LIVE Root-Cause Coaching - Money, Control & Healing the “Not Enough” Pattern

Listen to the full episode.

Money stress can look like spreadsheets, budgets, and “being responsible”… but in the body, it often looks like something else entirely. A tight jaw. A churning stomach. A racing mind at 2am. The urge to cry when a conversation turns to bills. The need to check the bank account again (even though you checked it an hour ago). And if you’re in a relationship, it can create tension fast — because when money feels unsafe, everything can start to feel unsafe.

In Episode 170, Chris from Chris and Filly Functional Medicine coaches Isabel live on the podcast in a deeply personal root-cause coaching session. They explore the deeper “why” behind her money stress, the need to feel in control, and the relationship friction that can build when money conversations trigger fear, scarcity, or shame. This is a rare honour to listen in on, so a big thank you to Isabel for allowing it to be shared.

This episode also gives you a glimpse into the “metaphysical” side of healing inside the Ending Body Burnout Method (doors open now) — the part Chris and Filly call Spark. Spark is the layer that’s often missed in the health industry: it identifies the deep-seated beliefs and stories that keep your nervous system in survival mode, and it supports healing from within by rewiring what your unconscious mind has learned about safety, control, and worth.

Why Money Stress Isn’t Just About Dollars (It’s About Safety)

One of the first and most powerful reframes in this coaching session is this: Isabel’s money stress isn’t just about dollars. It’s about control, trust, and safety — especially when relying on a partner’s income.

That’s a big deal, because many people try to “solve” money stress with logic alone. More budgeting. More tracking. More rules. More control. And while practical steps can absolutely help, they don’t always touch the real driver: the nervous system’s relationship with uncertainty.

In mind body medicine, we understand that the body doesn’t respond to numbers. It responds to perceived threat. If your nervous system has learned that money equals danger, instability, or conflict, then even a neutral conversation can trigger a stress response.

This is why burnout functional medicine and holistic wellness approaches matter here. Chronic money stress can keep your system in a state of hypervigilance — and hypervigilance is exhausting. It can contribute to fatigue, gut issues, sleep disruption, anxiety, inflammation, and that constant “brace for impact” feeling that so many people experience in Ending Body Burnout.

Survival Seasons Wire the Nervous System for Scarcity

Chris and Isabel explore how survival seasons can wire the nervous system for scarcity and hypervigilance. Isabel’s context includes farming life — where money might come in once or twice a year, while bills go out constantly.

Even if things are “fine” now, your body can still be living in an old season.

This is such an important point for your WellnessJourney: your nervous system doesn’t update automatically just because your circumstances change. If you’ve lived through seasons where money was tight, unpredictable, or stressful, your body may still be scanning for danger even when the present is stable.

In integrative medicine, we’d call this a mismatch between current reality and internal wiring. In root cause medicine, we’d ask: what did your body learn it had to do to survive? Did it learn to grip? To control? To anticipate every possible problem? To brace for the worst?

Those strategies make sense in survival seasons. But they can become costly when they turn into your default.

Tracking the Trigger in the Body: The Real-Time Data You Can Work With

A key part of this coaching session is learning to track the trigger in the body. Isabel notices sensations like an “exploding” stomach feeling, jaw tension, and the urge to cry.

This is where holistic health gets practical. Instead of staying in the story (“What if we can’t pay for this?” “What if something goes wrong?”), Chris helps Isabel locate what’s happening in her physiology.

Because your body is always giving you information.

When money stress hits, you might notice:

Gut sensations

Tightness, nausea, churning, bloating, or a “drop” feeling.

Jaw and face tension

Clenching, headaches, tight temples, or a braced throat.

Emotional surges

Tears, anger, shutdown, or a sudden urge to escape the conversation.

This is not weakness. It’s your nervous system doing its job: trying to keep you safe. And once you can track it, you can start shifting it.

In this episode, the shift is from forcing and control towards allowing, curiosity, gentleness, and less resistance. That might sound subtle, but it’s a profound nervous system move. Control is often an attempt to reduce uncertainty. Allowing is the body learning it can tolerate uncertainty without collapsing.

That’s health optimisation at the level of your stress physiology.

