The Hidden Reason You Can't Stop Overthinking, People-Pleasing And Overworking with Dr Nicole LePera #664

25:28Now, let me just clarify what I mean by that. Let's say you're stuck and you're lost and you have no motivation, you don't know where to turn. I reckon in the short term, a protocol actually might be helpful because it gives you some rigidity. It takes you out of the stuckness and gives you something to follow. But what I've seen in my clinical practice, Nicole, is that the people who heal in the long term, not just for a few weeks or months, at some point, the plan starts becoming my plan for them and it starts to become their plan, right? So they take the guidance that I may have given them but over time they've started to listen to themselves and figure out you know what actually yeah I think 70 % of that works well for me but that 30 % it's not the right approach to me I feel better when I do it this way I've always loved that and I think as you're saying I think that's one of the missing pieces when people are trying to make these changes they're latching on to the latest protocol from the latest influencer online that they follow and I as I say it can be helpful for a short time, but then at some point you got to start tuning into yourself and asking yourself, is this the right approach for me?

26:46Dr. Nicole LePera:Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. And I think some of us resist structure and protocols again, because of the learning that happened in childhood, where maybe we have, as I call it, an over-permissive parent where we had no boundaries, no limits. So now even the suggestion, right, that there's a protocol out there that could be helpful, right, feels restrictive, controlling. You're not going to tell me what to do. So I think in some scenarios, right, that particular person, right, could benefit from some level of structure in their life, kind of an internal motivation, learning how to do something even when we don't necessarily want to or where it feels controlling.

27:25Dr. Nicole LePera:Or because again, in childhood, without those limits, right? It does feel very restrictive to have someone tell me what to do. But my goal is always much like yours is not to, even though I do give someone of a structured framework of how to heal all of my intention with any of the exercises are not to just listen to me. All of those exercises are kind of redirecting your intention inward, right? You mentioned these overly permissive, I think was it an overly permissive parent? And I want to talk to you about this. It was the start of the book here in the section on emotionally immature parents.

28:03And you almost go through different archetypes of certain parents. And I never really come across that before. Can you talk to some of the common ones, like for example, the status orientated parent, if that was our parent, what does that mean for us?

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32:05Dr. Nicole LePera:So much like we've both been, I think, describing in our childhood, a status-oriented parent is a parent who is kind of more driven by performance, right? Presenting ourself in a particular way, sometimes even looking in a particular way. Can I just pause you there and a couple of a minute? Because I think it's a key point here. I just want to make sure we're keeping in mind, which is it could also have been our interpretation. Do you know what I mean? Certainly something I've found in my life is that, as I said before about my parents, is that I honestly feel my parents were fantastic, but I took on the belief that I was only loved when I achieved certain things.

32:44Do you see what I mean? There's a sort of difference, right?

32:45Dr. Nicole LePera:Right. And I think some of this is, again, going to the parents' ability too, and how they communicate, right, this unconditional love. And again, I think this goes back to imagining the circumstances. My parents as well, who came from an immigrant household, right? They did not learn how to, even though inside they felt that unconditional love driven again by societal factors, by the reality that there are certain aspects of achievement that afford most humans around the world, some level of security, financial, even kind of emotional security, relational security. That's real. So I think a lot of us are dealing with what you're beautifully describing, which is a mismatch between an inner desire and the outward presentation, which is, again, driven by the environment, by culture, by beliefs, by their own past and ancestors and ways that they've learned to communicate certain emotional feelings.

33:38Dr. Nicole LePera:But again, if that was the circumstances in childhood, which was very much, I know for a fact, much like you, I was wired both directly and indirectly. I would bring home the 96. I'd get asked why it wasn't 100. Snap, snap, snap. When I was not kind of doing well, as I did very clearly at softball, when I was, say, in dance class and I wasn't in the front of the line, right? My mom was a little less interested. She came to still my recitals, but it didn't light her up as much. So sometimes it's direct and other times it's this indirect messaging. But again, it came from a very well-intentioned place.

34:10Dr. Nicole LePera:They thought that academic achievement would result in successful college, successful financials, future. And it did. And it did. I mean, and there's also a little bit of status oriented in terms of appearance. My mom coming from a very traditional older generation where, right, women looked a particular traditional way, which secured them the marriage and the financial security again at a time where not many women had that on their own, right? There was all these versions of messaging that weren't inherent to who I was, but how I was presenting myself. All very well-intentioned. I do know both of my parents, my mother, who is also no longer here.

34:48Dr. Nicole LePera:She will have been at five years in May. Very well intentioned, right? I think the internal, unconditional love was there, but because they were functioning in a society, right? They were driven to teach me again through direct and indirect messaging that my worth only depended on how I was presenting myself in the world and more so how the world was reacting to my presentation. Yeah, it is beautifully put. And I guess if I think about my own parenting, I've always tried to make sure my children know that I love them irrespective of any achievement right it doesn't mean I don't want them to achieve or do well but I want them to know that my love for them is not dependent on that and you know at some point what gets this I was flicking through your Instagram at this morning and one of your recent posts was that all parents traumatize their children okay so we'll come back to that in in a short moment let's get back to these different parent archetypes, right?

35:48So you had started to describe the status orientated parent before I sort of, you know, briefly interrupted you. Let's go back to that. So what does the status orientated parent look like? And what does that do to us as children?

36:01Dr. Nicole LePera:So again, it's this focus on appearance, performance, right? Kind of a way of being in the world, even a hierarchical, right, idea of what is better or less than. A lot of times We might even hear that direct, indirect messages. We're compared to our siblings, our peers, again, where we are absorbing these messages. And then we are modifying the parts in which we show other people and then the parts in which we feel shameful, messy, imperfect, and we don't show. And that, again, drives our reactions in certain times where we become so hypersensitive to even any perceived criticism. Even if it's not criticism, it's helpful feedback, someone else's perspective.

36:41Dr. Nicole LePera:We take it personally, right? We kind of embody these identities around it. But I want to go back to what you're saying because you're sharing such wisdom when you're describing even your parenting, right? A lot of these habits we've developed. So for me, right, and I think you, this drive to succeed, if I'm honest, and I oftentimes people will say, what's the goal of all this? How do I know when I'm healed? Is it never doing that again? I can make a case that, at least for me personally, I don't want to lose my drive. I don't want to lose my passion. It helps me show up and make the impact that I want to make on the world.

37:15Dr. Nicole LePera:What I want to do is, just like you're beautifully teaching your kids, I want to feel worthy regardless of if I'm performing in a moment. I want to give myself the ability to rest, to say no if that's what I need, not to just overstep my boundaries and have to show up in a particular way because that's what's desired or required of me. So I think, and what I'm describing here is kind of where I build to in the book, which is this process of integration, where our past becomes a part of us. It doesn't drive us though anymore. So I'm expanding and I'm saying, right, discipline, passion, drive, motivation, all of that is important to me, but I don't have to be driven, so to speak, by those aspects of me to avoid shame and unworthiness as I had been for so long.

38:01Yeah, it's not the behavior, it's what's behind the behavior.

38:04Dr. Nicole LePera:So when you allow yourself choice, flexibility, right, the ability to say no, to rest in a moment, not to, again, have to feel like I have to hide the messy parts of myself to give myself the opportunity to make a mistake every now and again. That's how we learn. That's how we grow. To take in feedback from another person, even if it feels immediately like criticism. So I want to be able to do all of those things and choose which part or which action, right, I'm going to live from or respond to in the moment. Yeah. It's kind of interesting you mentioned criticism there, and that's come up a few times in this conversation.

38:38I used to be hypersensitive to criticism. Not that long ago, I would say, you know, relatively in the context of my life. It doesn't tend to bother me anymore. And my belief is that criticism only really bothers us to the extent that we believe it to be true. and I guess one of the things that I found really helpful was asking myself the question why does this comment bother you? Why? Oh you know this reminds me of what happened when I was at school, oh this reminds me of something mum said to me, whatever it might be and again going to that two-step path to healing, number one becoming aware and then moving to the second stage, which is make a different choice.

39:26Actually, you know what? I don't need to let that bother me. That's useful feedback for me that I can use to change my behavior going forward. Certainly, that's been my experience with getting better at dealing with criticism. Is this something you've ever struggled with? And if so, Nicole, how did you get through it?

39:47Dr. Nicole LePera:Oh, I mean, I've had my fear of criticism and feedback almost would have prevented me from posting online in the very early stages of this, I had a very real concern of what will people think, right? As I'm coming up with this new, not new, but like I'm integrating this holistic model and I want to start to speak of it, right? I was very clear and concerned about being misinterpreted, right? Being told by either colleagues in my field that I very much esteem that I was now talking about the body and nervous system and nutrition and who am I to talk about that? What role does that play? And so that almost prevented me from, as Lolly, my partner, was kind of urging me to go online from even wanting to.

