MOMENT | World leading psychologist: The simple tool to change any behaviour that’s holding you back, with Dr. Nicole LePera

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1:32I think every mother listening to this will relate to that push pull of wanting to serve our families, wanting to give. It's so exciting, like looking after the children, not always exciting. Do you know what I mean? Like that, that sort of push pill. And we also have to tend to ourselves as you just described so beautifully so that we don't burn out so that we can give from a place of being full and grounded as opposed to scraping the bottom of the cup as it were. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more that that conversation really 100 % applies to parenting, to being a participant in a family. And I think it's really natural that some of us are really conditioned or taught this belief that always serving other people is A, even possible, or B, makes us a good parent, a good partner in service.

2:16I'm selfless. So, to speak to your point, it's the cliche I think that many of us love to hate, which is we have to put our oxygen mask on first. We have to pour into our cup first to the extent that so many of these well-intentioned ideas, we can't live into them. We can't be that grounded presence because we're not sleeping well. We're not eating well. We're not dealing with stress and we're setting ourselves up to only be reactive in those moments. So it's the counterintuitive, as I always speak about. Concepts are great. It's putting these concepts in action. It's hitting that pause in that moment where we are of two minds, where we do want to serve the little one who's in need of us, but knowing to be a grounded presence for that little one, I might need to back out of the room and take some deep breaths before I then enter the crying or the upset that I'm going to enter into.

3:05So true the way you say that. I think there won't be anyone listening that hasn't heard of that oxygen mask analogy. And yet I struggle all the time to put that into practice. How does someone take a concept like that oxygen mask and put it into practice more consistently? I think what's important and worthy of celebration Zoe is acknowledging the current habits that we are practicing, that are happening outside of our awareness, our inability to tend to ourselves, right? That always overpass our limits, to be externally oriented or always looking at someone else. Because to see the current happenings, the patterns, how I am showing up in my world, then allows me the opportunity to make those new choices.

3:49And I'm emphasizing this because I think like a horse with blinders on, we don't for many of us. And one of the major reasons why I even created this workbook, a kind of guided path of discovery to see all of these subconscious habits is many of us don't even know that we're not tending to ourself, that we are always showing up in service of someone else. So hitting pause, acknowledging the current, very non-judgmentally if possible, not to criticize ourself for overstepping ourself in our relationships, but just to notice. And then once we've noticed, unfortunately. I would love to tell you the battle is over and it's not the case because this is where another whole group of us gets stuck, which is living into these new choices, hitting pause, deciding to step out of the room while I tend to my own nervous system dysregulation before I enter into the upset that is on the other side of the door is a new action into unfamiliar territory.

4:45And I'm using these words very intentionally because to be human, we actually prefer the familiar. Those habits, while they might be imploding the life around us or exploding the life around us, or at minimum, we're not feeling fulfilled. They are our familiar zone of comfort. So the action of, and this was a big reason why I modified the way that I was working to include the body, our physical presence, actually doing something differently. Because until we build that bridge and work through now the discomfort of, in terms of this conversation, of putting myself first of even creating space to say, well, what do I need as an individual that will be uncomfortable?

5:24It will bring up all of the discomfort that being the helper to someone else has allowed us to avoid. So celebrating the awareness is absolutely part of the journey as is creating then that space to be uncomfortable in new ways.

5:46when I think about your work what you've really helped me in the community with is this because I think so many mothers think I've been in this old pattern I can feel that I'm burning out I'm trying to be everything to everyone I'm going to change and it takes so much to get that awareness as you say and I think what you have completely normalized is that when you start to put those new behaviors in practice, expect, for me, it's that critical questioning voice. So this afternoon, I'm exhausted. I sit down, I have a cup of tea. The house is a mess. There's tons of emails I've not replied to. And my critic starts, you're never going to be successful if you keep sitting down for cups of tea.

6:26You know, and I just notice it, but I think it's so brilliant in the way that you normalize that because I think often change is perceived as, oh, once you know what you want to change, you just go and change it. And I think your work and the way you position it as that's almost when the small incremental changes begin and to build up from there. 100%. And for a long time, Zoe, I actually would define those very relentless, very repetitive voices, much like yours. You're never going to get anywhere if you keep sitting down from a cup of tea. I would interpret that to be my intuition, this guidance that's directing me away from this area that's not for me.

7:06And I would hear myself using all of this language, having the idea that we all do, which I continue to believe, though I know now that those repetitive narration voices, the things that tell us the same stories on repeat, aren't actually a voice of our intuition at all. And oftentimes it's the voice of a dysregulated nervous system of circumstances that occurred earlier in life, sometimes even voices of other people who, when we're a child trying to make sense of the world around us, the more other people are narrating aloud what perception they're having of us, of our behaviors, of our abilities or inabilities, the more it is likely then that we internalize that and then assume just like I did that that is us, the voice in our head.

7:49So saying all that to say, the more we get grounded and centered and the more repetitive these same stories are that most of us tell ourselves day in and day out, I assure you that isn't that language of your intuition. Your language of your intuition speaks from a deeper place, a place in connection with our body. So the second it's coming again from a repetitive voice in our head, it's probably something we've been listening to for quite some time though. Again, to speak to this conversation about being in presence and awareness, once I see how relentless it is, how it is coloring, how I feel and what I do next, now I can over time create some space for new choices in alignment with that deeper intuitive voice.

8:32How do I create that space? Learning when we're not present to ourself, as simplistic as that sounds, however it is you meet my work, whether it's in a book, I'm talking about on social media, you've entered into my membership, the Self Healer Circle, we will always talk about building that foundation of consciousness. first seeing, and actually we just opened up the membership this past month. So we have many new members coming in, all filtering to this awakened consciousness is what the course is called. And the number one thing we very much have, what is akin to a Facebook, it's our own private internal portal, but members can write up their little, you know, posts about reflections, connect with other members saying all that to say the most common thing I'm seeing about all of these new humans becoming conscious for the first time is, wow, I am really unconscious.

9:18So as simple as that action is to just see, and for a lot of people, I suggest we all walk around with cell phones or setting an alarm in your cell phone, putting a post-it note over that one mirror that you walk past when you go to the bathroom or whatever it is, enlisting a buddy, a help, a support, someone on this journey to maybe text you sometime during your day. And when that alarm goes off, when you walk by that post-it, when you're text things or whatever it is for you, you can check in with your attention. Notice what are you doing? What are you paying attention to in that moment? And probably the large majority of you listening will notice that it wasn't fully immersed in whatever it is that you're doing, that you are probably lost in thought or your attention was somewhere else entirely.

10:03Maybe you were worrying about a fight that happened in the morning or fearing something that's happening tomorrow. When we notice, Again, all of the different places yet we're going about life in that blind autopilot. Now we can begin to create that space to not only see all of those habits and patterns usually reflected in the repetitiveness of the narratives in our mind, the same feelings we always seem to find ourselves stuck in. We can then create new choices in that moment. But again, as simple as the task of becoming conscious is, it is the consistent practice of being able to at any time say, I want to be fully present to what's happening.

10:40I want to get out of the distractions of my mind. And that begins for most of us by seeing how distracted we are and how much those ingrained habits and patterns are directing our life. Because if we're not showing up to consciously choose, something else is narrating literally our life for us. And oftentimes that's in those habits formed in childhood and repeat it when we're not consciously aware of it. So setting those alarms, committing to that consistent practice first of just tuning in to what's happening outside of you and within you will then give you the opportunity to make new choices.