Episode 86: You’re Not the Problem With Lori MontryEpisode 86: You’re Not the Problem With Lori Montry
The Well-Tended Life
Keri Wilt talks with author and nervous system educator Lori Montry about seeing habits like emotional eating, people pleasing and wine o’clock as survival adaptations rather than character flaws. They discuss trauma, capacity, safety and simple daily check-ins as a gentler path toward meaningful change and recovery-friendly living.
1:08:36•27 May 2026
You’re Not the Problem: Seeing Coping Habits as Survival Genius
Episode Overview
- Behaviours like emotional eating, people pleasing, overworking or drinking can be seen as survival adaptations rather than personal flaws.
- Real change becomes possible when the nervous system has safety, capacity and energy, not just more discipline or better plans.
- Simple, regular body-based check-ins (such as five times a day) help build embodiment and show where you are on your “nervous system scale”.
- Self-criticism keeps the body in survival mode, while curiosity and compassion free up energy to address what’s really driving the behaviour.
- Recognising that you are already “brilliantly adapted” opens the door to adapting again in ways that support health, recovery and peace.
“When we make ourselves the problem, we pour all our energy into fixing ourselves instead of understanding ourselves.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey or untangle long-held coping habits? This conversation on The Well-Tended Life zooms in on a powerful idea: “you’re not the problem” – your adaptations are. Author, nervous system educator and former corporate attorney Lori Montry shares how childhood trauma, feeling like “a burden”, early sexual abuse and a diet at age six shaped decades of perfectionism and disordered eating.
She explains that patterns like emotional eating, people pleasing, overworking or pouring another glass of wine might actually be “intelligent strategies” the nervous system created to help us survive, not proof that we’re broken. Host Keri Wilt steers the chat like a heart-to-heart between friends, asking how these adaptations form and what it really takes to change them.
Lori describes becoming a “student of neuroscience, trauma, behaviour change, somatic practices” after realising that top grades, Harvard Law, marriage and kids still didn’t bring peace. When the ready-made path didn’t exist, she stitched together a new one – and later left corporate law to share it. A big chunk of the episode focuses on Lori’s simple nervous system “cylinder” model and her three essentials for change: safety, capacity and energy.
She talks about being embodied, checking in with yourself five times a day, and seeing so-called bad habits as messages, not moral failures. Keri connects this to grief, family illness, floods and everyday stress, asking how to avoid building fresh unhealthy adaptations in the middle of chaos. For anyone in alcohol or addiction recovery who feels like they’ve tried every plan and still “failed”, this chat offers a gentler frame: maybe the issue isn’t willpower at all.
What if your nervous system is just brilliantly adapted – and ready to adapt again?
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