How to Rewire Your Brain: The Science & Soul of Breaking Old Patterns - Episode 330

How do you actually rewire your brain and break the patterns running your life? Not through willpower. Not through more insight. Through the practices that reach the level where the wiring actually lives.

In this episode, I go deep on the neuroscience and the soul of real change — for anyone who has done the therapy, had the insight, and still ends up back in the same pattern. That is not a willpower problem. It is a wiring problem. And wiring can change.

What I cover:

• What neural pathways are and how they form
• Neuroplasticity and how the brain restructures itself at any age
• The brainwave states where deep change becomes possible (and why theta matters so much)
• Memory reconsolidation — the window where old programming can be rewritten
• Why the body must be included, not just the mind
• The neurochemistry that makes old patterns feel addictive
• Every major modality with real research behind it — meditation, EFT tapping, breathwork, somatic release, loving-kindness practice, theta-state work, and BEAM Therapy
• My own journey with these practices, including my mentor Brenda Farrugia of So Brilliant

I want to name something directly. You do not need me to bring on an expert to educate you on this from a place of bias. I come to every episode the same way I have from the beginning — passion over profit, no bias, always. I do the research. I do the reading. I do the personal work. And I bring you what I have learned, walked, and lived.

Science and soul. Always.

Mentioned in this episode: Brenda Farrugia — So Brilliant (sobrilliant.ca) Official EFT from A to Z by Gabrielle Rutten & Gary Craig

Loved this episode? I am an independent podcaster — no network, no corporate backing, just me doing this work week after week. If this moved you, please follow Sandy K Nutrition Health & Lifestyle Queen on Apple or Spotify, rate it five stars, and leave a written review with a few kind words. Reviews are how other women find this show. Every one matters. Thank you for being here.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

Sandy Kruse 0:02

Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse. Welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. For many years now, I've been a trusted voice for people in midlife and beyond who want a deeper, more honest conversation about wellness. One that includes the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the esoteric. Most episodes are solo now because I want to bring you thoughtful research, lived experience, and grounded insight without noise or bias. And when I do bring on a guest, it's because their work genuinely adds something meaningful to the conversation. Here we explore the full spectrum of what it means to be well, how the body functions, how the mind heals, how the spirit expands, and how all of these layers shape life lived with clarity and joy. Thanks for being here. And if this show resonates with you, please follow rate, review, and share it. It truly helps the message reach more people. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition, Health and Lifestyle Queen. Today I'm gonna talk about neural nets. This is all about rewiring the brain. I'm gonna actually give credit to one of my close friends. Her name is Brenda Ferrugia of So Brilliant, so brilliant.ca. She was the one who first talked about neural nets. And I'm gonna kind of break it down because this stuff fascinates me. A couple weeks ago, whenever you're listening to this podcast, I released a podcast about why some people are more empathetic, compassionate, softer, kind, too sensitive. Never too sensitive,

Neural Nets And The Spiral Loop

Sandy Kruse 2:25

my friends. This is a gift. Don't ever, ever think that being sensitive is too sensitive. It is actually a gift and a superpower. But today I'm gonna talk about, I'm gonna almost continue that conversation because a lot of times people who are extremely sensitive, who do have a lot of empathy and compassion, do a lot of that spiraling. I know a lot of you have probably done therapy. Maybe you've journaled until your pen ran dry. You've talked it out with your best friend 400 times, reliving it over and over and over again. You understand the origin story of your pattern better than anyone. And then boom, something happens, and you're right back in that spiral again. Same reaction, same loop, same emotional chemistry. But here's the part that nobody tells you it's not a willpower problem, it's a wiring problem. And I explained why some people are wired differently. Some people, this is more difficult than others. Some people, it might be because they're not wired the same way. Other reasons might be because they're just numbers, so they feel less. Maybe they're, you know, whatever, doing whatever. That's not what this podcast is about. But your brain has literally built architecture around your patterns. We hear about neuroplasticity, neuroscience. I'm talking about neural nets. These are not moral failings, they're not personality flaws, they're neural networks and they run automatically. And so today I'm going to show you the science of how these networks form, why they can be so stubborn, and what can actually break them open. Not in theory, you're in your brain, in your body, in your chemistry. This is not woo. This is actually neuroscience, and it might be the most important thing you hear this year. And I'll tell you why. Because I am a chronic overthinker, but it's also my superpower. It is why I come to you each and every week with really unique topics in the space of wellness, body, mind, spirit, soul, all of it, because I believe that we age well when we look at everything as a whole. So wherever you are listening right now, please hit subscribe. It helps me to be found, it helps me to be seen. And it's very difficult to do that in this big wide world of celebrity podcasts and people who have an enormous amount of money backing them up, which I don't. I'm an independent podcaster and I've been in this space for over six years, over 1.4 million downloads. I know for some people, they'll be like, that's not that much. But for a little old girl who's credentialed, I am a registered holistic nutritionist trained in science and soul and spirit. I'm also a certified metabolic balance coach. I have numerous certifications and I have worked with women one-on-one for years until I really decided to focus on my podcast. So let's

