The State Shift Method: Turning Resistance into Your Greatest Strength with Sylvia HoltslagThe State Shift Method: Turning Resistance into Your Greatest Strength with Sylvia Holtslag
Naturally High
Jeanne Foot talks with coach Sylvia Holtslag about grey-area drinking, the State Shift Method, and practical tools for turning resistance into action. The conversation highlights inner critics, perfectionism and the small daily choices that support sobriety, integrity and feeling naturally high.
48:28•5 Aug 2026
Turning Resistance into Fuel: Sylvia Holtslag on the State Shift Method
Episode Overview
- Resistance can signal that something truly matters, and working through it creates growth and confidence.
- The State Shift Method focuses on three steps: identify your state, use a tool to shift it, then take the smallest possible action.
- Grey-area drinking may look normal from the outside but can create intense inner conflict and self-criticism.
- Naming and externalising the inner saboteur helps break its power and supports more honest, aligned choices.
- Choosing practical daily tools and small steps builds integrity, self-trust and more meaningful, sober connections.
“"The saboteur you swallow will give you its power."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This episode of Naturally High brings that question centre stage as Jeanne Foot sits down with Dutch coach and State Shift Institute founder, Sylvia Holtslag, to talk about turning everyday resistance into real momentum. Sylvia shares how seemingly "normal" habits – grey-area drinking, smoking, shopping, scrolling and constant distraction – quietly drained her life force.
A hungover moment in a traffic jam became her breaking point: she saw herself from a bird's-eye view, wondered where her "radiant woman" had gone, and decided, one tiny step at a time, to change. Hearing Phil Stutz’s tools felt, in her words, like "an angel choir" because they were finally practical enough to apply every day.
From there, Sylvia explains the State Shift Method: first notice your current state, then use a tool to shift it, then take the smallest possible action.
She walks Jeanne (and the audience) through a live card-deck exercise on “swallowing the saboteur” – reframing resistance as a sign of meaning, imagining it as a "death cookie" and eating it so "the saboteur you swallow will give you its power." Jeanne opens up about childhood criticism, perfectionism, and how fear of being wrong still stalls her, especially in areas like writing and teaching.
Together they unpack inner critics, shadow parts, and that brutal radio station of negative self-talk – or "shit FM" – that runs 24/7. Sylvia suggests tracking every attack from the saboteur, giving it a character (Cruella de Vil, anyone?), and shining awareness on it instead of obeying it. The conversation closes on the gifts of sobriety and self-inquiry: integrity, self-confidence, deeper connections, and simple joys like walking in the forest to feel naturally high.
What would happen if you treated your resistance as a doorway instead of a dead end?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.