The Inner Wealth Podcast

Ep204. Rewiring Your Nervous System for Peace, Not Survival.

• Mike Kitko

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In this powerful episode recorded in Cancun, Mike and Angie reflect on how far their family has come—from toxic, chaotic vacations rooted in escapism and conflict, to conscious travel experiences centered around peace, healing, and generational transformation. They pull back the curtain on the realities of generational trauma, how nervous systems become conditioned to chaos, and what it takes to rewire for peace and presence. You'll hear deeply personal stories from their past and the work they continue to do on themselves and in their family today.

If you’ve ever struggled to enjoy success, felt anxious even in moments of rest, or watched patterns repeat across generations—you’re not alone. This episode reminds us that nervous system healing isn’t just personal—it’s generational.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Family transformation takes time, honesty, and deep inner work—healing one nervous system at a time.
  2. Vacations used to be a form of escapism fueled by alcohol and control; now, they’re containers for conscious presence and joy.
  3. Children absorb the energetic imprint of their environment, and it takes intention to break that cycle.
  4. Even when chaos is gone, the body may still be wired for it—healing requires consistent inner awareness and release.
  5. Financial success doesn’t guarantee safety; true security comes from emotional regulation and nervous system health.

Notable Quotes (Word-for-Word):

  • “We were all operating at the highest level of our consciousness and awareness. Just most of the time it wasn't very good.”
  • “Our beautiful, amazing daughters that we love so much were in our space and we thought it was just normal just to argue and get visceral with their little tender bodies, their sensitive bodies absorbing all this chaos.”
  • “Your central nervous system is built and wired from the past, from experiences, from traumas… to operate from survival mode even in the absence of danger.”
  • “You're no longer in the environment of that shit—the drama, the conflict—but for whatever reason your central nervous system still expects it.”
  • “We experience safety and security in our body, not in our bank account.”


Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends

Create a New Pattern
This episode is a powerful reminder that the quality of your life doesn’t come from the next goal, the next trip, or the next win — it comes from the energy you live in every day. If you’ve been outsourcing peace to your environment, this is your invitation to reclaim it from within. Join us as we unpack what it means to lead a family, a business, and a life from nervous system regulation, emotional truth, and deep personal power.

Want to Go Deeper?
Visit www.innerwealthglobal.com and explore tools, programs, and offerings that guide you back to your aligned life. It’s time to live from the inside out.

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Mike Kitko is an executive self-mastery coach, speaker and author. He found external success through powerful titles, incomes, and material possessions. He ultimately fell into depression, toxic abuse of alcohol, and the near collapse of his family before he began a journey of internal happiness and success.

Speaker 1:

Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your life? Do you ever feel the need to escape your business? Are you running your life or is your life running you? I'm Mike Kitko and I'll help you design and create a life so authentic and aligned with who you really are that you'll get excited just to wake up. I'll help you create real wealth, success and freedom from the inside out. Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, mike and Angie this time so we've been doing more and more of these. I know episode 200, we just had our like celebration, our 200th episode celebration. This time we're just we're celebrating something different. Our older daughter graduated from college a couple of weeks ago and we're in Cancun and we got the whole family here and that is going to be the message and the core message of this podcast. Because we're watching podcast, because we're watching. We're watching triggering and healing and growth and evolution, and not lack of growth and lack of evolution. We're watching the whole thing play out within our family. We kind of wanted to share that with you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, real quick just want to give. We're at the beautiful Royalton Chic Suites in Cancun and this place is absolutely amazing. Highly recommend it. We've got an amazing butler staff here, which is something we've never done before. We have two people dedicated to us all week and they've just done a really great job of making us feel welcome and special and putting balloons in Katie's room to celebrate her graduation. Just yeah, I just want to give a quick thanks to them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and planning this, and you went above and beyond. We've got a. We don't have a room, we have a suite. So we've got, we've got a jacuzzi. We're sitting right next to our jacuzzi and we've got, uh, two jacuzzi tubs inside. We've got a pool table. We've got a stock kitchen, we've got a stocked fridge, we've got butlers we have three stocked fridges three stocked fridges yep. Three stocked fridges Yep. One in each of the bedrooms and then one in a full kitchen.

