if we're not paying attention to the nervous system itself, we don't get very far if we're not including it. So it goes beyond this whole concept of I'm just going to change my diet and take a bunch of supplements. And I'll be great, right? Not really. So yeah, so we wanted to talk about that, as we've learned exactly.
Evie Takacs 1:56
Yep As we've learned!
Toréa Rodriguez 1:58
It feels nice to say, oh, yeah, no problem, just make some diet changes and take some supplements and everything will be unicorns and rainbows. The reality is that if we're not addressing our neurology to it's very easy for us to fall back into old habits, right. And then all of those old that habits that lead to the chronic symptoms to begin with kind of creeping back in is what I typically see. You've seen this too, right? With your clients.
Evie Takacs 2:27
Yeah, clients and myself. Yeah, I mean, just everything that you're saying, and a big part of this topic. Again, I only have my own personal experience. But yeah, I see it with clients, but absolutely, with myself, too. Yeah, I was always the one of like, I'm going to eat really well, I'm going to take all the supplements, and then I didn't really get into the mindset, or into the the impact that the mindset has, or the neurology of how we think about things, or how we process things until I met you. And I like to think that in those two, three years, like I've made so much more progress than diet and supplements alone would have been doing,
Toréa Rodriguez 3:01
Right, right. Absolutely. And I think it's, you know, it's it's one of those things that wasn't mainstream. Many years ago, you know, when we first got started with health coaching and our own health experience and healing ourselves, talking about our mindset, or talking about the neurology of it wasn't really even a thing. The focus very much was on diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, which supplements you're going to take for whatever test results you're trying to shift, that kind of thing. And while that works, it only works to a certain extent. And I think that's really where I noticed some of my own symptoms starting to creep back in some of my own old habits starting to creep back in. And that's when I started to get really interested in this whole area of mindsets and beliefs and thoughts and, and that kind of thing. We've talked in the past about psychoneuroimmunology, I know I've talked about it, that's a term that's really a new branch of science that's looking at how our mind interacts with our emotions, and how that interacts with our body's biochemistry, specifically in the immune system for psychoneuroimmunology. But there are, of course, other parts of the body that react to those things. So I think that's really what I wanted to talk about today on the podcast and just to have a conversation with you, Evie, of what you've noticed in terms of neurology and neural pathways and changing a lot of that stuff. And maybe we can get into some of the how's too of how that works.
Evie Takacs 4:34
Yeah, absolutely.
Toréa Rodriguez 4:35
What have you noticed, since you've started incorporating some of these techniques, exercises, awareness of mindset and neurology, what have you noticed has shifted for you in terms of your health or your life in general?
Evie Takacs 4:52
That's a good question. What my mind goes to right away is and probably you've noticed in my response time to this question is my response time to how quickly I get emotional has increased. So I've noticed that like, the more awareness I have, and the more work that I've done with my mindset, I don't react as quickly as I used to. Yeah, I don't have these knee jerk reactions to scenarios or situations that might have caused me to have a moment of freakout in the past. Yeah. And so I've noticed that I can take that pause, and I can take that breath in between the stimulus and my response. Yeah, I get to sit there and say, Okay, what is the appropriate response to what just happened. And I like to think that I'm better at doing that. I've also noticed that I don't tend to, not only is my response time different, but I don't tend to get as emotionally worked up as I used to. And I've actually noticed that a lot in the past, gosh, what, two years little over two years now of just all the crazy stuff that's been going on out in the world and in our country, and just all the political things like, it's really easy to have a knee jerk reaction to what you see or hear, especially if you are on social media a lot like I am. Because everybody then is going to chime in, everybody's going to give their opinion of it. And if you're not giving your opinion, and if you're not riled up, and if you're not revved up like everyone else, then you start to feel like, well, what's wrong with me? And I have to remind myself, like, Hey, you don't have to react. First of all, like, keep your head on straight, like, you know, what is your reaction? What is your perspective of this? What is your belief with this? What what is your role in this? What can you do to make things better. But then I also don't need to react the same way that everybody else is outwardly, either I don't need to make a post about it. I don't need to do that. It because I've found myself feeling like, oh, my gosh, like I'm left out, or I shouldn't be sharing this too. And instead, emotionally, I can have that kind of boundary. And that like groundedness of it of you know what, like, I'm not going to have a knee jerk reaction to this. Let me get my information. Let me do this. And that's something that is really different from me from the past few years. And I do think a lot of that is because of the health stuff I've been doing with my mindset, and just overall nervous system. Yeah, because when my nervous system was overactive, and I was in a sympathetic state, almost all the time, I would have had a knee jerk reaction to anything. And it's this, this is actually really evident to and this is really funny, I've noticed that I so I used to get scared very easily, like very jumpy and just like startled very easily. Yeah. And Danny is, he is really into like the horror genre and like, love scary movies, and like all that stuff. And so like he, he can watch that stuff and not be affected of it. And I've noticed that I don't get as affected anymore watching that stuff. But also, even if he were to like, there was one day, I was upstairs, and I was doing something in the closet like organizing, and he comes upstairs and I didn't hear him and I all of a sudden just see him. And I mean, the immense panic, I felt that he had startled me. And what I've noticed is in the past few weeks or months, I like don't really have that reaction anymore. I'm not on my toes as much, I'm not as easy to be startled. And that to me is a sign of my nervous system. And that my brain is like wiring differently. My whole body just feels differently. Because I'm not as on edge. I'm not in that sympathetic mode, as much as I used to my brain is always looking for that danger. Yeah, that it conditioned itself to think was always there.
