The Resilience Project

Changing the Meaning Part 2: The Laws Behind the Associations We Carry

Resources Mentioned * Revelation LIVE [https://www.cominghometoself.co/offers/ABHeozLi/checkout] * Un-M-Othered: A Revolution in Adoptee Healing Retreat [https://www.lizdebetta.com/un-m-othered-adoptee-healing-retreat] * Schedule a call with Julie [https://calendar.app.google/CHajVJ8EkdqiPSHj9] Summary A few weeks ago, Julie Brumley released an episode about changing the meaning we attach to experiences and how those meanings shape the stories, emotions, and patterns we repeat. But in this episode, she goes deeper. Because meanings don’t just shape thoughts. They shape the emotional and nervous system baseline we live from. Through an adoptee lens, Julie explores three concepts she first learned from mentor Kelly Brock: * The Law of Vibration * The Law of Attraction * The Law of Assumption Not from a “just think positive” perspective… and not from a place of blame. This conversation is about understanding how the body learns associations long before we have words, and how those practiced associations quietly shape what feels safe, familiar, expected, and possible. Julie explains why adoptees often struggle with: * hypervigilance * fear of rejection * emotional guarding * hyper-independence * difficulty receiving love or rest …even when they consciously desire connection, peace, and belonging. She also shares a gentle somatic exercise to help listeners begin loosening old meanings and creating space for new experiences in the nervous system. Because healing isn’t just cognitive. It’s nervous system work. And changing the meaning changes the signal your body is broadcasting. Keywords adoption, adoptee healing, nervous system, trauma, somatic healing, hypervigilance, attachment, identity, emotional patterns, belonging, trauma responses, embodiment Key Topics * Why meanings shape nervous system patterns * The Law of Vibration through an adoptee lens * Practiced emotional states vs. conscious desires * Why adoptees often anticipate abandonment or rejection * Familiar pain vs. unfamiliar safety * The Law of Attraction as emotional familiarity * How assumptions become identity over time * Hypervigilance, over-functioning, and emotional guarding * Releasing old meanings gently through somatic awareness * Building new nervous system experiences through safety and openness Key Takeaways * Your nervous system learned these meanings for a reason * Familiar does not always mean healthy * The body often broadcasts practiced associations, not conscious desires * Healing is not just insight - it’s repeated safe experiences * Survival meanings are not always ultimate truth * Awareness allows you to interrupt old cycles * “That makes sense” is often more healing than “How do I fix this?” * Changing the meaning changes what becomes possible Chapters 00:00 – Why meanings matter so much 02:21 – The Law of Vibration and nervous system signals 06:53 – Why adoptees struggle with stillness, visibility, and safety 09:20 – The Law of Attraction and emotional familiarity 11:44 – The Law of Assumption and identity formation 14:05 – Guided somatic integration practice 15:34 – Julie’s personal example around money and safety 18:29 – Why awareness changes the nervous system 20:36 – Revelation LIVE, retreat updates, and closing reflections Closing Reflection Your body adapted around what it experienced. Not because something is wrong with you… but because your nervous system learned what it believed it had to do to survive. And maybe healing begins the moment you stop asking: “What’s wrong with me?” …and start asking: “What meaning has my body been carrying?” Website [https://www.cominghometoself.co/] Instagram: @juliebrumley_ [https://www.instagram.com/juliebrumley_/] Facebook: julierasbrum [https://www.facebook.com/julierasbrum] TikTok: @juliebrumley_ Click to Join My Free Adoptee Facebook Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/theresilienceprojectforadoptees] You Tube: @julie_brumley [https://www.youtube.com/@julie_brumley]

Becoming Sovereign After Survival: Nervous Systems, Identity & Healing with Kelly Brock

