Weekly Elevation
#3: January 19, 2026
The Weekly Elevation is a little boost to your inbox and subconscious mind every Monday morning to elevate your week ahead.
I love patterns — they’re kind of my thing as a hypnotist.
Usually the patterns I work with are the ones that start within the subconscious mind and then ripple outwards. However, the one jazzing me up right now is the opposite.
It’s a pattern shift I can see and visibly experience, and it began with a choice to walk to a new friend’s house.
Santa Cruz has been my home for the last 3.5 years, and call me boring but my I’ve settled into a fairly predictable routine. I teach and practice at the same yoga studio, I take a dance class every Wednesday night, and I walk Wilbur to the ocean via the same street.
These are kind of like the “well worn grooves” — like neural networks — that deepened with repetition to the point that they don’t feel like conscious choices anymore.
While my routine is beautiful and I am very grateful for it, I’ve also found myself feeling a little bit stuck in my ways here. My brain has started to ask questions like is this just the way it is and will always be?
The answer of course, is no.
For our neural networks and our habituated routines, a whole new experience of life could be just one choice — one shifted pattern — away.
Enter my new friend. We met at yoga and she’s also a hypnotist trained by Melissa Tiers. She invited me to tune into our bi-weekly supervision call at her house. Turns out I could walk — less than a mile away — and it took me in a direction I usually don’t go. Instead of turning right out my street, I crossed over and kept going straight.
As I got closer, I realized I was walking directly to the ocean via a route I didn’t know existed. This route is prettier, quieter, and faster than my old route — AND it takes me to a section of the ocean that is even more fun to walk along! For 10 months I’ve lived in my house, and I never knew. It wouldn’t have been hard to find it had I spent any time looking, but it never dawned on me to see if there was a closer walk to the water. The well worn groove made the decision for me.
This might seem like a small thing, but it changes everything. Now I can walk to a beach, restaurants, the wharf, and so many places that weren’t part of my mental map of my day to day life. I suddenly feel like I live in a whole new neighborhood! The range of possible experiences available to me expanded overnight, all because of one new route.
I think part of why I’m having so much fun observing the shifts that are happening thanks to this, is because normally I’m working in the invisible realm. When we change a neural network, the shifts usually begin emotionally before they make their way into the physical world.
This one has been a very visible example of the power of one single new pathway (literally), and what it can open up.
So now here we are: same life, same house, same neighborhood. But my experience of it has radically shifted thanks to small deviation off the well-worn groove.
Imagine what’s possible with a new neural network — one that had been taking you towards anxiety, but now it takes you to peace? Or one that had led you to scarcity, but now opens into abundance?
It’s just one new route, but it has the potential to change everything.
This week, I invite you to try a “new route” with me. Pick one part of your routine, and shake it up. Go to a new class at the gym instead of your usual Pilates, opt for a different way home from Trader Joe’s, or call someone who isn’t one of your usual go-to’s. Notice what opens up when you explore what lies outside of the well-work grooves.
Happy Elevating!
xo,
Kelsey
Reflection Questions:
What’s a pattern in my day to day life I can shake up this week?
When I imagine all the things that exist outside of my well-worn grooves, what do I notice?
What’s one small pattern shift that would change your week for the better?