Have you ever felt like your body is stuck in survival mode—no matter how much mindset work you do?
What if healing isn’t about fixing your thoughts… but about retraining your nervous system? 🌱
In this powerful episode of Grief to Growth, Brian Smith sits down with Angela Jean, a mindset and nervous system strategist whose life was forged through profound trauma—and radical transformation.
After surviving childhood abuse, homelessness, and the devastating loss of her father and sister to suicide, Angela discovered something life-changing:
✨ The body remembers danger before the mind can make sense of it.
In this deeply moving conversation, you’ll discover:
Why traditional “positive thinking” often fails after trauma 🧠
How rhythm and micro-movements can calm a dysregulated nervous system 🎶
What it really means to shift from self-sabotage into sovereignty
How to stop rehearsing survival and start training safety
Why emotions aren’t meant to be managed—but met and transformed
Angela shares practical tools you can use in real time—whether you’re feeling anxiety, anger, grief, or emotional shutdown. This episode is for anyone who’s tired of chasing healing and ready to come home to themselves.
💬 After listening, continue the conversation with Brian on Substack:
👉 https://grief2growth.substack.com
Ask yourself as you listen:
What if your pain wasn’t the end of your story—but the beginning of your becoming?
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❤️ If this episode resonates, please like, comment, and share—it helps others find hope.
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00:00 🌱 From Buried to Planted
Brian opens with the Grief to Growth metaphor—grief as soil for transformation.
01:20 🎙️ Welcome to Grief to Growth
Purpose of the show, navigating grief, and asking life’s biggest questions.
03:00 🧠 Meet Angela Jean
Angela’s introduction and her embodied, nervous-system-based approach to healing.
05:00 💔 Childhood Trauma & Leaving Home at 13
Abuse, unsafe homes, and choosing survival over staying.
09:30 🏚️ Homelessness & Hypervigilance
Sleeping in bushes, couch surfing, and living on constant alert.
14:00 🔁 Suicide, Grief & Awakening
The loss of Angela’s father and sister and the collapse that followed.
18:30 🫀 When the Body Locks Up
Why trauma lives in the body before the mind can process it.
23:00 🎶 Rhythm Signals Safety
How rhythmic thought patterns interrupt rumination and calm the nervous system.
27:30 ⚡ Love, Pain & Trauma Imprints
How childhood trauma wires beliefs about love and abuse.
33:00 🧍♀️ Catching the Nervous System Grip
Interrupting emotional collapse before it becomes identity.
38:30 🔥 Anger vs. Depression
Why different emotional states require different embodied responses.
43:30 🪞 Loneliness & Self-Abandonment
Dating yourself and rebuilding inner safety and self-trust.
48:30 🧩 You Are Who You Train to Be
Why healing is daily practice built through micro-resets.
52:00 🌟 Final Reflections & Rising Together
Responsibility, energy, and “when one rises, we all rise.”
