When Mindset Isn’t Enough
- Brainz Magazine
- May 12
- 7 min read
Updated: May 13
Tyler Begg is attuned and insightful, offering guided parts-work and trauma-informed coaching techniques in addition to nervous system re-patterning for growth and recovery. With a background in counseling and Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry method, he has a strong understanding and respect for the roots of trauma and behavior patterns.
Have you ever heard phrases like “Just let go,” “You need to love yourself more,” or “If you change your mindset, you will be happier,” and felt paralyzed, angry, hopeless, or unseen? If so, you are not alone, even if ultimately you do want to be able to make those changes in your life. Who doesn’t want to love themselves more, or let go of old patterns that no longer serve them? Why is it that creating lasting change can be so hard, and what is the missing piece to make it possible?
Simply put: it’s because your mind isn’t pumping the brakes, your nervous system is. Making a change in your life often is not about the logistics (though knowledge and goals are important), but about how it feels in the body. Even in the most committed individuals' minds, the body’s stress response can prevent the mind from straying out of existing patterns.
According to the body, what’s familiar is safe because it already knows it can survive it, while even the most wonderful new situation is perceived as risky because it is an unknown. The nervous system thinks: “I have never survived being joyful and abundant before, I could get hurt or maybe even die!” or it may be coming from a perception of: “Every time I have experienced joy and abundance, there have been painful consequences, I’d rather not go there again.” Without first tending to the needs of the nervous system and how it has been programmed by your past, even highly motivated and intelligent people will struggle to implement significant changes.
Why can’t you think your way out of stress
Your brain is incredibly adaptable and capable of forming new connections and pathways throughout your life; this is called neuroplasticity. Sometimes, however, access to this adaptability gets limited or cut off. At an unconscious level, your nervous system is taking in and processing billions of bits of information every second and constantly asking, “Am I safe?” When the answer to this question is not “Yes,” survival strategies begin to kick in and fuel for the brain (glucose and oxygen) gets focused in the areas that deal with responding to threat, leaving the parts that deal with rational thought, creativity and problem-solving unable to function at full capacity. This is why it is physiologically impossible to think your way out of nervous system dysregulation.
This kind of stress response can happen to varying degrees from low level (procrastination, brain fog, and fatigue, for example), to higher levels (such as dissociation, outbreaks of rage, and addictive behaviors). The key to understanding the threat is to understand that it is a “perceived threat.” This means that when there is not a genuine threat present in your environment there is a possibility that the threat is something internalized (such as self-abuse or self-abandonment), or it may be something in the environment that signaled danger when you were younger or experienced a trauma, but that no longer signifies danger in the present (such as a smell, a phrase or tone of voice).
When survival mode is in charge, it is going to prevent you from engaging in new activities because the last thing you want to be doing when you’re in danger is experimenting with solutions that may fail. No matter how miserable it is, a brain in survival mode is going to seek familiar patterns. The good news is that neurosomatic tools can speak directly to the body to restore safety so that the rational brain can regain control and you can return to a place of conscious agency. With daily practice, you can update these old programmed responses so that they reflect your present self and not your past.
These coping strategies are not states you choose to be in; they are outputs created by the nervous system to try and get you to avoid what it perceives as danger and remain where things are familiar. In my own life, I notice procrastination and brain fog as common outputs, but what is the threat it perceives? It’s the self-abandonment that happens when I sit down to do a task and forget to eat and take breaks; and it is the judgment and shame that comes in when I put pressure on myself to achieve perfection. Procrastination and brain fog are my unconscious attempts to steer clear of those dangers. So, how do I get anything done?
I use neurosomatic tools before, during, and after to tell my nervous system that it is safe. When I am operating from a place of safety, I no longer have the irrational fear of time scarcity or the unforgiving need for perfection, and I can take breaks without a problem. This, in turn, allows me to work more quickly and have more time for self-care so that I can continue to feed the cycle of wellbeing.
