“If half of what my wife told me you said is true … we should all be listening to this and doing something about it!” my client blurted out before I could even exchange pleasantries.
I was curious … because my style is not to alarm people … and he most definitely sounded alarmed.
Like his VMH was in full tilt alarm.
“Well, it obviously got your attention … but I’m not sure what I shared with her that’s turned into what sounds like a 3-alarm fire in your amygdala!” I commented.
“What the heck is an amygdala … some organ I don’t know about?!” he demanded.
I had to laugh.
“It’s the part of your brain that lights up when there’s danger … “
“Well, that confirms it!” he snapped back.
I was fully amused and totally lost, so I waited.
“I’m programmed like some Stepford wife and I’m only in charge of 5%?!” he snapped. “And supposedly you know how to get me unprogrammed … so I’m not some wife … and definitely not from Stepford!”
Then I really laughed and knew exactly what he was referring to!
(It’s hard changing patterns of thinking that create our doing. We’re ALL survivalists in some way, shape, or form. And unbeknownst to us, over time, layers of unconscious thinking have formed our sense of “normal” without us even knowing. And that becomes how we do life.)
Although I had never connected it to the Stepford wives, I understood that he had made that connection … and totally “got” why he was so alarmed!
“Now that we’re on the same page, let me clarify!” I suggested.
“We know from neurobiological and neuropsychological research that 95% of our thoughts, feelings, choices, behaviors, and feelings are on autopilot … programmed by parents, caregivers, teachers, coaches, neighbors, and life experiences. We only engage and become actively involved in about 5% of our thoughts, feelings, plans, and decision making.”
“So, I am 95% a Stepford wife?” he asked, with desperation in his voice.
“Well, where did you grow up?” I asked.
“Near Little Rock, in a small town called Fordyce.”
“I know Fordyce well … my grandmother, aunts, and cousins lived there. I can assure you that you are nobody’s wife … but you are 95% a Fordyce man,” I shared, hoping to turn the fire in his brain down a notch or two.
He relaxed a bit in his chair.
“It is true that only about 5% of what you do daily is a conscious choice. The remaining 95% is auto response, unconscious, out of your awareness.”
“And that means the life you (and all the rest of us) are living isn’t based on what we desire or decide. Instead, it’s guided by our programming … which we had little (if anything) to do with,” I explained.
“What I likely said to your wife, that I often say to clients is this: ‘You can hope for the best with your 5% or rewire your 95%. If you allow the 95% to remain as is … you’ll always repeat the same cycles, patterns, emotions, and fears that your nervous system was trained to repeat’. Or you could rewire the 95%!”
He was in deep thought … processing, then continued.
“That’s still scary … but you had me at ‘rewire the 95%’!” he said with significant relief.
This week, I’d like to help you explore your 95%.
Understand what trauma does to it.
And recognize that the people who’ve proactively taken charge and rewired it …
Often become …
The best leaders
The most fulfilled humans
With the richest relationships!
1. What Trauma Does to Your 95%
Thank goodness, there’s 5% that’s engaged.
But no matter how awesome your 5% is … you’ll wear it out trying to cover, make up for, and make right, any and all of the ways the 95% is programmed in “less than ideal” ways.
The 95% is convincing … because it’s what your brain and body believe to be true about the world.
The result?
You become fully convinced that this worldview is correct and accurate!
Let’s talk about the 95%. Its roost is mostly in 3 parts of your brain:
· Your basal ganglia (where habits are formed and securely embedded)
· Your limbic system (where your emotion, reactions, and memory reign)
· Your brainstem (where your survival system stays on guard 24/7)
All 3 of them work in perfect harmony.
-Fueling your automatic reactions.
-Determining who and what are safe.
-Who and what are dangerous.
They also direct what connections feel like, and whether or not, they allow you to connect. AND they are what trigger fear, anxiety, and panic.
When trauma happens — especially during the developmental years or from people you thought were trustworthy — it facilitates a strong and permanent rewire.
Protection and safety become more important than possibilities and success. (Which is the perfect equation for giving up. Sound familiar?)
Let’s look at how trauma programs us:
· It programs our amygdala (the brain’s alarm) to be hyper‑active, assuming danger is near (or that the worst will happen). It is commissioned to scan for triggers/danger 24/7.
· It programs our hippocampus (the brain’s memory and learning center) to constantly produce cortisol. Which shrinks our memory and learning capabilities and limits our ability to put (or keep) things in perspective … or to just go ahead and react.
· It hard wires our basal ganglia to be defensive, to withdraw, to please (and then be angry about it), to freeze, to overwork (or underachieve), to insist on perfection (that paralyzes us), and/or to numb out.
It’s like the autopilot that’s supposed to make you an all-star … begins driving your whole life off the cliff … because of yesterday’s programming and truth.
Your conscious 5% might say,
“I’m ready, I’m pumped, let’s do this!”
But your unconscious 95% is whispering,
“Be careful. It’s risky. Things don’t work out for you!”
The sad reality is … the 95% almost always wins!
And let me set the record straight … it’s not because you’re weak!
It’s because your brain thinks it’s protecting you from harm.
When the truth is … it is protecting you (blockading you) from your GREAT life!
LISTEN … if you COMMIT and rewire that 95% in any way shape or form … your WHOLE life will change!