Summary In this deeply personal conversation, Julie Brumley sits down with mentor, coach, and friend Kelly Brock, the woman whose podcast sparked the beginning of Julie’s adoption-focused work back in April 2023. Together, they explore how survival patterns become identities, why the nervous system shapes what we expect from relationships, and how old associations recreate familiar patterns.  Kelly shares her perspective on sovereignty, nervous system healing, and learning to stop building a life around adaptation and performance. Julie weaves in her lived experience as an adoptee, including how early disruption shaped her expectations around connection and safety. This episode is about more than adoption. It’s about learning to come home to yourself. About realizing the patterns that once helped you survive don’t have to keep leading your life. And about discovering that healing happens through awareness, safety, practice, and relationship. Keywords adoption, adoptee healing, nervous system, sovereignty, trauma healing, somatic healing, identity, attachment, survival patterns, relationships, embodiment, emotional healing Key Topics * How survival patterns become identity * The nervous system’s role in relationships and emotional anticipation * “What we associate becomes what we anticipate” * Why adoptees often adapt instead of receive * The connection between sovereignty and self-belonging * How old emotional meanings create repeated patterns * The importance of nervous system work in healing  * Learning to separate patterns from personality * Reframing painful experiences into gifts and wisdom * Building movements vs. building businesses Chapters 00:00 – The moment Julie’s business vision was born 03:30 – Survival patterns and identity 08:00 – What sovereignty actually means 15:00 – How early experiences shape expectations 19:00 – Associations, anticipation, and emotional loops 28:00 – Changing patterns through nervous system work 35:00 – The conditions for self-belonging 41:00 – Building from truth instead of performance 47:00 – Movement vs. business 52:00 – Why the body matters in healing 57:00 – What Kelly has learned about adoptees 01:02:00 – Breaking old stories and reclaiming your life 01:06:00 – Kelly’s Rooted program + final reflections Links * Kelly Brock’s Rooted nervous system program [https://www.kellybrockco.com/rooted] * Un-M-Othered: A Revolution in Adoptee Healing Retreat [https://www.lizdebetta.com/un-m-othered-adoptee-healing-retreat] * Revelation LIVE experience [https://www.cominghometoself.co/offers/ABHeozLi/checkout] * Saboteur Assessment [https://assessment.positiveintelligence.com/saboteur/instructions] * Kelly's Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/kellybrock/] Website [https://www.cominghometoself.co/] Instagram: @juliebrumley_ [https://www.instagram.com/juliebrumley_/] Facebook: julierasbrum [https://www.facebook.com/julierasbrum] TikTok: @juliebrumley_ Click to Join My Free Adoptee Facebook Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/theresilienceprojectforadoptees] You Tube: @julie_brumley [https://www.youtube.com/@julie_brumley]

What It’s Like to Love an Adoptee: Being Seen, Staying, and Learning Along the Way

