MASTER Emotional Regulation: 3 Simple Steps to REWIRE YOUR BRAIN & Reclaim Your LIFE!

30:56We have to actually engage in a relationship with our bodies and really tune in. Most of us don't actually take the moments throughout the day to say, how's my body feeling right now? Where do I feel the tension? Where am I experiencing in my body this external situation, right? And if we can actually train ourselves to just do body scans, for starters, right? There's so many things that we can do. But for starters, just scanning how we feel in our bodies from head to toe and just getting a sense of how our body is taking in our environments. That's already a really good setup for understanding ourselves better and understanding ourselves when we're juxtaposing ourselves with what's happening outside of ourselves.

31:41So if someone has experienced a level of trauma, but they have no clue if they've actually got a lot of trauma, a little trauma or somewhere in between, how can they do a trauma assessment within their body scan to know, oh, this is actually a big thing that I need to address right away or this is more minor, but I still need to address it? How can they scan? Well, you know, it's actually much simpler than what one might imagine because people can actually just remember, right? Remember what they actually do remember. And then simultaneously try and gauge what's happening in their bodies as they're remembering.

32:19As they're thinking of the story and the scenario. Exactly. Are you feeling tightness in your chest or your throat? Are you clenching up? Are you sweating? Yeah. It's like, what are these symptoms? Yeah. And typically, some of those symptoms correlate with how the nervous system is actually internalizing the story. We typically get a knot in our stomach, for example, right? But that's really our nervous system actually shutting down specific functions of the gastrointestinal tract. Really? Because we actually don't need that for survival in a moment where we're in survival mode. And so - So if we feel a knot in our stomach, it's almost like we're in fight or flight mode.

32:55Exactly. Just thinking about a story for 30 seconds or a couple of minutes from something that happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. That's fascinating. So something that happened that long ago can continue to harm and hurt you decades in the future until we learn to heal it. Exactly. It continues to live in the body. It can metabolize in the body then as chronic illness when it goes on unaddressed. And of course, one of the biggest risks and repercussions of it going on unaddressed, many times because we just don't know that it's there or that it's something that needs to be addressed. But what can happen is also the possibility of transmission into the next generation.

33:38So there's a lot of consequence. Yes. And that transmission is really you leaving a legacy. Do you want to leave a legacy of peaceful, harmonious, emotional well-being you know, humans as children or kids that carry your stress responses. Right. And kind of your nervous system responses, right? Yeah. Yeah. I always ask parents, like, look at your little one and look into their eyes and think for a moment, do I want them to hurt the way that I have hurt? And that usually is enough for a parent to say, you know what? Actually, I want to break this cycle because I don't want their little heart to then absorb the kinds of traumas that I've absorbed.

34:19And for them to then be the adult that has to then be in search of their emotions or in search of healing because they now have an inner child wound as an adult. What's the greatest gift a parent can give their child? The gift of understanding their emotions and understanding how to self-affirm. Because when we can actually know what our emotions even are. And what I mean by that is that we have emotions and that they're body-centered, right? Like that we have a really concrete understanding of the full spectrum of our emotions and how they can manifest in our bodies. And then how we can actually do something to validate ourselves through the emotional process.

35:04I think that's a beautiful gift that parents can give their children. And when parents do that for themselves and their children, it's a beautiful generational gift. Yeah, it's beautiful. So the first thing I'm hearing you say is kind of the ways to start healing is to first do an assessment of the stories and the memories that hurt you and see how the body reacts or responds. What would be the next step after that? We notice a tightness in our stomach, a clenching in our throat, a pain in our chest. What would be the next step to starting that healing process? Step two is relaxation. Step two is actually going into any kind of practice you choose, right?

35:44But it can be breath work. It can be meditation. It can be Tai Chi. It can be yoga. It can be so many that can actually help your body to release some of that tension. Interesting. And so what we're doing in that very moment is that we're, of course, recognizing that there's a pain that has been there, that has been emotional, that has now a physical manifestation, and that we're also integrating a relaxation, a body relaxation practice to help release that tension, help absolve that tension from the body. If we never release it, what happens? It becomes disease. Wow. So emotional memories turn into physical pain and eventually disease in some way.

