Awaken: How Your Inner Narrative Shapes Your Life (and How to Change It)Awaken: How Your Inner Narrative Shapes Your Life (and How to Change It)
Naturally High
Jeanne Foot explains how inner narrative and subconscious programming shape addiction recovery and personal growth, introducing the Awareness pillar of her AWAKEN Method. She shares practical tools to pause mental chatter, question old stories, and design small, sustainable habit changes with a focus on agency and identity-level healing.
26:54•24 Jun 2026
Rewriting Your Inner Story: Jeanne Foot on Awareness and Real Change
Episode Overview
- Pause when a negative thought or emotion appears, name it, and ask if it is true, useful, or simply familiar.
- Recognise that awareness means witnessing your thoughts rather than believing every one as fact.
- Use the AWAKEN framework to move from subconscious programming towards conscious, identity-level change.
- Create a behavioural ‘floor’ – a minimal, doable version of a new habit – to keep your change streak alive.
- Treat support from therapists and coaches as a collaborative ‘do-with’ process, taking active responsibility for your own healing.
“You cannot change what you're not aware of. And when you bring the subconscious into the consciousness, the smallest moments can change everything.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This Naturally High episode centres on one powerful starting point: the stories you tell yourself every day. Jeanne Foot breaks down how your inner narrative – the nonstop mental chatter, self-criticism, and worst-case scenarios – can quietly run your life, from addiction and early sobriety through to long-term personal growth.
Drawing on over three decades in mental health, addiction recovery, trauma, and coaching, Jeanne introduces the first pillar of her board-accredited AWAKEN Method: Awareness. She explains that most of us live on autopilot, ruled by subconscious programming formed in childhood, culture, and past trauma. As she puts it, "Awareness is the moment you realise you're not your thoughts.
You're the one who is the witness." You’ll hear Jeanne share how outdated scripts like "children should be seen and not heard" shaped her early life, and how consciously choosing different beliefs helped her parent differently and heal from shame-based addiction recovery.
She offers a simple, practical exercise: when a negative emotion or thought blindsides you, pause, name what you’re feeling, and ask, "Is this true, useful, or just familiar?" That tiny gap, she says, is "where real change lives," because "you cannot change what you're not aware of." For anyone working through substance use, early sobriety, or wanting sustainable change, Jeanne also talks about designing habits that stick.
Instead of chasing perfection, she suggests "creating a floor" – the minimum version of a new behaviour, such as one clean meal a day or a couple of alcohol-free days a week – so your change streak stays alive. Above all, the episode highlights agency: change isn’t something a therapist or coach does to you, it’s a "do-with" process where you become a co-creator of your own healing.
It leaves you asking: what old story in your head is still running the show, and are you ready to rewrite it?
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