Toréa Rodriguez 8:17
Right. You've touched on so many great points, I'll just try and pull them out and tease them out. Because it's such a great topic to talk about and bring awareness to the nervous system. Because what we know now, right are neurons that fire together wire together, right? So that's what's called Building a neural pathway. And literally, these neural cells will arrange themselves within the neurons themselves will arrange themselves to be able to communicate back and forth. So they communicate via chemical messengers. That's how they work. And so when we are building these neural pathways, that is what's happening is these cells are physically organizing themselves into these little, I call them highways or luge tracks or whatever you want to call them. But basically, you can think about it as a like, paved highway and all the cars are going down really fast, right? And they're all going in the same direction. And no matter what they're gonna go down Highway 101, they're not gonna go down 280 Unless they go down a different pathway, right? So we can think of it in terms of those highways. And when we are doing things over and over habits, habits in the way we consume media, or habits in the way that we think about ourselves or habits in the actions that we take, like once we get into a habit of running, for example, the biology starts to kick in, and all of a sudden, well, not all of a sudden, but over time grad. It's actually a gradual thing. Now then all of a sudden thing, but over time, what will happen is our muscles are able to handle the run it doesn't feel as tiring or fatiguing. That is neurology at play, tying into the biology. It Is that our muscle fibers get stronger. But what's also happening is that the neural pathways are getting fired off for, okay, we are running now. And so when we are in these different habits, especially in the past couple of years with all the things that have been happening on the planet, and in our country, like you mentioned, we can get into this habit of thinking a certain way, or reacting in a fear way. Because if you think about it, most of the media companies are all about like, it's all clickbait, right, it's all they're all trying to elicit an emotional response to something. And a lot of times, news outlets and media outlets will try and drive that fear response. So a lot of people over the last couple of years have been experiencing a lot of fatigue around being in a very fearful state the whole time. And so becoming aware of what's happening is really, really key to help us manage our nervous systems, because of we're in that heightened state that you were describing that like jumpy state that you used to be in, you can bet that our adrenals are pumping out a lot more cortisol and that our hormones are going to be releasing at different rates than they would if you had a nervous system that was calm. So this is why paying attention to our nervous system is so key. Because if we're not keeping that in balance, you can bet the biology isn't going to be in balance either.
Evie Takacs 11:21
And I definitely saw that in myself, and I've seen it continuously get better. And I know that it's probably not as good as it could be. And so keeps me motivated to continue working on this and continue utilizing this so that it can get better.
Toréa Rodriguez 11:35
Yeah. And it's it's one of those things that I think takes awareness to begin with is oh, hey, what's going on with my nervous system? And if we, you had mentioned being reactionary, and that's a really key thing to pay attention to. So if somebody were to kind of look at their life, there's this concept of, are we being in cause? Are you literally taking that event, pausing for a minute deciding what an appropriate response is, and you're causing your response, as opposed to just reacting to it? Like just, I'm just going to whatever is happening, I'm just going to react to it. And I know that when I am living in effect in that way of like, I'm the effect of what's going on around me, I'm a lot more fatigued and tired, because I'm constantly just reacting to what's going on around me, rather than me being in control of what my own response is to what's happening around me. So it makes me feel unprepared when I'm in effect all the time. I don't know if that relates to you.
