E129: Recognize, Regulate, Reframe: The 3R Framework for Alignment

In the last episode, we talked about alignment feeling like being in conversation with your life.

But what happens when something aligned shows up… and your nervous system panics? In this episode, Kimberly reintroduces her powerful 3R Framework—Recognize, Regulate, and Reframe—to help you stay grounded when old patterns get loud.

Alignment can feel calm.
Your conditioning will not.

Inside this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why your nervous system resists growth
 • How to recognize old thought patterns in real time
 • Practical tools to regulate emotional spikes
 • Why emotional hijacks only last 90 seconds
 • How to reframe fear into expansion
 • The difference between desperation and alignment
 • Why success requires becoming an energetic match

Through personal stories of business pivots, financial decisions, entrepreneurship, and rebuilding after loss, Kimberly breaks down how emotional maturity determines whether alignment sticks.

If you’ve ever:

• Felt overwhelmed when opportunity shows up
 • Questioned whether you can trust yourself
 • Been afraid of scaling or succeeding
 • Struggled to break old mental patterns

This episode gives you the tools to respond differently.

Alignment isn’t about hoping things work out.

It’s about recognizing your patterns, regulating your nervous system, and reframing your thoughts so growth can land.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Alignment and Awareness
02:43 The 3R Framework: Reflection, Regulation, and Reframing
05:10 Recognizing Patterns and Signs in Life
07:27 Regulating Your Nervous System for Growth
10:05 Reframing Thoughts for Positive Change
12:59 The Importance of Emotional Maturity in Alignment
15:16 Mindfulness and Resources for Personal Growth

