Why do you keep repeating the same patterns… even when you know exactly where they come from?

In this powerful Tammy’s Take, Tammy Vincent breaks down one of the most misunderstood parts of healing: awareness.

Because awareness is not just understanding your childhood or knowing why you react the way you do. Real healing begins when you can catch the pattern while it’s happening.

If you’ve ever thought:

• “I know better… so why do I still do this?”
• “Why do I keep people pleasing, overthinking, shutting down, or abandoning myself?”
• “Why do I still react this way even after all the work I’ve done?”

This episode is for you.

Tammy explores how childhood dysfunction, trauma, and nervous system survival responses can turn coping strategies into what feels like personality traits. You’ll learn why intellectual awareness alone is not enough and how to begin interrupting old emotional patterns in real time.

In this episode, Tammy shares 5 practical ways to build real-time awareness, including:

✔️ How to notice what your body is trying to tell you

✔️ Why your triggers hold important clues

✔️ How to pause before automatic reactions take over

✔️ Why self-judgment keeps you stuck in survival mode

✔️ Small ways to interrupt patterns and create real change

If you grew up walking on eggshells, people pleasing, fearing conflict, overthinking, or struggling to feel emotionally safe, this conversation will help you understand why your nervous system reacts the way it does and what healing can actually look like.

Because awareness isn’t the finish line.

It’s the beginning of healing.

🎧 Listen now and start learning how to respond instead of react.

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As an international inspirational speaker, NLP Practitioner, Trauma-Informed Coach, Neurofit Trainer, and Best-Selling Author, I bring both deep personal experience and professional training to the work I do. I believe in prevention, not just intervention — and use a body, mind, and spirit approach to guide others toward becoming the happiest, healthiest versions of themselves.

My holistic toolbox includes nervous system regulation, trauma-informed coaching, nutritional support, and natural healing strategies,

🔑 Start Your Healing Journey

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Good morning, and everybody welcome

back to another episode of Tammy's

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Takes, where we take powerful

conversations with our guests, and we

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turn them into practical strategies

that you can use right here, right now.

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So today, I wanna talk about yesterday's

episode with Scott Stolarik, and

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it was a pretty powerful episode.

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But today, I wanna do something

just a little bit different.

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I wanna talk about awareness, and

I know we've talked about awareness

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so much on this podcast, but I wanna

kinda look at it from a different

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lens because awareness sounds simple.

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I think it's one of the most

misunderstood parts about healing.

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People think awareness means I know where

my issues are coming from, I understand

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my childhood, I know why I react this

way, but awareness is honestly not just

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the intellectual understanding of it.

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Awareness is catching the pattern

while it's happening in real time, in

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the moment when things are getting...

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going down.

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That's the big difference because

a lot of us can explain our trauma

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while we're still living in the

automatic responses every single day.

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So we know intellectually

what we should do and how we

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should act, but we don't do it.

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This is something I see all the

time in my coaching work and through

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conversations on my podcast and

really everywhere in the world.

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People are incredibly

self-aware intellectually.

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This is what we're talking about.

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Everybody says awareness is the key.

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Start with awareness.

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But honestly, so many people are

still stuck emotionally and physically

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in survival mode, and just being

aware of that is not going to help.

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So what are they doing?

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They're still people-pleasing.

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They're still overreacting.

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They're still shutting down, overthinking.

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They're staying in

unhealthy relationships.

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They're abandoning themselves

over and over again.

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They're numbing out, or they're living

in constant anxiety, and then they

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wonder, "Why isn't anything changing?

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I know what to do."

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And honestly, it's because awareness

just isn't knowing the pattern.

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It's interrupting the pattern.

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That's where the healing starts.

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And if you grew up in dysfunction, your

patterns probably became so automatic that

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they feel like personality traits now.

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They just kind of feel like who you are,

so you attach your identity to them.

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So you might say things like,

"This is just how I am," or, "I'm

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just sensitive," or, "I'm just

anxious," or, "I'm just a caretaker.

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I can't help it.

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I like to take care of people."

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But those things are usually adaptations.

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They were survival strategies that

your nervous system learned a long,

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long time ago, and awareness is

beginning to separate those things.

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It's beginning to separate who am

I versus what did I learn to do

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to survive, and those are two very

distinct concepts, who you are as a

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person and what you do and how you

act because of how you learned how to

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survive, and that's deep work, honestly.

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Sometimes uncomfortable work.

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Because once you become aware, you

start seeing your patterns everywhere.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, you start

realizing, "Oh, wow, I apologize

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constantly," or, "Oh, boy, I just

abandoned my needs again, and I do this

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immediately without even thinking," or,

"Whew, I feel responsible for absolutely

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everyone," or, "Oh, my gosh, if someone

is upset with me, I literally panic."

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What else do I do?

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I avoid conflicts at all costs.

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I disconnect when things get emotional.

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And those are the things you're saying

to yourself, and you're realizing it.

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You're becoming acutely aware that you

have these patterns, and sometimes even

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just that awareness can be overwhelming.

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But I want you to hear this, my

friends, awareness is not punishment.

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Awareness is power, because you

cannot change what you cannot see.

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I'm going to repeat that.

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You cannot change what you cannot see.

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So , today I wanna give you

a really practical process.

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I want to give you five ways to build

awareness in real time, not after

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the fact, because that's where the

transformation actually happens.

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You have to do it in

real time, in the moment.

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First thing is this, number one,

notice your body before your thoughts.

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Most people live completely

disconnected from their body.

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They only listen to

their thoughts, "What if?

