NeuroHeir℠ Podcast: Somatic, Nervous System and Generational Healing Tools for Parents, Therapists, and Cycle Breakers

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed by your to-do list, stuck in anxiety, or unsure how to calm your body when life feels like too much? In this episode, Leanna welcomes back evidence-based EFT practitioner Mitch to explore one of the most accessible nervous system regulation tools available: Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), also known as tapping. If you've ever been curious about ta...

What if the symptoms you're trying to "fix" are actually your nervous system's best attempt to protect you? In this powerful conversation, Leanna sits down with Australian counselor, facilitator, and evidence-based EFT trainer Mitch Gainey to explore the profound connection between trauma, the nervous system, and the body's innate capacity to heal. Together, they unpack wh...

What if the patterns you've spent years trying to change aren't flaws in your personality but predictions made by your nervous system? In this thought-provoking episode, Leanna explores a controversial paper that has sparked widespread discussion in the trauma and nervous system world: The Body Does Not Keep the Score . While the title may sound contradictory to everything we've lea...

Why is it so hard to say no, disappoint someone, or put your own needs first? In this episode of the NeuroHeir Podcast, we're continuing our exploration of the nervous system's survival responses by diving into the often-overlooked appease response—sometimes called the fawn response. While fight, flight, and freeze tend to be easier to recognize, appeasement is often praised and rewarded...

What if the reason you feel stuck, numb, disconnected, or unable to move forward isn't laziness at all? In this episode of The NeuroHeir Podcast , we're continuing our Nervous System Through Movies series by exploring the freeze response through the lens of Disney's Frozen . While Elsa's story is often viewed as one of hiding her powers, it also offers a powerful picture of wha...

Have you ever felt like you can’t slow down? Like your brain is always making lists, your body feels restless, and even when you sit down to rest… you still feel "on"? In this episode of NeuroHeir , we’re diving into the flight nervous system response and uncovering what happens when your body learns survival through constant movement. Because flight isn’t always running away physically—...

In this episode of NeuroHeir , we begin a new series exploring the four major nervous system survival responses: fight, flight, freeze, and appeasement. Using a powerful scene from Inside Out , Leanna breaks down what actually happens in the body before reactions like anger, snapping, yelling, or overwhelm ever show up on the outside. If you've ever felt like you go from zero to sixty in seco...

In this deeply personal episode of the NeuroHier Podcast, Leanna reflects on an old photo of herself holding her youngest son and realizes something powerful: who she is today is exactly who that younger version of herself needed most. What unfolds is an honest conversation about anxiety, panic attacks, emotional eating, nervous system overwhelm, and the years spent believing something was “wrong”...

In this episode, we’re going deeper into something that often gets overlooked in healing work: what happens after awareness. Because noticing your patterns… naming your triggers… even understanding where they came from — that’s only part of the process. The real shift happens in how you relate to yourself in those moments. Leanna explores how unresolved stress cycles and younger “parts” of you can...

Healing often begins with noticing what hurt—what felt unsafe, what was missing, and what we had to do to survive. But what if that’s not the full story? In this episode, we explore a powerful shift in the healing journey: learning to recognize not only what needs to be released, but also what is worth carrying forward. Because not everything you inherited is harmful—some of it is strength, resili...

What happens when you do the brave thing—open up, lean into vulnerability, and show up more honestly… but instead of feeling closer, you feel more disconnected? In this deeply personal episode, Leanna explores the confusing and often unspoken experience of feeling distant from God, yourself, or others especially in moments when you expected to feel more connected. Through her own story of grief af...

Last week, we explored vulnerability—what it really means and why it can feel so uncomfortable. But today, we’re going deeper into what actually makes vulnerability possible in the first place: courage. Not the kind of courage that pushes through or overrides your body… but a more compassionate, nervous-system-informed version. Because if being seen once felt unsafe, your body isn’t going to magic...