36:27Many of the metabolic conditions that we know about, diabetes, for example, cardiac conditions, a lot of those can be mapped back to stressors in life. And there's a lot of studies that have been done around even autoimmune conditions being very deeply connected to stressors and to trauma. And more recently, there's some studies that also have some correlates to certain cancers. So when we start thinking about what the body is telling us, the body, when it's in that state of disease, it's telling us, I don't feel well because I'm not being taken care of emotionally. And that, you know, is usually like the clue for us to say, oh, I need to slow down when we needed to slow down probably 15, 20 years ago.

37:15Right, right, right. So once we recall the memories and I guess really reflect on where we're feeling this pain or reaction in our bodies, the third thing I'm hearing you say is to relax through some type of therapeutic process, breath work, meditation, yoga, some type of relaxation process to release it, right? What would be the next thing? Because a lot of times most people just numb or disassociate the pain, right? We don't truly feel the pain because it's too painful. And so we'll find ways to numb, distract, disassociate, block the memories, to not feel that pain. And that can be just as harmful, right?

37:58Just to numb, block, or disassociate. It can. You know, there are protective factors or there are ways that we protect ourselves from the pain that we truly feel and especially the depths of our pain. Some of us just don't want to understand how deeply hurt we have been. How wrong we've been. How unfair, unjust, hurtful these things are. Yeah. And in order to self-preserve, in order to make it through another day, the mind and the body, they're just brilliant, brilliant like machines. They have mechanized a way to actually protect us from ourselves. And so they basically like structured all these coping mechanisms that albeit harmful or maladaptive were not helpful or not connecting when we're talking about relationships, right?

38:49They can, you know, still help keep you safe for another day. But the alternative to that is to then learn coping skills that actually can be adaptive, connecting. And that can actually be the better recipe for not only your ability to stay within healthy relationships with other people, but also for you to experience the type of sustainable and long-term mental and physical wellness. What's the next step after that? Once we start applying some of these self-therapeutic experiences, you know, it might be 10 minutes of breath work or some type of release. How do we get to a place of truly healing that wound or that memory?

39:38You know, how long does it take of us doing this over and over again? Do we eventually need to process in other ways through talk therapy or more intensified therapies? What's the solution to absolute healing? And is that even a thing? Well, there isn't really a 100 % type of healing that truly exists. I mean, I think that anything that leans in the direction of perfectionism is a myth, including healing, right? However, there are ways in which we can live a life that is filled with ease and peace more often than not, and a life in which if triggers were ever to present themselves, that they would be just subtle and tolerable and that we can have the actual tools, the sense of empowerment and agency over our own bodies and minds to actually release that process and move into the next thing that life has for us rather than being stuck and frozen, which is what tends to happen with trauma.

40:38Sure. But the next step really is, you know, the way that I work is that I integrate a lot of these nervous system restoration practices for a long period of time with folks. And I've done it myself and with my family and with kind of everyone and in the book. But this actually is the lengthier part of the work, the actual grounding. This can take months or years. It can take months. Right? Yeah. It can. It can. And sometimes I actually like to give it a bit of context for people who feel like, well, let's say that I want to do this work, but how much am I going to have to do in order to really...

41:17Might be a lot. It might be a lot. Yeah, and that's okay. And it might feel exhausting, and it might feel overwhelming, and it might feel emotional, and it might feel like it's all-consuming at times. Yeah, all of the above. Yeah. And that's actually, I wouldn't even go as far as saying maybe not might, but it will. For a period of time. Yeah, for a period of time. And it is survivable. And if you have the tools to actually help you to settle once things feel like they're getting really heavy, then it's going to make the experience more tolerable. Right. And you're not going to feel like you're thrown into the abyss of your deepest, darkest emotions and have no way out.

41:58You're like in a black hole. Yeah. And there's this, I don't know who's originally said this type of quote or this kind of phrase, but you'll hear people say, you know, what happened to you is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to overcome it, to heal it, to process it, to, you know, realize what it was and not let it consume your life. And I think what you mentioned about higher self, learning about our nervous systems so we can work with it to become our best highest self as most often as possible, right? Which means having peace and harmony inside of us as frequent as possible because that is our true nature, peace and harmony.

42:39And I think that's what it comes down to. What are you willing to do to create peace and harmony to actualize your highest self as frequently as you can? It's not about perfection. You're not going to be this Zen person all the time, but that's a beautiful life, living in peace and harmony. Living in suffering and pain and agony and numbing yourself is not a beautiful life. It's a survival mechanism, which is useful for a period of time, but not for all of time. And so we just got to be aware of that. And it's going to take doing some intense, painful work for a period of time for hopefully a lifetime of freedom afterwards.