40:27Dr. Nicole LePera:In the beginning stages, there was a lot of fear about what I would post. I would have always kind of a running therapist in my head, where I would run something in my head before I said it out loud and always worry, how will someone, this person, that type of person, take what I'm saying? And I wasn't really able to be in a full flow state when I was speaking or creating or delivering content in any way, because that fear was so real, right? And it's the fear of, right, not only being seen as less than perfect, not wording something, not talking to something that I'm allowed to be speaking to, but it's a fear that I think a lot of us humans share, which is being misinterpreted, right?

41:09Dr. Nicole LePera:Not being fully seen for my intention or for the desire that I'm creating or sending in the message itself. And that's a very core fear, right? Again, it's very socially driven. We, to some extent, shame and all of that restrictive behaviors where we don't want to speak or say something that we really mean to be true is driven by our need to be socially accepted. Again, originating in childhood, very much a social emotion. It keeps us operating within the bounds of society. And when we feel like we're being ostracized or being told that we are not a part of this group, it very much is a not only emotional pain, a physiological pain.

41:50How did you manage that though, Nicole? Because as I've already mentioned, if you look at your platforms today online, they are huge. Okay. You cannot post on Instagram without, I say, a minimum of 30 ,000 people, engaging with your posts and sometimes hundreds of thousands. It is inconceivable that every comment is going to be positive. You've already shared that you had a fear before you started posting. Now the reality is that you do post and have done for many years. How have you dealt with criticism and pushback?

42:30Dr. Nicole LePera:So to get me to a place now where I learn how to navigate feedback, I had to live the experience. I had to go and get all different types of criticism from all different types of people. And again, this is very nervous system, body driven, teach myself and in the embodiment that I will be okay, right? Teach myself through boundaries, right? Through knowing where I'm at in terms of my capacity when I'm not eating well, not sleeping well, overstressed for whatever reason is not the time to go into the places that I know, right? Are gonna have most likely the negative comments. But of course, sometimes I'm always surprised that when a piece of content goes up and sometimes I know when it's going to be a little bit more, you know, controversial and I'm like prepared for what could come back and feedback.

43:14Dr. Nicole LePera:And other times I'm completely blindsided because even in my community that has very aligned individuals, more or less, we are all subjective, right? We're all going to view and hear and consume a piece of content through everything that we've been talking about. Our past experiences, our beliefs. So you can never fully anticipate what's going to get criticism or not. And I am. So while I've learned how to live the experience, create boundaries, right, kind of take my own accountability when I'm putting myself in an environment or, you know, in something stressful when I don't have the limits to do it, that by no means means to turn off, right, access to feedback.

43:52Dr. Nicole LePera:because that's how I've been able to learn from my community, hear what's important, hear ways to word certain topics in a way that to my best intention will land and not just kind of create resistance in the audience. Though I also understand that that's an unrealistic expectation to have the idea that everything or that my work is going to be everything for everyone. So between the practical applications of boundaries, really understanding myself and my limits, but also So making sure that I'm getting comfortable, right, with entrusted communities, my team, my personal life, that I still allow myself to practice hearing the harder versions of feedback and to teach my body that while it might feel, you know, kind of end of life in that moment and my body goes into a nervous system reaction, that I can teach myself that I'm okay.

44:43Dr. Nicole LePera:I can get through it. I can regulate my body. These connections will still maintain. The community will still be there. And it's just been quite literally living that experience over the past however many years it's been. Though, again, there are still moments where, you know, I have to hold myself accountable and know when I'm at my limit and, you know, know where to go for feedback that can feel more helpful than just kind of really tearing down. Yeah. It reminds me of something you say towards the end of the book that healing is nonlinear. There is no finish line to cross, which I think is absolutely beautiful and a very important message for us all to sit with.

45:19But you can apply that to what I've just said about criticism or what you've just said, which is we can do the work. We can get to a really good place. And then sometimes we might fall into old patterns. And I think as you just mentioned yourself, and certainly for me, if I find myself starting to take criticism personally, it's a reminder now to go, oh, what's going on in your life? Oh, maybe you're working too hard. Maybe you've had a few sleep deprived nights. Maybe you need to rest a little bit more. It's a signal that basically I'm taking on too much. So in many ways, it's a beautiful signal.

45:59It's like, oh, criticism is always going to be out there. I think for all of us as human beings, especially if you're doing something where you are putting your voice out there, it is naive to think you're not going to get criticism of some sort. The question is, how much are you going to let that criticism bother you and affect you? And can you use that criticism as a teaching moment? You do write in the book a little bit about triggers. And I'd love you to explain, you know, what is a trigger the way you see things?

46:29Dr. Nicole LePera:This is beyond just criticism, right? Yeah. Moments of dysregulation are, I will always, our triggers can be our teachers, right? Those indicate that something deeper is happening. And on a physiological level, what is happening in our body when we are triggered and having that disproportionate response, whether it's the outward one where we're screaming and yelling and doing things we don't mean, or the inward one where we're disconnecting, kind of shutting down, going numb. It's something we are being flooded, right? With emotion, with nervous system dysregulation. We're seeing threat or old experience in the present moment.

47:04Dr. Nicole LePera:So I always like to explain that because I think those are the most shameful moments where once our body calms down, we have a new perspective. We're like, why did I say or do that thing that I didn't necessarily mean or didn't align? And the why, again, is all driven by our body, by the chemicals, the hormones, the dysregulation in our nervous system that is taking over and shifting us from the grounded, logical, the responsive, how we want to show up and instead dropping us right back into all these instincts that we have been talking about. Yeah. Sometimes if you think about how much our childhoods affect us in our adult bodies, it's amazing that anyone gets on.

47:46Really, because we don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. Right? And often this is really brought home to us when we get involved in an intimate relationship, right? Because then you often have two unhealed inner child who then come together because they're in love and they might choose to get married. And then suddenly you realize, oh, many aspects of our personalities are just children, right? We haven't tended to that inner child that perhaps needed certain things that he or she didn't get when they were younger, right? So it does make us think about how much of the division in the world is driven by dysregulated nervous systems.

48:35Dr. Nicole LePera:As far as I'm concerned, I think all of it, right, because when we are in survival mode, right, which when our nervous system is activated, however, kind of that looks to you, the fight, the flee, the shutdown response, right, through all those behavioral adaptations, what is quite literally happening in our body is our focus is narrowing to ourself, right? This idea of a lot of talk is happening now, let me put it that way, around this concept of narcissism, this self-focus. I believe that it exists quite literally on a spectrum. And the more activated and dysregulated we are, the more we are fighting for our survival in terms of our nervous system, the more unable we are to see or care about another's perspective, wants, needs, emotions in any given situation, even if it's our closest loved one, even if it's our child, the person that we want to be there to support in a different way.

49:26Dr. Nicole LePera:everything is narrowing. Our literally eyes turn inward. We get very black and white in the way that we think. I'm right, you're wrong. We can be very combative. And that's when we can act, in my opinion, at least very hurtful to other people. I think that driving division, conflict, war, right? Everything in between where we feel like we have to fight someone else because that is what our nervous system is doing. It's not seeing you as a separate, unique individual that's worthy and deserving of love. Even if I disagree, I lose the ability in my body to care, to expand to a different perspective, to take in feedback, to do everything that I think we are inherently able to do as compassionate social creatures.

50:10Dr. Nicole LePera:We become driven to survive in the moment at all costs. Yeah. In the book, you make the case that constant busyness, which is something that many people struggle with, is a sign of a dysregulated nervous system and can be thought of as a survival strategy. Can you explain? So keeping ourself busy, right? And like on a surface sense of things, it keeps our attention somewhere. It keeps us moving in action. If we look beneath the surface at what that behavior is doing, it's keeping our attention outward, not inward on us, right? It's keeping us moving. For a lot of us who never had safety and security, the ability to just, as I kind of intro the book, just be in childhood, rest, feel at ease, right?

50:58Dr. Nicole LePera:Stillness, solitude. I mean, there was a time where I lived in the busiest city in the world, New York City. I thought I would live and die in a city where there was constant noise, constant stimulation. While I loved snowboarding, I would go to the mountains and snowboard. I had to have a television on at night because the sound of solitude, of silence, of not having all of my days planned, whether it was with things I wanted to achieve or even plans with friends. The minute my body was needing or had to or had the opportunity to stop, what was I met with? The agitation, the overwhelming sensations that busyness was protecting me from.

51:34Dr. Nicole LePera:So I think busyness becomes an outward manifestation of a kind of dysregulated nervous system, the energy inside that's being translated to attentional focus outside and to doing. Again, because we didn't learn, It didn't feel safe to stop, not to do. We didn't feel enough maybe when we were, some of us even got very direct messaging on to avoid, right, sitting, it's lazy, it's this, it's that. And so we don't have that, whether it was kind of very direct in that matter or indirect because in stillness meant waiting for the next explosion. Or maybe in your childhood, there was never a moment of quiet.