Speaker 2:

I love planning travel, so I could talk about that all day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it seems like our standards for vacation. I told Angie I said she kind of screwed this one up because we keep leveling up in the quality that we keep experiencing and it's like the standard goes up. I don't want to fall below the standard. This is amazing. So let's let's talk a little bit about the evolution of our family. All right, and there's, we want to bring you inside of our family. Our girls probably aren't going to like that. We're sharing this.

Speaker 2:

They probably won't ever listen to it.

Speaker 1:

They probably won't listen, but I don't think they would love if they knew what we were going to talk about. But let's go back to Mexico 15 years ago. Ok, let's talk about tell the stories of where our family was, what vacation was for us, what we were doing and how, how we showed up in our vacation.

Speaker 2:

Vacate 15. Yeah, even further, a little bit further back than that. But back then vacation was all about escapism and it was go somewhere, get as drunk as possible. Kids went to the kids club, which they hated, and I regret, and Katie and Megan I've apologized to them profusely a million times because it was just an escape from the like that we from our day to day lives. It wasn't hey, let's go somewhere, enjoy another location. It was let's get as far away from reality as possible and shut reality down as much as possible with, with alcohol and and alcohol. That's pretty much what it was. In coming down to Mexico, um, and that always fueled conflict and drama and and toxic vacations because, because we were vacationing to escape our day-to-day lives, once those feelings got expounded, I guess by alcohol, it just became amplified and and dramatic and every vacation we went on there was some sort of conflict between mike and myself, everyone there were sometimes they sometimes they were bigger Everyone.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes they were bigger conflicts than others, sometimes they were just little, just constant digs and daggers and things of the sort. And that hasn't happened for us in a very long time. In fact, just even in our day-to-day interactions with each other, if there's a tiff or something that happens, it comes and goes like that. There used to be times where we wouldnday interactions with each other. If there's a a tiff or something that happens, it it comes and goes like that.

Speaker 1:

you know, there used to be times we wouldn't speak to each other for two weeks so, yes, and digging in a little bit, but more um vacation and I remember this angie's anxiety would go up the closer vacation got. It's because she had this picture in her mind of what vacation should be and what she needed to wear on the plane and the perfect hat and having everything be perfect as she had it planned in her mind and she had this vision for what this vacation should be what the weather was supposed to be, what the weather should be Ocean temperature was supposed to be how we were going to act, how we were going to behave going out on date night while we were on vacation.

Speaker 1:

It's like she had it all planned out on her head and the closer vacation got, the more anxious she got, because she couldn't control this narrative she had in her head. So literally we would get to vacation where we were supposed to relax, and typically it was the exact opposite Anxiety was there, panic was there. Angie got hospitalized one time while we were on vacation because her anxiety spiked.

Speaker 2:

The anxiety got so bad. I actually suffered a what's called a TIA, a mini stroke in Riviera Maya, mexico, and that was simply because the freaking weather wasn't what I expected or what I, what I had in my, in my mind wow, I it was.

Speaker 1:

There was there was just a lot of, a lot of control, and vacation was so incredibly important. And I remember when we were first together and I want to keep amplifying how important vacation was to you the very first vacation we went on um angie had it planned to extapa and when we got pregnant we couldn't uh, we which we were in a, we were in a restaurant a couple weeks ago and I said when we got pregnant in this, the server got triggered what do you mean?

Speaker 1:

she got pregnant but anyway. So, um, we had that planned and then we found out that, uh, we were pregnant and we had to cancel, and I remember angie saying to me if I, if I die without seeing blue water, I'm gonna haunt you for the rest of your life. It was like, and, and she was. It sounded playful, but I really.

Speaker 2:

Uh, vacation was so incredibly important to her that she wanted everything to be perfect and look a certain way, so that she could feel this thing that she had always dreamt of in her head well, and I think that there that's another episode, because there there is a very I have a very strong reason as to why that was part of my what, what I visualize as important, and we'll definitely talk about that, because that goes back to my father and judy and my mom. Yeah, anyway.

