Stress Addiction + Resiliency with Jenny Evans (part 2)

Our brains and bodies can become addicted to high cortisol states, making normal, relaxed states feel wrong. By recognizing and rewriting the stories we tell ourselves, we can break these cycles and create sustainable ways to thrive without constant stress.

• Understanding how neural pathways form and create "stories" that guide our behavior
• Identifying dysfunctional stories by noticing disconnects between desires and actions
• Creating new neural pathways requires consistent repetition, just like building muscle
• Three pillars of resilience: body science, soul science, and brain science
• Distinguishing between harmful stubbornness and genuine resilience
• Micro-changes consistently applied create more sustainable transformation than extreme measures

Download Jenny's free cortisol reset protocol at jennyevans.com/yourcortisolreset to start balancing your stress chemistry today. Join Jenny's "Soul on Fire" coaching and mastermind group for women on the first Friday of every month to receive support, strategies, and community as you create a fulfilling life on your terms.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Stress Addiction
• 3:35 Rewriting Neural Pathways and Stories
• 9:10 Breaking the Cortisol Cycle
• 11:07 Sales Stories and Limiting Beliefs
• 15:32 Soul on Fire Coaching Program
• 18:35 Future Plans and Global Living

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Kass.

Speaker 2: 0:41

What happens when you have people that are almost living at high cortisol all the time and then they get to a place where they hit, burnout or whatever and they want to do this reset, but then their body just wants to go back to the high cortisol because that's what it's known for so long. It's like they're normal. It's like no, no, no, I need to be living in this space.

Speaker 3: 1:03

I love that you bring this up because for so many people and I think especially I find that women struggle with this a little bit more of they're so used to that heightened high vibration state that when they're not in it, they're feeling like something's wrong. I mean, what really this is is almost like a stress addiction.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Yes.

Speaker 3: 1:27

That you're so used to a specific feeling, an emotional state, a physical state, and when the cortisol is gone and your body is in its natural state, you start feeling like something's wrong, because now you have a new level of homeostasis that you're not used to, physically as well as psychologically, and I think that's where, like, a lot of the psychological work starts to come in, as, like, as we have calmed down the cortisol.

Speaker 3: 1:57

Now what we need to do is we need to start looking at a lot of the neural pathways that have been carved into your brain, and I like to just call these neural pathways stories. So what are your stories around productivity? What are your stories around your sense of self-worth and the amount of tasks that you accomplish on a daily basis? What are your stories around your boundaries and what you say yes to and what you say no to? So often people come to me because I'm all about like. When they hear like oh, she's also like a performance coach and I want to perform more, I want to be able to expand my capacity so that I can meet all the demands in my life. What we really start to uncover is oh, girl, the last thing that you need is one more thing.

Speaker 4: 2:48

Is to do more. Yes.

Speaker 3: 2:49

Stop doing things. So once we start getting clarity on values, beliefs, purpose, you start really getting really clear on who and what should be getting your energy, and who and what should not, who and what's a priority, who and what's not. We need to also dig into these stories that you have around productivity, success how are they working for you? And when you have clarity on your values and beliefs and purpose and mission, that's when you can start to rewrite some very new powerful stories that are really grounded in the truth, are really aligned with your values and beliefs and really take you where you want to go and help you start making different decisions.

Speaker 3: 3:37

You know so, pam, it's funny because of like, what was that Dr Seuss book where there was that red spot and then it just kept moving around and it kept getting bigger of sometimes when you think, okay, I've solved my cortisol problem, and then you're like, great, now I have another problem because psychologically I don't know how to relax, I don't know how to operate at this and a half days where it was no chores no tasks, no phone, no talking to anybody, no anything.

Speaker 2: 4:12

And Natalie knows it was so flipping hard because I'm that person. If I'm walking across the room I'm going to do 15 things on the way there, because it's so efficient to get all this stuff done and to not be able to do anything for that many days not look at my phone, not listen, not read, not write nothing. I thought it was going to burst into flames.

Speaker 3: 4:29

Pam, I just squirted cortisol just thinking about that. That sounds terrifying. We didn't get to it.

Speaker 2: 4:34

Natalie knows this. I was talking myself out of doing this, coming up with every known excuse, and it was probably the best and most powerful thing I've ever gone through in my life. Good for you. But then it ended at seven o'clock on a Sunday night. What did I do? I turned my phone on and about had a coronary because it was like everything just went right back. But that's my baseline, so it's like okay, now we're back into crazy. Yeah, wow, okay. How do you help people identify the stories? So you've got all these neural pathways, these stories that we've created about activity and all the tasks and things that we need to do. How do you help people recognize them?