Evie Takacs 12:35
That's a really good way of putting it. Yeah, unprepared is really good are always behind or like rushed. Yeah, yeah. That's, that's how I would say I feel
Toréa Rodriguez 12:44
Yeah. And I remember, gosh, I think this happened mostly when I was working in tech. But it also happened after that, too. So I mean, there was a for a period of time, it was a badge of honor for when somebody said, Hey, how's your life going? And the expected answer was, oh, crazy busy. I'm just crazy busy. Right? And you still hear that now? And people are busy. But my question is, are they busy on purpose? Or are they busy? Just because they're trying to keep up and they're always in this reactive mode all the time? Yeah. And you and I both know that that is a recipe for sympathetic nervous system activation. And if we stay there too much, then the body gets out of homeostasis. And then imbalances happen. And then chronic symptoms happen. And then you come and see us!
Evie Takacs 13:32
Yes thats exactly. That's what I was gonna say. I compare I say, it's like, are you busy, or is there like busyness in your life, the busyness is what drives me insane. I'm fine to be busy, especially if it's for you know, things that I've chosen to be busy with. But that busyness of like, yeah, being in the effect of oh, you feel like your life is running you versus you running your life? That's how you describe the differences between those two?
Toréa Rodriguez 13:57
Yeah, that's very much the the cause and effect of like, are you prepared? And are you intentionally being busy? Are you intentionally doing a lot of things? Or are you doing a lot of things because you're trying to catch up or, you know, you're reacting to what's happening. And I know that some of our clients have have been in that space, where they're just going from either dropping off at daycare or dropping off at, you know, their kids, various different sports events, or whatever. I mean, being a parent is hard enough, but then when you're also trying to manage all of this stuff, and if you're not in control, or intentionally setting out to do some things that can drive that nervous system into that sympathetic state. And it's not always that way. Like, we know that unexpected things happen. So we're not trying to say here that, oh, you can plan 100% of your life and be in control and always be in parasympathetic. Like, that's not realistic, either. But it's really a matter of, you know, what is our mindset around those kinds of things and in terms of how we're driving our nervous system at that point because it ties into the biology So much.
Evie Takacs 15:00
Yep. So, I have a question because we've done some of this together. And I'm happy to go into details about some of the stuff we talked about. But sure, how did the emotions tie in to the neurology? What is that relation?
Toréa Rodriguez 15:14
Yeah, that's such a good question. I mean, what we understand about emotions now from the various people that I've read their papers or listen to interviews with them speaking, and they're in the area of psychology, as well as some of the training that I've done is that we know from psychoneuroimmunology, we know that what typically happens,` like the pattern that happens within the human brain and body is that we have a thought, and almost every single thought has an emotion that's associated with it. And we know now that these emotions, the way we feel those emotions like you and I know that we can feel gratitude in a particular part of our body, and we can feel anger in a particular part of our body. And so what we know now is that the actual feeling of the emotion is a chemical messenger that's happening in the body. So if we want to break it down into biochemistry, then right there's these chemical messengers that are being delivered to store that emotion basically, or process that emotion in a particular part of the body. So you know, how it's tied into our neurology then is that when we have a thought, we have a resulting emotion, and that usually has a resulting action or habit that kind of comes along with it. And so that is part of this neural pathway that we're talking about. So if we're building up a new habit, we want to make sure that we are building up the emotions and the thoughts and the beliefs to go along with that habit, so that those things can happen. And then of course, over time, this stuff builds up. And we've built these pathways to you know, something happens, and we feel a particular emotion because the brain likes to compartmentalize these things together. So something will happen when we're little, you know, I like to use the example of you're at school and you open up your lunchbox and somebody steals your grapes that you were looking forward to ever since that morning, when your mom packed your lunch box, you know, and you get mad, you get angry, and you your brain makes an association as somebody took something of mine. And so I get angry. And then later on, when you're an adult, somebody like moves your cup on the table, and you get angry, and you're like, Why did I get angry, somebody just moved my cup, right? But it's related to that time, all those times before, because it's not just twice, it's probably 1000s of times before that our brain has made this association of this emotion with a particular grouping of events. And so that's how it can get so tied in to the neurology is these emotions. And you were talking earlier about being reactive to our environment, a lot of that is that neurology kicking off those neurons are firing together of I see this on the news, and I feel this way. Right. And so you and I have used this exercise with our clients before called the Emotional Home exercise. And we ask them to, okay, take a look at your day that the day that you can remember the most things about in the recent past, and just do an inventory and write it out. Like I woke up and I felt X, I brush my teeth and I experienced X emotion so that we can get an idea of like, how do our habits actually elicit emotions? And what kinds of emotions are we having? And all of this is tied into the neurology and what's really, really cool about it is that we can shift it, and we can change it. I know you and I have done some exercises together. Do you want to share a little bit about that?