52:11Dr. Nicole LePera:There was always yelling, unpredictability. So now your nervous system registers peace. ease as so unfamiliar, right, that it's to be avoided because it's going back to that moment where it wasn't safe or it wasn't possible even. Yeah. You write about this, right? At the start of your book, don't you? How in your childhoods, you were always kept busy. You were always scheduled, right? So the question that for me is, was there already an existing dysregulated nervous system that was managed through scheduling you? Or was it that the overscheduling of your childhood has resulted in you not knowing how to be stale?

52:57Dr. Nicole LePera:I think that I, like many of us, I was born with a dysregulated nervous system. Again, what we're talking about when I bring up even ancestors is epigenetics, right? The passing on, not necessarily of our DNA changing, but how our DNA is functioning. And so I think that the large majority of us who came from, right, insecure ancestral experiences, whether they were displaced by war, immigrated to a new country, there was abuse in the relational family and the kind of societal experience, we now know that, right, development begins in utero. That's when our brain begins to form. And so all of us who come from those families or even just those immediate environments where we have to think about what was happening in my mother's life as she was carrying me, how much stress was in the home, how much cortisol, right, was crossing the placenta.

53:46Dr. Nicole LePera:And so I have an idea of all of the stress that was in my home that came from my ancestors that was even around my pregnancy. So when my mom died, I was at my mother's funeral and one of my aunts came up to me and shared with me laughing a story of, so I was unplanned. I was, my mom was 42 when I was born and my dad was 45 and I had an older sister who was 15 and a brother who was 18. There was no plans to have a pregnancy that late in life. And so when my mom started to have symptoms of morning sickness, she disclosed to this aunt that she was very close with a concern that she had stomach cancer.

54:19Dr. Nicole LePera:Very, you know, on brand for my family because we had a lot of health-related issues. My older sister included, had, or especially I should say my mom with chronic illness, but my sister with a lot of acute illnesses in her early childhood. So she would have never, right, thought, oh, this is pregnancy symptoms. she immediately went to stomach cancer. Long story short, she went to the doctor and was diagnosed with pregnancy with me, right? But I think about those early weeks or however long it took my mom to get the diagnosis of pregnancy and how much cortisol and fear and worry of that I was stomach cancer was impacting my development.

54:52Dr. Nicole LePera:So again, whether it was acute in my family, but for me, it goes back ancestors of, you know, a family who just had a lot of insecurity in a lot of ways. Studies will now show that there are children, many of us who are born with hypersensitive amygdalas, limbic systems, nervous systems, where we are experiencing, seeing and experiencing stress where perhaps there isn't and having an overreaction to it. So as I intro the book, right, that from the moment I was born, I was quote unquote bouncing off the walls, right? All of this overwhelming energy without a calm environment. I lived in a city.

55:29Dr. Nicole LePera:In addition to having stuff inside the home, there was noises outside the home. There was sirens. There was crime that was a very real risk, so much so that when I went to high school, some of my friends from the suburbs weren't allowed to come to my home. So all of this stress in my environment was manifesting in, as in childhood, were just emotion, were just movement. So I started to bounce off the walls, and my family, I think from a very well-intentioned manner, were trying to help me direct my energy. We're trying to help themselves deal with me and all of my energy. And again, were setting me up to succeed.

56:02Dr. Nicole LePera:If they could find the thing I was good at and invest in the thing I was good at, academics, ultimately, and athletics, right, then I would have the success in life. But this is the case for a lot of us where development, ancestral epigenetic changes. And this is why for a long time when I would learn in the field that, well, wait a minute, brains look different. So is it nature or nurture? And now epigenetics really marries the two. It says, yes, brains are going to be functioning and wired differently. for some of us from in utero development, again, because these early adaptations to stress will change the way our brain functions.

56:37Dr. Nicole LePera:Because at one time when there was stress everywhere, it benefits us to be wired and prepare for stress around every corner. And it of course can be changed because we can rewire ourself at any age. But to simply answer your question, I think I was born with that hypersensitive nervous system. Some of us call us highly sensitive kids. I think that's, again, this dysregulation that both of us are describing. Along that line of thought then, it's not only that it's our childhoods that are affecting our adult behaviors, it's our ancestors' lives. What were the adaptations they needed to survive in the environment in which they used to live?

57:18I guess food would be an obvious thing, right? I think you write about this in the book, right? So explain how food helps us see this through a different lens.

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1:00:39Dr. Nicole LePera:so we just make this a bit more concrete even so women are born with all of the eggs that they will ever have so the egg that developed like all of us as humans or went into our development was actually created in the womb of our grandmother right as our mother was in her own gestation period so to make this concrete for people like quite literally a part of us was living back then. So that is, again, impacting our environment. And from a very evolutionary standpoint. That's mad, isn't it? That's crazy. And also, too, to make it clear, sperm also very much plays a role where men and the health and their lifestyle choices and the sperm that would eventually go to create you, right, does begin the impact, I should say, begins before conception.

1:01:23Dr. Nicole LePera:So to be clear, both genders, right, everyone is playing a role. But again, women and the fact that their eggs are kind of, that's it. And that begins so early. And again, from a very evolutionary standpoint, it makes total sense, right? If we were born in the same village where more or less circumstances did say the same, why wouldn't that be beneficial? And so what I cite is a very fascinating study. It's called the Dutch Hunger Study. And so they investigated during the Netherlands several years ago, decades ago, there was a very severe famine. And so much so that there was like, no food was available.

1:01:54Dr. Nicole LePera:And if it was, it had very limited nutritional content. And what they found was that women who were pregnant during this time, when, of course, they, you know, kind of their ability, they, I'm going to really simplify this. Their body changed in terms of the way they utilized energy, held on to fat, not being sure of when the next meal would come made complete sense that their body did that. What they then saw in the children that were born to these women was the same sort of changes where their body, the way it used energy, the way it held on to fat. And then over time, if there was no intervention, they would begin to evidence some physical diseases, high blood pressure, cancer, a million different other things that would kind of be then the impact of very beautiful changes.

1:02:38Dr. Nicole LePera:Because if food is unpredictable, scarce, absent at all, these changes helped that person survive. And then they're carried on for generations, assuming that that child is born, the offspring is born to the same environment. Of course, now things have changed. We have airplanes. We fly to different geographical locations, right? Society changes very quickly where scarcity in one generation can change to another. Yet we are still operating from a body that is wired for that early environment. Just to kind of bring the hope into that study, they then found that the offspring who, right, had access to nutrition, who had healthier lifestyles, were able to change kind of the way their bodies, the epigenetics of the way their own system functioned.

1:03:21Dr. Nicole LePera:that if they were to then have children, they would almost reverse in a very simple way the changes that had happened to prepare them to survive. But again, all of this is grounded in very beautiful adaptations, what was needed. Our lives have changed. And this is why a lot of us are carrying wired into us even now, right? Some of us hold onto fat differently. We process things differently, or we have these unspoken traumas where we're not living in a world of scarcity, but yet we're still wired to see lack instead of the abundance that perhaps is available, whether it's physical stuff, money, or emotional scarcity.

1:03:54Dr. Nicole LePera:Again, because this began generations before us when that was the lived experience. Yeah. And that's the opportunity, isn't it? For all of us. Like if we are able to go in and heal, it doesn't just impact us. It also has a potential to impact future generations. It works both ways. And it's, you know, I think one of the things that many of us feel these days is with all the awareness that exists out there about trauma and inner child work and the sort of things you're sharing and other people around the world are sharing. It really does give me hope that there's an opportunity that this generation can start to heal.

1:04:38And if this generation can start to heal, it heals the wounds of the past and it perhaps reduces many of the wounds for the future.

1:04:49Dr. Nicole LePera:I couldn't agree more. I think even for those of us like myself who might not choose to have offspring, I mean, the work that we're doing, and this could sound lofty to some people, is we're beginning a new way of being in our current society. Again, like I said, I truly believe that division, right? Kind of the hurt people, hurt people saying, I believe that to be true. So as we are creating safety, security, healthier relationships, even if we don't choose to pass on the epigenetics, which is completely possible. I mean, this word cycle breakers is very real. We are breaking not only behavioral cycles, but physiological cycles of dysregulation and gifting that then to our offspring, our future generations.

1:05:28Dr. Nicole LePera:But again, even if we choose not to have them, we're changing the world around us. And I think we're living at a time where a lot of us are feeling very helpless. We're now met and have accessibility to all of the suffering from around the world. And I think humans instinctually, right, wanna help, wanna know how to help people and relieve the suffering. And I believe at least this is how we do that. We change the way we're functioning. We create safety and security in our interpersonal relationships, in our communities, wherever they might be. And then we're literally changing the signals that our nervous system is sending to the world around us.