Transcript

In our last episode, we talked about alignment, feeling like being in conversation with yourself, being in conversation with your life. And we talked about that moment where something shows up and you don't panic. You say, of course that happened. That goes for positive and negatives in life. And we focused on the positive things. Like, of course that showed up. But I want to be really clear that even when you say of course that happened, it might also be something negative. Now for me, it was something negative. If you listen to that last episode where I was dealing with multiple fraudulent things happening in my bank account, and while seemingly those things were not connected and not really happening in tandem because I'm very aware of my life, I had made a declaration that financially I was going to do things differently. And that included me moving to a new bank. And it was like, well, of course this happened because as you actually done the move you said you were going to do, you would not have had to deal with all those things you had to deal with after the fact. Right. So that is just the awareness of things. But here is another part of that conversation that I don't think a lot of people talk about a lot. And I want to bring this to the forefront and to the table. Just because something align shows up doesn't mean your nervous system automatically agrees. Alignment can be calm, but your old patterns are loud. Alignment can be calm, but your old patterns are loud. Several episodes ago, maybe two years ago or so, I introduced what I call the 3R framework. And this is a Perfect time to bring that back to the forefront without having to send you back two years ago to listen to me on the podcast We're gonna break that down again right now so when we are thinking about working through our old patterns and Having to reframe things in our life and having to rewire neural pathways in our brain Kimberly Houston (02:14.318) Those things don't happen by happenstance, right? There's a process of what's happening. And so I broke that down into the three Rs. And the first one is reflection. So we're going to do this in real time. Okay. So I want you to reflect right now on what has shown up in the last six to 12 months that makes sense in hindsight, good or bad. What has happened in your life that when you think back over it, you're like, my God, yeah, that makes sense. That's why this happened. Second question, where are you currently forcing something that isn't responding? This is a big one. This is a big one. Coaching a lot of entrepreneurs. One of the things that we must know as entrepreneurs to be successful is when it's time to exit. I think that people get into business with the idea that they're gonna do this thing forever and that's not necessarily true. If you know my story, you know that I was working and running a boutique custom bakery and cookie shop. I ran this bakery for almost a decade and Thanksgiving day of 2020, my hands stopped working, literally stopped working. I could not turn a doorknob, I couldn't hold a cup, I couldn't dress myself without support. And I knew prior to this happening, this happened Thanksgiving Day, so that was in November. Right after my 40th birthday in September, I had made a declaration that things needed to change. And yes, I love my business, but I didn't think that my business was supporting me anymore, particularly because we were in COVID and I wasn't making as much money as I was before. And so I had started working on my exit strategy out of being a bakery owner. And in my exit strategy, I knew what I wanted ultimately, but I knew that there was work that I needed to do to get there. I knew that I wanted to write and publish children's curriculum because I have a degree in instructional design. My master's degree is in education. And so I knew I wanted to write children's books. Kimberly Houston (04:28.119) but I knew I didn't have all the skills I needed in order to write those books. And so in the interim, I took the skills that I had, took some classes starting in October of that year and started looking into food photography. I had done a month and have, was six weeks in food photography when my hands stopped working and a doctor looked at me and told me to close my business effective immediately. While for most people that would have completely destroyed them, it didn't destroy me because I already had a plan B in place. At the time, that plan B was just a plan B. But the reality was, is that I was working on my exit strategy, right? And so as I have learned more and done more schooling and done more coaching with others and now coaching other people, I know and understand that at some point, we need to have an exit strategy. And so people are like, how do you know when it's time to go? And I like to tell people the signs will be there. And I say the signs will be there instead of saying, you'll know. But you'll know because the signs are there. Like they're very, very obvious. You know what I mean? It's like when you're in a relationship and you're completely ignoring the red flags because you want the relationship to work. It's like you are praying that the potential you see in another person is actually going to show up. The same thing happens everywhere else in your life. If you are holding on to potential and you're not holding on to the promise and the promise is not coming true, then it might be time for you to work on your exit strategy. Third question, what themes keep reappearing in your life? Are you like actively avoiding or running away from doing something and every time you try and go do something else, you're brought back into something? I want you to examine that and I want you to analyze it and I want you to make a decision. Even if you're scared, even if you're scared, I want you to make a decision. a knowing, a recognition that this thing that won't let you go, this is the thing you're supposed to be doing. Do it afraid. And then number four, what opportunities feel calm instead of chaotic? Even when I know that I'm going through a season or a period of learning a lesson, I will speak out loud. Whatever the lesson is that I need to learn right now, please allow me to learn it with ease. I don't think that You have to live the hard knock life in order to learn lessons. I don't think that it has to be such an extreme of negativity that it takes you years to fight your way out of it. I don't believe that that's true. And the reason I don't believe that's true is because I have absolutely learned things with ease. I have learned things without losing everything and having to rebuild, but I've also lost everything and had to rebuild. You see what I'm saying? And so now I just ask, can I learn this with ease? Now here's the truth, alignment absolutely feels calm. Growth can and will stretch you. Chaos can still exist around you even while you're growing. But alignment itself does not feel disorienting.. If it feels frantic, desperate, or chaotic, that's usually your nervous system, not the opportunity. A real quick, easy way to think about this is I remember when I was younger and before I became an entrepreneur and I wanted, I needed a job. I necessarily want the job, but I needed a job. I was in retail management for 14 years and I remember sitting in my car either before or after these interviews being like, God, please, please, please, please, please let this be the one. Please let this be the thing. Please, please, please, please. Like I'm begging to belong. And I've since learned that whenever that level of nervous energy is attached to something and then it doesn't happen, it's not that the universe didn't give me what I asked for, it's that the universe provided protection from something I didn't need. Just because I said, give me, give me, give me, give me, it was coming from a place of desperation and not coming from a place of alignment. And there is a difference. And that requires