Two weeks before we hit record, Andrew came home white-faced and said, "Are you sitting down?" He'd been let go with no warning, and because their family's entire life in the U.S. is tied to that one job, this wasn't a setback; it was a sinkhole. In this episode, our dear friends and certified Connection Codes coaches Andrew and Lara Pilcher let us in on the rawest two weeks of their lives: the fear, the shame of asking for help, the community that showed up, and what it looks like to run the Core Emotion Wheel when everything is actually on the line. It's tender, it's honest, and it's a picture of emotion as information in real time.

In this episode:

•Why Andrew's sudden termination is a "sinkhole, not a bump" — and how a visa clock changes everything

•The moment Lara chose to sit in the pit with Andrew instead of fixing it

•Owning your story: how Andrew wrote farewell letters to every colleague — even the one who let him go•"Social capital zero" — rebuilding friendship from scratch by throwing a wide net (and lighting a front-yard fire pit)

•The shame that shows up around asking for help — and why the human condition is actually to ask

•Phyllis' own dam break: naming a wave of sadness out loud and feeling her body change

•Lara and Andrew wheeling it out live — anger, hurt, sad, glad, lonely, fear, guilt, and shame, all on the table.

About Andrew & Lara Pilcher:

Andrew and Lara are Australians raising their family in Atlanta, and certified Connection Codes coaches. Lara is a professional performer, author of Audacious Artistry, and speaker; Andrew is a physical therapist (and ICF PCC coach) who weaves the emotional layer into how he treats performers and clients in chronic pain. They've been part of the Connection Codes family since 2021.

Resources mentioned:

❤️ Support the Pilchers→ https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-with-pilcher-immigration-costs-after-andrew-lost-work

Connect with Lara & Andrew→ https://larabiancapilcher.com/marriage

Check out our courses →https://connectioncodes.co/courses

Core Emotion Wheel (free download) →⁠https://connectioncodes.co/cew⁠

Your nervous system is running the show — and most of us never learned how it works. This week, psychologist Dr. Margaret Nagib joins Dr. Glenn and Phyllis Hill to unpack why the body sounds the alarm, why "sucking it up" actually works (and what it quietly costs you), and why the same protective wiring that shuts you down is also waiting, patiently, to bring you back online.

From the smoke alarm that can't tell bacon from a house fire to the fuse box that flips off "aliveness" to keep you safe, Margaret makes the nervous system feel less like a malfunction and more like wisdom. If you've ever felt like your body was working against you, this conversation reframes the whole thing.

In this episode:

•Why the nervous system is "the gatekeeper of your experience" — and how neuroception decides what's safe before your thoughts get a vote

•The difference between regulation and relief — and why survival strategies always cost you eventually•How unprocessed emotion shows up as back pain, tightness, and even suppressed immunity

•The fuse-box analogy: how "aliveness, visibility, and desire" get switched off to keep you safe

•Why doing the work often feels worse before it feels better ("I feel like I just walked into a storm without a coat")

•Phyllis's own story: the year her mom was dying, her body shut down, and "sad" changed everything•Why midlife is the beginning, not the end, of building real capacity.

About Dr. Margaret Nagib:

Dr. Margaret is a psychologist who integrates faith, psychology, and somatic (nervous-system) work to help people move from surviving to living in full capacity. She's the creator of Full Capacity, a live "school for your nervous system," with round two beginning September 15.

Resources mentioned:

⦾Join Dr. Margaret Nagib's in Full Capacity nervous-system course (starts Sept 15) ⦾Connect with Dr. Margaret

⦾⁠The Core Emotion Wheel (free download)

We've all watched a kid "check out" and assumed they weren't trying — or weren't smart enough. This week, Teresa and Mark Lubovich blow that up. They run a learning center built on one radical tagline: connection before content.

Their students don't get better at math because they get smarter; they get better because they finally feel safe enough to think. Glenn connects it straight to the Connection Codes protocol — intense emotion shuts down cognition, unprocessed emotion hinders it, and then gets honest about his own story of being called "dumb" as a kid and carrying that fear into his sixties. If you're a parent, grandparent, teacher, or just someone who's ever felt like you were "doing it wrong," this one names something you've felt your whole life.

