The Neuroscience behind Manifestation with Dr. Kathleen Kelley

Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. I have another treat for you this week. I’m so excited about today’s episode because I know a lot of you ask the question like, what’s the science behind manifestation? Or, prove it to me, Jamie, or tell me, you know, I wanna know the details behind this, and I have to say.

I tend to lean into more of the intuitive feeling side of it, and I’m like, I dunno. I just experiment. I test it out and it works. And so while I do dive into some of the science of it, I wanted to bring on an expert in the science. Of manifestation. Someone who can describe it in a way where for some of you, it’s really gonna land and you’re gonna say, oh my gosh, that makes sense.

This is actually how the brain works and why manifestation works. And so I have asked my incredible client, Dr. Kathleen Kelly, to come on and we are gonna dive into some of those questions. So let me go ahead and introduce her first, and then we’ll dive in. So Dr. Kathleen Kelly has been in the healthcare industry for over 30 years, and these days she works with people who are stressed out, overwhelmed, and headed towards burnout.

Her passion for neurology, brain health, wellness, and self-care led her to become a life coach. She uses both her experience as a seasoned physical therapy professor, yoga and meditation teacher, and her thorough understanding of neuroscience to guide individuals to shift their mindset. Kathleen applies principles of modern neuroscience to her coaching to help people rewire their brains for more peace and less stress. She creates individualized programs for her clients to tackle the stress and.

On with their life. So welcome, Kathleen. Thank you for being here. This has been a long time coming because me and Kathleen have been in each other’s worlds for a while, and

Oh wow.

so excited to have.

It’s the best intro ever. Can you

Ah,

my intros please?

it’s just who you are. Come on.

Thank you.

Okay. So I’m super excited to dive in because I love your brain and I love the way that you think, and I. Really love how you bring all of these backgrounds together, right? You bring the neuroscience, but then you also have all of these specialties and yoga and life coaching and you blend it all together so beautifully.

So I’d love to ask you what the neuroscience behind manifestation and focusing on what you want, if you were describe, to describe it in a way that you know, um, would help someone understand kind of the science behind it.

Well, it’s, it’s just what you said. Manifestation is focusing on what you want because our brains are always at work. You always have thoughts, you’re always looking around, you’re always taking in sensory data. But what we have is, is selection bias. We pick what we notice based on past experiences, things that have gotten you to where you are right now, things that helped you be successful in the past.

You notice you pick right, and then you wanna manifest. Hmm, I, I want a new job. Um. The, the thing I’ve had in my mind, ’cause I read it in her book, is Mel Robbins wanted to manifest becoming a, a motivational speaker. So there’s the goal, there’s the clarity, and in our program, in the movement, you talk often about get crystal clear on your goal, and when you get crystal clear on your goal, you’re starting to take the lingering selection bias and make it.

Less important and make your goal more important. And it doesn’t happen overnight, right? You decide you want a goal and then tomorrow you got a job speaking in front of 50,000 people. Not so much. It takes time. It takes time. So what what Mel started doing is speaking for free at the library in front of women.

She noticed an opportunity because she had a goal. Her brain stopped looking at all the things that were bad. Oh, we’re in debt. Oh, we, we have this problem. Oh, my husband is, is so upset about something. She stopped noticing all that and noticed, huh? They have this flyer up at the library because you got crystal clear on your goal and you’re creating your own selection bias, what you’re doing, how I think of it as you’re resetting.

Resetting your filter.

Hmm.

Our filters are set based on things that happened in our past, how we grew up genetics. I, I grew up in alcoholism. My filter is set to, to be looking around, waiting for the shoe to drop. That’s my filter. I inherited that from my mother and my grandmother,

Yeah, yeah,

so I have to choose to reset my filter.

yeah.

The shoe is not dropping. The shoe is fine,

Yes.

and I have this new goal, right? I wanna manifest more clients in my business. That’s one of my manifestations. So now I’m looking for opportunities that will allow me to get in front of my clients.

Yeah.

started with workshops, huh? I could submit a workshop to my state.

Um. Our state meeting now, have I spoken at the state meeting before? Yes. Have I been to the state meeting before? Yes. Have I showed up at the state meeting as a life coach for stressed out people before? No. All of a sudden, this opportunity that was right in front of my face suddenly became a different opportunity.