1:06:02Dr. Nicole LePera:And I always think about my community self-healer circle and we have this really cool feature and it's much like a Google map, but it's a private one and members can drop the pin and geographical location so they can connect with each other. And sometimes I go in there and I have chills. I just see from around the world, all these little pins. And I think about, wow, all of these signals are beginning to shift from dysregulation, from fear, from division to safety, security, acceptance, compassion. And I have hope even at a hopeless time. So I really like to speak to empowerment, not only to change ourselves, again, to change our future generations, but to change now what is happening in the world.

1:06:39Yeah. I love that. You know, I've almost seen change as something that we do one person at a time in the sense that you start changing who you are and how you show up. Well, everyone who you interact with starts to experience that. And again, it's not to have guilt or shame around it. It's just to remind ourselves that actually the way we show up matters. And if you don't like what's going on in the world, you want to change the world, call me naive, but I feel the best way you change the world is to start by changing yourself.

1:07:14Dr. Nicole LePera:I couldn't agree more. And I think it's very common, right? And a lot of us is we're struggling, say, in relationships, a theme throughout this conversation. It's so natural, right? To see the problem someone else is causing. Well, if you just showed up differently or did a little of this, more of that, right? Then I'll just feel differently. And of course, that's natural to have that instinct of you change, not me. And again, I think one of the most difficult realities of life, aside from dealing with the uncertainty of all of it is the lack of control. We can't. We can desperately want and wish someone to be different and to have a different experience with them in relationship, whatever the relationship might be, but it's not going to be demanding, giving them an ultimatum.

1:07:52Dr. Nicole LePera:Oftentimes I see the word boundaries as misused in my opinion to be more of a delivery of a boundary or an ultimatum or a consequence instead of saying exactly what we're agreeing. No, no, you keep being you. I'm going to change the way I'm showing up. I'm going to create a boundary or a limit perhaps where there once wasn't one. I'm going to give myself the opportunity to embody safety, security, openness. And that is then more indirectly the way we create change. But I wanna just say something really quickly about passion and purpose too. Because I do think, especially when people see like you and me, they set this expectation that I can't be impactful.

1:08:27Dr. Nicole LePera:We had this idea, I think at least, that purpose needs to be huge at scale. And that if we don't have something that's more public, like you or I have created for ourself, because this has been our journey, that we are not making the impact that you were beautifully describing. So I just wanted to get a little disclaimer in there or re kind of imagining of what purpose can be, because purpose looks like whatever is kind of driving us from inside, our unique gifts, our talents. For a lot of us, it is kind of existing only in our, you know, our smaller relational circles, but it doesn't mean that's only the impact because again, that goes so much beyond ourselves.

1:09:04Yeah. I sometimes wonder about all the people out there, the many millions who are making huge impact that we've never heard of. Because these are the people who've got their priorities right, who don't feel the need to constantly be busy or overachieve. They do prioritize time with their friends and their family. They're not posting online because they're enjoying their lives, right? And they're impacting their communities. And there'll be millions of people around the world who actually do do that, yet we don't see them. Therefore, we don't celebrate them and we don't think it's real. But of course it is real.

1:09:42And I would say I've met people like that. I go, wow, you just got it. Maybe you were lucky. Maybe you had the right parenting, whatever it might be, but you're living it. You're living the life that many people want, but no one knows about it. I think that's a really beautiful thing. Nicole, can we just go about the parental archetypes for a moment, right? We've mentioned two so far, the over-permissive parent and the status-orientated parent. The critical parent, I imagine, is one that many people might resonate with.

1:10:13Dr. Nicole LePera:Yeah. So the critical parent is a parent who, as the word says, criticizes, shames, right? Kind of does not allow acceptance and self-expression, whatever the parameters may be. Some of us are even criticized for sharing emotions, right? Again, emotions being a newer landscape for people, some of the criticism comes around, you're too dramatic, right? You're not enough. You're not doing the way I need you to, or I desire you to show up and do. And again, this voice that often becomes the critical voice in our mind is informed, colored, influenced by those early voices, those voices of criticism, of shame.

1:10:53Dr. Nicole LePera:And again, often it comes from perhaps a very well-intentioned reason with, right? There's a reason certain aspects were being criticize, to keep a longing for status in the community, whatever it might be. But whenever we are told directly or indirectly that we are part of us is shameful, is not enough, right? We are going to then adapt. We're going to show less of that side. We're going to have a very loud internal critical voice. Some of us might stop showing up at all, right? Because it's too unsafe we've learned to be seen in any way. If every way that we were in childhood was met with criticism that then we shrink ourself we don't share us our embodiment our perspective our ideas because again we're always anticipating that criticism yeah i mean you write beautifully in this section here chronic criticism sends the message that the child is inherently flawed over time children internalize this harsh lens and grow with self-doubt and a powerful inner critic that mirrors their parents' voice.

1:11:55As adults, they may fear failure, overachieve in pursuits of approval or avoid taking risks altogether. There's a lot of crossover, isn't there? Between the different parental styles. Some of the traits I feel are quite similar. Would you agree with that?

1:12:13Dr. Nicole LePera:There's a lot of, and a lot of times when I, I'm always of two minds when I give archetypes in this way because I don't ever want people to feel like, oh, I have to find the one parent that I had. I think, again, we're very complex creatures. There's similarities and differences in each. I think it's really helpful, actually, because, you know, having, I think you've got eight or nine in the book, right? Someone may not identify with the term the status-orientated parent, but they might identify with the term the critical parent, even though there may be a bit of crossover. So I think it's quite nice the way you've done that.

1:12:51on the subject of criticism then i imagine there's a lot of parents thinking okay but of course one of my jobs as a parent is to help my child be the best they can be so if they haven't done something as well as they could have done that thing what am i meant to do as a parent i don't want to come across as critical but i want to help my child get better are you able to give any guidance to that parent as to how they could have that conversation?

1:13:22Dr. Nicole LePera:Yeah I think this intention comes up a lot in the parenting styles whether it's kind of using criticism to corral or kind of modify behavior using strict boundaries and limits perhaps in another kind of parent to kind of contain behavior all with this idea of right I want you to be the best I want you to be accepted I want society and your relationships and your perhaps financial security to be intact for you in the future. And so this idea of how to, really the way we shape behavior and to just focus it on this kind of idea of criticism, effort, right? What are we criticizing? Are we criticizing the outcome or are we able to see and separate outcome for effort, right?

1:14:07Dr. Nicole LePera:So we might want someone and want a child to operate in a certain way. Of course, when we're investigating why it is and how it relates to how we feel about ourselves or what society thinks of us and unpacking all of that. But again, it's effort, right? Because outcome and effort are two separate things, in my opinion, right? We could have a child who tries very hard and just for whatever reason is not able to succeed in whatever way or show up, translate that effort into the outcome that we want. So if we're able to say, right, I want what's best for you at the same time, though, I want you to honor yourself, be true to who you are, maybe just put in a good effort, even if the outcome doesn't translate to what, because usually we're criticizing outcome instead of the effort that underlies it.

1:14:52Yeah. One thing I found helpful over the years is to ask my kids what they think. So it would be, you know, do you think you did your best there? You know, because they often know, right? You ask them and then it doesn't become me telling them. It's like, yeah, you know what, actually, I think if I'd done this slightly differently, it would have been better. If I'm completely honest, Nicole, I feel I've done a lot of inner child work over the years to help me understand my present and then change my present through deliberate, aware choices. I would say one of the biggest drives for me to do so was to be a better parent.

1:15:38I didn't want my children to take on the patterns or some of the patterns that I took on. And so I've certainly done everything I have been aware of at least and within my capabilities to try and prevent that from happening. Now, what will the end result be? That I can't tell you, but that's certainly been one of my big drives.

1:16:00Dr. Nicole LePera:I just want to quickly talk about effort and then respond to this because separating effort as you're doing, right? Did you try your best regardless of the outcome? Because something I had learned, and this goes back to this kind of fear of failing. if and when. So in childhood, it was very clear to me very early that there were some things that quote unquote came naturally to me, right? Academics, some versions of athletics, I was just simply good at. And so I confused for a long time, right? That as needing to be my guidepost, meaning I would avoid for a very long time things that were hard.

1:16:34Dr. Nicole LePera:Even if I wanted to do them, if I had to try hard at something, I immediately would tell myself that, oh, this wasn't for me. It's not what I'm good at. I should avoid this thing. And so until I learned that effort is something that is important to be able to contain, maintain, give effort to something without aside from the outcome, right? I probably would have allowed myself to pursue things from a very young age that might've been of more interest to me in adulthood, but I avoided them because they didn't come easily. I wasn't used to being seen and acknowledge and I did not have effort validated because, and I was told a running thing in my family is, oh, things just come easy to you, Nicole.

