What Nobody Tells You About Brain Retraining (When You're Already Sensitized)

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Most people think that brain retraining is what is going to heal chronic symptoms like anxiety or chronic pain.

[00:00:06]But the way it's being prescribed is making people a lot worse, not better.

[00:00:10]And it's ultimately making the nervous system more sensitive. So, in this video, I'm going to tell you what no one else will about brain retraining when you're already sensitized. And really quick before we get into it, I have two assessments that I just want you to be aware of. I have a sensitization quiz that will tell you whether or not your nervous system is sensitized. And then I have a symptoms assessment. This is going to tell you whether or not your symptoms are being driven by your nervous system. I'm going to link both of these in the description. I made these available because I get the same general question probably a hundred times a day between emails, messages, comments, and I'm unable to reply to those. So, if you've been asking, "What about this? What about this symptom?

[00:00:46]Does this apply to me?" These assessments are the way that I built an answer for you. However, if you already know that your nervous system is sensitized, you know that your symptoms are being driven by your nervous system.

[00:00:57]I highly recommend that you check out my self-regulation desensitize course. It really takes the concepts that I teach on this channel. It takes them deeper and it's very direct so that you can actually desensitize your nervous system. I'm also going to put the link to that in the description. I get messages daily from people who are applying exactly what I teach in that course and reporting reduced symptoms, increased joy, and getting their life back and healing from things that they were told were incurable. Now, let's get into the conversation about brain retraining. Because if you have any type of nervous system issues that you've been aware of, you have heard about brain retraining. You've probably applied brain retraining. You have signed up for some courses. I think I took maybe two or three brain retraining courses. Let's talk about what brain retraining even is. Your brain is already being retrained. It's always being trained or retrained or untrained.

[00:01:48]The way brain rewiring works is through repetition. So, you're going to have things that you're reacting to over and over and over again. And when you do that, you wire things in. And then you can have times when you choose to change your response to things. And when you change your response, you can begin to rewire. So the question is simply like, are we wiring the same thing we always have been, or are we changing what we're wiring in by changing our response to what we're experiencing, changing what we do. Ultimately, recovering from nervous system issues is a lot to do with the way that you change. And you need to know that this is happening 24/7 whether you sit down or do it purposefully or not. For better or for worse, it's being trained always in one direction or another. So the question isn't really about whether you retrain your brain. It's what are we allowing to do the training. And I think intentional brain retraining can be helpful when you're at the right stage. I think again this is a matter of sequencing. A lot of people are just doing it way too early.

[00:02:44]And so I'm going to get into when I think is the good time to implement any sort of like formal brain retraining.

[00:02:49]But first, let's talk about why formal brain retraining tends to backfire when you're already sensitized. This is ironic because almost everyone who's learning about brain retraining is sensitized. So it's being prescribed at a point when I really see it doing more damage than good. So let's talk about the instruction when you are looking at brain retraining. The instruction is monitor your thinking. You need to keep an eye on your thinking. I remember being told, "Never let a thought pass without your awareness of it." Yikes for me. Yikes. For many of you, super yikes.

[00:03:22]Okay? Monitoring every thought, interrupting every negative thought, redirecting every thought, never letting a cascade of threat physiology flow through your body because your thoughts are starting a cascade of a release of chemicals in your body. Now, you're flooding your body with cortisol. You're doing all of this by thought alone. Is that true? true that thoughts create physiology. Absolutely. But we also have to talk about how physiology creates thoughts. And when you're very hyper sensitive, when you're very sensitized, your physiology is creating way more thoughts than your thoughts are creating physiology.

[00:03:59]In my personal opinion, there is so much scary thinking. There is so much overthinking. There's so much ruminating, monitoring already of everything going on in our body. And now we have a new full-time job. the new full-time job is watch yourself. You need to make sure you retrain this.

[00:04:15]Don't let anything pass without you being aware of it, interrupting it, changing it, pausing, stopping. And in that situation, we aren't retraining the system. We're compounding the problem here. I remember when I did one of these probably three brain retraining programs that I was in, I had to keep a piece of paper in my pocket because I couldn't remember all the steps and I was told that I needed to follow these steps so many times a day and I would have to unfold the paper and I would have to say what I needed to say and step forward and step to the side and do everything and I needed to do it perfectly and what was I going to do if I was like out to dinner and I had to do this and I would tell my family like if you see me like in the middle of the kitchen talking to myself just to ignore me. It was a lot of pressure on my system. And I know that it's a lot of pressure on on many people's systems. And I was so afraid of doing it wrong. I was so afraid of not doing it enough. And at the same time, I liked being told what to do. I liked being told that there was a checklist.