In that moment of trauma, the 95% worked for you!
YOU had no choice but to SURVIVE!
But that 95% trauma created on the fly in that moment?
It doesn’t work anymore.
And NEVER will!
I hope that convinces you to REWIRE!
The simplicity of rewiring CAN transform our complexity.
2. Let’s Look at A Fixed Mindset and Your 95% … Uh Oh!
Where does that mindset show up in “real life” every single day?
In a fixed mindset!
That fixed mindset … it chatters in your head all day long every day:
“People don’t change.”
“I am who I am.”
“It is what it is.”
“Mistakes mean I’m not enough.”
“Failures means that’s who I am … no other option.”
“They will let you down.”
“You can’t trust anyone.”
“Murphy’s law always shows up.”
“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, but I don’t think anything I try will work … It never has!”
“If it was meant to be it wouldn’t be hard.”
“I just can’t get started.”
“He / she probably cheated to get to where they are.”
“I don’t ever get any good breaks.”
“Things always go wrong for me.”
Ad nauseum.
You try to fight it.
It gets louder!
What is it really?
Protective programming.
It protects you from yourself, from others, from life. At least that’s what it says.
What it really does … is … PREVENT you from becoming all you were created to be, and it keeps you STUCK, SPINNING, and SETTLING …
Here’s how it works.
If your mind and/or body remembers that mistakes once led to ridicule, rejection, or something worse — the implicit memory network programs you to believe that learning = danger.
So, your unconscious (95%) steps in and says, “Let’s never do that again.”
That’s the 95% at work:
· Your limbic system is programmed to believe and informs you that effort = threat.
· Your nervous system pulls you back, pointing you away from (any and all) growth opportunities.
· Your basal ganglia keeps reminding you to RUN … avoid everything and everyone (even if they want to help, hold you accountable, or serve you).
Eventually, it shows up as procrastination, perfectionism, or chronic under‑achievement.
Not because you’re lazy.
Not because you don’t care.
But because your hard wiring believes safety depends on you playing and staying small.
Your conscious 5% dreams of growth, longs for great things, and even occasionally hopes …
The unconscious 95% only trusts repetition.
Doing the same thing.
Again, and again.
That’s why willpower isn’t the answer!
Nothing feels familiar about surrender when we’ve programmed ourselves to survive.
But you can’t just think your way out of a well-built defense mode that your body believes is the only hope of survival for you.
Does this sound familiar?
And why do I know so much about it?
It was most definitely familiar to me.
IT WAS ME!
NO MORE!
I made a decision and have spent almost 3 decades discovering the secrets and step by step strategies to rewire my 95% for all I was created to be!
I can help you too!
Are you in?
3. Coaching, Healing, and Rewiring the 95%
“Neuroscience shows the conscious mind runs only 5% of the time, while subconscious programs shape 95% or more of our life experiences.”
Dr. Bruce Lipton
Here’s the good news: what was programmed can be unprogrammed and/or reprogrammed.
Your 95% can be rewired.
That’s really the challenge for all of us.
The great news is … you brain wiring and programming isn’t permanent …. it’s beautifully plastic.
Every time we experience a moment of safety, a moment of empathy, a moment of regulation, we’re actually rewiring our nervous system, designing a better life … a new story.
Deciding to be different changes the pathways in our brains.
That’s also why trauma‑informed coaching and healing through coregulation in safe relationships both work so powerfully. Particularly when we’re with someone has worked through their own trauma and rewired their 95%!
When someone who has done their own healing sits with you in calm presence, your brain literally syncs to theirs — mirroring their regulated rhythm.
Over time, that co‑regulation becomes self‑regulation.
Then … safety becomes your new normal.
And it’s why those who have healed from trauma often make the most effective coaches and mentors.
Not because they have more information … but because their nervous systems have experienced, practiced, and mastered moving from chaos to calm.
In their very presence, you can sense what’s possible.
And that serves as proof to your system that the 95% of you … can heal!
Can trust again!
Trauma coaching and rewiring is not about fixing what’s broken … it’s about helping the 95% to align with the 5%.
When your 95% believes what your 5% has hoped for is possible … a foreign, but welcome alignment and harmony settles in on you!
You/me/we were designed (when determination to do so is set in motion) to morph/evolve/become our best selves.
*****
You can keep hoping for the best with your 5% and the battle will continue!
Because the 95% is deeply implanted, deeply wired.
You could find yourself doing the best you can with affirmations, goal setting, and giving yourself pep talks every 5 minutes throughout the day.
All good stuff.
But not good enough to compete with the white noise of the 95%.
When you make the decision and embark on the path of gently and graciously rewiring the 95% that reset your beliefs about safety, worth, and possibility … transformation begins!
When you begin to experience safety with yourself, the 5% becomes contagious … and the 95% is influenced greatly by the 5%!
Very quickly, the impossible feels possible.
The things that felt risky and dangerous feel like healthy challenges.
And your negative thinking begins to fade.
You will no longer feel stuck in settling and in survival.
Peace and fulfillment will feel inevitable.
I paraphrase in this therapist translation, of what Jesus said at the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are those who feel the feelings that seem foreign to them … And if they do transformation begins!”
Join me next week when we dive into practical, research-based strategies to begin gently and graciously rewiring the 95% … which will result in peace, purpose, and fulfilling growth!