Default Mode Network And Meditation

Sandy Kruse 6:22

get into it. Make sure you hit subscribe. So your brain is a pattern-making machine. Your brain has about 86 billion neurons and they follow one word, one rule. And everybody's heard this. Neurons that fire together wire together. Every time you think a thought, feel a feeling, run a behavior, a connection strengthens. So that's how I want you to think about it. A dirt path becomes a paved road. I love that. So a paved road becomes a highway. And then a highway becomes autopilot. This is how you learn to drive. These patterns are not you, although I did explain some people are more prone to this, but then you feed it. It's architecture, but architecture can be rebuilt. So the default mode network is your brain's autopilot. There's a part of your brain called the default mode network. DMN. It's the part that lights up when you're not focused on a task, daydreaming, ruminating, replaying conversations, running your internal monologue. It is the neural home of your conditioned self. And here's the kicker: the DMN is metabolically expensive. Your brain spends a huge amount of energy maintaining your old patterns. This is like what I've talked about so many times with Brenda limiting beliefs, negative beliefs. Some are conscious, some are subconscious. It's fascinating. Meditation, real meditation, not I closed my eyes for three minutes, although I do feel there's some benefit to that too. It deactivates the DMN. Harvard, Yale, there's decades of research on this. And so when the DMN quiets, your autopilot shuts down. And in that silence, change becomes possible. It's one of the reasons why I meditate almost every single day. Even sometimes for 30 minutes, sometimes even just for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, but I know that rewiring can happen during that time. Some of my favorites, you don't need to pay for this. I know people who who are big into selling their stuff on podcasts, they're gonna not like that, but you don't. You don't have to pay for this. Just look up Bashar Meditations on YouTube. Do it. Okay, Bashar.

Theta State And Rewriting Beliefs

Sandy Kruse 9:24

So let's talk about theta. This is the right window of the subconscious. Not all meditation rewires you. Depth matters. I've recorded a podcast about newcom. I think I have a discount. It's probably like Sandy K or something. Newcom gets you in that state. Certain types of meditations, and I know I just told you not to pay for it, but I'm telling you, this is how I learned about theta. Okay. And I met Jim Poole and I actually know him personally. So beta, that that wave in your brain is the thinking, the analyzing, the looping. Alpha is relaxed awareness. Theta is the doorway. Theta is the brain wave state that we're looking for. So theta is the brain wave state of deep meditation, hypnosis, yoga nidra. I've tried this. There's free apps for this. Um, the edge of sleep. When you're like teetering and you're not sure, are you asleep? Are you not? It's a very powerful state. Very powerful. Theta is the dominant brain wave state of children from birth to age seven. So think about that. That's when your core beliefs were installed. Am I safe? Am I worthy? Am I enough? Is love reliable? When you enter Theta as an adult, you reopen that same neurological window where your original programming was written. That's why deep meditation, hypnotherapy, you know, Joe Dispenses style work feels different. You're not relaxing, you're rewriting, even though you think you're relaxing. It's fascinating. I find that so cool. Neuroplasticity is the proof that your brain can change. A Harvard study scanned people before and after eight weeks of mindfulness. Here are the results. More gray matter in the hippocampus, which is learning, emotional regulation, smaller amygdala, which is fear and reactivity, eight weeks of structural change. Fascinating. Tibetan monks with 10,000 hours of practice show gamma wave activity that scientists had never seen before. Not states but traits. Your brain rewires through repetition and it prunes old wiring when you stop feeding it. But you can't prune a pattern that you just keep activating, even mentally. Rumination is rehearsal and replaying is reinforcement. Change requires working at the level where the pattern actually lives. This is not talk therapy. And I'm gonna give you, make sure you listen right