[00:05:13]And this is what so many people want. So many of you want this from me. Like, tell me exactly what to do in every single situation. And this is easy. It's like there is a 10-step process you need to do every time you have a scary thought because you need to make sure that you micromanage your nervous system. Something that literally does everything automatically in our body, we need to take control back and we need to control our thinking which is a nightmare for a sensitized system. And you need to know that if you are redirecting your thoughts 100 times a day, 200 times a day, 300 times a day, that is a compulsion. It is compulsive behavior to redirect every one of your thoughts. And if you're doing it that many times a day, you're sensitized. You have a lot of scary thoughts. It makes sense. The physiology is driving the thinking. I do see it in a loop. And I have done a lot of coaching in the past that works from the top down that knows that if I'm having a thought that makes me feel scared, I could just change the thought so I don't feel scared. And when you have access to that higher part of your brain, when you're not so sensitized, that can be very, very wonderful because you notice it. You're not having every thought that's scary.

[00:06:20]Every thought needs to be interrupted.

[00:06:22]You notice a couple thoughts throughout the day and you go, "Oh, I see what that's creating for me emotionally." And I can see that if I change my perspective on this, I'm going to feel completely different. Which means I'm going to do something completely different. I love that style of coaching. I love doing that kind of coaching. I love using that type of coaching on myself. I do not love it at all. I don't even like it at all for a sensitized nervous system. Something I briefly already touched on was that if we are doing this and feeling like we need to do this brain retraining all the time, I need you to know that your thoughts become the new threat. So, we have our symptoms, we have our pain, we have our dizziness, we have our nausea, and then we have our thinking about it, and now our thinking is a brand new threat. You're already living in this place of extreme fear. You're already being told that your thoughts are causing your symptoms. And that turns your thoughts into one more thing that you need to fear. And now every single thought feels dangerous. And if we're leaning towards safety, if we're leaning towards a new experience in our body, we can't be fearing every thought that we have. And it starts to cause this feeling of feeling out of control because anytime that threat physiology gets activated, you feel like you're doing something wrong. It adds a lot of guilt and shame. And so we love the tool because we're perfectionists or we're people who just want that certainty so badly. I think that's the bigger aspect of this. We want the certainty. We want the checklist. We want to know that I did my healing the right way today. And then that very same thing that we're doing, the thing that we're implementing to get better, we're doing it with such a hypervigilance and such a focus and such a sense of perfectionism that it's still signaling danger. It's still signaling the same signal that we're trying to change. And then there's an added layer of guilt here because we ask ourselves like, "If I'm not better, I must not have been vigilant enough."

[00:08:04]Not knowing that it's this entire loop that's keeping you stuck. It's not that thoughts don't matter. It's not that thoughts don't have an effect. It's that when you're severely sensitized, I think that working at the thought level is incorrect sequencing. Once your system settles a little bit, you're going to find that you don't need brain retraining the way you needed it in the past, which was from this compulsive place of needing to fix your thinking.

[00:08:27]It's the same thing as trying to do something to fix our emotions or fix our symptoms. Doing something to fix your thoughts is the exact same loop. It is the exact same energy. So, what do I recommend to retrain the brain when you're sensitized? It's very important to know on the baseline here that your nervous system learns from what you do.

[00:08:46]It doesn't necessarily learn from what you tell it, which is why I'm not big on, you know, chronic self-reassurance or changing your thoughts or focusing really strongly on your beliefs when you're in a fully sensitized experiencing chronic symptom state. What I'm really big on at this stage is new experiences, new corrective experiences, new behavior, behaving in a way that signals to the brain that there is no problem here. I feel like that is the strongest way to build a solid foundation that will set you up for success for the rest of your life and for any other symptom you may ever experience in the future because you're human. We're going to have experiences of pain or sensations throughout our body that are in the future when you're not so sensitized. They're going to have some information for you. They're going to be able to identify something in your life that needs to change. But when we are sensitized, we've moved way too far past information in our thoughts and in our symptoms. and we have to behave in a bit of a different way. I think the prescription is different here. I think the prescription is knowing that your nervous system is sensitized. Knowing that thought and working from that level is not going to be effective here. We have to take a bit more of a solid tangible approach more than a meta let me think about my thinking approach.

