Why You Should Redefine Your Independence | Dr. Nicole LePera EP 430

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:53I explore this within myself a lot, how much is the past necessary? and I keep coming to the conclusion that it's necessary, that becoming self-observational understanding, I think that developing through a mindfulness-based meditation practice is incredibly helpful because it actually helps us to fire up our brain in a new way that then allows for self-observation throughout the day. There's no magic cushion. There's no magic anything. The way I say it, we can't do something once and then expect my day to look different magically because I've meditated in the morning. Yeah, there's some gains and some peace, But if I'm not watching myself throughout the day and if I don't train myself to watch myself throughout the day, to watch my patterns, to watch the thoughts that are causing those emotional reactions, especially to see when I'm triggered, just when I'm having a big feeling about a current event.

1:42Typically, the feeling is really big because it's about the meaning assigned to the event, the similarity of this now event based on my past experiences. And so there's always a reason why things are way bigger than they maybe ought to be logically in that moment. And then that's where we dive in and give ourselves some new, either releasing the emotional valve, soothing our own emotional wounds in that moment, not looking outside of anyone or anything else to make us feel better. At least that's the way that I view it. We are social creatures as humans. we actually benefited quite greatly from having tribes you know as we were evolving in terms of safety and division of labor so as I see it we little and need relationships but I think what interdependence means to me is being able to be a self-reliant and resilient you know a human meeting all my physical emotional needs separately and then having that shared space of relationship how does someone become interdependent if they've been so reliant on the needs of other people especially you know under 18 the needs of parents for financial or yeah housing yeah food yeah but uh if we're talking you know adults how do you become interdependent at this point i think unfortunately because of some of the financial struggles that many people are having i think even now adults are finding themselves much more compromised and independent college debt yeah place or living, you know, back to live at home, to be able to pay for college debt.

3:12I mean, it's really, it's a shame. It's sad because I think we're shifting back into that more just necessary dependence. So wherever you sit on that spectrum, I think it's, you know, about breaking those patterns of looking outside of ourself to show up for others, take care of others, get my needs met by, you know, relating with others, whether it's because they make me feel better or they distract me, or I've learned that I come by this really naturally myself my family was and a very large reason why I'm not able or I choose now not to have contact with them is they are so enmeshed and codependent where there's just no boundary and direct and indirect messaging that I got growing up was that I was responsible for other people's feelings in particular so for me evolving out of that and starting to separate myself off and just see myself as a self-contained human also meant then showing up differently in my relationships putting up the word we all love to hate, which is boundaries and learning how to carve out space, not only physical space where my needs might be different than another person's needs in that given moment, but more importantly, emotional space.

4:19And that's, I think, a struggle that a lot of us have. Yeah. I feel like there's a lot of people that struggle with family, family and boundaries. I've gone through this challenge myself with different people in my family throughout the years. And on one end, I have a lot of guilt tied to responsibility to make sure my family's taken care of, at least basic needs, right? On the other end, I'm like, okay, we've all come from the same place. We all have certain skills and the capacity to take care of our basic needs. It's not like we were homeless or something like that. Like we all got college degrees.

4:55we're all very privileged in a certain sense, right? Sure, we all faced a level of trauma and have our own level of limiting beliefs based on experiences and trauma that each one of us felt separately. But I still have this challenge with like, okay, do I just make sure everyone's taken care of all the time? And then I feel taken advantage of or abused or not respected or whatever it is. or do I set boundaries and have people potentially hate me and not want to talk to me you know you hear these catchphrases like family is everything always be there for your family nothing else matters but family but what about our own emotional well-being doesn't that matter yeah yeah absolutely it's tough I made that noise when you said that first one because family is everything might as well have been a plaque in my home in my home I mean that was said as a mantra family is everything, family is everything, family is everything.

5:50It was under the guise of the Italian, you know, culture. My dad, it's very much, you know, kind of 100 % Italian. And if you're not a part of the family is everything motto, you might as well not be in the family. Yeah, it was really, so a lot of us, I do know that we get that direct. Some of it's a bit more indirect where you're just kind of not urged or things aren't fostered that take you out of that family unit. So there's a lot of ways that I see it, that these messages are internalized. And then we become the adult that begins to believe that ourself on some level. So the thing I will always say first and foremost is boundaries suck, especially when you're creating them with our families.

6:27And these are dynamics that have been set in place for as long as some of us have walked the earth. So when we change a dynamic that's already one way, it sucks even more. However, I say that because it's uncomfortable to put up boundaries and to start to define limits of what it will no longer work for you. So the immediate discomfort, that's really uncomfortable for some of us, on the other side is a much more sustainable relationship. Because even in the description you said, right, I start to feel resentful, taken advantage of. And the problem there is I then look to these people who are taking advantage of me or not respecting me or not giving me something back.

7:02And I get mad at them. And then the relationship suffers. But unfortunately, I have to look at me and the role that I played in continuing to show up in a situation that wasn't working for me.

7:27Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:17Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.