Speaker 1:

So we would get to a vacation spot and angie would go into hyper control mode and hurting mode and hurry, hurry mode and trying to control and make it everything look, and her anxiety would be so freaking off the wall that there was no enjoyment, there was no peace, our family and listen that this isn't a blame game. We're way beyond any blame. This is just. Angie was doing the best she could and this is just the way she was built back then. So again, that's part of our healing and our growth.

Speaker 1:

It was just that was that was where her level of consciousness was, and that's part of our healing and our growth. It was just that was that was where her level of consciousness was and our family's level of consciousness just fed into that and we all blended into a, into a toxic mess. So this isn't Angie bad, everybody else good. This is we were all operating at the highest level of our consciousness and awareness. Just most of the time it wasn't very good and the point to all of this is our girls grew up every year going to vacation where it looked good, but most times it was an awful mess.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it looked great on social media.

Speaker 1:

And there was drama and conflict and chaos and screaming and yelling and anger, and then we would get angry at each other, there'd be yelling and blame and my little girls, their bodies, were right there, absorbing all of this freaking chaos. Our beautiful, our beautiful, amazing daughters that we love so much, were in our space and we thought it was just normal just to argue and get visceral with their little tender bodies, their sensitive bodies, absorbing all of this chaos and all this drama and that becoming part of their central nervous system and becoming part of their operating system. And it was impossible for them to ever feel safe, whether it be home or on vacation. And that is the foundation of what we're going to share today that their bodies were naturally built or unnaturally built and unnaturally wired because of the environment they grew up in to be familiar in conflict, to be familiar, to feel some sense of being able to operate in chaos and drama and conflict. And when Angie and I started to put our lives back together and we started to build peace and we started to build harmony and we started to rebuild love and joy in our relationship, there started to be a sense of peace and calm in our house and our older daughter didn't like it.

Speaker 1:

And our older daughter said and she literally said these words, I'm gonna paraphrase, but she literally said this this, uh, um, the spirit of this. She said I wish you guys would have gotten divorced, or I wish you'd at least like wouldn't have created peace, and it was. It was because her body was wired for chaos, not for peace, and peace was so unfamiliar. Her body didn't know how to operate and felt unsafe in it, so she would try to provoke us back into arguments, to make the house get back to the house, to influence the house, to get back to that level of freaking pain and chaos and and and and conflict. You remember that? Oh yeah, absolutely, and the first, probably two years of us 2016, 2017 of us our relationship, our girls didn't know how to operate in this world and they felt uncertain and unsure, like everything was just going to fall apart at some point. And I can see it in their bodies and I want to go back to that. Their bodies had been wired for chaos.

Speaker 1:

Their bodies had been conditioned to know how to survive in anger drama and drama and in violence and aggression and abuse their little, tender, sensitive, at one time loving bodies took on all this negativity and all this cortisol and all this adrenaline and had to learn how to operate safely in fight flight or freeze mode, in survival mode. And that brings us to today Yesterday actually is we're here on vacation. We're here for three days and what we've noticed is, every time we've brought the girls on vacation over the last couple of years, there's a there's there's, there's a conflict that boils up between the two of them. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Which is the complete opposite of what it used to be. So last night there was usually, it's a conflict over politics or religion, and last night it was over perfectionism, I guess, and following rules, and it was a silly fight. But before you knew it, mike and I were in our room getting ready for bed and next thing we know we hear screaming and blowing up.

Speaker 2:

And you're a fucking bitch, you're this. And I came out and it was like whoa, whoa, whoa, and I had to come out and mediate between the two of them and be the voice of reason. And we used to joke years ago when we did start this healing journey, that there were times where I would step in and I would be the voice of reason and everyone would joke, Okay, well, when mom becomes the voice of reason then, then you know some something's wrong. So, yeah, I had to mediate between the two of them last night over again. A silly pool table balls and putting the balls together.

Speaker 1:

It was just, it was absolutely silly and there were tears and anger and threats, and screaming and yelling, and they just mirrored what they saw, which between you and I which was reminiscent and harked back to the past, that we go on vacation and there had to be a fight.

