SHOW NOTES
About the Guest
Jane Hogan, known as The Wellness Engineer, is a neuroscience-based mind-body educator, health coach, author, and wellness leader. She helps people release chronic pain by rewiring the brain, calming the nervous system, and learning to trust the body’s wisdom.
Through her Wellness by Design podcast, her bestselling book Pain Free on Purpose: Use Your Mind to Heal Your Body and Get Your Life Back on Track, and her programs Calm by Design and Living Pain Free, Jane has helped thousands of people understand the connection between stress, the nervous system, emotional patterns, and physical healing.
Episode Summary
Jane Hogan joins Jen Aks for an inspiring conversation about chronic pain, nervous-system regulation, intuition, emotional healing, and the body’s ability to guide us back to wholeness.
After the sudden loss of her mother, Jane experienced intense stress that eventually turned into debilitating joint pain. Within a few months, she went from feeling strong and healthy to barely being able to walk or make a fist with her hands. She was later diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, but even before the diagnosis, something within her knew that her pain was connected to the stress and emotional overwhelm she had been carrying.
At one of her lowest points, Jane heard a clear inner message: this was not how her life was going to turn out. She would figure it out, and she would teach others. That moment became the beginning of a healing journey that led her to explore food, inflammation, gut health, the nervous system, childhood patterns, breathwork, forgiveness, visualization, yoga, mind-body medicine, and intuition.
Together, Jen and Jane explore why pain can be understood as protection, how old emotional patterns can keep the nervous system on high alert, and why healing often begins when we stop asking “why” and start asking “where” the body is holding the sensation.
This episode is a powerful reminder that your body is speaking. When you slow down, listen, and learn how to create calm, you can reconnect with the wisdom within and become a ripple of healing for others.
What You’ll Learn
• How the sudden loss of Jane’s mother contributed to intense stress and physical pain
• Why Jane intuitively knew her pain was connected to stress before she fully understood the science
• How rheumatoid arthritis became part of Jane’s healing journey
• Why food, gut health, inflammation, and the nervous system are deeply connected
• How stress can affect digestion, immune response, and the body’s ability to heal
• Why pain can be understood as protection rather than punishment
• How childhood teasing and emotional patterns can shape the nervous system later in life
• Why people-pleasing, perfectionism, hypervigilance, and hyperindependence can be protective adaptations
• How breathwork, yoga, Reiki, visualization, affirmations, and forgiveness supported Jane’s healing
• Why “where” can be more helpful than “why” when working with body sensations
• How calm touchpoints throughout the day can help regulate the nervous system
• How to use simple intuition tools like the body sway test, pendulum, and finger test
• Why being calm, loving, and compassionate creates a ripple of healing in the world
Key Concepts Introduced
• Pain as Protection — Jane explains that pain is often the nervous system’s way of protecting us when it perceives danger, stress, or lack of safety.
• Nervous-System Regulation — the practice of creating calm in the body so the brain and body can shift out of fight-or-flight and into healing.
• Wisdom From Within — Jane’s inner knowing that her pain was linked to stress, and later the voice that told her she would figure it out and teach others.
• Food as Medicine — Jane’s early discovery that removing inflammatory foods helped reduce her pain and gave her a sense of empowerment.
• Leaky Gut and Autoimmunity — Jane explains how stress and poor digestion can affect the gut lining, immune system, and inflammation.
• Behaviors of Protection — patterns like people-pleasing, perfectionism, hypervigilance, and hyperindependence that often develop early in life as ways to feel safe.
• Don’t Ask Why, Ask Where — Jane’s practice of moving out of overthinking and into body awareness by noticing where sensation is showing up.
• Calm Touchpoints — small practices throughout the day that help the body return to stillness, safety, and love.
• Body Sway Test — a simple practice for tuning into the body’s yes or no by noticing whether the body subtly leans forward or backward.
• The Ripple Effect — the idea that simply becoming more calm, loving, and compassionate sends healing outward into your family, community, and world.
Quotes From This Episode
“Just by being calm, loving, and compassionate, you’re creating a ripple in the world.”
“This is not how your life is going to turn out. You’re going to figure this out, and you’re going to teach other people.”
“Pain is actually protection.”
“Our bodies are speaking to us.”
“Don’t ask why. Ask where.”
“Expansion is freedom.”
“I need to live what I teach.”
“Listen to your body because it is speaking to you.”
CHAPTER MARKERS
00:00 Opening: Pain, the Body, and the Nervous System
Jen introduces the episode and invites listeners with joint pain, arthritis, or chronic pain to pay close attention to Jane’s story and the connection between pain and nervous-system calm.
01:34 Meet Jane Hogan, The Wellness Engineer
Jen introduces Jane’s work as a neuroscience-based mind-body educator, health coach, author, and wellness leader helping people release chronic pain and calm the nervous system.
03:14 Stress, Loss, and the Beginning of Pain
Jane shares how the sudden loss of her mother, estate responsibilities, family stress, and overwhelm left her nervous system in a heightened state before pain began spreading through her body.
05:30 The Voice That Changed Everything
At one of her lowest points, Jane hears a clear inner message telling her that this is not how her life will turn out, that she will figure it out, and that she will teach others.
09:00 Rheumatoid Arthritis & Healing From the Inside Out
Jane shares how she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and began exploring food, inflammation, gut health, and the deeper connection between stress and the immune system.
12:52 Reverse Engineering the Stress Response
Jane explains how her engineering mind helped her see the system: if stress helped turn the pain on, calming the stress response could help turn it off.
15:00 Why Pain Is Actually Protection
Jane explains how pain, illness, and protective behaviors can be connected to the nervous system’s attempt to keep us safe.
17:53 Healing Childhood Patterns & Calming the Nervous System
Jane shares how breathwork, yoga, Reiki, subconscious work, visualization, affirmations, and forgiveness helped her begin calming deeper protective patterns.
22:14 Don’t Ask Why. Ask Where.
Jane explains how she works with body sensations by noticing where tightness shows up, breathing into it, and moving the area instead of overthinking the cause.
25:00 Learning to Trust Your Body’s Wisdom
Jane shares how she creates calm touchpoints throughout the day so she can notice when she is shifting out of balance and return to regulation more quickly.
27:10 From Engineering to Mind-Body Healing
Jane explains how her healing journey led her to leave engineering, study functional medicine coaching, begin working with clients, build a community, and write her book.
31:00 Simple Practices to Access Your Intuition
Jane shares simple tools for listening to the body, including the body sway test, pendulum work, and finger testing.
37:30 Becoming the Calm Ripple the World Needs
Jane reflects on how her pain happened for her, not to her, and how becoming calm, loving, and compassionate creates a ripple effect in the world.
41:03 Where to Find Jane
Jane shares where listeners can connect with her, including her website, podcast, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook page, and book.
CONNECT WITH JANE HOGAN
• Website: TheWellnessEngineer.com
• Book: Pain Free on Purpose
• YouTube: The Wellness Engineer
• Instagram: @thewellnessengineer
• Facebook: Jane Hogan Health
If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs to hear that the transformation period is supposed to be hard — and that asking for help is not weakness. It’s the sign.