Speaker 3: 5:09

Yeah, Well, first of all, our brain loves stories because, when you think about just the amount of information that we're taking in on a daily basis and decisions and experiences, a way to just streamline this is, our brain will create stories to give meaning and significance to our life events. So we just will create stories that help to explain how and why things happen and how and why things don't happen. And some of the stories were taught and given by our parents, our teachers, religion, gender, you know, where in the world did you grow up? So it's the stories that you tell to yourself about yourself and the experiences that you have. And most people have a lot of really great, powerful, functional stories that take them where they want to go. But here's a great way to figure out what about some of those stories that are probably not so great. Any time there is a disconnect between wanting to do something, or maybe knowing how to do something, yet we're not taking action, like we're trying and we fail, or sneaky Pete's like well, now is not the right time to try, or we don't have time to try right now. So anytime there's a disconnect, there's a story that's standing in your way. So I'm going to share one with you that I am actually in process of rewriting Pretty much my whole entire life.

Speaker 3: 6:37

I have had a story that I don't even like to say it out loud, because we give life to whatever we give our energy to, and I've been working on it so hard. But my old story was I suck at sales, I suck at sales. My story was I'm a speaker, I like creating content, I like getting up on a stage, I like being with people one-on-one. I don't like doing sales. It's slimy. I don't like pestering people. People should just see the value that I have to offer. They should just know. And if they don't see it, that automatically means that they don't want it. We could even go further, where they're like when somebody says no, it's not that they just don't want my services, they don't want me, they don't like me. So I mean I've had this story forever and this story keeps me from doing the amount of sales that I should do to have the not necessarily like the size of the business that I want, but to have the amount of work that I really want. And this stupid story keeps me playing small, it keeps me scared, it makes me feel sick to my stomach of like it's sales. It's not brain surgery, it's not skydiving, it's you know. So I have this, I had this horrible story.

Speaker 3: 7:49

But we all have stories of like, well, I don't have time to exercise and it's not important, and I don't have time, I don't know what to do. If I do have spare time, I should really be investing that with my family. Like that's very self-centered to be taking time away from my family when I'm already away from them during the day. You know stories on work-life balance like, yes, I absolutely have to take this business trip and the next one and the next one, and sorry, family, I can't check in because I've got to go to these dinners and I have to do all of these things. And we've got stories around parenting. We've, I mean, like, alcohol consumption, like you name it.

Speaker 3: 8:28

We're story story storytellers so we can identify a dysfunctional story again by when there's something that I should be doing or I want to be doing, but I'm not doing it. I'm making excuses, I'm rationalizing, I'm minimizing, I'm blaming. There's a story there. And the more I repeat that story silently to myself, the more I speak it out loud, the more I'm reinforcing that neural pathway in my brain, so that just becomes my automatic, habitual way of thinking and because, like, that neural pathway is there, it just really feels like the truth, because, like, well, I've convinced myself, I've trained myself. So I take people through a process of you have to create a new and different story and then you have to start giving energy to that new story, because now you're creating a new neural pathway in the brain, but that neural pathway requires recency and frequency and repetition. So I like to think of it this way is I love muscles, so I go into the gym. I can't just lift once and then just be like bam, I'm jacked, like no, it's repeated investment.

Speaker 3: 9:45

And so the new story the more we repeat it, that neural pathway gets stronger, faster, and what we're really doing is we're redirecting our energy into this new story, which is cutting off the energy to the old story. So the new story, if repeated enough, will become your automatic way of thinking. It will become your new truth and your new reality.

Speaker 4: 10:11

Well, Jenny, since you're working on your story, I'm going to put you right on the spot. If our listeners want to work with you, what are some of the offerings that you have for them?

Speaker 3: 10:19

Oh, I have so many, okay. So I talked about the impact that cortisol has on your brain, on your body, on everything. I have a cortisol reset protocol that is simple's easy, it's doable and it's free. It's a pdf download. If you go to jennieevanscom, slash your cortisol reset, you can download that baby for free. There's an overview of again just like the science of how cortisol is really affecting you and some simple micro strategies to change your chemistry and optimize your physiology and your resilience. I love that. Everyone can use that.

Speaker 4: 10:58

Exactly, exactly. I love that, and what else? And what else? Oh, great question. Yes, because that was a great complimentary offer. We're working on your story right here. Live on the podcast.

Speaker 3: 11:14

I am a global speaker now.