In this episode:

•Why "connection before content" changes everything about how kids (and adults) learn

•The "ladder" of learning: core, processing, and executive function (and why we start at the bottom)

•Primitive reflexes and the Moro (fight-or-flight) response — the kids who look fine but are holding their breath inside

•How curiosity and identity get lost between age two and age ten — and what brings them back

•Glenn's own story: fear of failure, fear of judgment, and the exhaustion of learning something new.

About Teresa & Mark Lubovich:

Teresa and Mark run a learning center that partners with students and families across the country and internationally, using assessments and directed programs to build the foundational skills: regulation, processing, executive function — that traditional tutoring can't reach. Longtime friends of Connection Codes, they've woven the Core Emotion Wheel into how they work with every student and family. Their guiding belief: program or not, kids need connection, regulation, and safety first.

Resources mentioned:

Teresa & Mark's website → https://brightheartlearning.com/

Teresa & Mark's email: [email protected]Their "ladder of learning" chart → https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M6DJqiTZArA6WqJtYkYDCPXcpPXe07S9/view?usp=sharing

The Core Emotion Wheel (free download) → https://connectioncodes.co/cew

John Kilmer is back 💥 and this one we couldn't stop. Picking up where the last conversation ran out of time, Glenn and Phyllis sit down with John to talk about what it actually means to live in your body instead of in your head. Somewhere in the middle, something unplanned happens: John invites Dr Glenn and Phyllis Hill to do the Core Emotion Wheel not with words, but with sounds — a sigh for Fear, a groan for Hurt, whatever the body wants to make. What starts as a "redemptive risk" turns into one of the most honest, surprising conversations we've had on the show. If you've ever felt like you're holding your breath through your whole life, this episode is for you.In this episode:•Why "our issues are in the tissues" and how the body keeps telling the story we're too busy to hear•Doing the Core Emotion Wheel in sounds instead of words •"Slower is faster" the Connection Codes protocol for a body that won't stop rushing•How we were all born making these sounds, and got trained out of it•Why Anger, expressed cleanly, "feels so good" and what it protects•Making space for big grief instead of asking people to quiet down•The one-line reframe that changes everything: you already had permissionAbout John Kilmer: John is a certified Mental Health Life Coach who grew up across the Middle East and East Africa. He's passionate about embodiment and present-moment living and about helping people get back the emotional expression our culture quietly trained out of us.Resources mentioned:•The Core Emotion Wheel for free → https://connectioncodes.co/cew•Find a certified Connection Codes coach → https://connectioncodes.co/coaches•Reach John directly → mailto:[email protected]

Two years after his first visit, Justin Jones-Fosu is back, and this time he's rewritten a story we all thought we knew. His new fable, Stop Chasing, Start Creating, reimagines the Tortoise and the Hare and asks a question most of us never stop to consider: what if the tortoise was never slow, just wise, strategic, and intentional?

In a conversation that moves from absent fathers to morning routines to a live run through the Core Emotion Wheel, Justin and the Hills dig into the quiet exhaustion of chasing worth from the outside in and what it actually takes to start creating meaning from the inside out.

In this episode:

•Why "information fatigue," not just overwork, is driving so much of our burnout

•The Tortoise and the Hare, retold: proving your worth vs. simply being your worth

•Phyllis on Identity, and 20 years of chasing her siblings' approval

•"Getting on the wrong train" why running fast doesn't help if you're headed the wrong way

•Why meaning doesn't mean happy

•The Meaningful 67 Challenge and the seven small habits behind it

•"Create before you consume" — protecting the first 10 minutes of your day.

About Justin Jones-Fosu:

Justin is a meaningful-work researcher, keynote speaker, and author of six books, including his newest fable Stop Chasing, Start Creating: A Timeless Fable on Mindset, Resilience, and Meaningful Work His work is grounded in a national study on meaningful work in America, and the foundation he built funds schools and technology labs in Ghana.

This is his second time on the Connection Codes podcast.

Resources mentioned:

Get the Core Emotion Wheel (free) → https://connectioncodes.co/cew

Justin's last book "Stop Chasing, Start Creating: A Timeless Fable on Mindset, Resilience, and Meaningful Work" → https://a.co/d/09sVKYQOJustin's "number 67" tool → https://workmeaningful.com/this-is-my-67/

Join The Connection Codes Community: https://connectioncodes.co/community

We're taught to rush past grief. To fix it, explain it, or hurry someone back to "it is well with my soul." Pastor and author Vadim Yurchenko learned the hard way that healing runs the other direction. After losing his newborn daughter, Hope, at just 56 days old, Vadim discovered that before you can say it is well, you have to be honest enough to say it is not well.