An opportunity to get in front of my people with my business. And I’m not saying it was easy, you probably coached my head trash. Oh, I can’t go. I can’t talk about this. I can’t tell them I’m a life coach. They’re gonna think I’m crazy.

A shift in identity, right? Because you were the I, you came in with the identity of professor, right?

Yes, professor, researcher, physical therapist, and first, the first practice was just saying, I’m a life coach.

Yeah,

Just saying it, I’m a life coach. And the next practice was, Hmm, I’m a life coach who needs to get in front of her people. Hmm. How do I do that? And then here’s the opportunity. So get in front of your people and now it’s, Hmm, I’m kind of burnt out on doing workshops.

What’s a different way? Um, it was probably three calls in, uh, in the movement before I finally blurted out that day. Hey, Jamie. Right. So taking the action, when, when you start to, um, reset your filter towards your goal, you’re selecting your goal. You, you are choosing your goal and you’re crystal clear on your goal.

So you’re resetting your filter and that starts the process of being less afraid of the actions.

Yeah.

’cause you’re getting your goal in your subconscious, oh, it’s my goal. It’s my goal to. Be booked on a podcast

Totally.

I do that practice. You give us where you get into the feeling,

Yep.

what feeling do you want when you’re getting booked on a podcast.

Yep.

And it’s so interesting, some of the research I came across. Yes. The goal is in my conscious mind, I wrote it down. I have a card over here, I journaled. But the feeling, sitting in the feeling gets it into my unconscious mind.

Oh

You sit in the feeling on your meditation cushion or on your pool, floaty. That’s how I do it.

Sometimes

I like that practice. I like that.

you sit in the feeling and your amygdala goes, Hey, yo, what’s, what’s going on over there? Gimme some of that. And you know, we think of the amygdala as as being the fight or flight center, but it’s this, it has emotions, right? It processes emotions, not just bad emotions, like all emotions. And it’s an intricate part of your unconscious.

So you’re sitting in this feeling that you have attached to your goal, and then the amygdala goes, Hmm, huh. Gimme some of that.

Yeah.

And then you go to bed that night and your amygdala and your hippocampus are thinking, Hmm, how can we get booked on a podcast? How can I get in front of people and be a motivational speaker?

Right. You and Josh are looking for a home. How can we find a home?

Yeah.

And like my, my guess is at the beginning you found some really great condos ’cause that’s where you started.

totally.

And then you went, oh, okay, this is great, but we really want a home. How does the home feel? What do we feel like in our home? And you, you keep resetting that filter.

You keep

Yes. I really like that. And I’ve never heard of selection bias and what I really, it’s fascinating about that, and I’m curious, so if you are not selecting on purpose, right, selecting the vision, getting crystal clear on what you want, deciding on the goal, deciding where you’re going, whether that’s a motivational speaker or a book life coach, or moving to Hawaii, whatever it is, right?

If you’re not deciding what happens to selection bias, where does your brain go when you don’t decide or when you don’t have that vision and that focus?

It goes to the place where it’s always been.

Mm,

I just listened to one of your audios today in our program, and you were talking about when you weren’t making any money and your coach asked you, well, Jamie, are you showing up as that coach? And you said, no, I’m in yoga pants all day, and I’m sitting around.

That’s where your brain always went. For a long time sitting around ruminating, writing things down, making lists. So if you didn’t decide, I don’t want this anymore,

Yeah.

I want to be a a hundred K coach, if you didn’t decide, then your brain’s just gonna go to where it’s always gone because some part of you got something out of that.

Yeah.

Some part of you got a reward out of that. You got to sit at home in your yoga pants and not be embarrassed speaking in front of people. Right.

Not try new things, not get outta my comfort zone. Even though it’s like, it’s painful being who you’ve always been. There’s, I always say there’s like comfort in it because you know that level of discomfort. So you have to either choose the old discomfort of staying where you’ve been with me. It was hiding, like not putting myself out there, not getting on video, not sharing my voice or my message and staying in yoga clothes.

Right? And then I just decided I’m getting sick of this. Uh, this, this type of, you know, it’s like, yeah, it was a comfortable discomfort, but it got very loud and clear that that’s not where I wanted to be. So I had to choose a new focus, a new level of discomfort. So I love the idea that that happens through selection bias.