1:17:18Dr. Nicole LePera:So I developed this false belief that if something didn't come easy, that effort was something on some extent to be avoided. And so I want to get to the parenting though, because I think we've been kind of weaving around this for a long time, which is like a lot of parents do listen. And I really want to celebrate parents who are listening. And I don't want ever parents to be heard or any of my work to be heard or taken from a shaming manner. And I also want parents to hear that it is unrealistic, as you kind of brought up that post, that you be a perfect parent. And a lot of parents that are meeting this work are doing so when the children are, you know, already grown or at a certain level of development where the fear then is, well, have I already messed them up?

1:17:57Dr. Nicole LePera:Is there any kind of undoing this? Or do I just have to live with shame and maybe hear from my children later of how terrible I was? And so what I want to make sure I'm putting into words during this conversation is that moments of disconnection, not meeting an expectation, not meeting a child's need or a partner's need into adulthood is part of the human experience. And so interpersonal research has now shown that conflict, so to speak, disagreement, disconnection, unmet needs are a natural part of a relational experience of being human. And they're actually, not only is it unrealistic to imagine that that never be a part of our relational journey with our children included, But that actually the presence of conflict or disagreement or unmet needs, often which conflict and disagreement stem from, isn't an indicator of the health or the security of a relationship.

1:18:46Dr. Nicole LePera:What is, is the ability to have a different awareness, make space for a different perspective, take accountability and repair on the other side of it. So I want parents to hear this in direct words, which is it's never too late. It is so valuable at any time in life to create space to hear maybe difficult feedback from your child. Maybe it's not exactly as how you remembered it to be, but perhaps your child is going to share an experience that might be upsetting and what is so important or these moments unavoidable. You might have an overreaction, whether it's with your child or your partner. More important is what happens next.

1:19:23Dr. Nicole LePera:Can I calm down? Can I have to first calm my body down to be able to expand to hear someone else's perspective, to hear the difficult feedback or the fact that there is a need that has gone unmet for however long it's been that you've been in this relationship with this person. But can I be calm enough to allow that in? Can I take accountability? Can I perhaps say, I'm sorry? And again, that and when many of us were not modeled that in childhood. So this is a skill we need to learn, Again, all grounded in the body, but those are the moments that are going to predict the future security of the relationship.

1:19:57As you were talking there, Nicole, I think I had, at least for me, a penny dropping moment, which is we know individually that it is hard experiences, difficult experiences in life where we grow the most, where we learn the most about ourselves, right? If, for example, on an individual level, our life was all plain sailing and nothing ever went wrong, we wouldn't develop or cultivate so many of those important skills that we do through grief, through relationship problems, through work issues, whatever it might be. They're all opportunities to grow and learn. in relationships, if there's never any conflict, if there's never any struggle, then of course, how is that relationship going to be shaped?

1:20:46Maybe, as you're saying, we need a bit of conflict, a bit of struggle now and again. Maybe that's what helps kind of refine the relationship and sort of tender, kind of loose parts of the sides and really forge down as to what is the core of this relationship, maybe conflict's a good thing if it's managed in the right way.

1:21:09Dr. Nicole LePera:100%. I mean, if and when, and I get oftentimes, I used to do a lot of couples work when I was in individual practice. And it could be to some extent a bit concerning, right? If you are of, or maybe existing in a relationship where we always agree, there's never any conflict, right? You're different people. What do you mean? Every single moment of every day, right? You are in total agreement with perspective, with want, need, desire, emotion, even what you want to have for dinner, right? Again, I operated for a very long time in that conflict-free model, not because I was in perfect alignment, but because I wasn't either connected to what it was that I wanted or needed or how I felt or even what I wanted for dinner.

1:21:48Dr. Nicole LePera:Or if I had an idea, I would overstep myself to try and please and please the people around me. Because, again, that's how I gained safety in childhood, right? Attuning myself to how I needed to be to avoid for my mom. It wasn't outward explosion of emotion. It was more disconnection. And to avoid disconnection, which, again, in childhood is threatening to my survival, physiological and emotional. I became, and out of the three siblings, my brother and my sister would joke because I was the golden child, as it was called. Not because necessarily I was in full agreement, but because I acted like it.

1:22:27I smiled.

1:22:28Dr. Nicole LePera:I said, whatever you think, mom. I never voiced my opinion because I learned through my mom, not necessarily, again, with explosive behavior, but with a look, with a removal of attention or warmness or connection or love. I learned very quickly that to maintain that connection, I carried this into my adulthood to be seemingly conflict free, only to understand that I wasn't in perfect alignment with the world around me. I was too afraid or disconnected from my actual perspective, want, need, or emotion at any given moment to feel safe enough to communicate that. Yeah. It's so fascinating to hear and for you to share your own personal experiences, because I think sometimes there might be a tendency for people to think oh you know nicole's got all these followers she's written all these books she's got it all sorted and as you often openly share you know it's a constant process as we said before you know healing is non-linear there's no end point it's part of what it is to be a human being at least it's part of what it means to be a conscious aware human being who's trying to make progress and you know trying to stop these cycles that maybe have been perpetuated for for good reason through generations we could spend so long nicole talking about childhoods and all the different patterns i would like us to talk about some practical things now if possible in terms of what we can actually do so healing is a two-step process number one you've got to become aware hopefully throughout the conversation so far people have started to become aware of elements of their childhoods and how it's impacting them as adults now let's move on to what they can actually do and how they can make different choices there's a whole selection in the book there are just so many do you have a favorite one that you feel you'd like to share at this point in the conversation i want to even just bring awareness into beyond awareness that you're gaining from a podcast or in a therapist office or in a good conversation with a loved one, I want to bring awareness into the lived embodiment in real time.

1:24:36Dr. Nicole LePera:And what I mean when I say that is learning how to, as we're going about our day and the most foundational tool that I'm always kind of citing going back to, whether you're in my membership or my books is in real time awareness, meaning, and we are all helped by the phone that we carry around that we can send an alarm on or the post-it note near our desk at work, or even the habit that already exists in our life. The fact that many of us brush our teeth at least once a day or have a drink of coffee, whatever it is. And so awareness is a lived embodied experience, right? Not just the awareness that we're talking about, oh, I see my patterns, but inaction in real time, rebuilding that connection with my body.

1:25:12Dr. Nicole LePera:So when that alarm goes off, when that, you know, we walk past the post-it note or we're at that kind of habit time where we want to stack another habit onto, awareness exists in the ability to refocus our attention, not on our to-do list, not on the million needs that maybe our child has in front of us, but on us and our body. And it's as simple as I call it a conscious check-in where we shift the focus, right? And we begin to explore how my body is feeling in this moment. And I like to cite kind of three anchors for where we can shift our awareness to, because these happen to be three physiological systems that shift and change as our body increases in stress.

1:25:51Dr. Nicole LePera:And so they are the tension in our muscles, right? Even just shifting our focus and noticing. A lot of us, until someone suggests that we do so, are not aware that we're clenching our jaw, that our shoulders are up to our ears, that we're bracing around our midsection. All of that tension, or on the other side of it, the numbness, the fact that I can't even feel the fact that I'm in a body that's surrounded by muscles, usually both of those are markers of how stressed my body has become. Because as we become stressed, naturally energy builds, our muscles become tense so we can fight or flee the situation at hand.

1:26:24Dr. Nicole LePera:the more chronic that stress is or overwhelming, the more some of us then drop to that kind of playing dead end of the spectrum like animals do. We become numb. We can't even feel any energy in our muscles to get off the couch, even if we wanted to. We call it procrastination, lack of motivation. But again, it's our nervous system telling us that we're in a stress state. So our muscles, a great place to refocus that attention, maybe even just doing a quick scan of your body right now as you're listening and noticing kind of what end of that spectrum you're on. Or do you You feel yourself. Oh, I'm being held nicely.

1:26:56Dr. Nicole LePera:I'm at ease. I'm able to get up if I wanted to, but I don't feel so agitated that I have to get up and do something. Our breath is also a great marker of something we could shift our focus of attention to because our body is always breathing. Sometimes our breathing shifts and sometimes what we will notice is a stressed state of breathing where it's really quick and shallow, indicating we're in that kind of sympathetic, energized state. Some of us are holding our breath. Even I often drop into my body and notice, oh, I've been holding my breath for a while. All of this bracing is shifting my breathing into a stress state.

1:27:30Dr. Nicole LePera:And then those systems, the more stress we become, impact our heart rate. So this consciousness and awareness that I'm talking about actually, in my opinion, has to come off of the insightful podcast moment or the moment in therapy where I can talk about my pattern. It has to be a lived experience. because if in those moments I noticed that my body is stressed, then I could start to ask and explore and get curious if I don't yet know the answer. What does my body need, right? If I'm tense, can I relax a bit and create more ease in my muscles? If I'm holding my breath, right, can I begin to release that restriction and allow my body to breathe?