Speaker 2:

There has to be drama. There has to be a drama it happened last year in mexico. We were in cancun last year, we were in Paris and Scotland the year before and they both got into it then. So every family vacation that we've been on since we got our shit straight, the two of them have had to beef.

Speaker 1:

And you know, this morning I was talking to our younger daughter, megan, and I said, hey, mom and I deserve, when we bring our family on vacation, mom and I deserve, we're here for three days. We deserve peace, we deserve harmony, like the investment that we make in this vacation. We deserve peace, we deserve a peaceful, enjoyable vacation, without drama or conflict. And our daughter Megan and she wasn't there Our daughter Megan said well, we have emotions, that's just how, how it is and how we are.

Speaker 1:

And I was like no, no, that that's how you're wired, that's what you're familiar with. Well, we've got to get, we get to get over that and let that shit go, because you're no longer in the environment of that that shit the drama, the, the conflict. But, for whatever reason, your central nervous system and I didn't, I didn't go into this much depth with her, but the central nervous system, hers, theirs is still wired to expect and to invite and to initiate that level of conflict and drama. In the absence of it, it doesn't, doesn't feel right, it doesn't fully feel right, right and even something really, really small, that wasn't even provocative, turns into something catastrophic, where then there's tears and there's anger and threats and blame.

Speaker 2:

It was over tool table putting the balls together in the pool table yeah it, but the point isn't what triggered the fight, it's.

Speaker 1:

We know why the fight was triggered.

Speaker 2:

But it's just to me, it's comical that they had nothing else to go at each other over, so something as small as that triggered them to step back into a space that they were familiar with. So it's just crazy to see it from that space that they were familiar with. So it's just it's, it's just crazy to see it from from that that space.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is, but the the the point is their, their little bodies. Now they're 20, 23 and 20, 20 year old bodies, you know, even though they're not constantly in a state of drama and conflict, it's there's times where it's unfamiliar to be at a beach, to be in a beautiful place and to have no drama and no conflict. And our daughter, this morning, when I was talking to her, she said well, that's just how things are, we're sisters. No, that's how you're built, it's not how you are, that's how you're built. And the work that Angie and I have been doing in our mastermind lately over the last couple of weeks, I'd say and some of the things that have started to come to the surface, it's about helping people understand, and we've always done this, but we've done it at, I guess, a higher level, a more clarified level over the last couple of weeks is help people understand that things like that can be released from the body. Your central nervous system is built and wired from the past, from experiences, from traumas, from things that have happened in your life that built your central nervous system to, in some cases, in some form, to operate from survival mode even in the absence of danger or conflict. And what I mean by that is I noticed myself on vacation over the last couple days walking around and little Mike.

Speaker 1:

Let's go back to little Mike. Little Mike hated his body Right and and, and I was always ashamed, when I was growing up, with my body and I didn't want anybody to see my body I was. When I went on vacation I wore a t-shirt and got in the water, even though the t-shirt wasn't going to help. You know my body, but I was just ashamed of my body and I'm still in and I've released a lot on it and I've I've let a lot of it go and I'm still working through it. But I noticed as I walk downstairs in the lobby and out by the pool, I still notice little Mike, cause it's not big Mike doing this, it's little Mike.

Speaker 1:

I still notice little Mike trying to trying to control the thoughts and trying to trying to um be seen a certain way and care about what people think about my body, not who I am, about my body. And that is that is a trauma response, like when I was a kid. I got shamed by my brothers and people in my class in elementary school and now it's still 52 years old. My body is still conditioned to operate from that place and that's just work that I get to do more and more of as time goes on. But I get the experience of being in a place where I get to do that work, so I'm taking advantage of it and noticing it, letting it go, noticing it, letting it go, noticing it, letting it go. That's what we did with the need to argue and get angry and triggers, and that's what changed our marriage Right. Anything to add to that. What are you working on? What have you worked on this week?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, I literally just said this. Yesterday on our mastermind call, I blanked up for a second there this yesterday on our um, oh yeah, on our mastermind call. I I blanked up for a second there. Um, I've been doing a lot of work around around finances. Uh, as, as you know, mike talks about a lot.