[00:09:56]That's why I'm not a fan of it. And this is coming from someone who has been in that space for a very long time. I have done work in that space. I tried to use that work on myself and it just didn't work when I was sensitized. When I was experiencing chronic symptoms, it was useless. So, at this stage, it's corrective experiences that are going to do all the rewiring that you need. We want to live different while still feeling bad. That is the rewiring process. You don't need a six-step rewiring process folded up in a paper in your pocket. The wiring is already happening. And it depends on how you're responding. It's all going to hinge on how are you behaving? What signal are you sending in the way you're showing up in the world? It's so much more about the energy that you're living in when you are taking action, how you show up during the day, how you respond, how you scan your body or don't scan your body, how you make plans for the future. All of those things are sending such a loud blaring message to the nervous system.

[00:10:56]And what's more important is most of the ways that you're living, the decisions you're making, the way you make choices, the way you respond, the way you monitor, the way you try to fix, all of that is sending a much louder signal than any step forward, say a word, redirect, what's the opposite? The things that you're doing every single day are sending a much louder signal to your nervous system of danger than any brain rewiring six-step process is going to be able to send. It's like I want you to see that brain rewiring is like being a little whisper. Whereas the compulsive behaviors you're engaging in. The chronic monitoring, the hypervigilance is a blaring siren and the brain retraining is like a tiny little beep that you're doing 300 times a day just like beep beep beep. Meanwhile, you're doing all of these things that are saying we are in so much danger right now. So, what do you think is going to have a bigger impact? the tiny little beep or turning down the blaring danger signal that you are sending with the way you're behaving and starting to behave in a different way. I'm very big on letting behavior change do the brain rewiring because it sends a very very loud signal and the signals that we're trying to send is there is no problem here. I know my body is actually safe and instead of trying to convince myself I'm safe, I'm going to begin living in a way that sends a signal of safety. Let's very quickly talk about what I know you guys will have questions about is where does the mental work have a place here because I do not think it is useless. I think it's very beneficial. I love mental work. After I got out of the chronic stage of sensitization, it was like everything I had learned and all the coaching that I had done over the years that had to do with this top down approach and being aware of the thoughts and beliefs that are driving the show that do come from the trauma, that do come through the pain, that do come from our past and in what ways is it still affecting our life now? Thoughts matter.

[00:12:51]Of course they matter. Like the problem is the weight that we're being told to place on them in the form of brain retraining at the point of severe sensitivity is not the right time to use them. The difference is in the future when you feel called to if you feel called to doing work on your thinking on your beliefs it's not going to come from this place of a prescribed method that is required for you to do perfectly a certain number of times a day or you're never going to get better. I remember being told that I needed to be doing brain retraining for at least an hour a day for 6 months straight minimum or I would not get better. Does that sound like pressure? Does that sound like pressure on a system with no capacity?

[00:13:33]It weighed very heavily on me. If it doesn't weigh heavily on you, this information, this whole video may not apply, but for me it was pressure. It was the need to get it perfect. It was a lot of something that was unnecessary for me to get better. So, it's not required. It's not going to be something that you feel like you need to do every minute of every day because you're not going to be having scary, fearful thoughts every second of every day. I'm always going to tell you guys as far as the gauge of do I need tools, do I not need tools?

[00:14:02]Normally, if you're asking for permission about using tools, I'm normally going to say, let's hold off a little bit longer because we don't want to use tools from any place of desperation. I want you to gauge your desperation. I want you to gauge your do I do I need this? Am I missing something? Do I need a tool? Is now the time? Gauge the energy behind it. That's going to tell you more than I could ever tell you. And I can pick up on the energy from your comments, from you asking. And if you're asking, normally my answer is just going to be no.

[00:14:32]Because you should get to a place where you know the difference of do am I feeling really drawn to something that could be supportive to me now? Not because I'm trying to make something go away, not because I'm trying to fix something, but because it just feels right. It doesn't feel desperate. It doesn't feel panicked. it and watch yourself and the way you'll try to weasle around that as well because our brains are tricky and they'll be like, "Oh, no. I'm I'm doing it just because I I understand everything, but I'm just going to do this, you know, just to support myself." But be so for real with yourself. For me, it was very very calm and it was just like, yeah, I feel like meditation could be a supportive way to model more safety to my nervous system.