43:16Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, I like to always, like, help people understand that if you're, let's say that the work needs to take a period of two years. Let's just say that. You need to focus. You need to do nervous system restoration practices each and every day for a period of two years. you need to do journaling and some of the digging work and do talk therapy and you need to you know engaging in you know connections with people that help you feel at home all of that needs to be a part of your process those two years when you take into consideration the 40 that you've already lived that have felt awful those two years feel like they're really worth it if you want to live the next 40, feeling more abundant, more peaceful, more grounded, more like you know yourself, your true core self, and more like that core self that is now burgeoning from within you is a reflection of your higher self.

44:12Yes. And I'm just a big believer that flow and abundance does not come to those who are constantly in suffering or holding onto pain. Yes. It comes to those that have peace, who have clarity, who are relaxed in a more relaxed state. And that may seem like a nice thing to say, but if you're in your 30s and 40s and you've got three kids and you've got responsibilities and job and you're overstressed and you're thinking, I don't have two years of my life, let alone 30 minutes a day to go to the gym. how can I do this work when I have so much responsibilities, when I've got a partner that I'm in a relationship with, I've got kids, I've got bills, I've got all these different weights on top of me.

44:55Doing this type of work seems like impossible. What do you say to someone like that? It isn't. It actually is really doable because the work requires for you to bake it into your life. It's not work that is a task apart from the rest of your life. It is your life. It is your life. And the work can actually... The way that I like to structure the work is to make it very accessible. And the reason why I like to make it accessible to anyone is because I want people to do the work. And I want to make it as easy as possible. I've gotten that statement so many times. Well, I'm a mother of three and they're all really young and how am I going to find the time?

45:36I always tell people, listen, you have 1 ,440 minutes in the day. If you take five of those minutes and do a breathwork practice, you're already ahead of the game. And if you do that for an entire year, 365 days, what we know when neuroscience is telling us is that it takes an approximate three to 400 repetitions of a nervous system restoration practice for our body memory to start shifting. Really? So if you take those 365 days, that year of those five minutes, you're already doing work that is going to be monumentally effective in you feeling more settled and like your nervous system is actually experiencing a lot of ease and calm that it wasn't experiencing before you did the year.

46:25And how much is our partners in an intimate relationship picking up on our nervous system wounds and also our kids picking up just by watching and observing us and being around us? How much do others pick up our pain? It's almost instantaneous. And especially the people that are closest to us, but especially children, because children are very, very keen on picking up on nonverbal cues. We actually, when we're like infants, that's the way that we understand whether or not the world is safe or not. We actually see the facial expression of an adult that's our caregiver. And if the facial expression is one that mirrors safety, calm, and ease, then what we interpret that as is the world is safe.

47:13I can be calm. If the adult feels preoccupied, angry, right? Like babies pick up on that and their nervous system is also picking up on that. And so it's important for us to actually be more attuned to the ways in which other people also pick up our energy and perhaps that can offer more motivation for people to actually do the nervous system practices that can actually be helpful for them and their families. If a parent is watching or listening to this right now and they're thinking, wow, my kids are five or 12 or 16 and I'm just starting to realize that maybe I was too reactive based on my nervous system wounds for many years, or maybe we shouldn't have yelled at each other as parents in front of our kids, or we shouldn't have been so reactive in situations that we're explosive, but we didn't need to be.

48:06And they're starting to realize, oh, okay, this could have some long-term effects on kids. And they've been living that way for a decade with their kids growing up. What can they instantly tell themselves right now about how they've shown up? And what are some actions they can take to start breaking the cycle for themselves and their kids who still have developing minds, who maybe aren't as comfortable talking about emotions yet because they're younger still? How can they start shifting that without thinking, I've ruined my kids' lives? You know, it's important for parents, for anyone really to understand, if I didn't know better, I couldn't do better.

48:47So if you didn't know that what you were struggling with was intergenerational trauma because you were exhibiting toxic relationship behaviors that were reflected in your childhood home and you absorb those as the norm, as a status quo, then you wouldn't know to actually disrupt those and not pass those on or not exhibit those in your home. However, it's important that if you now do know better, that you take action, that you decide, okay, I know that there's a different way and I understand that the way that I've been behaving is unhealthy. Let me shift. That is already a step in the right direction.