Summary In this deeply personal and relational episode, Julie sits down with her longtime friend Cathy Rosenquist - someone who has had a front-row seat to some of Julie’s most defining seasons. From loss and reunion to therapy, identity, and divorce… Cathy didn’t just hear about it. She lived alongside it. This conversation offers something rarely spoken about in adoption spaces: What is it like to love an adoptee through it? Through honest reflection, Cathy shares what she saw, what she didn’t understand at first, and what helped most - not from a place of expertise, but from curiosity, humility, and a willingness to stay. Together, they explore how patterns rooted in early disruption can show up in relationships, the impact of feeling like you have to earn acceptance, and what begins to shift when someone chooses to truly see you. This episode is for adoptees and for the people who love them. Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation.  It happens in relationship. Keywords adoption, adoptee healing, relationships, friendship, trauma, identity, belonging, emotional safety, connection, self-trust, attachment, support systems Key Topics * What it’s like to walk alongside an adoptee through grief, reunion, and identity work  * Patterns of people-pleasing, fear, and the need for acceptance  * The gap between outward confidence and internal self-trust  * Why adoptees may struggle to use their voice - even when they seem expressive  * Moving from “something is wrong with me” to building self-trust  * Letting go of fixing and learning to simply be present  * The power of curiosity over assumption in relationships  * How consistent, intentional connection builds safety and trust  Takeaways * You don’t need to fully understand someone to stay with them  * Curiosity creates connection - assumption creates distance  * Many adoptee patterns are rooted in a deep need to feel safe and accepted  * Being “seen” without being fixed can be profoundly healing  * Relationships that last are built through intentional presence  * You don’t have to have the right words - just a willingness to stay  * Healing often happens when someone defies the expectation that they will leave Chapters 00:00 – A friendship built over 14 years 03:00 – How Julie and Cathy first met 06:00 – What Cathy saw over the years 10:30 – Witnessing grief, discovery, and transformation 13:30 – Patterns Julie couldn’t see at the time 18:00 – The shoes story and learning self-trust 20:30 – What Cathy misunderstood about adoption 24:30 – Moving beyond the “rescue” narrative 28:00 – Witnessing reunion, grief, and complexity 31:00 – Trying to understand the adoptee experience 35:00 – Why the timeline mattered 38:00 – What actually helped in the friendship 41:00 – Learning to ask, “What do you need?” 43:30 – Sitting with what couldn’t be fixed 46:00 – Finding and trusting Julie’s voice 49:00 – How friendship changed Cathy 52:00 – What people who love adoptees need to know 53:30 – “You’ve got this” and closing reflections Un-M-Othered: A Revolution in Adoptee Healing [https://www.lizdebetta.com/un-m-othered-adoptee-healing-retreat] Website [https://www.cominghometoself.co/] Instagram: @juliebrumley_ [https://www.instagram.com/juliebrumley_/] Facebook: julierasbrum [https://www.facebook.com/julierasbrum] TikTok: @juliebrumley_ Click to Join My Free Adoptee Facebook Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/theresilienceprojectforadoptees] You Tube: @julie_brumley [https://www.youtube.com/@julie_brumley]

How to Change the Meaning You Attach to Things (And Break Old Patterns)

Summary In this embodied, real-time conversation, Julie Brumley walks listeners through a powerful shift: the meaning we attach to our experiences shapes our stories, emotions, and the way we move through the world. Most of us think we’re reacting to what’s happening now… but often, we’re responding to what we expect to happen based on the past. Through personal examples and guided reflection, Julie shows how old meanings - like “I’m too much” or “something is wrong with me” - keep us stuck in familiar patterns. This episode introduces a simple, body-based practice to pause, question those meanings, and choose something new. Not by forcing positivity, but by creating space for a different experience. This is the bridge between releasing the past and creating what’s possible. Keywords adoption, adoptee healing, somatic work, nervous system, trauma, identity, self-worth, meaning, emotional patterns, embodiment, relationships, belonging Key Topics * How meaning shapes emotion, behavior, and expectation * Why we react from past associations, not present reality * Personal examples: breakdown, rejection, and conflict * Shifting from “something is wrong with me” to new meaning * The nervous system’s role in familiar patterns * A 4-step practice to change meaning in real time * Anchoring new beliefs through the body Takeaways * You’re not reacting to now - you’re responding to past meaning * Old meaning → old story → old emotions → repeated patterns * What you associate becomes what you anticipate * You don’t get what you want - you get what you’re practiced in receiving * You can pause and choose a new meaning * Your body must experience the shift, not just think it * This is the bridge between release and creation Chapters 00:00 – A conversation, not a lecture 01:00 – The bridge: releasing → creating 02:00 – Why meaning matters 03:30 – Associations + anticipation (Kelly Brock teaching) 05:30 – Real-life example: feeling excluded 07:40 – Old meaning: “something is wrong with me” 09:30 – Reframing breakdown → breakthrough 10:30 – Relationship + conflict examples 12:00 – The 4-step practice 14:00 – Anchoring new meaning in the body 16:30 – Somatic integration practice 18:30 – Releasing old story, receiving new meaning 20:20 – Choosing again in real time 22:00 – Closing reflection + invitation Closing Note If something stirred in you while listening… that’s not random. It’s awareness. Pause. Ask what you’re making it mean. And gently… choose again. Links Un-M-Othered: A Revolution in Adoptee Healing retreat [https://www.lizdebetta.com/un-m-othered-adoptee-healing-retreat] Pdf of my notes for reference [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hn7oQk3t6MTcLkVhgxpGUv1cSJHbXsWz/view?usp=sharing] Website [https://www.cominghometoself.co/] Instagram: @juliebrumley_ [https://www.instagram.com/juliebrumley_/] Facebook: julierasbrum [https://www.facebook.com/julierasbrum] TikTok: @juliebrumley_ Click to Join My Free Adoptee Facebook Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/theresilienceprojectforadoptees] You Tube: @julie_brumley [https://www.youtube.com/@julie_brumley]