Neuroplasticity Proof From Research

Sandy Kruse 12:55

to the end because I'm gonna give you ways in which you can actually start working on this yourself without anyone helping you. And if you need help, see a therapist. This is not um any kind of you know mental or mental health or medical advice. If you've got a real problem, see an expert, okay? Memory reconsolidation is the window where change happens. Every time you recall a memory, it becomes temporarily unstable and editable. You can edit it. This is the mechanism behind EMDR, exposure therapy, somatic release, EFT tapping. I've done all of it. Listen, I had a lot of stuff happen. A lot of, you know, people would say it's medical trauma. A lot of people go through that. And the reason why I don't play the victim card is because I've done a lot of work behind it. And it's it's powerful, it's not talk therapy. Talk therapy is useful in some cases, often for short periods of time. If you find a therapist who can help you with these other methods, by all means work with them. When you activate an old emotional pattern and stay regulated, the memory reconsolidates with a new emotional signature. This is how old charges dissolve, not by talking, by updating the nervous system during the reconsolidation window. This is why EMDR has a lot of research behind it, and I've done it, I've done it in certain scenarios, and it's so powerful. So your body is holding the pattern. Excuse me. Trauma isn't just stored in the brain, it's also stored in the body. Van der Kolk's research shows that when trauma activates, broca area shuts down. This is the language center. You literally cannot talk your way out of it. Porges' polyvagal theory shows that rewiring only happens in ventral vagal, the state of safety and connection. This is why breath work matters. Slow breathing activates the vagus nerve and shifts the system into safety, the only state where change is possible. And you know, I can get into all kinds of things relating to more. I always talk, you know, science and soul on energy

Memory Reconsolidation And EMDR

Sandy Kruse 15:55

and the people who are around you and how important it is to have a positive energy circle around you that's supportive. All of that is critically important. It's the only state where say where change is possible when you feel safe. If you don't feel safe in your friend groups, in your marriage, in your relationships, that's a problem. You're never going to be able to rewire if you never feel safe. However, what I will say is that safety comes from within you first. And then it resonates out. You see what I'm saying? Then also, what I will say is being around these, you know, interferences are not going to matter as much as if you if you've cultivated that safety within you. This is why I'm always talking about the power within you. Okay, got off topic there a little bit, but that was important. You are chemically addicted to your patterns. Candace Pertz's research on neuropeptides shows that emotions create chemical cascades that bind to receptors in the body. Repeated emotions equals more receptors for that chemistry. Your cells become hungry for the familiar emotional cocktail, even if it's anxiety, shame, fear, victim consciousness. I mean, how many people do you know? All they do is talk about their problems. And what I do is I actually unplug from that because I don't want that to affect my system. Although I'm working on getting better boundaries and not allowing that. But that again is a whole other topic. You know, your cells become hungry for that, for that familiarity. So when you stop producing it, your body experiences withdrawal. This is why change can feel uncomfortable. Your biology is lobbying for the old story. It's not easy to do this. I'm never for easy, though, guys. Insight alone cannot change peptide chemistry, and new emotional states must be practiced. And funny, in in one of the groups that I'm in, one of the WhatsApp groups I'm in, um, my friend Brenda actually talked about this in a group that she she does. And we talked about ayahuasca. And I think I'm gonna do a whole podcast on this because I have recorded with a few of these, you know, I'm gonna do quote-unquote experts in these retreats to go to whatever South America and do ayahuasca and completely blow up your life. That's gonna be a whole other conversation. But the fact of the matter is, I will never personally believe that healing is fast. And often you hear stories about people, and I've talked about this years ago, who will come back from one of those retreats, a completely different person. They blow up their life, they blow up their marriage and all this stuff because healing is not meant to be fast. And Brenda talks about this all the time. Your higher self, when you let your higher self be in control, and your brain, however, you want to talk about it, then you will go at the pace in which it is best for you, not having a plant medicine have that control over you. See what I'm saying? Okay, so let's

