Episode 355: How to Heal Your Nervous System When You Feel Like the Problem, with Lori Montry

Lori Montry on Why You’re Not the Problem, and How to Heal Your Nervous System

Lori Montry is a somatic practitioner and the author of You’re Not the Problem. Our conversation isn’t about fixing your behavior. Instead, it’s about how to heal your nervous system by changing the relationship underneath that behavior.

I’m Sarah Walton, a wealth consciousness coach and the host of the Game On Girlfriend® podcast. Here, we talk about wealth in every area of life, including money, health, relationships, and personal growth. If you’ve spent five minutes on Instagram lately, you know how many messages tell you what you need to fix. Buy this hair curler. Get these sneakers. Starting tomorrow morning, drink the water, get the sleep, and be the best at everything you do all the time. Honestly, it’s exhausting. Who can change that many things at once?

Right now, a lot of women entrepreneurs are lying awake at night, worried about money, the economy, or whether they’re doing enough. If that’s you, girlfriend, this episode is for you. Lori won’t hand you 89,000 things to change overnight. Rather, she shows you where to start if you want to heal your nervous system. You might want to bookmark this one and come back to it a few times. So drop your shoulders, unclench your teeth, pop in your earphones, and let’s get to it.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How Lori went from Harvard Law School to somatic work, and why she calls it her second life
• The question to ask about your emotional eating, perfectionism, or overspending
• What a child learns about her needs, and how it follows her into adulthood
• The three things your system needs: safety, capacity, and energy
• Why Lori calls your nervous system your compass, not something to control
• A five-times-a-day check-in you can start today
• What to do when you have no idea what your body is telling you
• Why Lori’s book starts with the basement, not the balcony
• Lori’s free gift, Your Nervous System Is Talking

Listen to the Full Episode

Watch the Full Episode

https://youtu.be/8cWaFmHg8gg

When Everything on the List Is Checked Off and Nothing Feels Different

If you’re new here, you should know I’m a massive fan of nervous system work. I think it’s one of the most important things we can do. So when I asked Lori why she chose this work out of everything she could do with her one and only life, I wanted the real story.

She calls it her second life. Back in 1997, Lori graduated from Harvard Law School and practiced law in a pretty demanding atmosphere for quite a while. Later, she was primarily a homeschooling mom. Yet nothing ever fit her just right until she found this work.

About 15 to 17 years ago, Lori had checked off most of the things she believed would finally bring her peace, joy, and a sense of feeling at home in herself. Even so, she still had a very disordered relationship with food. When she looked around, she realized none of those achievements had given her the freedom she expected.

You might think that realization would feel liberating. For Lori, though, it was terrifying. All she knew how to do was hustle, fix herself, try harder, and achieve more. There was no safety in the old way, and the new way didn’t exist yet. So she told herself there had to be another way, and she committed to figuring out what it was.

What Are Your Adaptive Behaviors Getting for You?

That commitment led Lori to some new questions. For example, what was her emotional eating doing for her? What was her perfectionism doing for her? And what need were all of these adapted behaviors trying to meet?

As she explored those questions, she discovered the nervous system and sought out training to understand it. Soon, she realized that the adaptations, behaviors, and beliefs that were hurting her all came back to it. At first, she did this nervous system work only to heal herself. Eventually, she got to the point where she’d wake up thinking, “Yes, it’s morning. I can’t wait for today,” instead of, “What did I eat yesterday? Why am I such a loser?” That’s when she knew she had to share it, even if it gave only one person their life back.

I’ve been an emotional eater for most of my life, too. For other people, the morning question might be what they drank, what they said, what they spent, or why they scrolled for six hours. Personally, my life changed when I hired a nervous system coach. I lost 30 pounds, found the love of my life, and my business grew. Honestly, I can’t think of anything that working to heal my nervous system didn’t touch.
That’s why I love the bumper sticker moment from this episode: What are my adaptive behaviors getting for me? Asking that question takes off so much of the shame.