That’s so fascinating. Um.

let’s just be clear. It wasn’t easy for you.

No. Oh no, absolutely. And it’s still not like this is still the practice. It’s so wild how, you know, we think at some point it’s, and it’s not that it doesn’t get easier, but if you’re gonna continue growing, it’s still the same process of becoming the next version of yourself and evolving and growing is.

It can be uncomfortable. You have to lean into a lot of trust. You have to lean into a lot of the unknown and courage and doing things you don’t know how to do, so it doesn’t change. So I completely get that.

Well, because the neuro, the neuroscience is, is against you hundreds of thousands of years of I need to stay safe. I need to stay safe. I need to be protected. I need to be part of the tribe. I need to have a partner who’s gonna protect me hundreds of thousands of years. It’s only been in like the past, I think, 2000 years where we are more able to decide because we’re not at risk of actually dying.

Yeah.

So the science is, is a bit against you because you have very deep programming of safety, very deep programming of, oh, if that’s, if I’m afraid of that, then I’m not going to do it. Now, what you’re afraid of is so different now. Right? I’ll, I’ll just use you. Right. You were afraid of speaking in front of people.

You’re not actually gonna die if you speak in front of people.

yeah.

Right. I, you know, I coach, I coach, uh, therapists, I coach people in, um, academia. And I said to someone one time, you know, you’re not gonna die if you submit this paper and they reject it. And she looked at me and said, are you sure?

Right.

I’m sure, but it feels that way.

And the feelings aren’t any different than if you really were gonna die because it’s all coming from the same place, coming from the unconscious mind that is creating fear, creating a response to flee, dumping, you know, cortisol and things into your system. It’s all the same. It’s just we’re not actually gonna die. So you decide.

Yeah, well with that, I think it’s also can just be such a relief to like normalize that some of these things that our conscious mind we’re like, why can’t we take action on this? Why has it felt so hard? Why is this so scary to share an Instagram reel, whatever it is. We’re like, we know we’re not gonna die.

But it feels so scary and there’s so much resistance. Do you know of a way, I mean obviously coaching really helps with this, but. How would you recommend we work with this evolution, right? Where it, it feels like we’re working against our brain in a little bit, like it’s only been in the last 2000 years where we’re actually not gonna die, but it feels like we’re gonna die.

How do we create safety in those moments?

Yeah, you create safety from the inside out. You have safety in your own body first so that the circumstances can’t pull you out of your safety. My favorite practices have to do with the breath, but. Those aren’t the only practices. So when I do a workshop, I start, my first practice is with a deep breath, and everyone’s paid money and they’ve come and I’m like, I see you.

I see you rolling your eyes, Kath, you’re gonna teach us a deep breath. We know a deep breath. I’m gonna teach you the most regulating deep breath you’ve ever taken. Ready? Gonna sit up nice and tall. You’re gonna get long, like from the tops of your hips to your underarms. Heads of the arm, bones back. Your hands can be wherever, but they’re relaxed.

Okay.

If you can ground your feet, it’s not required, but it’s nice, and you’re gonna close your mouth and put one hand over your belly button, breathe in through your nose, and the belly comes out and exhale. That is a true parasympathetic deep breath. Your belly came out, which means your diaphragm, which is a dome flattened. Right belly comes out diaphragm flattened. What does that do? Well, it brings air into the lungs, which is a safety mechanism. It’s telling your brain, Ooh, we have enough air. It does so much more than that.

It does so much more than that. What people don’t realize is the heart is right here. The pericardium is sitting right on top of the diaphragm. When you take the diaphragm away, the heart goes. Oh, space. And I love the when you had Molly on and she said, I put my hand on my heart. So you take a deep breath, you put your hand on your heart, you get influx of oxygen.

It’s a parasympathetic signal to your vagus nerve, and it’s a release of your heart and your hand is feeling your heart emitting a signal that says, Ooh, we’re safe. We’re safe. The electromagnetic field of the heart is three feet. It’s three feet.

Wow.

It vibrates with emotion. You create peace and calm on the inside from your heart out.