Trauma In The Body And Safety

Sandy Kruse 19:50

talk about EFT tapping. I have recorded an entire podcast on this, and I am going to be doing some sort of a collaboration with Gabrielle Sutton, her, and Gary Craig wrote the book EFT. They are the originals. EFT tapping is the bridge between the brain and the body. EFT taps on acupressure points, activating a belief or emotion. So there's a mechanism. The tapping calms the amygdala, and you do it top down. You name the emotion that um activates the prefrontal cortex. You regulate both ends of the nervous system simultaneously. Okay. I'm not going to get into it here because that is going to be on another episode, but what I can tell you is the research on EFT tapping. 24% cortisol drop in one session, 43% drop in group sessions. I've done both. Uh, reduced amygdala activation, increased alpha waves, engagement of the reconsolidation window. This is why tapping dissolves the emotional charge. The memory stays, the threat encoding is what changes. Beam therapy. It's the stuff that Brenda does. It's the deep subconscious work. I've done so many beam therapy sessions with her, and definitely get in touch with her. Beam therapy works at the bioenergetic level, below language, below cognition, exactly where the trauma lives. It releases emotional layers systemically, guided by your higher self. You can, I'm not sure. A lot of people have different definitions for the higher self, the soul, whatever you want to call it, whatever you resonate with. It doesn't matter. But it's like the the part of you that knows what's best for you. This mirrors what neuroscience. Shows patterns have depth, they release in sequence, and safety is required for access. So Brenda Farouja's work is a masterclass in creating the field of safety required for deep release from a polyvagal perspective. Her presence is the intervention. All the energy goes through Brenda. That she can explain that better. Okay. Now, the toolkit that actually works. Here's your rewiring stack. Okay. Mindfulness meditation. It de uh auto it deregulates these patterns, dysregulates these patterns. That's a better way of saying it. Theta state meditation. That's the subconscious rewriting. Okay. EFT tapping dissolves that emotional charge. Breath work regulates the nervous system. Somatic work releases stored activation. Beam therapy. This is the dealing with the deep subconscious layers.

EFT Tapping And Subconscious Tools

Sandy Kruse 23:04

This is the architecture work. So what is what does a journey actually feel like? It's not linear and it's not tidy and it's not always comfortable. Patterns can get louder before they dissolve. Old memories can surface. Your body might shake. You might have aches and pains. Um tingles, sighs, resistance will show up. Regression happens under stress. This is physiology and not failure. And then slowly, consistently, something shifts. A trigger lands differently, a belief loses its grip. A story feels like a story, not a truth. Space appears where reactivity used to live. That's rewiring and that's the work. And it is worth every bit of it. I am gonna say definitely find Brenda at so brilliant.ca. She provides so many different tools for you. And I just want to say that these patterns are not you, they are wiring, and wiring can change. So look into this. Look into what actually resonates with you. Because if it doesn't resonate with you, it probably won't help you. Because maybe your higher self is not ready for that. Maybe your higher self is saying, that's not for me. I'd rather go this route. And I'm gonna tell you a little story before I end this about specifically about EFT. I had learned about it many years prior to my even meeting Brenda. I never resonated with it. And I don't know why. It could have been negative beliefs, it could have been something that said, no, Sandy, that's not for you. And then after working with Brenda in one of her uh courses, her group coaching, I actually was like, she she questioned it, not judged, questioned, okay, well, what what is it about that? Is it too hard? And she actually brought up all of these negative beliefs to the surface, to the group. So for me, I realized I always thought it was stupid and it wouldn't work. That was it, that was my negative belief. So I powered through that negative belief, and now I work on different protocols almost daily, along with somatic work, along with meditation. You're probably gonna be like, Jesus, like you're never stopping, girl. You're always working on yourself. Yes, I am, because I think it makes me better, better person, better at what I do, a better wife, mother, friend. It makes me better overall. My mindset, I'm rewiring these neural nets to better patterns, less rumination of things that don't serve me, less hiding, less being small. I

Rewiring Stack And Personal Boundaries

Sandy Kruse 26:12

was always worried about, you know, being too much out there. Now I'm like, love me or leave me, because here I am. And I have been through a lot of scenarios that would test this. I've been through scenarios whereby I've had people who I thought were friends take my content and weaponize it against me, making it something that it wasn't when my entire purpose on this planet is number one, number one, which is something that I did my entire life. Do not self-abandon. Never. I will never self-abandon again. And I think that I almost learned that more so when I became a mom. A lot of us do that, and then we reach menopause and we're like, what the fuck? Who am I? Why do I always, you know, self-abandon what's right for me first? So what's right for me first? Me first. That's not self and selfishness, that's me knowing what is the best thing for me. Number one. What are my intentions behind everything I do? My intention is always to help others on a mass scale. That's why I'm still here. That's why I do passion over profit. That's why I am who I am. And number three, integrity first. So the world is changing, my friends. I've recorded a lot of podcasts about this, about 2026 being the year of disclosure. Brenda and I talk about that a lot. And really, this is to help you rewire patterns that don't serve you because you have a beautiful skill set. You have a beautiful brain. You just need to make sure that you're finding yourself and showing your light. So, with that, I want to thank you so

Share, Subscribe, And Closing

Sandy Kruse 28:15

much. Please share this with somebody who might benefit from it. I just love coming here each and every week. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have a great week. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit. And always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me keep going, bring these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, new guest, new excited conversations to help you live your best life.