“It’s never been outside of us. It’s always an inside out job.” — Sarah Walton

How Lori Began to Heal Her Nervous System

Lori didn’t arrive at that question all at once. Instead, it came through breadcrumbs. One online event about food addiction gave her a tiny sliver of a new idea: maybe she didn’t struggle with food because she was a willpower weakling. Perhaps there was a reason. That alone was enough to get her started.
Today, when Lori compares her before and after, she says nothing is the same. That includes the way she eats, dresses, feels, talks, and looks. In her words, an adapted version of her was living that old life.

Why We Decide We’re the Problem

Lori’s book is called You’re Not the Problem. Still, plenty of people come to her convinced they are. So I asked her what makes us believe that.

For most of us, our adaptations start in childhood. That’s when we’re cataloging how the world works. Pull the cat’s tail, get in trouble. Put the toast in the toaster, and it pops up. We also learn what happens when we have needs. Some homes meet a child’s needs with attuned care. In other homes, those needs are too much for the caregiver.

At that point, a young child has two options. On one hand, she can believe the world is inconsistent and dangerous, and her needs might never get met. For a little one, that’s way too much. On the other hand, she can decide she’s the problem. That option feels much safer, because if she’s the problem, she might be able to fix it.

“We make ourselves the problem so that we have the hope of being the solution.” — Lori Montry

Adapting Again So You Can Heal Your Nervous System

From there, we try to fix ourselves and mold ourselves to fit in, hoping our needs will finally get met. Lori points out that this was actually pretty brilliant at the time. Later in life, though, that same framework doesn’t let us create the life we want as adults.

So the question becomes: Are these adaptations still working for me? If not, how do I adapt again? According to Lori, answering that question is how you start to heal your nervous system and move toward truth, wholeness, and your potential.

If It Felt Safe, You’d Already Have It

People come to me for wealth all the time, and I always tell them the same thing: if it felt safe, you’d already have it. That’s just the nervous system protecting you, over and over.

Lori agreed that the root underneath it all is how we feel safe. Much of that comes from our relationship with ourselves. Think about having someone beside you 100% of the time who knows you, understands you, and is committed to helping you build a life that fits. As Lori explains, that someone is you. She calls it your expansive self, and whether you can access it right now or not, it’s inside you and it never goes away.

Now, apply that to money. Let’s say you want your million dollars, and it doesn’t feel safe. Lori describes that inner voice saying, “I know it doesn’t feel safe, sweetie, but don’t worry. I got this.” That feels very different from forcing yourself forward.

“If you felt safe having a million dollars, you’d already have it.” — Sarah Walton

Safety, Capacity, and Energy: What It Takes to Heal Your Nervous System

To build that relationship with yourself, Lori says you need three things. Safety comes first. To heal your nervous system, you have to get to know it and learn how to provide for it.

Next is capacity. Here, you learn what your capacity is and how to live within it, even while you’re expanding it. In fact, safety is what expands your capacity.

Finally, you need energy. Lori explains that living under stress all the time creates actual changes in your cells and your mitochondria, which affects how they produce energy, or ATP. When your energy is low, your cells send a survival message, and that affects how safe your nervous system can feel.

With all three in place, you can heal your nervous system and work toward what you want in a way that’s effective. Otherwise, you’re throwing darts at the wall, or working 18 hours a day while your cells get the message that there’s danger everywhere. By the way, I asked Lori if she’d read the book Good Energy, and she loves it as much as I do.

Your Nervous System Is Your Compass

We all know what it’s like to wake up at 2 a.m. completely panicked, even though we’re safe in our beds. That’s the nervous system doing its job.

Lori loved that I put it that way. Unfortunately, so much of the information out there is about controlling your nervous system. She sees it the opposite way. To her, it’s your wisdom, and when you respond to it, you have the internal resources to do whatever you want. She even calls it the boss. So if you want to heal your nervous system, Lori says it starts with a total 180 in how you see it and how you treat it.

“Your nervous system is your compass. It’s telling you what you need. Respond to that.” — Lori Montry

How to Heal Your Nervous System Without Changing 25 Things at Once

Say you’re stressed out and totally freaked. You’ve done the hustle and tried all the things, and it’s still not happening. So I asked Lori what you can do right now.