such a level of growth that does not happen overnight. And I can say that with my whole chest, I can say that from experience that that is a moment in time where You have to do the work. You have to be able to realize that nothing is happening to you in your life, that you were co-creating your existence with the universe. And even when other people make decisions that will ultimately affect you, your response is your responsibility, not what the other person did. How you respond. to what they did is your responsibility. That is what's going to set you apart, whether it's something positive or negative. Okay? So let me introduce you to this 3R framework that hopefully will help you get into alignment and understand alignment a little bit better. So number one, we're recognizing. Recognize when your thoughts are not aligned with who you're becoming. Kimberly Houston (12:23.731) This one is big. So when something align shows up, your brain may say, this is too big. You're not ready. What if this falls apart? I want you to pause in that moment and ask, is this my intuition or is this old conditioning? Another way you can ask that same question is whose voice do I hear right now? When I am in coaching sessions with people and we're talking about something that I know scares them, something, you know, scaling their business, moving to the next level in their business. That really scares people when you do something you've never done before. Cause I'm the coach that's going to be like, okay, so you've made $10,000 in a month. Let's go for 15. Okay, great. You made $15,000 this month. Let's go for 25. Right? Like I'm not going to take you up to 17. No, no, no. I want you to go for 25 because we have evidence that you can do the work. So let's take it to the next level. And whenever I do that, I can see the fear in people's faces. And I have to ask them, who's the voices in your head right now? What are we thinking? I want you to speak it out loud. Tell me what you hear. And when they say, I can't do that, I say, why can't you? You just made 10,000 one month and then you made 15,000 the next month. Why can't you? And they say, that's too much. I've never done that before. That's fine. It's OK that you've never done it. But why do you feel like you can't? Because you didn't think you could make 10 and you did. And then you didn't feel like you can make 15, but you did. So what's different about making 25K instead of 15K? What in your life is different? And it may be, I don't have the systems in place. I don't have the support in place to do that. I'm afraid of the success that's going to come with that. I'm afraid that if I make that type of money, I won't be able to keep it. I'm afraid that if I make that type of money, then somebody's going to have their handout or an unexpected bill is going to come. And you know what? Those things may happen. And I'll give you a very clear reason why that happens. You're not an energetic match for what you're asking for, which requires some growth, right? You may be an energetic match for making money, but you might not be an energetic match for keeping money. And those are two different things because the person who made the money versus the person who keeps the money, that's two different people. That's two different levels of growth. That's two different levels of manifestation. Kimberly Houston (14:43.083) Right? And once I learned that principle, I was like, how do I become the person who believes that they are worthy of keeping that money? And I want you to hear how I phrase that. How do I become the person who believes they are worthy of having that amount of money? Not how do I become the person that has that money? It's a belief. Do you believe that you should have it. If you don't believe that you should have it, why not? Right? So there's a series of questions that we're asking ourselves so that we can have an honest conversation with where we need growth, where we need to look at our spiritual hygiene, as I like to call it. Are you tapping into your intuition in the way that you should be? And if it's old conditioning, then we have to work on distancing ourself away from those old thoughts and those old patterns in order to have something new because I'm gonna ask you why don't you want Why don't you want it? You tell me that this is what you want, but then you don't want to rise to the occasion and do the thing. So the only question that I can ask you then is why don't you want it? So recognition will allow you to create space because if you're holding on to something old, once we let go of that thing that no longer serves you, you now have space to receive the thing you want. So the first R is recognize. The second R is regulate. Your nervous system doesn't care about alignment. It cares about what's familiar. It cares about what's comfortable. It cares about what's keeping the system intact. It could care less about what you were trying to do in your life. Okay? Your nervous system doesn't care, So when your life upgrades, your body might freak out. It might start to panic. Nine times out of 10 is going to. I need you to regulate before you begin to do action. Regulate before you decide. Kimberly Houston (16:50.881) So how do we regulate breath work, breathing exercises, meditation that allows you to connect to the breath. Move, move your body, dance, get that energy out. I want you guys to think about this as children, kindergarten teachers, preschool teachers, play music for the children to get up and dance. Right? Like there's like wiggle songs and dance songs and like, you know, you're getting the sillies out. Y'all that's actually them just getting the energy out of their body. And I'm not sure why we disconnect from that as adults and don't realize that we too can turn on some music, shake our bodies and move the energy through. Right? Movement work, movement meditations are so grounding. They're so fun. They allow this energy to kind of like bubble up and out of you. gives you some dopamine, like you're breathing well, you're taking deeper breaths. And then when you sit down and you relax, you're able to be more focused, step away from things. Whenever you start to feel overwhelmed. One of the things that I realized as a new coach, as a very new coach, was people kept telling me they were overwhelmed. And I was like, no, you're not. If you can say the word overwhelmed, you're not overwhelmed. Overwhelmed is when you quite literally can't do anything else. When a child is having a tantrum and that child falls out on the floor and there's nothing you can do to make that child stop, the thing that typically helps is picking the child up, removing them from the place that they fell out somewhere else. When babies start screaming in church, parents pick that child up and take them out. Nine times out of 10, maybe eight times out of 10, the child will calm down in a different environment, right? Same thing for adults. Whenever I'm working with someone and we're working through something really big, right? I know the breakthrough is coming, but they are stuck. They are paralyzed by the fear that's in their body, that they're verbalizing is overwhelmed. Kimberly Houston (19:12.009) I will tell them go push the wall. Literally go palm of hand into the wall and push it as hard as you can. And the reason I do that is number one, the wall is cold. So that's going to send an automatic shock to your brain saying, why is this cold? Number two, the second shock is going to be the wall's not going anywhere and your brain is trying to figure out why is it cold and why are we not going anywhere? Those two things will help pull you out of the spiral that you're in. Because right now your brain's focus is to figure out why are we cold and why are we pushing something not moving? It's no longer thinking about all of the things you had going on in your brain prior to that. It helps you calm down and relax. So I tell people go push the... After you