Why Love Doesn’t Feel Safe for Adoptees (And How to Change It)

Summary In this personal, embodied episode, Julie Brumley shares a realization that emerged through guided journaling and somatic reflection: For many adoptees, love didn’t feel safe, it felt something to earn. Through reflective questions and body-based practices, Julie explores how early experiences shape our relationship to love, safety, and connection. She shows how adaptations like people-pleasing, control, and hyper-awareness aren’t flaws, but intelligent responses the body learned to stay safe. This episode invites you out of performance and into presence. Not by fixing yourself, but by reconnecting with the parts of you that learned to survive, and offering them something new. Keywords adoption, adoptee healing, somatic healing, trauma, nervous system, attachment, self-worth, people-pleasing, identity, belonging, embodiment, emotional safety Key Topics * Learning to be loved through survival instead of safety * Why love may not feel safe in the body for adoptees * Early experiences shaping attachment and identity * People-pleasing, control, and hyper-awareness as protection * Embodied journaling and somatic awareness * Reframing “what’s wrong with me” to “what did my body learn?” * Moving from performance-based worth to internal belonging * Building safety in relationship with self Key Takeaways * You didn’t learn love in dysfunction-you learned it in adaptation. * If love doesn’t feel safe, your body will try to control or earn it. * People-pleasing and perfectionism are protective responses. * You don’t need to reject the parts that got you here. * “What got you here is not what will get you there.” * Healing begins by thanking protective parts, not fixing them. * You don’t have to perform to be loved. * Belonging starts within. ⏱ Chapters 00:00 – A more personal, embodied episode 01:00 – “I struggled with love… because it didn’t feel safe” 02:00 – Learning to be loved in survival mode 03:10 – “How did you learn to be loved?” 04:20 – Control and adaptation as safety 05:00 – Guided somatic reflection 06:10 – “That makes sense” 06:30 – Performance-based love 07:30 – Feeling evaluated 08:00 – “What got me here…” 09:00 – Thanking protective parts 10:00 – Releasing survival 10:45 – Experiencing safety 12:00 – Embodying safety 12:35 – “What if I didn’t have to perform?” 13:30 – Presence over performance 14:00 – What we’re really seeking 14:40 – Nothing is wrong with you 15:20 – Healing through self-relationship 16:00 – Invitation to deeper work 17:00 – Closing reflections Links Un-M-Othered: A Revolution in Adoptee Healing retreat [https://www.lizdebetta.com/un-m-othered-adoptee-healing-retreat] Intimacy and Adoption: Why Love Feels Complicated [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intimacy-and-adoption-why-love-feels-complicated/id1849822021?i=1000748375173] Website [https://www.cominghometoself.co/] Instagram: @juliebrumley_ [https://www.instagram.com/juliebrumley_/] Facebook: julierasbrum [https://www.facebook.com/julierasbrum] TikTok: @juliebrumley_ Click to Join My Free Adoptee Facebook Group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/theresilienceprojectforadoptees] You Tube: @julie_brumley [https://www.youtube.com/@julie_brumley]