First, she says, recognize that there’s a really good reason why everything you’ve tried isn’t working. Then, be scientific about it. When you put a bunch of stuff in a Petri dish and it grows something you didn’t intend, putting the same things back in won’t grow something new.

“If it’s not growing what you want, we have to stop putting the same things in. We have to do something different.” — Lori Montry

At the same time, an overworked, overstressed nervous system can’t take on 25 new habits starting tomorrow. After all, there’s already no room for what’s happening now. That’s why Lori says we have to meet your system where it is, and that means understanding it first.

Start to Heal Your Nervous System With a Daily Check-In

The only thing Lori suggests starting with is a check-in practice, and it’s simple and short. Five times a day, you pause, check in with yourself, and rate your system on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, you look at what might be contributing to that score.

A key part is noticing what’s going on in your body. Maybe your heart feels tight, you’re clenching your jaw, your hands are in fists, or you’re breathing shallow. Rather than telling those signals to stop, get curious. Lori’s version is, “Oh, interesting. What is that telling me about what I might need?”

Sometimes the answer is practical, like a drink of water or a shoulder stretch. Other times, it’s a chance to bring in one of the hundreds of somatic practices that help your system feel safer. Afterward, you simply go about your day.

Lori suggests doing this every day for about two weeks. Once those two weeks are up, step back and ask what feels different, what you’ve learned about yourself, and how your nervous system is responding.

This isn’t a big life overhaul. Instead, it’s the start of a relationship with yourself, and it’s a gentle way to begin to heal your nervous system.

Why Tending to Yourself Helps Heal Your Nervous System

The words I kept hearing in this conversation were “tended to.” When I asked Lori about the idea of your nervous system feeling tended to, she explained why it matters so much.

“A lot of our nervous system patterns that are limiting us arose from the lack of attuned care at some point in our lives. And so the repair process naturally is going to be us learning to attune to ourselves.” — Lori Montry

In Lori’s view, that’s how you heal your nervous system, and it’s where true security comes from. When you know yourself well enough to recognize what you need in the moment, and you can provide it, the security is inside you. In other words: What do I need? How do I get it?

To be honest, that’s part of why I’m so rarely on Instagram anymore. I love creating content and interacting with our followers, but there’s so much intensity around fixing yourself. That isn’t where the answer is. Instead, the answer is coming inside, checking in, noticing, and living life from there.

It’s Okay to Feel Unsure When You Start to Heal Your Nervous System

Lori also wanted to name something important. We’re making this sound very easy, and at first, it might not feel that way. For most people, the early check-ins sound more like, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. How am I supposed to know what I need?”

That’s completely normal. Lori compares it to meeting someone new, because you wouldn’t walk up to a stranger and instantly know all their needs. As she put it, how creepy would that be? So give it time, because there’s value in simply pausing to check in.

“It’s okay if I don’t know what that means or I don’t know how to tend to it, but I’m here and I’m committed to learning.” — Lori Montry

Lori described saying that to yourself, meaning it, and then showing up again a couple of hours later. That feels secure, and it feels like peace. In fact, I felt my shoulders drop just listening to her describe it.

Heal Your Nervous System by Building the Basement First

Lori’s book, You’re Not the Problem, follows this same conversation. It covers how to find safety, how to live within your capacity, and how to bring energy back by switching your cells from a cell danger response into energy production again.

She describes your life as a big, beautiful mansion you’re building, and this first book is the rock-solid concrete basement. So often, we try to build the second-floor balcony with nothing underneath it, and it keeps crumbling.

“Yes, we want the balcony. Yes, the balcony is possible. Let’s build the basement first.” — Lori Montry

What I Want You to Know as You Heal Your Nervous System

Oh my gosh, I felt so peaceful throughout this entire conversation with Lori. Whether you drink too much, eat too much, or have an emotional eating component like me, your repetitive behaviors aren’t a character flaw. The same goes for really wanting to make a million dollars and not getting there. Those behaviors are patterns we all picked up along the way to keep ourselves safe and to feel like our needs were getting tended to. The issue is that the adaptive behavior doesn’t actually work.