Speaker 3: 11:18

What I do is speaking for corporations and organizations all around. Resiliency and performance. That really is my bread and butter. It's what I love, love, love doing. I also do one-on-one coaching with people who whether, again, you're just like, okay, I'm just like completely burned out, fried, somebody help me, or I'm feeling stuck, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm in a place of transition and I need help whether that's like job transition, relationships and then kind of the most exciting thing that I'm doing right now.

Speaker 3: 11:56

I have a high-performance group coaching and mastermind for women. That's called Soul on Fire and it is the first Friday of every month. We get together for 90 minutes. There is a monthly topic that I coach on. I give you tools and strategies you have an opportunity to break out into. You're also put into a smaller mastermind group of other fabulous women. There's discussion on the topic. We come back together. I'll do some one-on-one hot seat coaching Every week. You get a support email from me that goes deeper into that month's topics, with tools, strategies. There's an online community resource library.

Speaker 3: 12:34

But it's really for women who are willing to take themselves to the next level, who want to invest in themselves and their happiness and their fulfillment. I'm the person that wants to have my cake and eat it too. So all about how do you feel successful in your professional life without having to sacrifice your personal life or your relationships, or your happiness or your health. I want to stop myself from saying this how do you have it all? But it's not about having it all. It's about being clear on what your quote, unquote, all actually is At this stage of your life. What is really important to you? What do you want? And so many women don't know, because for so long they've prioritized their kids, if they have them. They've prioritized running a household, taking care of parents, managing the schedule, the house.

Speaker 3: 13:28

It's always about other people's needs and also because women are so often giving and supporting other people, I'm always like who's supporting you? Where are you getting your energy from? So first Friday of every month, I'm there. I'm like all right girl, here we go. I'm going to pump you up, I'm going to get you energized and get you focused, and then we're going to get you out there and life's going to smack you around and push you backwards. But every week I'm like you've got this, you've got this. And by the end of the month you're just like Jenny, save me. Good news, it's first Friday. Come on back, here we go yeah.

Speaker 4: 13:59

I love that. I love that. And you're so right, Like there's many seasons of life that we find ourselves in that spot where it's the not having fulfillment, the having lack of purpose and clarity on what is our mission in life. What are we supposed to do? Just a few years ago, I went through many of those changes and found myself as an empty nester and I thought now what, what's my purpose? Like, if I'm not running errands and going back and forth to sporting events and making sure that everyone's where they need to be? What am I supposed to focus on? And it hasn't been a quick light switch fix. It's been a beautiful discovery journey, but it's a great place to be, and so I'm glad that you're holding that space for women on Fridays first. Fridays first.

Speaker 4: 14:36

Fridays fabulous first Fridays.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:39

And to your point, natalie, like this is a process like my 10 beliefs. I just didn't sit down one day in 15 minutes and like bing bang, boom, they're done. This is a process that all of us need to invest in on a daily basis. You know like we get it? I got to brush my teeth every day just because I did it yesterday. Like it's a sketch 24 hours later. You know you got to start over. Like, do it again, I got to do it myself again today.

Speaker 3: 15:05

I got to move my body again. Today I got to show up for work again today. That soul science work is also things that we need to be doing on the daily and actually probably even more important, because when we've got things aligned in the soul science aspect, like everything takes care of itself, where you know what's important and you are being pulled to do those things, instead of constantly trying to force yourself of like, ah, this I should be supposed to be. The soul science aspect like just gets rid of all of that.

Speaker 4: 15:36

I love that piece. And you said soul science is one of the three, so it's soul science.

Speaker 3: 15:41

Yeah, so it's body science. So, again, like we got to get the chemistry organized and optimized, because we can't even get to the brain if we don't have that. We've got the soul science aspect of it. Then we've got the brain science and for me, where I choose to focus on the brain science is the neuroplasticity and the stories that we tell ourselves, because if we can't change our stories, we'll never change our lives. You know, yeah.

Speaker 4: 16:09

I love that Well, by the way, great at sales. I'm glad that you were able to share all of those offerings with our listeners.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Well done, thank you.

Speaker 3: 16:15

Because, I have a whole new story about sales. I don't do sales, I make connections and I create relationships, which is one of my top beliefs.

Speaker 2: 16:24

There you go.

Speaker 4: 16:27

I love that. I love it. Jenny, you have a lot that you're working on right now. What else, what's next Like? What do you have on the horizon?

Speaker 3: 16:38

The thing that you know, that's continuing to fulfill your purpose and align with your beliefs and your values. Oh, natalie, I wish I knew. And actually I have been spending a lot of time and energy on this. Keynote speaking is always going to be what I love. I am trying to really grow Soul on Fire, but also big picture.