Evie Takacs 18:44
Yeah, so this was over a month ago now. Which is crazy to think about.
Toréa Rodriguez 18:50
Yeah, I know.
Evie Takacs 18:51
And we did the two sessions, and I think you need to explain better what it is I can just explain how things have changed for me. Since those sessions
Toréa Rodriguez 19:01
Sure, yeah. So one of the trainings that I went to earlier this year was for learning the basics of Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is really using languages and exercises and various different techniques to help basically break down old pathways and build new pathways. And one of the concepts that we were taught in that training is about how these emotions get categorized together so that that glass being moved and your grapes been stolen like that is called in psychology. It's called Gestalt. So the brain is making this categorization of these emotions. And so what can happen over time is that we build this chain of events that happen, which is the Gestalt that's the chain, you can also think of it as like, we just keep putting stuff into the anger bucket, if you will, right. And so all of a sudden, as adults, we have these huge responses with these huge emotions. And we're just kind of like, what is that about that was totally irrational. I have no logic for it. But I'm like, very sad or very afraid or very hurt. And so we learned this exercise to remove that linkage with each of these emotions. So we talked a lot about the big six emotions, so anger, sadness, fear, and hurt, and guilt and shame. And these are some of those gestalts that can build up over time. And so this exercise that you and I went through together, which is really a visualization exercise, in a way, but it's using also certain linguistic tools to be able to help the brain change its relationship. So we went through you and I went through the big six emotions, and we went through anger and sadness and fear and hurt and guilt and shame together. Tell us what was your experience?
Evie Takacs 20:50
It was, I really didn't know what to expect, honestly. I yeah, I was like, like, Yeah, let's give it a shot. But I'm not quite sure. And I also want to preface this with I was like, deep in a lot of these emotions, like I had a lot of them that were currently going on just with current life situations and life scenarios. So I felt like this was probably the best time to do it for me not to say it wouldn't have been helpful if I wasn't so wrapped up in these emotions anyways. But the experience, I mean, it was, you know, we just kind of got in this meditative state, if you will. And you were just asking me questions, and I just was giving you answers. And that was it. But I was in a lot of tears were shed, because, you know, I think my body just finally releasing, and I really just surrendered to that experience. And I thought, you know, I might as well surrender and just see what happens. And all again, it was just me answering questions and explaining how I would rather feel and going back to scenarios and thinking of myself as a little girl, and how, you know, how I see myself now. And so it was that in terms of like the logistics of what we did, but now being over a month out from that, I, I like want to text you every day, like, guess what, I just had an experience that would have made me so mad, but I don't feel that way anymore. Because that's so amazing. That's what I would say is there's been situations with particular people or situations with particular, you know, I guess scenarios, and that would have 100% thrown me over the edge two months ago, and they were like, they were throwing me over the edge, I was losing my control, I was losing my grounding. And now, like the exact same scenarios are going on, and I'm not losing my grounding. I'm not losing my head. Yeah, I'm just like, you know, this is really unfortunate. I don't like that this is happening. But I'm not getting overly emotional. I'm having an appropriate emotional response. Yeah. Whereas before, I was noticing I wasn't having an appropriate emotional response. It was very heightened. And it was interfering with my day, it was interfering with my work, it was interfering with life at home. And now I can say like, you know, that really sucks. But I just don't feel as angry or I don't feel as her anymore, or I don't feel as guilty. You know, when you're carrying around those big emotions that is heavy to carry around. And I was carrying those around for months. Yeah. And to no longer feel that way. Again, it doesn't mean that I don't get upset by what might be happening. But I'm just not as I'm not as emotional. I feel like I'm very rational in the level of emotion that I get from these situations. Yeah. And that has been a life changing experience. For me.