So take a step back and ask what that behavior is trying to get for you. Next, ask yourself the question from this episode: What do I need, and how can I get it? That’s how you start to heal your nervous system, one check-in at a time.

After we stopped recording, Lori and I talked a little more. She shared that she wants this work out in the world because of what it could change. For instance, what would the world look like if we stopped yelling at each other, stopped honking on the road, stopped assuming we know what everybody else is after, and started tending to ourselves instead? I really want to pass that message on to you, and I hope you pass it on to the people you love.

About Lori Montry

Lori Montry is a somatic practitioner, author, speaker, and former attorney who helps people understand the hidden nervous system patterns that drive overwhelm, self-doubt, procrastination, emotional eating, and other struggles that can leave them feeling stuck. After graduating from Harvard Law School and building a successful legal career, Lori found herself facing many of the same challenges she now helps others navigate. Her personal journey led her to years of studying nervous system regulation, trauma, behavior change, and self-leadership, work that became the foundation of her book, You’re Not the Problem. She lives in Colorado with her husband, Ron, and is a mother of six, a competitive runner, and a passionate advocate for helping people create lives that feel more aligned, meaningful, and fulfilling.

Connect with Lori

• Website: Lori Montry
• Facebook Group: You’re Not the Problem
• Instagram: @lorimontry
• YouTube: Lori Montry — You’re Not the Problem

Books Mentioned in This Episode

• You’re Not the Problem by Lori Montry — Read the intro, or get it on Amazon
• Good Energy by Dr. Casey Means

Lori’s Free Gift — Your Nervous System Is Talking

If you want to start right where Lori suggests, her free check-in practice is the place to begin. It’s called Your Nervous System Is Talking: Learning to Listen, and it walks you through how to check in, rate your system, and notice what it’s telling you. That way, you can start providing what you need to thrive. Lori calls it the starting point, so it’s a simple first step to heal your nervous system today.

Related Episodes You’ll Love

• Episode 313: But What About the Money? Why Your Nervous System Determines Your Income — Lori and I talk about why wealth has to feel safe before you can have it. In this solo episode, I explain how your nervous system affects your income and why you can only earn at the speed of safety. Listen here
• Episode 88: Understand Why You Eat What You Eat with Audrey Zona — Lori asks what her emotional eating was doing for her. Audrey explains how food affects your body and why you have to deal with the underlying reasons behind the cookie or the bottle of wine. Listen here
• Episode 246: How to Let Go of the Bully in Your Brain with Allison Guilbault — Lori describes waking up and calling herself a loser. Allison, a licensed therapist and self-worth coach, explains how negative self-talk develops and shares a 30-day toothbrush challenge to curb it. Listen here

Let’s Talk About What Feels Safe in Your Business

You might be noticing where your business keeps hitting the same ceiling, or where you push harder while your body asks for something else. If so, let’s talk. As my gift to Girlfriends, I offer a free 30-minute discovery call. Together, we’ll look at where you are right now and what might be keeping more wealth from feeling safe.

Connect with Sarah

• Instagram: @thesarahwalton
• LinkedIn: Sarah Walton
• Free resources for you here
• Join the Game On Girlfriend® community — subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube

Love This Episode?

Think about someone in your life who’s up against the same struggle over and over. Please share this episode with her. It might help her see that she was never the problem, and that she can start tending to herself today.

About Sarah Walton

Sarah Walton is a wealth consciousness coach, strategic advisor, and the host of the Game On Girlfriend® podcast. Her mission is simple: to put more money in the hands of more women. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable, sustainable businesses without burnout — working through both the mindset and the strategy sides of growth. Because when women have more financial power, they don’t just keep it — they use it to take care of their families, support their communities, and build something bigger than themselves. Through her programs — including the Abundance Academy and The Art of Receiving — along with her online courses and one-on-one coaching, Sarah works with women who are ready to build profitable businesses and use that financial power to make a real difference in the world around them.