Speaker 3: 16:54

My wife and I are really contemplating kind of whether or not we are going to stay in the United States right now, like legally our marriage could be invalidated, so that's like a really big reason why maybe we just need to go somewhere else for just a little bit. But what we've been playing around with is what if, for just a while, we love to travel? Most countries will just give you a visa for three months. So what if every three months we just go to a new country? I love that. We just kind of like hunker in there, explore I can still work, and then at three months we go somewhere else. And so I'm questioning.

Speaker 3: 17:33

I clearly have a story or two as to why we haven't done it that I'm really working on, because I'm getting tripped up in just the stupid details where they're just like they're stupid details. Six years ago we moved from Minneapolis to San Diego. No detail mattered, I wanted to leave so bad, like there was nothing that was going to stand in my way. So I'm really working on what is this fear? And the fear is really a story that I'm telling myself. And what is it? And oftentimes, like what we first think it is is not the actual thing, because there's something a little bit further underneath that and that's also usually not the thing, because there's something about like three, four, five layers down where you're like, oh Yahtzee, now we found this trashy, horrible story.

Speaker 2: 18:23

Yes.

Speaker 3: 18:23

She's been in there for a long time.

Speaker 4: 18:25

Yeah, but our brain does such a great job of hiding that Like we'll never need that again. Let's not talk about it. I love that. Or the brain will say this story is airtight, man.

Speaker 3: 18:38

It's the truth, it's reality. It's real, yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Exactly.

Speaker 3: 18:43

And then you look at it and you're like how could any sane person ever have believed that crackpot? Bunch of excuses, whining, you know? Yeah, I love the human brain. I love it.

Speaker 4: 18:55

Yes well, I'll have to say we'll share with you. I think like maybe one out of every three or one out of every four guests that we have on the podcast has recently or is living as an expat in another part of the country and another part of the world. I'm sorry. Yep and so we would love to hear where you land, or where you continue to hop and, yeah, move.

Speaker 3: 19:18

Yeah, I guess I need to look through past guests or if maybe you want to give me a couple of people that I could talk to that will. Honestly, I'd love to just hear from them Like here's what you don't know, what you don't know, here's what you thought might be a big obstacle. That is totally not. Yes, I'd love that, we would love to.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Yeah, I'll actually send you one of my coaching clients who she moved from Oakland, california to Portugal and took her husband and young kids and I coached her for a year of her building up to do this and she's been there now for quite a while.

Speaker 3: 19:52

So Because Portugal's on the list? Okay, that's awesome.

Speaker 4: 19:53

I love that. Okay, perfect, we're making that connection Awesome. That was one of your beliefs right Connecting I know.

Speaker 3: 19:58

Connection is what makes life feel rich and fulfilling.

Speaker 4: 20:02

I love this. I love this, jenny. Is there anything that we have not touched on, that you want to leave our listeners with today as we talk about this, because you've given us so many tools to help in the space of resiliency. Is there anything else that you'd like to share?

Speaker 3: 20:16

I'm going to go out on this note I say this lovingly, but also seriously of listeners. Please do not mistake your stubbornness for resilience Just because you can make it through the day, just because maybe you haven't had a breakdown where you cried or you've lost your crap on somebody. The chemistry of stress is still showing up and it is affecting your brain and it is affecting your body. So we talked about this like your baseline is your baseline. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's optimal. And even if there's just one thing that you make a micro change on, continuous micro changes really lead over the long run to more massive change than trying to do like these really extreme things that really aren't sustainable. Ultimately it's just more stress. So it's just these micro things that we do on a daily basis that really move the needle the most.

Speaker 4: 21:19

Beautiful, perfect way to end. I think so as well. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, jenny. This has been great.

Speaker 3: 21:24

Yeah, Speaking of connection, I mean this was the highlight of my day. This has been a great conversation and I really appreciate you having me on your show and allowing me to share. Thank you.

Speaker 4: 21:35

Yeah, thank you for sharing and pouring into us and our listeners. This has been fabulous. If there is something that you're working on in the future or you're heading out and you want to like chronicle your trip around the world, feel free to come back. We'd love to have you on again. I would love that Beautiful. We will make sure that we put all of your contact information in the show notes, Jenny, and well not all of your contact information.

Speaker 4: 21:58

We'll put your contact information in the show notes and then for our listeners. If you're wanting to learn more about what's happening in the world of reignite resilience, head on over to reignit resiliencecom. Until next time. We'll see you all soon hi everyone.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Thank you for joining us today on the reignite resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.