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This is bad.

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I messed up.

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They're upset."

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But your body reacts before your

mind even creates that story.

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So start paying attention to where you

see it and where you feel it in your body.

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You might have a tight chest,

your stomach drops, your jaw

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clenches, you feel restless,

you're tired, you're shutting down.

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These are the things that

your body is telling you to

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give you so much information.

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That's where awareness starts.

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Number two, pay attention to what

repeatedly triggers you,, not to

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shame yourself, but to learn yourself.

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If the same type of situation

keeps activating you, there's

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usually an old wound underneath it.

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Maybe when people criticize you,

it feels absolutely unbearable.

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Maybe being ignored

feels completely unsafe.

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Maybe if you get rejected, it's

absolutely and completely devastating.

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Maybe when there's any kind of

conflict, it feels threatening.

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The trigger is, rarely

just about the moment.

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It's usually connected to something

older, something much older,

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something that happened when we were

a child, something that happened

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in our teens, a long time ago.

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So you need to learn to really

ask yourself, "What does this

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remind my nervous system of?"

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That's number two.

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Number three, catch the

pattern before the reaction.

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This one changes absolutely

everything, my friends.

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Before you send the text, before

you shut down, before you try to

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overexplain everything, before you eat,

drink, scroll, fix, or panic, pause.

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Simply pause and ask yourself, "What

am I actually feeling right now?"

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Not what you are thinking.

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But what are you feeling?

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Because most coping behaviors are

attempts to avoid something that

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feels uncomfortable, and awareness

kind of creates that space between

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the feeling and the reaction,

and that space is so powerful.

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So pause.

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They always say, you hear it in speeches,

you hear it when people are on stage, they

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say there is so much power in the pause.

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I took that and put that

into everything in my life.

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When I was angry with my kids, I took a

breath, I breathed, I paused, and then

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I responded, because that is when you

start responding versus just reacting.

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number four: stop judging

the pattern immediately.

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This is huge, because the second

most people notice a pattern,

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they shame themselves for it.

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"I shouldn't do this.

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What's wrong with me?

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I thought I already healed this.

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I'm over this.

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I should know better."

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And you start shame cycling yourself,

and you get into this big shame spiral,

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which is a lot, and I believe at

the core of why we can't get better.

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We are stuck in a shame spiral of

feeling like not worthy enough, not good

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enough, not being able to do anything.

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But honestly, it's those patterns

that were created to protect you.

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So awareness is not about attacking

yourself, it's about realizing that,

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and it's about understanding yourself.

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You cannot heal in the same

voice that wounded you.

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You just can't.

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If you're going through the same motions,

the same ideas, the same thoughts in your

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head, you're never going to get better.

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So again, stop attacking yourself, look

at it with curiosity, not judgment.

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I always say that when you look at things

with curiosity, without judgment and,

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and condemning somebody, it softens the

entire mood and the entire situation.

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When the mood is softer, you are now

out of your amygdala, you're into the

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regular thinking part of your brain, and

you can actually make good decisions.

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Number five: practice small

interruptions instead of

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expecting instant transformation.

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I hear this so often.

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"I don't know why I

can't get through this.

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I don't...

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I, I'm doing all the things.

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I'm practicing.

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I'm doing everything you said, and I'm not

having this great big huge breakthrough.

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I'm not being the person I wanna be."

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Well, guys, it could have taken

you 10, maybe 20, maybe 30, maybe

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even 40 or 50 years of developing

and living these patterns to get

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to the point where you're at.

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So I can honestly tell you,

healing happens in tiny little

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moments, tiny little moments of

awareness repeated consistently.

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So try these things.

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Pause before reacting.

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Just pause.

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Take a pause, breathe, and then think.

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Saying no just once.

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Take a deep breath.

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Speak honestly.

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When something comes up and you wanna

say something, honestly speak your truth.

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Recognize your triggers, and

for one moment, choose you.

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Choose you for just one minute.

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That's how the rewiring happens,

one little tiny interruption

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of a pattern at a time.

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And honestly, I think this is why

awareness can feel exhausting at first.

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Because once you start waking up to your

patterns, you realize how often you've

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been operating on autopilot, and how

often you've been abandoning yourself.

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But eventually, awareness becomes freedom,

because you stop living unconsciously.

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You stop repeating things

automatically, you stop abandoning

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yourself without even noticing,

and you start becoming intentional.

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You start choosing.

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You start responding instead of reacting.

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And once you start doing that,

and you start choosing and making

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better choices, everything changes.

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Everything.

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So if you're someone who feels frustrated

because you, quote-unquote, "know

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better," but you still keep repeating

the same patterns, I want you to know

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that awareness is not the finish line.

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It's the beginning.

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Once you become aware, you can start

doing these little tweaks every

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single day to make things better.

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And if this is the work you're navigating

right now, if you've started to

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recognize these patterns in yourself

and you want support unpacking them,

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this is exactly the work that I do.

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Through my coaching and through my

podcast, I help people connect the dots

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between their childhood experiences,

nervous system patterns, emotional

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reactions, and the way they show up

in their relationships in every single

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day, every single day of their lives.

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So if you want, just go

below, go to the show notes.

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You can book a free clarity

and calm call with me.

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All the links are there, and we can

start helping you understand not just

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what your patterns are, but actually

how to change them in real time.

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Because awareness isn't about

becoming critical of yourself,

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I promise you, my friends.

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It's about finally seeing

yourself clearly, and that's

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where the healing begins.

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We will see you back next time,

and until then, love you guys.