You can radiate that to your audience who might be like giving you the side eye

Yeah.

to your husband. I watched you and Josh do it in the car when you were driving around Maui. watched you guys regulate each other while you were driving around. Yep, we’re good. We got this. Josh is like, we don’t live in that world.

We got this. We’re finding a place you guys were co-regulating.

Yeah. Wow. I didn’t even know this.

You do it all the time with him. I see you all the time. Do it with him. You guys, it’s part of the magic of, of your relationship is that you co-regulate so well.

Wow. Because your, what would you call it, magnetic field or your heart space?

The electromagnetic field of your heart. It’s coming out. It’s coming out and

And what happens when you breathe? What happens to that field?

Well it, you are giving the heart space to say, oh, I’m safe. So if you do it in reverse, like draw your belly up and in, draw your diaphragm out. Breathe up. Then your heart goes, I gotta pump faster ’cause I’m unsafe.

You feel the difference?

absolutely.

Okay.

And the whole thing is telling your vagus nerve. Oh. There’s enough air, oh, the heart’s going slower.

Vagus nerve to solitary, nucleus to hypothalamus. Your subconscious is getting the message. We’re safe. So now you insert this safety message into your subconscious and you take it around with you. So you go someplace and you get in front of your. 10 people that you finally book the speaking gig and you feel all the sudden nervous and then you remember, oh, Kathleen taught me to take a deep breath.

Yeah.

You conjure safety even though your conscious mind is looking out and is gonna let the circumstance hijack you Inside.

yeah. Yeah. What happens when you shift into that? Like what actually happens? Let’s say you’re freaking out about something. You’re gonna go live, or you’re going to get on stage and you’re just sweating and freaking out, and you decide to pause and do that one deep breath into the heart space, into the belly, you calm your parasympathetic nervous system.

What actually happens internally?

So internally, when you’re freaking out, you’re sweating. That’s a sympathetic drive, but your sympathetic nervous system has decided you’re unsafe and it doesn’t know the difference between speaking in front of 20,000 people or about to be run over by a car.

yeah.

The, the, the neurotransmitters that get dumped are the same.

Wow.

Even though your safety, you’re never gonna die. Speak. I have been speaking in front of people for 30 years, no death.

Still here.

So your sympathetic nervous system increased your heart rate. It’s making you sweat. Um, it’s makes you dry in the mouth, so it’s harder to speak and it’s making your breath shallow. You said?

Mm-hmm. Girl, you don’t have me today. You took a deep breath.

Yeah,

So you drew your diaphragm down, you drew your belly out. You are calming from the inside. You’re asking your parasympathetic system for help.

yeah,

Now, if you’re really wired, if it’s really upsetting, it might take a little longer.

yeah.

You might not be able to instantly turn yourself off.

Why? I’ll tell you why. Because there’s no parasympathetic off switch on the adrenal gland.

Mm

It has to come from your hypothalamus. Your hypothalamus has to decide, Oop, she doesn’t need this cortisol anymore. I gotta stop dumping this cortisol into her body. So like, if you’ve ever experienced, um, anticipating a vacation to the point where you like packed your schedule for the two weeks before and you’re like vibrating and you finally get to the beach and you’re like, can’t relax.

Hundred percent. Sometimes I say that, I’m like, I think it takes me a week to finally get into vacation mode.

Yeah, because your hypothalamus didn’t know. Your prefrontal cortex knew. ’cause that’s your cognitive brain, your hypothalamus didn’t know. So it kept activating, activating, dumping cortisol and you’re now flushing cortisol. My recommendation, you got on the beach, you got your book and you’re like.

Yep.

My recommendation is an activity, but not like hop on the Peloton and sweat until you die.

Yeah.

Take a walk,

Yeah.

notice the ocean, notice the smell. Get into your senses. Ride your peloton gently and put something pretty on there, right? One of the oceans or whatever they have on there. I don’t know. I never use those. Right. Go for a hike, but an easy hike.

Yeah.

Don’t do that thing that like cardio. I need to push myself.

You wanna burn off the cortisol,

Oh, interesting.

get yourself into vacation mode. Get yourself into your parasympathetic without creating more,

Yeah,

and the hustle.

like a bridge, right? So you’re not, it’s like slowing that momentum down is how I’m hearing it. And I could see that not only working for vacation, which I know a lot of people are gonna like this. ’cause I coach so many people, I’m like going to vacation and feeling like, what the heck? I can’t turn it off.