In this deeply moving conversation with Glenn and Phyllis, he reframes grief not as an enemy to defeat but as love wearing a different face — the "dark side of the moon" that turns out to be full of light. If you've ever lost someone, or sat helpless beside someone who has, this one gives you language for what you couldn't name.

In this episode:

•Why "grief is love" — and the NASA image that changes how you'll see loss forever

•The difference between grief (the event) and grieving (the choice), explained through an earthquake

•How all eight core emotions fire at once in loss — and why that's not disordered, it's designed

•Being angry at God: why honesty draws you closer, not further away

•The relief-and-guilt no one warns you about when a long illness ends

•Presence over fixing: what to do when you don't know what to say

About Vadim Yurchenko: Vadim is a pastor and author who never expected to write about suffering — until he and his wife lost their daughter, born premature and held for only 56 days. His memoir told their story; his second book, It Is Not Well With My Soul, invites readers to befriend grief instead of running from it. He also leads grief seminars helping people find language for loss.

Resources mentioned:

•Vadim's book: It Is Not Well With My Soul: Volume I: Recovering the Art of Grieving → https://a.co/d/0eArFWHV•Grief seminars →https://www.reimaginehope.com/

•The Core Emotion Wheel → https://connectioncodes.co/cew

Connection Codes coach Laurel Simpson returns to talk with Phyllis about chronic pain, not as a purely physical problem, but as something tangled up with fear. After a severe 2023 injury left her in constant pain, Laurel noticed her flare-ups spiked every single time she was under emotional stress. This is a tender, honest conversation about the pain-fear loop, the quicksand of unprocessed emotion, and what it means to become safety for your own body.

In this episode:

·The pain loop — how a small tweak of pain triggers fear, and fear feeds more pain

·Disentangling fear from the sensation of pain (and why describing it is nothing like thinking about it)

·Laurel's pain history: a 2023 injury, caregiving for her mom through Alzheimer's, and John's 15 days in the hospital

·The quicksand of suppressed emotion — why fighting it only pulls you deeper·"When our nervous systems are witnessed, it changes the DNA of our experience" — the quiet power of a coach

·Becoming safety for your own body

About Laurel Simpson: Laurel is a certified Connection Codes coach and the warm voice behind the community's inbox — when you email in, Laurel is who you reach. Her own story of chronic pain, caregiving, and hard-won emotional processing makes her a trusted guide for anyone learning to listen to their body instead of fighting it.

Related listening: This conversation builds on two earlier episodes — Esther's episode on pain and the mind-body connection, and Laurel's earlier episode from the season her husband John was in the hospital (her "fear chapter"). Either is a beautiful lead-in.

Resources mentioned:

Core Emotion Wheel (free download) → https://connectioncodes.co/cew

Book a session with Laurel → https://calendly.com/laurelsimpson

Book a discovery call with a coach → https://connectioncodes.co/coaches

Join our Community → https://connectioncodes.co/community

Phyllis sits down with two friends in very different time zones — Laurel Simpson in Canada and holistic pain coach Esther Mooney in Australia — for a conversation about something most of us carry quietly: pain that doesn't have a clear cause. Esther spent over two decades chasing answers for pain that moved from her knees to her ankles to her pelvis to her neck, until she learned that the brain itself generates pain — and that fear is what keeps the cycle spinning. What unfolds is a tender, honest look at how our emotions live in our bodies, why "I'm okay as I am" might be the most healing sentence you say all day, and how the work we do at Connection Codes is deeply aligned with calming a nervous system that's been stuck in danger mode. If you've ever been told "there's nothing wrong" while you're still hurting, this one's for you.In this episode:•Why all pain is real — and why the brain creates it (neuroplastic pain explained simply)•The fear-pain cycle, and how avoidance quietly makes our world smaller•The FIT assessment (Functional, Inconsistent, Triggered) — a starting point for asking, "Is my pain structural or learned?"•How emotional stress shows up as physical flare-ups•The "six F's" we reach for when pain hits (fear, focus, fix, frustration, figure it out, fight) and why they backfire•Practical tools: somatic tracking, pleasant sensations, and the evidence journal•Esther walks the Core Emotion Wheel about her own pain journeyAbout Esther Mooney: Esther is a holistic pain coach based in Australia and a former ballet dancer whose own two-decade journey with chronic pain led her to the mind-body field and the work of Dr. John Sarno. She helps people struggling with chronic, persistent pain understand the science of neuroplastic pain and teach their nervous systems safety again. Esther has been a Connection Codes listener for years and is passionate about where the emotional-processing work of CC and mind-body pain recovery overlap.Connect with Esther:Website → https://holisticpaincoach.com/Email → [email protected]Esther's new podcast, Holistic Pain Coach → https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/holistic-pain-coach/id1896924049Resources mentioned:The Core Emotion Wheel (free download) → https://connectioncodes.co/cewFind a certified Connection Codes coach → https://connectioncodes.co/coaches

John Kilmer is back — and this time, Glenn and Phyllis wanted to go all the way in on somatic work and embodiment. What starts as a simple breathing exercise turns into a full tour of the body: where joy lives, where shame hides, why so many of us have been trained since childhood to ignore what our bodies are telling us. This episode builds directly on their first conversation with John, going even deeper into what it actually looks like to come back into your body.In this episode:● What "somatic" and "embodiment" actually mean, in plain language● Why belly breathing feels foreign — and how to relearn it● A live, guided exercise locating all 8 Core Emotions in the body● Why up to 70% of primary care visits are driven by psychological factors● How childhood messages like "be seen, not heard" shape our ability to feel embodied as adultsAbout John Kilmer: John is an occupational therapist and life coach trained in somatic and polyvagal-informed approaches to trauma. A recent graduate of the School of Connection and a newly certified Connection Codes coach, he brings a deep love of embodiment work and a story shaped by years living in Lebanon and Kenya.Catch up on John's first episode:"Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Forgets"

Resources mentioned:-The Core Emotion Wheel for free → https://connectioncodes.co/cew-Find a certified Connection Codes coach → https://connectioncodes.co/coaches-Reach John directly → mailto:[email protected]

Bridgett Blood is back — a year older, a year braver, and now specializing in the work underneath the work. She's traded a leap-of-faith move to Nashville for certifications in story work, narrative-focused trauma therapy, and Christian sexual health, all aimed at singles, daters, and engaged couples. This episode isn't really dating advice. It's about the thing beneath every relationship you'll ever have: you can't show up authentically in romance while you're disconnected from yourself. Bridgett, Glenn, and Phyllis dismantle the myth of "compatibility," name why doing love in psycholation is so costly, and get unusually honest about Glenn and Phyllis's own early marriage — the quiet, the roles nobody chose out loud, and what might have been different if they'd learned themselves sooner.

In this episode:

• Story work, and why what happened to you at six is still steering your cyclone at forty
• Why "stop making marriage the goal" is a healthier starting line than it sounds
• The compatibility myth — why two matching pieces of paper can't survive Wednesday
• Psycholation: doing romance, marriage, or sex alone, and why it's a Connection Codes red flag
• Self-contempt vs. self-hatred — and why the distinction changes everything
• Glenn and Phyllis's story: quiet compliance, unclaimed identity, and a decision that changed their marriage
• A 25-second case study: Glenn asking a restaurant to turn the music down
• Bridgett's issue-specific Core Emotion Wheel on her own story of harm and healing

About Bridgett Blood: Bridgett is a certified Connection Codes coach based in Nashville, also certified in Christian sexual health and narrative-focused trauma therapy. She works with Christian singles, daters, and engaged couples to help them build an honest, embodied relationship with their own story, identity, and sexuality.

Resources mentioned:

• The Core Emotion Wheel (free download) → connectioncodes.co/get-the-cew
• Find a certified coach → connectioncodes.co/coaches#find-a-coach-menu
• Foundations Masterclass → connectioncodes.co/foundations
• Make Sense of Your Story by Adam Young
• The Deep Rooted Marriage by Dan Allender & Steve Call
• Bridgett online → BridgettBlood.com | Instagram → @BridgettBlood