1:28:08Dr. Nicole LePera:Or if it's so quick, can I slow it down? Because now we're living the experience of awareness. We can then drop into our mind, right? What am I interpreting? What meaning am I making of the situation that's creating the impact emotionally in my body? And now we start to build choice with a regulated body. We can now begin to choose to show up in a way that kind of breaks those habits. Because again, the first step is awareness so that I can break the habitual reaction and then create the new opportunity by saying, what is it that I need? Getting curious because I think a lot of us, again, have the expectation that I just know what I need.

1:28:46Dr. Nicole LePera:If you've never practiced, though, connecting with your body, you might not exactly know what feels good and supportive to you when you're angry, sad. You might not even have those words in the moment and you're just connecting with the heaviness, the agitation, and then helping yourself first be in presence with those sensations and then helping your body to process them. That was beautiful. And so many things came up for me as you were talking. Firstly, this idea that awareness has multiple levels. It's not just awareness in your mind. oh I understand now how mum and dad doing this for me when I was a kid has affected me in adulthood that's great but that's awareness with the mind now you're saying there's also awareness with the body and even as you were just describing it I let my belly go out and felt oh maybe for the last hour when Nicole I've been holding on to Tynos without realizing it right so that allowed me to soften.

1:29:46It also reminded me of when we were talking about constant busyness as a survival strategy. I've had that so many people now are chronically, constantly busy, and therefore are completely disconnected from their bodies. They're all stuck in their mind. This task, that task, I've got to do that. I've got to check the WhatsApp. I've got five minutes to myself. But instead of being with myself, I'm going to go on Instagram. I'm going to go somewhere else. So constant distraction from our bodies. The other thought I had, Nicole, was how many of the times we read an email and interpret it as a criticism or as a reflection of who you are as a human, but actually maybe that email was never that.

1:30:30Maybe it was just the fact that everything in your body was tight because you've been accumulating stress since the morning. You've not had a break. Perhaps, you know, you've got experience of this with clients and people in your online community. But let's say you had a timer that went off once an hour or once every two hours and it was just a little gentle. Maybe it was not an aggressive harsh tone, but really a warming and maybe like a meditation bell to remind you to go, oh, what if for the next minute, I just take a few deep breaths and just pay attention to how I'm feeling. I mean, I imagine if someone did that three times in the morning, three times in an afternoon, they'd still get the same amount of work done and they'd be so much more present and dare I say it more productive as they are doing it.

1:31:19Dr. Nicole LePera:100%. And that's kind of the foundation of change and acknowledging that a minute will be a very long time for a lot of us that aren't used to just being with ourself. And if we have a lot of dysregulation, if our whole life has been busyness and we're avoiding kind of what's inside of us. It doesn't even have to be, I think a lot of times when we think about this like moment of awareness, consciousness, meditation, a lot of us call it. I do think we have this idea that it has to be in silence, right? When that alarm goes off, I have to shut everything off. I have to close my eyes. I have to sit here and I have to be comfortable and my thoughts have to be calm.

1:31:56Dr. Nicole LePera:A lot of us, again, we have so much dysregulation in our body. We're not practiced at doing that. That is an absolute nightmare. It's actually not a safe place for us to be, again, if we're carrying a lot of dysregulation in our body. So I make the suggestion that we don't even have to be taking this moment in silence, right? Take the moment of just being in your body when you're drinking a cup of tea, right? And have that be just the process of sitting there, feeling the warmth in your hands, right? Drinking tea. And I'm using this kind of, when I began, I was so dysregulated, again, so not used to silence.

1:32:30Dr. Nicole LePera:There There was no safety and stillness for me that the most approachable, accessible place that I was able to be in presence with myself was in nature. So I would take myself, not put on, even though thank you for listening to this podcast, not put on a podcast, like not walk with like sound, but just take myself on. I happen to now live very gratefully, thankfully, on a lake. So for me, right, when I'm in the natural world, and it's not that I'm closing my eyes and I'm turning out stimulation and I'm now with all of the overwhelming thoughts in my mind. because that's, again, what happens when our body is stressed.

1:33:02Dr. Nicole LePera:I'm giving myself somewhere to focus, right? I'm looking at the water, you know, I'm hearing the sound in the trees, right? That's another place that kind of can be a foundation for a lot of us to begin this practice of presence and awareness. Because again, if we had this expectation that we turn off the lights, we turn down the sound, we close our eyes, and now we're met with all of this overwhelming sensations in our body and the racing thoughts in our mind, that we're probably not gonna continue that practice. So I'm giving permission to build a bridge of this conscious practice wherever it feels most approachable because you're doing so much more kind of internally and you're building again, that muscle, the safety of how to learn and increase your capacity to be with more and more uncomfortable sensations.

1:33:47Dr. Nicole LePera:And you're not able to do that right away, nor is it safe for a lot of us to do that right away. Yeah. I really appreciate how you sort of highlighted that that awareness can be as simple as drinking that cup of coffee in the morning whilst paying attention right that's what we're talking about right we're talking about paying attention instead of slurping it down whilst emailing just pay attention to the whole process the warmth the the joy of the coffee on your tongue and you know the enjoyment whatever it might be um recently i was on a meditation retreat and one of the guys who i was on the retreat with was sharing with me how you know he used to over drink alcohol and caffeine and all sorts of stuff but he still enjoys coffee but he's limited it to one a day but he has criteria around it which is i can only have one but when i have that one i cannot be doing anything else.

1:34:54And really, he's talking about, I'm going to be present with that coffee. And he says, that's all he needs now. He doesn't need five or six cups. He needs one cup where he's fully present and he's not doing other stuff. And he's lucky he lives on a, you know, he says he's got a balcony where he lives. So he'll go out to the balcony, enjoy the warmth, really savor the taste and look out. And I think sometimes when we talk about these behaviors that we want to change, we're always talking about the what. Well, how many cups of coffee should I drink? What is enough? Rather than the how. Well, what if the reason you need four cups of coffee is because you're not present with the first cup?

1:35:36What would your caffeine requirement be like if you were able to be fully present with that first cup? The other thought I had, Nicole, was when you're talking about the lake, you express gratitude for living somewhere where you have access to a lake. I had a few years ago, a patient who lived right in the center of a city. And we would talk about nature and the benefits. And he said, oh man, I don't have time. There's no nature around. And you know how I helped him? I basically recommended he listen to five minutes of nature sounds on his phone each morning. I am not kidding you, that was life-changing.

1:36:12This is a guy in his twenties. He wasn't connected to nature, but he'd put on bird sounds or the wave, the ocean, the sounds of the ocean first thing in the morning. And little by little, that started to change how he saw himself, how he showed up in the world. So yes, if you're lucky to live in nature or near beautiful nature, great. If you don't, you can still access nature, can't you?

1:36:34Dr. Nicole LePera:100%. I think there's actually studies that show the regulating benefits of the sounds of nature. And so I'm even describing this practice that I did begin in a city. I did not have immediate access. I was not living in a lake that I was now, though I was walking and I would, you know, take the route that took me through the very tiny city park and kind of find the green spaces. But again, if you're completely limited and that's unavailable, there's incredible research out there that talks about nature sounds, certain even sound frequencies that can really help our body regulate. But again, I think what we're talking about here is not just plugging in the nature sounds and being on our cell phone and lost in our mind.

1:37:14Dr. Nicole LePera:We're talking about listening to the birds in that moment or even just the fact that we're walking, you know, through the earth in any given moment and just being present to our body moving through time and through space. And I always try to be really accessible with these tools because the reality is life is busy. And a lot of these habits are driving our life and these practices don't feel safe. And we're never gonna change, make new choices unless we find a way to approach it in a way that feels feasible, not only practically, but in terms of creating a new habit, which for a lot of us is so counter to these small, small moments of presence, but they can go an incredible long way.

1:37:50Dr. Nicole LePera:So much so that when asked like, well, what is your routine? First thing you do in the morning. And the first thing I do in the morning, every morning is I have a cup of coffee. I don't, I'm not on my phone. Oftentimes my partner is there. We have a few moments to connect. We'll maybe go outside. And thankfully I live in a place where there's sunshine now first thing in the morning. So I just let it hit my skin and I taste my coffee, it's just presence. There's not a structure, there's not an activity. It's just being in my body in that day and building that foundation then to carry me through the day where I remember then at lunchtime, for instance, to tune into what is my body feeling like today?

1:38:22Dr. Nicole LePera:Is it hungry? Is it hungry for a certain thing in particular? Can I taste the food I'm eating instead of contorting myself and trying to be on my phone and eat food at the same time? And so then we can build that habit into more parts of our day once we just create the foundational presence at any part of our day. Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for doing one thing at a time. The simplest thing, the most obvious thing, but the thing that is getting lost from society where we're always multitasking, we're always catching up as we do something else. Try for a week of just doing one thing at a time and even that will bring a degree of presence to your life that will have profound benefits.