push the wall, you can then take a deep breath, right? And I'll tell you, know, breathe in for four. hold for four, and then release like you're blowing out birthday candles. Kimberly Houston (20:14.131) Expelling that air from your body, the blowing out the birthday candle action of it all will help ground you, which is the first step. So when you're regulating, breathe, move, step away, or ground yourself. Emotional spikes only last about 90 seconds. It's only 90 seconds. Anything after the 90 seconds is a choice. Anything after any hijack of your brain after 90 seconds is a choice. This is you choosing to still be emotional. It's a choice. You can do these grounding techniques to bring yourself back out of it. Now, will it take practice for some people if this is a default method for you? Absolutely. And for those people, I like to ask about their life from seven and under. Because we learn how to deal with stimuli, positive or negative, by the time we're seven. And so I want you guys to think about this. If you have people in your life who are quick to fly off at the handle, they're very defensive. You're like, my God, you're acting childish. They really are. Because we learned how we were going to respond to stimuli. by the time we were seven. So that means that walking around on this earth, people you are encountering every single day are quite literally responding to you based on the skills and the things they picked up by the time they were seven years old. And when you begin to let that sit and when you begin to realize we are quite literally dealing with a bunch of children, who may or may not have done the work to be something else, to become something else, to rewire their processing. If they've never done any inner work, you're quite literally dealing with a grown child. Mentally, we've learned how to relate to stimuli by the time we were seven. If you don't believe me, Google it. It is indeed a thing. And so for those 90 seconds that you may be emotionally hijacked, Kimberly Houston (22:30.309) you're responding like the seven year old version of yourself. And once you know that, you can then begin to take calculated measures that will help you ground yourself, that will help you choose to show up differently for yourself and those around you. So in this three R framework, the first one is recognize. Recognize when your thoughts are not aligned with who you're becoming. Number two is regulate because your nervous system doesn't care about alignment. It only cares about things that are familiar. And then the last one, number three, is the reframe. Now, once you've regulated, you then begin to reframe those thoughts. So instead of, I can't believe this is happening to me, shift it to, this is responding to who I've become. Instead of saying, this is something that's happening to me right now, you can say, this is in response to who I've become. And how you respond to that determines your level of growth or is there something more you need to do? Instead of saying this feels scary, you can say this feels new. The reason that I like this feels new is because fear and excitement live in the same part of the brain. So if you are afraid of something, you could reframe that and say, I'm excited. It's quite literally the same things happening in your body when you are scared and when you're excited. When you stand in line to get on a roller coaster, You feel nervous. You feel a lot of energy in your body. You may be scared and the person right next to you about to have the same experience might be excited. Your stomachs are both a little queasy, but the difference is, is that one of you is excited and one of you is scared, but the same parts of your brain are lighting up. Right? So instead of saying this feels scary, I like to say this feels new. Saying this feels new. helps your nervous system calm down. It helps your brain know we're experiencing something new and now we need to work through this as opposed to running back to our old thoughts, our old habits, our old way of doing life. And then we respond incorrectly. Instead of saying, what if I fail? Kimberly Houston (24:41.675) This is the one that gives me, if you don't? Quite literally, what if you don't? Another sentence I would like to introduce to this conversation, when you think, what if I fail? What if this is the next sentence in the conversation? Not what if I fail? What if whatever happens, right? Because for me, failure is still a lesson I needed to learn on my journey. What if this is just the next sentence in the conversation that number one, takes all the pressure off. Number two reminds me that I'm in conversation with my life. The alignment that I'm feeling is because I'm in conversation with my life, right? I'm co-creating my life. And so if this is just another sentence in a conversation, that lets me know it's not the end of the world. It lets me know if I don't do this thing right, I can continue. As I stated in the last episode, I felt like I made a not so great investment into my future. But the reality of it all is, that while the program might not have delivered what I thought it was gonna deliver for me, it delivered so many other things. And it was indeed a part of a broader conversation that I'm having in my life. It is part of the reason why I redid my children's book is part of the reason why there's another edition coming out this year. None of those things were included in that program, but they were the pivot when I realized the program wasn't going to give me what I thought it would. And so I had to get real creative on how are we going to recoup our money on this? How are we going to make sure that we can pay this investment back off? And it turned into another book for me, right? So I want you to shift what if I fail to number one, you can say, what if you don't? What happens if you actually succeed? I want you to give yourself time to think about that. Don't just be like, what if it doesn't work? What if it does? Then seriously answer that question. What would happen if you succeed? I want you to write it out and then I want you to let that settle in your spirit. Then the second thing I want you to say is, what if this is the next sentence in the conversation? Kimberly Houston (26:53.329) Re-framing will allow alignment to land in your life, okay? Now, when you are misaligned, your life feels random. Things that you're doing, you can't really tell people what you've got going on during the day. You're like, I don't know, I'm just working on stuff. When you are in alignment, it is not random. When you are in alignment, life feels like a conversation, but that conversation absolutely requires maturity. The more emotionally and strategically mature you become, the more often you'll be able to say, of course that happened. And not because you predicted it, but because you became someone who matches it. And alignment isn't going to chase you. Alignment will allow you to recognize that you are in the timeline of your highest good and you are doing the things that you want to do. If you are someone who is struggling with this and you're thinking like, how, how do I know? How do I tap into breath work and mindfulness and movement in the body? I want to invite you to look down in the show notes. Um, I created a course a little bit ago that I have updated very recently, updated it last week actually. Um, that is all about mindfulness and it takes you through the process of growth. It takes you through the process of becoming. teaches you stress management. It teaches you how to handle different stimuli that come up within our lives, in our day-to-day lives, whether it's with work or your children or your spouse. This is a resource that has helped hundreds of people over the years, and I know that it can help you. So if you were someone who was looking for that support, just make sure you look down in the show notes. The opportunity is available to you. Until next time, stay sweet friends.