I don’t know how to rest. And it’s like the momentum is there, right? And. Yeah, so I feel like you could have used it on vacation, but also this could be applied anytime that you’re in kind of that big activated phase and you need that bridge. It’s like so doing something where they’re still mo not trying to go from one extreme to the next.

Right. Not trying to go from all of this movement to just lay down and rest.

Right, right. It’s too much. It’s too much. You’re your hypothalamus, your HPA axis hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal. It’s still firing. ’cause we need to get into the subconscious and say, Hey, we’re on vacation. We’re safe. One of the ways, one of the great ways to do that is through either meditation or hypnosis.

Okay.

It’s the bridge from the conscious to the unconscious. So you try, try meditating on the plane. Notice your feet. Notice your arms. Notice your breath. Say, Hmm, I’m headed towards vacation. It’ll all be there when I get back.

Yeah.

I’m safe, I’m secure. I’m headed towards vacation. Right. Start on the plane. So by the time you land, you’re sort of on the way.

You’re on the way down.

You need to record a meditation for people going on vacation.

Oh, I’ll, oh, I totally will. I totally will. I,

Yeah. That’s so good.

I’m gonna write that down.

So good. I love that so much.

I have.

Oh my gosh. And yeah, it kind of brings me into visualization ’cause I wanna know a little bit of the science behind visualization, and I know you kind of. You mentioned that a bit of on the plane start to visualize yourself going there, talking yourself through getting on vacation.

Can you talk a little bit about the science behind why visualization actually works? Like when we’re visualizing a goal or seeing our, something is done seeing us there? Anything, tell us all the things.

It’s very similar to when you have a crystal clear goal, so your eyes are always working.

Yeah.

The the occipital lobe, the back of the brain. Oops. That’s my brain. Here’s my brain,

Okay.

not my brain. It’s plastic.

For those of you watching on YouTube, she’s showing the brain model.

So the back here is the occipital lobe. It’s one of the biggest parts of the brain. It like vision, has a ton of real estate associated with it in the brain. So our eyes are always working, always taking in, and it’s just taking in whatever. And again, you’re filtering with bias. So now I’m gonna visualize, I’m gonna visualize myself sitting in my office.

Chatting with Jamie, like we’re just chit chatting. Two girlfriends. I’m not nervous.

Yeah.

I’m happy. I’m doing well. So now my vision, my visual system has a cue, which is gonna help it look for ways to create. I picked happy.

Mm-hmm.

I wanna feel happy. I wanna feel calm while I’m talking to you. You pick whatever you want.

Um, when, when you direct your vision, you direct the neurons and what we call it is adjusting the gain. Um, gain. Think of gain as when you’re turning up the volume on the radio. Right. It’s gain, it’s turning up the volume. So I’m looking for how can I stay calm? How can I stay relaxed? I picture myself sitting.

I picture us smiling at each other. I picture you smiling at me. ’cause, uh, you’re always smiling. I, right. And now my visual neurons are clued in to all the things that could make me feel, you know, I wanted to feel happy and calm.

Yep.

Let’s say we’re back to your speaking gig, right? I visualize myself, I’m up on stage, I pick for all these people.

They’re looking at me.

Yeah,

nodding. They’re getting it. Ooh, someone’s asking me a question. Now my eyes are gonna find the guy who’s raising his hand.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I love it. I love it. And I mean, I’ve used that so much and it is such a game changer, especially for the things I’ve been nervous about or, I mean, I use visualization a lot, but I love using it for the things that I’m stepping into that I’m kind of nervous about, or it’s like, feels like an up level for me and two.

Really see it as I want it to be. And so it’s fascinating to hear the kind of behind the scenes of what is actually happening in your brain and why it actually works.

Well, the visual system is connected directly to the filter.

okay.

A lot of people talk about the reticular activating system

Yes.

and the reticular activating system. It keeps us awake, keeps us alert, but just above the reticular activating system is the thalamus. The thalamus is the big filter.

Okay.

So here’s where the reticular activating system lives.

All in here, reticular means net. So it’s a net of nuclei in tracks, but right here, this blue, that’s the thalamus, that’s the filter. It has a nucleus only to vision.