1:39:05In terms of more practical things that we can do, and I want to emphasize in the book, there are so many wonderful practical exercises like, you know, writing a letter to your inner child. I think there's an attachment timeline. There's so many people are going to find things in there for them that really appeal to them. Walking, of course, is one of the best things we can do. You posted a few days ago on Instagram, Walking is therapy. The natural bilateral eye movement, the sun on your skin, if it's sunny, and the activation of your frontal lobe helps you process emotions. You'll see everything differently after a walk because your body just made sense of what your brain couldn't.

1:39:52I love that.

1:39:53Dr. Nicole LePera:Walking is a great opportunity too to have both connection with ourself, difficult conversation. There's a lot of research. There was this one therapist, I forget her name now, where she would walk with clients, not like having to immediately look in someone's eyes. The bilateral stimulation of the eye movement, the kind of regulating nature of just movement in general allowed and facilitated the possibility kind of going back to the couples or the relational stuff with conflict, right? It allowed those conversations to be more approachable. And bilateral stimulation, the eye movement that naturally happens when either we're walking or even back to the phones, being turned inward on such a small screen is naturally signaling stress to our body.

1:40:40Dr. Nicole LePera:Because that's what, as I described earlier, our eyes will do, right? When we have to find the threaded hand and keep our eyes on them to make sure that we're safe. Now all of us are doing that all day long with a phone. So whether we're getting out on a walk and just letting our eyes fall on the horizon, not looking at our phone when we're walking, if we can avoid that habit, but even just looking up from our phone throughout the day and just like scanning our room, right? Anytime we're moving our eyes, this is what EMDR, I think very helpful therapy for a lot of trauma. And I talk about in the book ways to bilaterally stimulate through the butterfly hold where we're literally crossing our arms and kind of rhythmically right and left kind of tapping, even just across our midsection, pulling our left leg up and our right arm up.

1:41:25Dr. Nicole LePera:Anytime we're bilaterally stimulating our eyes or our body, what we're doing is we're reintegrating the right and the left hemisphere of our brain. If I'm going to simplify it, the right is feeling, sensation, emotion, instinct. The left is logic, story, narrative, meaning. And when trauma happens, that connection, that bridge kind of disintegrates. Those hemispheres, again, I'm really simplifying it, don't communicate as effectively. So we feel things that we can't put into words or we can talk about things, but we don't have the feeling. So these moments, in addition to just kind of calming our body into that parasympathetic state, are actually doing a great service for our integration where we can over time, because what healing is, is aligning emotion, intention, feeling, action, right?

1:42:13Dr. Nicole LePera:And being able to then live in that coherence. But if and when trauma happened at any point in our life, that bridge is broken. And so we can though rebuild those connections through these bilateral stimulations throughout the day. A lot of what you're asking us to do or suggesting we might want to do is reconnect with our bodies. The cold and cold plunges are a way that many people have started to reconnect with their bodies. But I don't think you believe that they're for everyone, do you? So I think that they can be greatly helpful if our nervous system has the capacity. Cold will stress our body out.

1:42:51Dr. Nicole LePera:Our blood vessels constrict, our muscles become tense, right? Sounds like the stress response that I was describing earlier. So I discovered cold therapy very early on in my journey, but I was in such a dysregulated, overwhelmed body that it felt near intolerable. And I had since learned that actually that was my body sending a signal that I should not be tolerating it to that degree. I don't need to be in the 40 degree cold plunge, right? I can turn my shower if I want to experiment with slight cold because cold can be not only physically beneficial, right? Stimulating our body, kind of our blood vessels, getting our blood running.

1:43:28Dr. Nicole LePera:Mentally, it can kind of clear our mind, but it can help our nervous system become more flexible, assuming that it has that capacity. So for a lot of us, again, if we are completely overwhelmed or in that shut down state, diving into the coldest water will only overstress our already overstressed system. So we can experiment with cold, but I would call it cool would be a great place to start. The goal would be really to resource our body, learn how to downshift in that parasympathetic state, slowing our movements, deep breathing, right? Really grounding our attention in the kind of check-in with senses in a given moment.

1:44:07Dr. Nicole LePera:What can I see, touch, taste, all those things, right? Learning how to calm our bodies so that then when we want to kind of increase the level of cold, so to speak, we're not just going to send ourself right back into old habits. Yeah. It just really highlights the importance of individuality, right? And of course, cold has been life-changing for so many people. and at the same time, it's not for everyone, at least not for everyone at the same part of their journey. And I think this is one of the things I just see around so much online is people want to know good or bad. Is cold good or is it bad?

1:44:46Well, it depends. Is fasting good? It's like, well, it depends. For some people, it's life change. For other people, it's very toxic, right? And I feel certainly that's what I try and do on this podcast and have done for many years is to try and showcase the nuance that exists, that context matters for every single piece of health advice. Context matters. And too often that context is removed online. Yeah.

1:45:14Dr. Nicole LePera:I couldn't agree more. And so often too, when I get asked and even think about, of course, I want to be of impact. And I know one book, right, is hopefully going to be in many individual hands. So it's always an interesting kind of internal exercise in, How do I translate something, which is very much what I try to do in this book, mapping this idea of the different aspects of development onto a reparenting journey so that hopefully more readers than not can kind of see where they might not have had needs met in childhood and then kind of know where to begin. But I'm always hesitant of doing that, though the question I often get asked is very similar.

1:45:48Dr. Nicole LePera:Like, what's the protocol? What do I need to do? And I think a lot of times I frustrate people because I always go back to, well, your body will tell you. Build that connection, right? Learn how to tune into your own internal signals, whether it's your physical needs or that deeper sense of intuition. And rebuild the trust, right, through habits, through discipline, through, right, working through discomfort and learning that we can tolerate difficult things and branching out to create even more habits. But I can't give you the exact answer. I can give you like a schematic, so to speak, a general roadmap, but I wouldn't want to give it to you because I don't know you.

1:46:25Dr. Nicole LePera:I don't live in your body. You're so uniquely different. I want to give you the tools to reconnect with your own inner knowing. And that's always my goal. Yeah. No, I love that. And I echo it so, so much. Nicole, I just want to move away from your book for just a moment. I really enjoy reading the posts on your Instagram page. and I noted down a couple which really caught my interest this morning. So can I just read a couple out to you and get your comments? One was to do with emotionally immature mothers. Okay, and so this is I think quite a provocative post for some people. Emotionally healthy mothers want their daughters to shine, but some emotionally immature mothers see their daughter as a threat.

1:47:12What does that mean?

1:47:14Dr. Nicole LePera:So again, emotional maturity, this is not, I'm not speaking from a derogatory standpoint. I'm speaking from the evolution of everything we've been talking about, with ability to be grounded in my perspective, expand, hear another, see kind of who I am and my child even as being someone who's uniquely different. And so when parents, as many of ours have had, they have not had access to the tools and resources they need. So they begin to, right, develop a certain sense of immaturity where they can't expand, honor that a child, even if they look the same and you want them to so desperately be the same, that they're a different, unique human.

1:47:51Dr. Nicole LePera:They don't have perhaps the ability to tolerate conflict and disagreement and difference and understand that, right, there's going to be a different expression that doesn't necessarily have to be a reflection on me and my parenting. So in absence of being able for the parent to have just been comfortable, right, being who they are and find that value from within, as we've been talking about throughout this conversation, they will then project onto a child, right? They'll project a sense of similarity. Well, you must be exactly who I am. They'll project a desire for a certain presentation and or they will become, if they don't have self-trust and self-security and self-esteem of their own, they could either want their child to succeed, to reflect positively on them and their parenting, or they could equally feel threatened, right?

1:48:41Dr. Nicole LePera:by the validation that my child is getting, by the attention that my child is getting. Sometimes it gets very complicated, right? Where a child is getting more attention from the co-parent than the parent wants and things get really kind of confused. And then indirectly and directly, there's a sense of I'm threatened and it can turn into a jealousy, a over-focus on looks, a parent who's trying to win in a certain circumstance. And again, all of that messaging going to the child about kind of who they are and how they have to show up to be accepted by that parent. And all of that reminds us and highlights the importance of reparenting the inner child.

1:49:21Because if that emotionally immature mother was able to do that, no matter where they are in their life, that can change. And for the daughter of the emotionally immature parents who maybe grew up with that, again, reparenting the inner child is important. So it's important for both, right? To be able to move on. Another one that caught my eye was this one. The art of letting someone be in a bad mood will completely change your life. Why?

