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 why traditional talk therapy isn't always enough, how unresolved experiences can become "stuck" in the body, and why creating safety is often the first step toward lasting change. Mitch shares his journey working with youth experiencing homelessness, refugees, trauma survivors, and helping professionals, and how those experiences led him to discover the transformative power of Clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), commonly known as tapping.

Whether you're a parent, helping professional, or someone navigating your own healing journey, this episode offers a compassionate reminder: there is nothing wrong with you. Your nervous system has been doing its best to help you survive and healing begins when we learn to listen.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What Clinical EFT (tapping) is and how it differs from social media tapping practices
• How trauma gets "stuck" in the body and why symptoms often make sense
• The connection between nervous system regulation, safety, and healing
• Why increasing your capacity is more important than eliminating activation
• How tapping can help process anxiety, fear, grief, anger, and unresolved experiences
• The importance of learning to tolerate joy, connection, and feeling fully alive
• Why compassion—not shame—is essential for lasting transformation

If you've ever wondered why you keep getting pulled back into the same patterns, emotions, or survival responses, this conversation will help you understand what your body may be trying to tell you and how to begin listening differently.

About Mitch Gainey:

Mitch Gainey is an Australian counsellor, facilitator, and trainer specialising in Evidence Based EFT, Focusing, somatic practice, and trauma-informed change. His work helps therapists, coaches, and helping professionals understand the body as an intelligent living process, not just a set of symptoms to manage.
With a background in youth homelessness, refugee support, executive facilitation, and practitioner training, Mitch brings both depth and practicality to the healing space. He teaches Evidence Based EFT as a body-based method for creating enough safety to process emotion, trauma, stress, and stuck patterns without overwhelm.
Mitch’s work is influenced by Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing, Internal Family Systems, Somatic Experiencing, and contemplative traditions of deep listening. He is especially interested in how tapping, presence, and somatic awareness can help people stop fighting themselves and begin listening to what the body is trying to carry forward.

Connect with Mitch:

Website: https://www.mitchgainey.com/

💬 Have a Question You’d Like Answered on the Podcast?

If you have a question around the nervous system, healing relationships, or generational patterns, you’re invited to submit it anonymously using the link below.

There’s also an optional box you can check if you’d like to be considered for a short audio coaching conversation on a future episode.

👉 Submit your question

Connect with me:
Instagram → @aligningwithleanna

Website → leannahunt.com

Disclaimer:
Although I am a licensed Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor, The NeuroHeir℠ Podcast is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, or medical treatment. The tools and practices I share are for educational and coaching purposes only. Every nervous system is unique, and what we discuss on this podcast should not replace your own individual therapeutic work or professional support.

The focus of this podcast is my coaching work, which centers on education, nervous system practices, and generational healing tools designed to support—not replace—your personal journey with a qualified provider.

If you are struggling with your mental health or experiencing overwhelming emotions, please seek support from a licensed professional in your area. You don’t have to do this work alone.

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 learned about trauma, the conversation opens the door to a deeper understanding of how healing actually happens.

Leanna shares her personal experience with EFT tapping, explores the concept of predictive coding, and examines how survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, and fawn may be less about who we are and more about what our nervous system learned was necessary for safety.

Through a generational lens, you'll discover how nervous systems learn patterns through relationships, attachment, and repetition and why many of the traits we identify as "just who I am" may actually be adaptive responses passed down through generations.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the phrase "The Body Doesn't Keep the Score" may not mean what you think it does
• How predictive coding influences trauma responses and nervous system patterns
• The connection between fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and learned predictions of danger
• How generational trauma shapes the way nervous systems develop
• Why nervous system flexibility—not perfection—is the true goal of healing
• The difference between viewing symptoms as problems versus messages
• How flow states, creativity, nature, movement, and connection support healing
• How the Four N Framework (Notice, Name, Nurture, Navigate) helps create new nervous system pathways

Whether you've struggled with anxiety, people-pleasing, overworking, hyper-independence, or feeling stuck in patterns you can't seem to change, this episode offers a compassionate reframe:

You are not broken. Your nervous system learned to protect you.

And with safety, awareness, and practice, those predictions can change.

Because healing isn't about becoming someone different—it's about creating enough flexibility that the past no longer has to dictate your future.

Sources for Episode:

Kotler S, Mannino M, Fox G and Friston K (2026) The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability. Front. Syst. Neurosci. 20:1812957. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2026.1812957

Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-hope-circuit/202605/the-body-doesnt-keep-the-score

💬 Have a Question You’d Like Answered on the Podcast?

If you have a question around the nervous system, healing relationships, or generational patterns, you’re invited to submit it anonymously using the link below.

There’s also an optional box you can check if you’d like to be considered for a short audio coaching conversation on a future episode.

👉 Submit your question

Connect with me:
Instagram → @aligningwithleanna

Website → leannahunt.com

Disclaimer:
Although I am a licensed Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor, The NeuroHeir℠ Podcast is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, or medical treatment. The tools and practices I share are for educational and coaching purposes only. Every nervous system is unique, and what we discuss on this podcast should not replace your own individual therapeutic work or professional support.

The focus of this podcast is my coaching work, which centers on education, nervous system practices, and generational healing tools designed to support—not replace—your personal journey with a qualified provider.

If you are struggling with your mental health or experiencing overwhelming emotions, please seek support from a licensed professional in your area. You don’t have to do this work alone.