Speaker 2:

Last year our business expanded exponentially and with that came a large financial gain in our lives and I remember at that time when that happened, I remember feeling positive emotions associated with that financial expansion. And then, as our business started to fall last year out of lack of clarity, we we gained a lot of clarity. Since then, as the business started to to fall financially, I noticed negative emotions associated with that and the fear and the scarcity and all that stuff came in. And yesterday we were sitting on our mastermind call and I I spaced out when he starts talking a lot, cause he just starts talking and he goes and goes and I'm looking at the birds. I love watching the seagulls in the sky here.

Speaker 2:

So I was watching some boats and some seagulls and I was thinking to myself I thought you know, we've had nothing significant happen in our business in the past seven, eight months that would create financial expansion. That would create financial expansion. And I was sitting there yesterday and the thought of we're going to be okay came to my mind and with that came a positive, sacral response. So I feel my emotions in my gut. That's where I kind of get that happiness or fear and I was like we're going to be okay. And there was, and to have that emotion, not associated with anything, any event, any financial gain or loss, was huge for me. So that's what.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's that's what, what I've been working on this week, so you got to let go of a little fear.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I've been yeah, and I feel like it's something that has been slowly, something I've been slowly working on since I mean last March or April, I believe it was. I think April or May. Anyway, I had a massive panic attack. We had a speaking engagement in Dallas and I remember 2 am in the hotel on the bathroom floor in a full-on panic broke out in hives and it was all related to I saw our finances starting to really tumble and so I've been working on that pretty heavily over the past year. And, yeah, yesterday was just a whole different level of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it just happens that we were in Dallas and that was the largest financial speaking engagement that we've ever gotten. So so we're at an event that's paying us more than any speaking engagement has ever paid us and she has a panic attack. So it's, it's not about the finances. You're, you experience life through your body, not your, not your bank account. We experience safety and security in our body, not in our bank account. And if you know anybody that has a lot of money that still feels unsafe, it's because they haven't. They haven't done the healing work inside of their body.

Speaker 1:

And I went last week's business call in the mastermind. I remember emphasizing because I'm a teacher and when I, when I teach, that's what she said she's faces. But what I was talking about there was one of the one of the business owners was talking about, you know, feeling fear and doing something to try to make more money. And I said hold up, let's stop there. This is the inner wealth mastermind we're going to. We're business owners and we run businesses, but that's not why we're here. We're here to separate the body and the business. You work on your body separate than your business. You do the work and take the action in your business to increase your income.

Speaker 1:

But that feeling of fear in your body needs to be addressed separately from your business. You separate the body from your business. You work on your body inner wealth and then you work on your business external wealth but the inner wealth is what we're here to do. You can join many masterminds where they give you tactics and strategies that will make you money and as the money goes up, your body will stay the same. And we're here to address the body separately from the business and that body. The body, needs to be given a higher level of awareness of what's happening inside of you, a deeper level of connection with your mind and your emotions and the mechanisms for recognizing when your body is giving you survival signals and the tools to be able to release those survival signals. And no finances can do that. It's a false. When our finances went up, you got a false level of security. It's like, okay, now I'm not money scared anymore.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I'm okay now.

Speaker 1:

I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe Because you put money over anything. You put money over it and you're only going to escape that survival for a little bit. And if you've ever known anybody that when they have nothing they need a million, when they have a million they need 2 million, and when they have 2 million they need 3 million, it's because they're trying to change their body through their finances. And we're here to do both our body and our finances. So the the inner work, the inner work creates a deeper level, higher sense of peace and fulfillment and freedom inside, and from there we can go out and dominate in the world, in the material world. But it starts with that inner harmony.

Speaker 1:

That's the work that Angie and I have done over the last nine years, and our girls are in therapy and they've done some of the work. But this week we got to see what work is left for them. But we can't make them do anything. They, they still, they still fight us about. Well, that's just how things are. No, it's not how things are, it's who you are, and until you change who you are, nothing else changes anything else to add to that?