Control vs Allowing: Why “Trying Harder” Can Backfire

Many people think the answer to money stress is to become more disciplined. More strict. More controlling. But if control is coming from fear, it can actually keep the pattern alive.

In mind body medicine terms, control can be a form of bracing. It’s the nervous system saying, “If I grip tightly enough, nothing bad will happen.”

The problem is: life is still life. Things still happen. And when they do, a tightly gripped system tends to snap into overwhelm faster.

This is why Chris guides Isabel towards gentleness and curiosity. Not as a “nice idea”, but as a strategy that signals safety to the body.

When your body feels safer, you make better decisions. You communicate more clearly. You ask better questions. You become more transparent. You stop making money conversations mean something about your worth.

That’s healing naturally in the context of real life.

The Power of Permission: You Open the Floodgates, You Close Them

One of the most empowering moments in this coaching session is the idea of permission: noticing that you are the one who opens the floodgates and you are the one who closes them — you control you.

This is a massive shift for anyone who feels hijacked by anxiety or stress.

It’s not saying you can control your partner’s income, the economy, or the timing of bills. It’s saying you can control your internal response. You can choose the moment you soften. You can choose the moment you pause. You can choose the moment you ask a kinder question instead of launching into panic.

That’s personal power, anchored in the body. And it’s a cornerstone of holistic wellness.

The Belief Underneath “Taking It Personally”: “I’m Not Good Enough”

Chris and Isabel also track the belief underneath “taking it personally”: “I’m not good enough.”

This is where Spark work becomes so relevant. Because money stress often hooks into identity. It can become a story about being irresponsible, being a burden, being unworthy, or being unsafe.

When that belief is active, your nervous system reacts as if your worth is on the line. That’s why the body response can be so intense.

In this coaching session, there’s a re-installation of “I am good enough”, anchored into the body. Not as a fluffy affirmation, but as a new internal truth that changes the nervous system’s baseline.

This is healing from within: changing the story your body is living by.

Future Pacing a New Pattern in Marriage: Safety, Transparency and Repair

Finally, Chris helps Isabel future pace a new pattern in the marriage: more transparency, asking kinder questions, mindfulness, empathy, and the apologies that restore rapport.

This is so important because money stress isn’t just personal. It’s relational. When one person is triggered, the other often feels blamed, controlled, or shut out. Then the cycle repeats.

A new pattern might include:

Transparency

Sharing information earlier, before panic builds.

Kind questions

Asking from curiosity rather than accusation.

Mindfulness

Noticing when the body is escalating and pausing before speaking.

Empathy and repair

Apologies that restore rapport and safety.

That’s preventative health for your relationship and your nervous system.

Want to Be Coached and Rewire These Patterns Too?

If you’d like to experience this kind of live support, you can register for our FREE Live Coaching Week: Rewire The Brain To Heal Body Burnout here

And if you’re ready for a deep, holistic ROOT-root-cause healing approach that includes the Spark layer, you can join the Ending Body Burnout Method — doors close 23 June.

If you’d like a calm, no-pressure conversation about your next step, you’re warmly invited to book a Discovery Call or connect the dots with us.

Listen to the full episode: (add your episode link here)

Chris Bellette  is Co-Founder of multi award-winning health practice Chris & Filly Functional Medicine. He is a Burnout Recovery Coach, Certified NLP Master Practitioner & Mind Coach.

Together with his wife Filipa Bellette, Chris has worked with over 3,000+ burned-out clients in the past combined 30+ years. Their practice is best known for ending body burnout (for good!) in “busy” people with energy, mood & gut issues. They were recently awarded as the Tasmanian State Winner & National Finalist for the Telstra Best of Business Awards, as well as Winner for the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards. Their work is regularly featured in the media, such as nine.com.au, Forbes and Body+Soul.

Chris’s own passion for helping “busy” people have more energy, calm and connection, came from his own personal experience of body burnout, after juggling the demands of business, family & elite athleticism.

Chris is a Burnout Recovery Coach & an accredited Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner, with a Bachelor of Human Movement Science. He has existed in high-performance realms of the sporting (think national athlete) & business industries and knows what it takes to get out of hustle-and-grind culture to thriving.