[00:15:11]I don't have any expectations of this.

[00:15:14]It's something that I would choose to do whether I had, you know, symptoms or not. Meditation was something that I always wanted to get into and I was never able to really do it consecutively and consistently. And now it's something that I don't require myself to do every day, but I it really feels nourishing to me. It feels good. I don't have any expectations. I don't have an agenda. So the the goal is not to do anything including mental work from a place of desperation. Mental work is has a very strong place in the coaching world and in the the growth world and in the creation world. It it is important to know do I have thoughts and beliefs that are coming from an old identity of myself from an old version. Thoughts that came from my parents, thoughts that are not mine or thoughts that I don't want to associate with anymore. Those can be really really helpful questions to ask. The best place to do mental work from is a regulated place or from a place that just feels more steady. a place with more capacity, more stability, and a lower baseline. Don't do anything from desperation.

[00:16:11]Desensitize your nervous system first.

[00:16:12]Work on the principles of acceptance and allowing and getting back into your life and setting that foundation that will give you a life of capacity and a life of resilience. Um, tools are good for when you have more space for that.

[00:16:26]They're not good to do when you are in absolute crisis mode. And they aren't what's going to get you to the finish line. and they may be something that you find to be supportive and nourishing in your life, but you'll know when that is.

[00:16:38]If you feel like you have to ask, you're probably not there yet. For me, what it looks like now is I wake up and I really ask myself, who do I want to be today?

[00:16:44]It's a question that has stuck with me for the last couple years where I feel like I do want to direct my energy. I want to ask myself, who do you want to be? How do you want to show up? I notice unhelpful thinking as it comes up. if it comes up maybe before a task, maybe when I'm interacting with my kids, maybe when there's something ahead of me that I'm feeling a lot of fear about, I can identify, oh, I'm having old thinking.

[00:17:06]It's like old neural networks in my brain that are just being activated. I don't have to think that anymore. And it feels very easy to redirect it. I think the problem with brain retraining when you're so sensitized is it doesn't feel easy. It feels like there's a lot of effort. It feels like what you're trying to redirect feels very important. It's really trying to keep you safe. There's a lot of resistance and a lot of push and pull. So, that's not the way that I retrain my brain now. It's more a practice of noticing and choosing something different. And I think a big part of this is because I have access to that part of my brain now. That higher part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, the part that knows what you want, what matters to you, what your goals are, what your future looks like.

[00:17:49]You don't have access to that when your system is very sensitized. And you can't do any of it when you're sensitized.

[00:17:54]there's just no room for it because the capacity is so high. So please remember your brain is always being retrained.

[00:18:00]The question is what's doing the training? If brain retraining is something that for you feels like it's another job, it's stressful. It's another thing that's really driving up more hypervigilance. And you are noticing that brain retraining has become your new compulsion, a new way to keep your hands busy, for lack of a better phrase, a way to keep busy and keep yourself. So, you're doing something that may be the sign that you need that it's not the most helpful tool for you right now. And one thing you can just try today is try to notice the energy behind whatever it is you're doing. If you're still engaging in tools, if you're still finding yourself taking these actions, ask yourself, what is the energy behind what I'm doing?

[00:18:42]Does it feel urgent? Does it feel panicked? Like, put the technique aside for a second. The energy behind what you're doing, what energy is it coming from? Is it supportive or is it kind of frantic? Again, the problem isn't really the programs. the problem is, is it the right thing or the wrong thing for a system in the state that your nervous system is in? And if it is, it's not a big deal. It's not a big problem. You're going to find that all of the things that you've gotten engaged with, all of the things that you've tried and you feel like you've failed, there's a really good chance that there is some information there for you. And that information may become more relevant for you down the road. You may be able to take lessons and insights that you learned from brain retraining and they may become so much more applicable in 6 months. You may find that it becomes effortless for you to notice, redirect, and move on with your life in a way that doesn't hold the weight that brain retraining, a very sensitized nervous system, just tends to carry. I hope this video was helpful and I'll see you guys on the next