Episode 3

What Gets in the Way

31 min · 16 references
Apple Podcasts Spotify

This is the episode where it gets personal, and we handle it with care. If you have been clear about what you want for years and it still has not moved, the obstacle is usually not effort or clarity. It is a set of subconscious beliefs, most of them installed in early childhood, that feel less like opinions and more like plain truth.

We trace where those beliefs come from, why the developing brain encodes them so deeply, and how they wire the nervous system for the world a child once lived in rather than the one you live in now. We look at the evidence, including the Adverse Childhood Experiences research and the clinical work on early maladaptive schemas, and we stay honest about which mechanisms are well established and which are still debated.

Some of this can bring up real feelings. That is not a detour from the work. Understanding where a pattern came from, with self-compassion rather than blame, is the first move toward updating it.

References

  1. Knickmeyer, R. C., Gouttard, S., Kang, C., Evans, D., Wilber, K., Smith, J. K., Hamer, R. M., Lin, W., Gerig, G., & Gilmore, J. H. (2008). A structural MRI study of human brain development from birth to 2 years. The Journal of Neuroscience, 28(47), 12176-12182.
  2. Eaker, E. D., Pinsky, J., & Castelli, W. P. (1992). Myocardial infarction and coronary death among women. American Journal of Epidemiology, 135(8), 854-864.
  3. Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258.
  4. Young, J. E., Klosko, J. S., & Weishaar, M. E. (2003). Schema therapy: A practitioner's guide. Guilford Press.
  5. Beck, A. T. (1970). Cognitive therapy: Nature and relation to behavior therapy. Behavior Therapy, 1(2), 184-200.
  6. Phillips, L. (2025). How to manifest: A neuroscientific solution to unlocking your dream life. Penguin Life.
  7. Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410-422.
  8. Porges, S. W. (2001). The polyvagal theory: Phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42(2), 123-146.
  9. Porges, S. W. (2022). Polyvagal theory: A science of safety. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 16, 871227.
  10. Neff, K. D. (2003). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity, 2(3), 223-250.
  11. Doty, J. R. (2024). Mind magic: The neuroscience of manifestation and how it changes everything. Avery.
  12. Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917-927. See also Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111-131.
  13. Merzenich, M. M., Van Vleet, T. M., & Nahum, M. (2014). Brain plasticity-based therapeutics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 385.
  14. Howe, L. C., Leibowitz, K. A., Perry, M. A., Bitler, J. M., Block, W., Kaptchuk, T. J., Nadeau, K. C., & Crum, A. J. (2019). Changing patient mindsets about non-life-threatening symptoms during oral immunotherapy: A randomized clinical trial. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, 7(5), 1550-1559.
  15. Benedetti, F., Lanotte, M., Lopiano, L., & Colloca, L. (2007). When words are painful: Unraveling the mechanisms of the nocebo effect. Neuroscience, 147(2), 260-271. See also Colloca, L., & Finniss, D. (2012). Nocebo effects, patient-clinician communication, and therapeutic outcomes. JAMA, 307(6), 567-568.
  16. Grossman, P. (2023). Fundamental challenges and likely refutations of the five basic premises of the polyvagal theory. Biological Psychology, 180, Article 108589.
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