Speaker 2:

no, I uh well, yes, um, so next week you're going to actually there we've, we uh, mike has developed a process, nothing new, but but a process that has resonated really heavily with the members of our mastermind, our Interwealth mastermind and our Interwealth community. So next week you're going to share that with the podcast listeners, which is super exciting. It gives a further process.

Speaker 1:

What's it called?

Speaker 2:

It's called the drill method.

Speaker 1:

The drill method Drill method Just playing around with this and I know the work that's worked for me and created more harmony and peace in my body. And my good friend Brian Schroeder always said Mike is your mastermind doing the work? And I was like I don't know how to define what the work is.

Speaker 2:

And when we introduced this system to them that it would, we finally gave people who, yeah, oh okay. So people would always say well, mike, how do you do that, how do you do that, how do you do that? And this method give finally gave our students. Aha, now I have an answer to mike how you do that.

Speaker 1:

And the reason it was so hard for me to come up with this is because, for me, I didn't need a process. I just, like, intuitively, knew how to do this work when I started doing it. And in the prologue uh, in inner world, outer world the book that comes out August 19th I talk about my Kundalini awakening, where I sat down for a meditation and my body started rocking back and forth and you're freaking violently and my body was releasing all this energy and all this trauma. And that was that was my awakening that there was, there's pain and there's a stored emotion in my body. And that was my body starting to release it. Never since then it's been really easy for me.

Speaker 1:

It's a process that I enjoy. I love it, I love the body work, I love doing this work, but I couldn't teach it because I didn't use a process. Well, I've established a process and it's called the drill method. And next week, to Angie's point, next week, I'll share the drill method. I've been sharing it a little bit on post social media, not with details, but in the mastermind I have given them details. And next week, on this podcast episode, on this podcast, I will give you the process and invite you into the space to utilize this process with a group of people that are also utilizing this process. It's beautiful work, and the only thing this work does is create more peace, harmony, love, joy and prosperity in the world. That's all. That's all it does. It just changes the world, that's all.

Speaker 2:

There, you go.

Speaker 1:

This work is not new. I didn't invent it. There's books like the Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin, letting Go by Dr David Hawkins, the Unheathered Soul by Michael Singer. Guys these books all say the same thing it's about going into your body and letting go of the suffering instead of trying to change your circumstances, to change it, and the drill method is going to help you do that. All right, Thanks again.

Speaker 2:

Royalton, chic, cancun, sandra, omar, our butlers, amazing, appreciate you guys so much and we'll be back because I'm going to need to plan a vacation from this vacation for just Mike and I, so we'll be doing another one of these soon.

Speaker 1:

We're thinking about Cabo. We've never been to Cabo before, but we're thinking about Cabo.

Speaker 2:

Maybe August, maybe right before the book launch. So we'll come back for the book launch all refreshed Yep, and then we'll be heading to Utah for our mastermind retreat in September, right afterwards.

Speaker 1:

If anybody's interested, we still have some slots left in our interwealth mastermind. We also have an interwealth community. If you guys are interested in coming jamming with us, doing some work with us, we'd love to have you in. We've got some amazing people that have been joining. They're doing the spiritual work, they're craving the spiritual work, they're craving the woo. They want the internal peace, they want the internal harmony. They're not just after exterior wealth, they're after inner joy, inner wealth. If that sounds interesting to you, if it sounds like something you'd be interested in, then reach out to me and I'd love to have a conversation with you.

Speaker 2:

And last thing to follow, along with details on inner world, outer world book launch, please follow our socials. Yep, uh, inner wealth global. Mike Kitko, angie Kitko.

Speaker 1:

Yep, lean into us. We'll help you. We'll only change the world together. Guys, love you from beautiful Cancun. We got another day and a half here. We like these little short trips. Our daughters love long trips, but that just means more arguing, so we like to keep them short, so there's less arguing, and then we go on our own long trip so that we don't argue. We'll see you soon. Thanks for joining in, thanks for tuning in and thanks for your support. If you enjoyed this, I'd love if you gave me five stars. Gave us five stars, cross platforms. Leave an awesome review. It'll help us have reached more people and expand our reach and our impact. Love you guys. See you soon. If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom for more tools and resources.