Toréa Rodriguez 23:34
It's so cool to hear you say this, because it's very hard to describe, like, well, what is it? It's not really therapy, right? It's not cognitive behavioral therapy. It's not that it's literally an exercise that using particular words and languaging. And association, right of an event, for example, really helps the brain rewire new neurological connections or new neurons, right new neural pathways. And that is really fascinating to see A) how quickly it can happen. But then B) if we're going to build a new pathway. It's not like we go from one highway to another highway, like we have to build the highway. So that means that afterwards, and I know because I know you and we talk all the time that you have done a lot of actions to help reinforce these new pathways of like of pausing when you're in a situation that would normally have triggered you to have a huge response or reaction. You're now in a habit of pausing to give yourself the space and time to have that appropriate response. So we need to reinforce these pathways and build it in a way where we're asking our brain to go down the other pathway more and more times and the more times it it does it then of course we build these new neural pathways, right. So it's just so interesting and fun to hear your experience with it because that was my experience going through the training, of course, we get it on the receiving end as we practice with other coaches and trainers that are in the training. And what I really noticed is that, so I measure stuff, you guys know this probably about me. But I'm very geeky. And I like data. And I like to see measurements. And so I track my HRV with my Oura ring, and I, you know, have another app that helps me track heart rate variability, which is a marker that we know now it's of the nervous system, right? So you can tell whether or not you're in parasympathetic. But my HRV scores have gotten better and better since doing this work. And I've noticed that I can get into more of a restful state, I have an easier time getting into a restful state now, after doing this work with NLP, and really looking at that neurology, and that has to do with, you know, we're building these new neural pathways in the brain. And so the brain is having an easier time choosing to go down the exit that we want it to go down, as opposed to just always staying on the highway of complete irrational response, right?
Evie Takacs 26:07
Yeah. And for someone who's listening in there, like, I still have no idea what you're talking about it basically, you fo..., let's say we were focusing in on guilt. So you started by saying, like, at what point in your life, did you first feel guilt? And so I'd think about that time, and then you would ask me a series of questions that basically guided me to, instead of feeling guilt, I want to feel and I would say whatever I want to feel, you know, peace or calm or whatever it is. And so you were basically guiding me and building these new highways, building these new routes for my brain to it's not to say that I'm never going to feel guilt again. Or that feeling guilt is bad. I think that's an appropriate emotion and appropriate situations. But instead of me dwelling in that guilt, I now noticed, I was able to learn that guilt can also lead to peace. And guilt can also lead to feeling calm. And so you're making those connections of like, feeling guilt doesn't have to just mean guilt, it can also lead to eventually feeling peace, or calm, or whatever the emotion is that you might say during your session. So that was really interesting to me. And something that we started with was the parts integration, because I told you like, I was like, I was kind of like, in this dilemma of like, I have these parts of me that feels this way.
Toréa Rodriguez 27:18
And part of me feels the opposite. And how do i?
Evie Takacs 27:21
Yeah, yeah, like, I feel like I'm split, like part of me wants this. And another part of me wants that. And I can't really tell which part is better or worse, or the right one or wrong one. And, and you helped me fuse those two together that both parts of Evie that you think are like dueling are actually wanting the exact same result. Yeah, you're just you're thinking about it in a different way. So like that, like part A of Evie that wants to do this, and then Part B of Evie, they ultimately want the same solution, the same outcome for you. And so putting those together was like, Oh my gosh, I don't have to be living this duality, or this, like split. Like, no matter what I do, every part of me is going to want the same exact outcome, which is to be happy and healthy and fulfilled and successful. And so whether I go with route A, I'm most likely gonna get that and if I go with route B, I'm most likely gonna get that too. And so that was huge for me of it took away that pressure of feeling like I am like, in this gigantic dilemma, because being in a dilemma is a very sympathetic state. And so yeah, took that away from me of like, you're not split, you want the same thing, you're just thinking about it in two different ways, which is fine. And I'm just like that. I don't know if you're watching this. And if you're not watching, I'm like scratching. I'm just, I'm emotionally scratching my head. Like, I'm just like, my hands are up in the air. I'm telling you, this is incredible. And I'm just I'm so glad that you did this with me. And I thank you for it because it is safe. I mean, who's to say what the past, you know, six weeks would have been like if we didn't do that? .
Toréa Rodriguez 27:39
Absolutely
Evie Takacs 27:41
Yeah, it's crazy.