Yeah.

So your visualization is resetting your filter to look for the ways, the things that get you, your goal.

Yeah.

Like you were talking about, oh, I’m visualizing a launch, I’m visualizing, I don’t know, 20 people in a launch a line, da, da da, da da.

Now you’re, you’re thalamus is set to notice. Oh, huh. I haven’t talked to her in so long. I’m gonna shoot her an email.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, was that so and so on such and such podcast?

Yeah.

She was my client five years ago. I’m gonna shoot her an email. You, you did it to me. You shot me an email

Yeah.

because

Which was just intuitive for me. I didn’t even think about it, but it’s so true. It just opens things and that is how I’ve seen it, right? From like a little bit more of the um, yeah, intuitive side I guess is, it feels like whenever I do these practices, you are describing why it actually works in the brain, but I’ve seen so much evidence of it, not even knowing why, but it’s.

So true. Whenever I visualize something, I always feel like I get more creative, more ideas, more intuitive. I’m led to things. So it makes so much sense. And you also, I just am picking up that you’ve mentioned a couple times the importance of, um, bringing not only the vision, not only writing down the I AM statements, but also bringing the emotion that you want into it.

And I’ve heard you talking about that, right? Whether that’s fun, whether that’s. Relief whether that is calm, bringing that emotion into the, would you say the visualization process? The manifestation

all the process always bring the emotion. Emotions are more primitive than thoughts.

Okay.

The prefrontal cortex developed later in the human life, and you know, we have the biggest one like your dog. She’s not very curious. She’s just a dog.

Yeah. She’s not thinking about her thoughts. I don’t think

No, she doesn’t have metacognition. That’s a later skill. In humans.

Okay.

Emotions are more primitive. So if we get the emotion of what we want into our subconscious, then the filters in the thalamus start to pull it out. ’cause the thalamus is connected. It’s connected to the prefrontal cortex. They talk, but it’s also connected to all the deeper structures.

Yeah.

Everything’s all like basically shoved in the same spot inside your, inside the brain.

Yeah.

So they work together. And you know, something we really haven’t talked about is like the hippocampus is right. In the middle of all this, that’s your great storage system. That’s your filing system. All your stuff is in there. So when you visualize, I want an aligned client, you, you visualize who they are, what they’re doing, and then your subconscious goes into your files and then suddenly you wake up in the morning and you’re like, I gotta call Sue.

Yeah.

Because she was in your file next to a client who coaches a client who’s interested in manifesting money. A client I met during LCS and she had a lot of great questions, right? She’s filed in there and we don’t have a ton of control of how the files go in Hippocampus is just doing its thing, but if we keep ourselves regulated, we have access.

Ooh.

The minute you’re dysregulated, you’re cut off from all your files.

Okay.

It’s that feeling of, I don’t know what to say.

Yeah.

’cause you got, you got dysregulated.

Yes. And I know stress and stress management, stress reduction is absolutely one of your specialties. And what you coach on is helping people to reduce stress. And it’s so fascinating, right? Because I always talk about manifestation as it’s kind of like a, um, a re reverse engineering the process, right?

So it’s like. You have to focus on the feeling first. You have to focus on how you would think on purpose. First, you have to focus on. Regulating your body and your stress first. Right? Because a lot of times we think once I get to the goal, then I’ll be relieved. Once I get to the goal, then I won’t be stressed.

Once I get to the goal, then I’ll feel abundant, but it’s actually the opposite. It’s like you actually have to do all of this regulating. First before the things come about in order to manifest. So I am curious, what would you say are the effects of working on stress in terms of the creation process and the manifestation, and tapping into your intuition, because I hear you’re really tapping into that when you’re talking about it.

Well, learning to self-regulate gives you access to. All your good stuff. So your intuition is a combination of all the sensory data you’ve taken in all the knowledge you’ve taken in, and your goal.

Yeah.

It’s all like a soup inside your brain and to have access. You need to be regulated. As soon as you’re stressed out, stress hijacks.

It’s the, the inside of your brain, the primitive part of your brain is gonna hijack your prefrontal cortex and put it into safety mode. Um, how I learned it from my meditation teacher is the prefrontal cortex, right? Your curiosity, your empathy, your language, all your ideas and your, your stress center, they work as a seesaw.