1:49:55Dr. Nicole LePera:So I think that goes back to, again, one of the parents that we didn't necessarily talk about earlier, but the idea of what I'm gonna kind of describe the reactive parent, right? At a time, monitoring someone's moods was probably the safest thing that we could do, right? Sensing any shift in tone, in energy, in presentation in any way. At one time, if there was predictability, if there was explosive behavior, even if again, the behavior was a kind of shut down disconnection, sensing those changes at hypervigilance, being more attuned to someone else's shifts kept us safe because what? We could modify how we showed up.

1:50:36Dr. Nicole LePera:We could be a little less of this, a little more of that, maintain the connection and the safety, whatever was available. And so a lot of us carry that hypervigilance into adulthood where we're always maybe not even conscious that we're doing it. I know I struggle anytime I sense a shift and my partner Lolly, she becomes a little quiet or her mood's a little snippy, even if it has nothing to do with me. She answers me in a short way because she's stressed out about work or thinking about something different or is just tired, overwhelmed herself, needs a minute. Again, in childhood, what's being queued up for me and activated is those shifts meant something, right?

1:51:10Dr. Nicole LePera:For me, they meant disconnection. So I then have a tendency to ask a million times, are you okay? What's wrong? Are you okay? What's wrong? Is something wrong? Did I upset you? Or in my mind, right, I'm imagining that I was the cause of that shift. So learning, right, the habit I have, that monitoring, not self of others, kept me safe because at one time, it was what I needed to do to maintain the connections and attention that was available. But now it has created not only a meaning where I will always assume that anyone in a bad mood around me is because of something I did or did not do. And I will assign, right, that responsibility of I've upset you, right, because that's what I learned in childhood, right?

1:51:53Dr. Nicole LePera:Me, my emotions, my energy, right, would cause stress or upset in the home. So I continue to assign that meaning. And the reality often is, is that's not the case. There's many different reasons. And even if it is upset with me, I have to break that kind of immediate connection between upset with me equals disconnection from me. Upset with me equals you're abandoning me. Upset with me equals you're rejecting me, right? Everything that I learned from those more implicit, unspoken messages in childhood comes alive in those moments. So learning, right, seeing the habit that we have to not allow someone to be upset or in a bad mood, trying to micromanage, solve the problem, make them feel better.

1:52:35Dr. Nicole LePera:Right. Sometimes I do it through humor. I'm going to try and be funny and make sure you're laughing and having a good time with me. All of that is this inner child who's so desperate to make you feel OK so that I can feel connected and safe. Yeah. I think so many people will resonate with that as they listen. I think the one to maybe close this conversation on is something you posted I think just a few days ago now but really speaks to the new book and all the potential that is within it for us if we choose to go there. and this was your post you heal your inner child when someone compliments you and you say nothing but thank you when you don't apologize for crying when someone asks you what you're doing today and you say relaxing that's such a beautiful post and as i say gives us a sense of the possibility that's out there for us.

1:53:43Why do you think that those very simple things signal to us that we are quite far along on our healing journey?

1:53:54Dr. Nicole LePera:So when you allow yourself to hear and accept a compliment, you're allowing yourself to be seen. I still struggle with this. The minute someone says something nice about me, I feel like I have to reflect something very nice about them right back. It's hard for me to allow myself to be seen outside of what I'm doing or how I'm performing, right? Just someone to see me or experience me and say something nice. The ability to allow ourself to emote, to cry, to have an emotion, right? So many of us, and I think sometimes it becomes second nature where we're saying, I'm sorry. And I watch it oftentimes too, a lot on TV shows.

1:54:32Dr. Nicole LePera:I love reality TV. I learn a lot about human nature in addition to online, which is a prolific example or evidence or stream of examples to give. But we are so instinctual with having an emotion and immediately saying, I'm sorry, instead of just allowing ourself to not only be in our emotion, but allowing someone else to be in our emotion with us. So, right, allowing ourself to be seen, allowing ourself to be complimented. And then the ability to, again, a theme throughout this conversation, Just be, rest to tune into when I need a moment to just allow myself to be in my own presence, to lay down on the couch, not to have a day that's kind of curated and planned.

1:55:13Dr. Nicole LePera:And I think, again, all of these are markers of our ability to be calm, to be regulated, to be at peace with ourself through rest, through the experience of emotions will be always a part of our journey. The goal to healing is not to be devoid of emotions. They contain incredibly important information. They allow us to feel connected to the world around us. That's what so many of us are looking for, not to be, not to have our problems solved or be told that we shouldn't feel this way, just to have someone sit down next to us and say, I understand. I understand why you would even feel that way.

1:55:44Dr. Nicole LePera:And to allow ourself to be seen in all of our positive included, the ability to accept and to be with a compliment. I think all of those are, again, markers of the entire theme of this conversation in my work is of our nervous system regulation, our health, our true health and our true wellness. Well, let's see how you're doing with accepting a compliment. I think your work over the last few years, your public facing work has had such a profound impact on so many people. I've enjoyed reading your posts. I know from many of my team, many of my friends, they have found so much wisdom from reading what you have to share.

1:56:24I think this latest book, Reparenting the Inner Child, the new science of our oldest wounds and how to heal them, is going to be such a helpful and life-changing read for so many people. So I want to say thank you for all the work you've done and thank you for writing it.

1:56:39Dr. Nicole LePera:Thank you. I will practice just breathing into that. Thank you. And as well as the book, Nicole, you obviously post on all the social media platforms under the name The Holistic Psychologist. you also have this membership community. What do people get if they sign up for that? So the membership community, Self Healer Circle, it's global so you can join from around the world. It's virtual. We join together every month. We've released a new topic. Next month we're doing covert narcissism. So we have workshops with myself and outside presenters that come in, workbooks to give us kind of the tools to work through the journey.

1:57:17Dr. Nicole LePera:We have a new edition, which is incredible of nine different therapist-led groups to really kind of capitalize on the connection piece. I think a large reason why people join the circle is of course to learn, to have a library of tools, resources, meditations, ways to translate insight into action. Though I think many more join for the community. When you join, you get much like it's now on our own private app. So it's not affiliated with any social media platforms. So I like to think about it like a Facebook because every member gets a profile page and can interact with other members by putting up posts, responding to other members' posts, DMing the members map to connect with people in their area.

1:57:54Dr. Nicole LePera:And so a lot of these conversations, of course, the social media platforms will always be part of what we at the Holistic Psychologists do. It is actually our way to continue to, you know, give back and have impact and understand that not everyone has the money, though. Thank you. If you ever buy any of my books and join my membership, of course, it allows these social media platforms to put out the free and accessible resources and conversations of the beautiful community that will always exist, hopefully, on those platforms and to gain those resources there. But the circle is really for the people who want it a little bit deeper of a dive, a little bit more of a safer space as we were kind of joking earlier.

1:58:30Dr. Nicole LePera:So often I get people who are in my DMs because they can't, they want to put up a comment or respond to something, but they're so afraid that someone that they know might see or hear. So it's really been created out of the desire as something I said earlier, the belief I think that a lot of us have, the shame we feel, feeling alone in our reactions, our struggles and so the community I think for a lot of people has become a safe space to feel less alone yeah I love that Nicole you're clearly doing so much work to help so many people to finish up this conversation I want us to think about the person who is listening and throughout this conversation they've really gained a lot of insight as to why they behave in the manner in which they do.

1:59:21Some people though will take that insight and I believe they'll think it's too late for me. I lash out, I people please, I overreact, I overwork. If they say to you, Nicole, this has been me for several decades, is it too late for me to change? What do you say to them?

1:59:44Dr. Nicole LePera:I would want to acknowledge that they're already starting to change. The ability to gain insight, right? To see ourself in a way, hopefully. The reason why I'm always laboring, the evolution, the science, right? The dynamics is to hopefully allow the criticism and shame to expand into grace and compassion for oneself. But the moment of awareness, in my opinion, is the beginning of change. So I want to acknowledge that listener that you are already in the action of creating a new opportunity. Now the goal, right, is to, as we've been talking about throughout, translate the insight that you've gained from listening to this podcast.

2:00:21Dr. Nicole LePera:And again, thank you for tuning in, but to your daily experience. Not the traditional sense of insight that you and I have been talking about, but the lived experience. because every moment that we tune into ourself is a moment where we give ourself the opportunity to shift our body into a state that will allow us to show up differently though. I don't want it to be lost on people that the moment that an insight is gained and awareness is gained, right? Hopefully, again, even if there's that voice of criticism or fear or worry that it's too long, it's too late, it's overdue, I've messed up all these people and I've hurt people in my life is really the moment we can give ourself the opportunity to with a bit of understanding of why We've adapted in that way, maybe allow in the possibility of feeling grace and compassion in a future moment.

2:01:05Dr. Nicole LePera:But it is the moment that change has already begun. Yeah, beautiful. Nicole, thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you for writing this new book. And thank you for coming back on the podcast. This has been such an honor. Thank you for having me and for all the work and beautiful embodiment that you are putting out into the world too.

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2:03:08Thank you.