Toréa Rodriguez 28:04
And I, what's really cool about what you're saying is that it did have this huge impact for you. And what I love about it is that this is available to everybody, right? So sure, you might need to find a particular practitioner who's trained in NLP or, you know, work with somebody to become more aware of how to build new neural pathways and how to do habit change, and how to change certain things in our life. But working with somebody to be able to do this. I mean, this is what blows my mind so much. And I get so excited and crazy jazzed about the fact that our brain has this neuroplasticity that we can really literally change the way that our brain operates just through doing some of these emotional exercises and changing the way that we talk, changing the language that we use, like we can change a lot of stuff about our brain and therefore our biology just through these simple techniques. And I think for the longest time we've been in this world of medicine where we compartmentalize each organ, so we've got a heart specialist and a kidney specialist and a skin specialist and, and that's great, but we're not integrating into the whole. And of course, the brain. We've got some brain specialists too, and I love them. But at the same time, they're thinking only about the brain, not the downward effects of the brain into our emotional well being and to our spiritual well being, and then to our biology. And it just really makes me super excited. And as you were talking about the parts integration, one of the conversations that we had a lot over the weekend with some of the people that we were hanging out with was the complete dichotomy of what's happening in the world, like our politics are very split. And the way that we feel about viruses are very split in the treatment of viruses. Vaccines are very split, like everything's very split. And when you were talking about part of me wants to do this, and a part of me wants to do this. And we all want the same purpose. I think it's really knowing that I think handling these conversations now with people around world issues, it helps me to know that ultimately, they they want a particular purpose. And now my conversations when I have them with people who might have opposing views is always about the curiosity of what's the purpose of what that is that you're so you know, animated about, like, tell me like, what's the greater purpose of that? Because, of course, we're all driving towards that higher purpose. And that can happen within ourselves, too. And yeah, I mean, I think the ultimate like takeaway, if anybody's listening to this, and hearing us talk about all of this stuff, like how does this apply to wellness, I thought this was about that outdoors and wellness, like what's going on? I think a lot of it does apply, because our wellness, of course, and the way that our biology works, and that homeostasis that we're looking for with the biology that's built into every single one of us. That's what our DNA does, right? Is it gives us this blueprint of optimal function. And if we can balance that out with our nervous system to support that optimal function. That's how this is tying into wellness, like that's what we're talking about in terms of the parasympathetic. And that things are a little bit easier from an emotional standpoint, that all ties into wellness. And then of course, if we want to achieve things outdoors and be outside and do particular things that we need this kind of mindset awareness too because a lot of people don't experience the outdoors, because they have a fear of it for whatever reason, right. So if we can find that level of changing some habits around the outdoors to this totally ties in. Yeah.
Evie Takacs 32:33
Oh, yeah, I agree. I think when you were saying that, I was thinking like, oh, the way I see it is like, if you want to spend time outside, you want to live a long, healthy life, you want to do all that stuff like this as part of taking care of yourself. So it all very much ties in.
Toréa Rodriguez 32:48
Yep. Yep, absolutely. So thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. I know that was a very personal thing that you went through. And we appreciate you so much, and sharing your experience with that. And hopefully, we were able to get some of this information in a way that you could relate to it and understand what it is that we're talking about when we say you know, neurons that fire together wire together. Now you kind of know what we're talking about, because this is really how our habits come to play. And we are a product of our habits. And our habits come from the identity of the person that we're being and so a lot of this is tied into our neurology and if we want to change it, we have to do some of this work. So cool.
Evie Takacs 33:32
Absolutely
Toréa Rodriguez 33:33
Thanks, everybody. If you have questions from this episode, please You are more than welcome to submit your question. The instructions to do so are in the show notes. And of course, share this with a friend if you think that this will benefit them. We really really love it when you guys tag us on posts and show us your feet outside and you're spending your time outdoors. We love it so much so we will catch you in the next episode.
Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're ready to dig deeper into your health, stop playing the Whack-a-Symptom game, start testing to get better guidance, you can find more about Toréa at torearodriguez.com and you can find Evie at holisticallyrestored.com. Want a peek into what it's like to work with us? Come join us at our Optimized Wellness Community. You can find the invitation link in the show notes below. And if you have a question for the show, you can submit your question under the podcast section of torearodriguez.com. Finally, if you found something helpful in this episode, don't forget to leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. They're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, see you outside!