They’re both always on. They’re both always on, but when I’m regulated, so this is my inner part of my brain, my prefrontal cortex has all these ideas, and I’m creative, and I’m calm, and I can go, no honey, that’s okay. I’ll get you a snack. When I’m dysregulated. I’m hungry, I’m angry, I’m lonely. I’m tired.

Right? Get your own. All my empathy, all my curiosity, all my stuff, it gets overpowered by the desire to serve the need. What’s the need? Am I hungry? Am I tired? Am I overwhelmed? Like what’s the need? I have to meet the need. Before I can go back to being creative and you know, if you’ve ever snapped at someone you love, it’s just your brain being your brain.

And always remember like the language center is right at the base of the prefrontal cortex. So it really takes a hit when you’re cranky.

Yeah.

Like if you can do this

Yep.

when you’re cranky,

That’s a good idea.

me awful lot. So first is what are my needs? Like, are my needs being met right now? Um, I had Lyme disease years ago, so my, the signals, uh, to my stomach about hunger are really messed up.

So I have to go, huh? When’s the last time I ate?

Okay.

Uh oh.

Yeah,

And you know, you’re tired, so you say, Hey, I, I’m tired. I don’t know how this is gonna go.

yeah.

Um, safety, safety is a little trickier kind of thing because I think safety means something different to all of us. But you can, you can teach your central nervous system how to be feel safe.

You can do breath work, you can do meditation, um, you can be out in nature, which feels safe to us. You can sit, um, in the corner and pet your dog or your cat or whatever you have. Pets are huge co-regulating, huge co-regulating. And it’s not about, I have no stress in my life.

Yep.

It’s about I have stress, I handle it, and then I move on

Mm.

and the stress gets detrimental when I just let it all build up.

I let it all build up and then I explode. And that’s a chronic stress. And that’s you’re, you’re heading to burnout.

Yeah.

I like to get to people right before that ’cause that’s a lot easier to help with than burnout.

And burnout. Yeah, totally. And I’m sure there’s so many, I mean, you know, there are so many entrepreneurs listening and we have a lot of high achievers that listen, and I know you work with high achievers as well, and I’m wondering, as you have seen people start to regulate and learn these tools. Of course, not learning how to never be stressed, but learning how to regulate it, what tends to happen in their lives.

Oh my goodness. I, I’m gonna talk about my favorite client right now because she came to me describing waking up every morning with elephant sitting on her chest. She had been diagnosed with pericarditis, which is inflammation of the sac around the heart, super dangerous. And she was taking Xanax to.

Yeah.

No more Zan, no more Xanax, no more pericarditis, um, no more elephants.

And when sometimes she’ll say to me, my tools left me,

Yeah.

I go, it’s okay. It’s okay. What do you need to do? What’s gonna be good for you? She’s heading to a very stressful event coming up. And I said to her, how do you wanna feel when you get there?

Yeah.

Then we reverse engineered. I said, what do you think you’re gonna have to do to feel that way?

Yeah.

And can you go outside? If people start to ask you questions, you don’t feel like answering. I love the bathroom. Nice warm soap, warm water. Look in the mirror. Say you looking good today, girl.

Yes, yes.

Right. What do you need to do to regulate yourself in that moment? And every tool doesn’t work for every situation.

And sometimes your tools fail you and you go, huh, that didn’t work. What else can I do? My, one of my favorite tools is walking my dog. Well, it’s been a million degrees in Connecticut lately. We have them walking. So I’ve been doing a lot more breath work.

Yep.

Um, I did one of your fun visualizations right before I got on here.

I’m like, oh wait, Jamie taught me something, right? Like what you want is a big bag of tricks like. For the coaches who are listening, I know you all have a big bag of coaching tricks. You know, you have the model and you have other things you’ve learned and you have regulation tools and you have books you’ve read.

You have a big bag of tools. ’cause you know, sometimes doing a model with someone makes them angry.

Yep.

So you want a big bag of tools for yourself, for regulation. The things that we know change the brain. Meditation, hypnosis attention, attending compassion. Compassion changes the brain.

Yeah. Yeah. Huge.