Vulnerability is often talked about as something we should do but rarely do we pause to ask why it feels so hard in the first place.  In this episode, we’re exploring vulnerability through a nervous system and generational lens, breaking down why opening up, taking risks, or being seen can feel unsafe… even when we deeply crave connection. Inspired by Brené Brown’s work on the myths of vulnerabili...

What happens when someone you love begins their healing journey… and you don’t fully understand it? In this heartfelt and deeply grounding episode, Leanna speaks directly to those on the outside of the healing process—the partners, parents, friends, and family members who may feel confused, uncomfortable, or even disconnected as someone they care about begins to change. This conversation is not ab...

Healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in relationship. In this episode, we’re diving into what it really looks like to bring your nervous system healing into your relationships… especially when the people you love aren’t ready to meet you there. If you’ve ever tried to share your growth, your awareness, or your story with family only to be met with defensiveness, shutdown, or misunderstan...

What does it really look like when someone chooses to break generational cycles and do the inner work? In this powerful conversation, Leanna sits down with faith-driven coach, consultant, and father Drew Cost to talk about healing, vulnerability, and what it means to reclaim your identity after years of emotional shutdown. Drew shares his personal journey growing up believing that men shouldn’t ex...

Have you ever thought, “I know better… so why did I still react like that?” If you’ve been learning about nervous system regulation but still find yourself snapping, shutting down, or spiraling in stressful moments, this episode is an important reminder: knowing the work and integrating the work are not the same thing. In this episode, Leanna explores why nervous system reactions can override logi...

In this final episode of the Four N’s series, we arrive at the fourth and transformative step: Navigate. If notice builds awareness, name reduces shame, and nurture creates safety, then navigate is where you consciously choose your direction. It’s where healing becomes movement. Through personal stories — from a honeymoon mishap navigating paper maps in 1999 to wrapping up in a quilt made from her...

If notice helps you see and name helps you understand, then nurture is what changes how it lives in you. In this episode, we continue the Four N’s sequence by stepping into what often feels like the most unfamiliar and most transformative part of healing: responding to yourself with compassion instead of criticism. You may have started noticing your patterns and naming your survival responses, but...

This week on the NeuroHeir Podcast , we continue moving through the Four N’s by deepening into the second step: Name. If noticing is the doorway to awareness, naming is what helps the nervous system organize, integrate, and begin to regulate. In this special 20th episode, we explore what it really means to “name it to tame it” — not as a trendy phrase, but as a neuroscience-backed pathway to integ...

In this episode of the NeuroHeir Podcast , we begin a four-part series centered on the Four N’s: Notice, Name, Nurture, and Navigate—starting with the foundation of all nervous system work: notice.  Building on last week’s conversation about the window of tolerance, this episode explores how regulation isn’t a fixed state you’re either “in” or “out” of, but an ongoing relationship with your body....

What if regulation isn’t about staying calm but about learning how to listen? In this episode of the NeuroHeir Podcast, we begin a deeper, slower exploration of the window of tolerance through the first pillar of the NeuroHeir Framework: Notice. This episode is the foundation for everything that follows, because nothing about nervous system healing works if we don’t first learn how to pay attentio...

In this deeply personal, unscripted episode of NeuroHeir , Leanna records from a hotel room in Cozumel on the one-year anniversary of her father’s passing — reflecting on timing, grief, nervous system resilience, and what it really means to move beyond survival. After a whirlwind 24-hour journey just to arrive, Leanna shares how nervous system regulation made it possible to navigate stress, uncert...

By the end of January, many people begin questioning themselves — why motivation feels harder, why consistency slips, or why the changes they were excited about already feel fragile.  In this episode of The NeuroHeir Podcast , Leanna Hunt offers a compassionate reframe: what if nothing has gone wrong, and what you’re noticing is simply how your nervous system actually works? If you’re trying to st...

What if sustainable change has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with safety? In this episode of The NeuroHeir Podcast , Leanna explores why so many cycles of burnout, over-functioning, and “starting over” aren’t personal failures, but nervous system patterns rooted in familiarity and survival. You’ll learn: Why your nervous system resists change even positive change How “visiting”...