Two key places to restore safety
Often, I see two big factors that play into the barriers of change. The first is the overall background level of stress or threat living in the nervous system. The brain does not differentiate between physical, emotional, or social threats; it all gets lumped together to create a general sense of your overall level of safety. This determines how present and authentic you can be in any given moment, as well as how much extra energy you have to devote to change. If there is a lot of background stress then the nervous system is not going to relax enough for there to be enough energy to engage with new experiences, instead, it’s going to allocate that energy to scanning the environment for the threat it thinks should be there, and to maintaining whatever coping mechanisms it is using to stop you from doing something unfamiliar.
The other big factor is that it may be the case that the desired result of the shift you wish to make is being seen as unsafe. To give a personal example, despite my desire to have more joy in my life, my nervous system perceives the feeling and expression of happiness and enthusiasm as dangerous. There is no way it wants to allow me to go there when in the past, this kind of expression led to me getting hurt. Very often, the root of resistance is emotional. Just like practicing healthy ways to process and integrate emotions like grief, anger, sadness, and shame so that the system does not become overwhelmed, it is also necessary to make it okay to feel joy, love, and safety in your body. Just as it is possible to rewire old triggers, it is also possible to employ neurosomatic tools to repair the nervous system’s unconscious relationship to emotion and situations.
How to rewire your mindset
The nervous system (the body and unconscious mind) speaks the language of sensory inputs. This means the language of your eight senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, sound, balance, proprioception (knowing where your body is in space), and interoception (being able to perceive and understand the sensations and feelings that originate within the body). This is why somatic practices such as havening (rubbing the hands together), tapping on the body, rocking, placing hands on heart and/or the stomach, meditation, yoga, humming or chanting, ear plugs looking at something far into the distance like a cloud or the horizon, and smelling something pleasant can make a huge difference. Every nervous system is different, so not everyone is going to respond positively to the same tools. For example, contrary to popular belief, meditation is not always beneficial; some nervous systems become more dysregulated and require a different kind of approach, such as moving or humming. It is important to find tools for yourself that increase harmony and resonance rather than dysregulation. Working with a Neurosomatic Intelligence practitioner, you will receive tools that are more targeted to benefit your specific nervous system.
As a practitioner, I use body metrics such as range of motion and breathing to assess in the moment whether or not a tool is right for you. These neuro exercises can be very powerful. Most of them can facilitate a change in the body within thirty seconds to a minute and are therefore easy to work into a daily routine. Regular practice is the most important guideline for nervous system rewiring. Just like working out a muscle, the brain will not change after only one or two repetitions. While you may feel immediate relief from neurosomatic exercises, which is one of their great benefits, permanent change and resilience occur with consistency. Another benefit to developing a practice with these neuro exercises is that as the nervous system experiences more safety from these sensory inputs, it frees up more energy for you to utilize in the process of healing and changing. These tools are a great way to jump-start the upward spiral.
Finally, it is important to understand that if you want to make a change, your brain needs to be resourced because it takes a lot of energy to rewire. This means getting enough sleep (something that often improves with a regular neurosomatic practice), breathing deeply, and getting enough to eat. Once there is safety and energy, then the mindset can change, and the nervous system can allow for new actions and perspectives that will change your life. Most people already know what they need to do to take the next step towards positive change; it’s about making that step safe and sustainable in the body.
If you are interested and want to experience Neurosomatic Intelligence for yourself, you can book a free 45-minute discovery call with me through my website below.
Visit my website for more info!
Read more from Tyler Begg
Tyler Begg, Neuro-Somatic Intelligence Practitioner
Tyler Begg is helping to lead the inclusion of applied neurology in the world of mental health and personal growth. He brings a more complete picture of how emotions and unconscious patterns are held in the body, bridging the gap between mindset and somatic release so that mind and body can work together. This approach allows Tyler’s clients to understand their own “operating system” and rewire it to get un-stuck and develop healthy tools for managing stress so that the whole mind-body system functions more smoothly and efficiently. Understanding the nervous system's role allows Tyler to dose neuro-somatic tools and other therapies appropriately so that changes are sustainable without risking overwhelm or a return to old coping mechanisms.