Mm-hmm. Start with yourself. I, I use your practice all the time. I forgive myself for buying into belief that like that is a form of compassion for yourself.

yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Oh my gosh. So good. And I feel like everyone needs this, right? If we’re a human in this world right now, we need this work. We need these tools. It’s so important. And I think it’s really, truly the foundation, like this stress piece that we’re talking about in particular is. Part of the foundation of the manifestation process.

It’s like this is step one, is getting this foundation down. Not that you’ll never be stressed, but having tools to regulate, having tools to work with it so that you can come in from more calm and manifest from that place. It’s, to me, makes all the difference.

Yeah,

So.

absolutely.

Yeah, if there are people who are, I know there’s gonna be so many people intrigued by this work and loving what you’re sharing, and I know one of your specialties is really around, you know, just reducing stru.

You share all I, I would love to hear you share what you love working with and how you work with people.

I love working, uh, with that rising business person. Um, my target market is healthcare workers, but I can work with anyone in business. I love the rising, and I particularly work with women. I’m not opposed to working with men at all, but I particularly love working with that rising woman in business who suddenly finds themselves.

Newly promoted or a new rush of clients or a new activity and freaking out. ’cause you were really good. Like my clients are amazing therapists, it’s why they got promoted and then they have no leadership and communication tools and very little support in the healthcare system. So I create the support.

Yeah.

know, first we start with from within, create safety from within, create calm with from within. And like my zone of genius is practices you can use in the moment. ’cause personally I think everyone knows you should eat more broccoli and get more sleep. Y’all know it. Y y’all know it. You choose not to. But what about when, you know, I was on a call with a coach one time and her kids were banging on the door.

Yeah.

What about when the kids are banging on the door and you’re watching the tree fall out the window and somewhere in the back of your mind is like a bill you forgot to pay. How can you regulate in that moment?

You can ground your feet and take a deep, deep breath,

Yeah.

right? And I have other practices that you can do in the moment no one knows. And you regulate in that moment. You get through that moment and then you come back and decide, Hmm, how can I. Create an environment where that doesn’t happen. And to me, the next place is boundaries.

I teach all my therapists about boundaries. Like if you keep taking your notes home, they’re gonna keep letting you.

yeah.

And it’s a little shocking to people to say no in the beginning. It really is hard for people to learn to say no. Do you wanna take your notes home? Not really. So why, why are you doing it?

Well, I can’t say no. Have you tried?

Yeah,

Have you tried? I don’t really wanna coach this client. Okay. Have you, have you tried ending the relationship? Oh, I can’t do that. Have you tried?

yeah. Yes.

Right. Um, I, I love talking about boundaries. ’cause for me it was such a foreign concept. You don’t have boundaries. When you, when you grow up in alcoholism, you have people pleasing, right?

You, you’re, you’re trying to regulate everyone. So learning about boundaries, creating my own boundaries, reading about boundaries, you know, we, we give back what we’ve learned ourselves.

Yep.

It was a game changer and also totally blew my mind. I was like, what do you, what do you mean? I, I don’t have to go to that funeral if I don’t want to.

I’m Irish. We go to all funerals.

yeah,

I didn’t go,

yeah,

also, I didn’t die,

yeah, yeah,

right? So I love to work with, you know, rising people who have, have found a place where they’re lacking skills.

yeah.

’cause all those skills, leadership, communication, regulation, boundaries, you can learn it. You learned how to be a coach, or a therapist, or an entrepreneur, whatever it is you’re doing right now, you learned you can learn all this.

Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. So good. Where can people find you, Kathleen?

So, uh, you can find me on my website, Kathleen Kelly coaching.com. And right now if you sign up for the newsletter, I’m sending you a free webinar on decision making. It’s something I created actually during LCS and it got a retool recently. So it’s a little bit shorter, a little bit more to the point.

And I think decisions can stress people out if they. Make them to be this big thing.

Yeah.

So the webinar will help you talk to your brain about, this is not such a big deal. We can make this decision.

And I love that you create like blogs on these tools and simple practices and you really offer this beautiful tool belt of simple things to do that makes it makes all the difference and you understand it from a brain perspective. So it’s so amazing and you are so brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your beautiful wisdom and gifts and goodness.

I’m so glad to have you. Thank you.

you. Thank you for having me.