Rewiring Your Life Through Stillness, Surrender, and Neuroscience
- Feb 12
- 3 min read
By Erica Elliott, MS
Have you ever reached a moment where everything you built—your identity, confidence, accomplishments—seemed to crumble? A season so heavy with exhaustion or pain that you called out to God in desperation, feeling like you could not take another step?
I have been in that place.
But my story did not begin there.
Before COVID, before the migraines and brain injury that brought me to my knees, I had already lived a lifetime of rising and rebuilding. I overcame childhood trauma, rebuilt after divorce, created a six-figure business, helped companies generate millions, and spent more than thirty years helping people heal as a counselor, trauma specialist, and brain health coach.
I knew how to rise—until the day my own nervous system collapsed.
Post-COVID syndrome hit with a force I could not outwork. The cognitive crash was so heavy that forming words felt impossible. The migraines were relentless. Even speaking or moving required effort. The emotional weight of not being able to function—after decades of being strong for others—became its own heartbreak.
I remember whispering, “God, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Maybe you know that place too.
But in that moment of surrender, when everything felt lost, God reached in and reminded me that His strength had carried every rise before. He showed me that this time, I would rebuild differently. Not through pushing or forcing. Not through burnout. But through alignment, stillness, and divine partnership.
One of the greatest truths He revealed to me is this: you cannot listen when you are constantly doing. Most people believe they are listening, but they are hearing noise—ruminating thoughts, distractions, or the pressure of the world. True listening requires stillness. Stillness activates the higher parts of the brain where clarity, creativity, and spiritual discernment live.
Neuroscience began confirming what God was teaching me.
When the amygdala is constantly firing—as it does during exhaustion, illness, or overwhelm—your brain interprets everything as danger. Clarity drops. Intuition dims. Creativity shuts down. Decision-making becomes reactive. Proverbs 4:23 tells us that everything flows from the state of the heart, and today we understand that everything also flows from the state of the nervous system.
When the amygdala activates, the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for intuition, emotional regulation, creativity, and spiritual discernment—shuts down. This is why we cannot think or strategize our way out of burnout. Peace is not optional; peace is neurological alignment with God.
When I began practicing the 4-7-8 breath, my nervous system slowly shifted out of survival mode. My heart rate softened. My thoughts slowed. My body began to feel safe again. This simple practice mirrors God’s invitation in Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Years of over-functioning had also created habit loops of burnout in my brain. But neuroplasticity—and Romans 12:2—teach us the same truth: anything learned can be unlearned, and anything repeated can be rewired.
Another shift came through language. The Reticular Activating System filters our reality based on the words we use. When I changed my language from “I’m overwhelmed” to “I’m recalibrating,” my brain stopped searching for threat and began searching for solutions.
Through this integration of neuroscience and Scripture, one message became clear:
When God leads your energy, your brain, and your steps, you rise without rushing. You expand without exhausting. You create without collapsing. You prosper without breaking.
That is the rise God invites us into. Today as a Brain Code Strategist, Transformational Speaker and Mental Health Advocate I help individuals, businesses, and companies shift from striving to thriving.
You can find more tools for aligning your life with neuroscience and biblical principles in my book “Breath of Heaven Manifesting God’s Way” https://www.amazon.com/dp/1968061371
Connect With Erica
Comments