49:25When it comes to children, it's important to understand that children can also engage in the healing process. They can. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of age appropriate ways in which we can integrate the work with children. Children can meditate. Children can do breath work. Children can talk about their emotions. Children can, you know, do dance parties with their parents that actually help them to release some of the stress and tension of the day. And all of that can be a large part of what families can do together to actually do some collective healing and engage in age-appropriate types of practices that can help their children not only absorb the healing in the moment, but also understand for the long term, for the entirety of their lives, that they can do something that can help them to heal.

50:14That's cool. Yeah, dance party and drawing classes together, just different things, you know, going for a walk out in nature. Yeah. That's beautiful. What are some, you mentioned these nervous system restoration practices. What are the couple other examples you have for that where we can start healing the nervous system? The practice that I tend to integrate into my work the most is humming. Humming. Humming, yeah. It's so calming. It is very calming. And most people don't know you actually have this tool that you can use whenever, and it can actually help you feel calmer. Well, humming, I mean, there's so many, you know, there's now science that's backing all this, but this has been the, you know, ancient spiritual leaders have been oming and humming for thousands of years because of the, you know, I think OM is like God, right?

51:10It's like you're connecting yourself to God and you're speaking like source, creator, breathing it. And there's chemicals involved, there's dopamine involved, and it's calming like this feeling in your heart is starting to like get into a better rhythm, right? So there's all these benefits to this. Yes. And when we think about it from, you know, just integrating the nervous system perspective into that as well, there is, you know, we have like different branches of the nervous system and the branch that actually helps us to feel relaxed and calm is the ventral vagal nerve, which is what tends to be stimulated when we own.

51:47When we own. Yes. And so, and so, or when we hum, right? Like typically, like if I'm doing work with a family and, or with a child, you know, sometimes I'll pick a song that they like and we'll hum the song instead of singing it. And that already is an age-appropriate practice that we can do that integrates the practice that we understand is gonna be restorative to their nervous system. But we're not necessarily like shoving mental health in the throat. Just therapy talk all day. Right, right. But we're doing something that can be very health-promoting. Now, eventually, people catch on and they say, that made me feel relaxed.

52:23That made me feel more at ease, especially when I had all these like floating thoughts that just wouldn't go away. And so when these children are then older, they have the tools. And that's what I want for us. I want for us to be able to be the generation of cycle breakers that can build the tools for ourselves and for the next generation. And even if we want to maybe like pass some of that back. My parents are 65 and 71 and I do this stuff with them. And they're open and willing and they're Dominican parents, like, which I would have never thought would, you know, like do anything that was related to mental health period.

52:56but they're so willing right now after a couple of years of talking it through. And it's beautiful to see how they have never really had any kind of like foundational orientation around how they can feel more settled. And now they do. And that in their old age, they can actually feel more at ease in their own bodies. It's beautiful. If someone's in a marriage and they realize they want to break the cycle and they're willing to do the work themselves, but maybe their partner isn't as open yet. And they're realizing like, oh, this person, you know, I want to do this work, I'm healing, but this person's still in a nervous system reactive state and unwilling to break their own cycle.

53:40What can they do if they're the only one trying to grow and their partner is not? That's really empathize with anyone that is in any kind of environment, particularly a home environment in which they have to go back to the source of their pain, right? Or back to a place where their safety is compromised in any way, their sense of psychological safety, I mean. And so, you know, what I tend to help people reorganize in terms of like their own thinking around this is like show up as your more healed self. Let people see how you walk and move as a more healed version of yourself. Model for them, whether it's your kids, it's your parents, it's your partner, it's friends, right?

54:30Like anyone, let them see how you're modeling how you show up differently and how you no longer feed the cycles, but you break them. And then see who is willing to join you in that process. Right. And there may be months of resistance and challenge where you've got to keep showing up as a healed person or in the process while someone's reactive or crossing your boundaries. You've got to keep creating those boundaries, which is a challenging thing to do. It's one of the biggest barriers to people being able to continue their cycle breaking process, which is going into the spaces where people have not actually done the work and them feeling like, what am I even doing this for?

55:13I can as well just like, you know, let it go and just play their game. So challenging. It is very challenging. And it's, you know, a process that also is going to require that they, in essence, like just tolerate the distress, which is why distress tolerance skills are so important when it comes to trauma-based work, because we have to train the mind and body to tolerate the guilt, tolerate the guilt of being the one that's doing the work and leaving others behind, right? Like that sometimes tends to be like how people feel about their healing. And so when we're able to reorganize the body and how it's actually internalizing that emotion, it helps them to sit with whatever guilt may still be lingering in a more settled way and not just throwing the towel.

56:03What do you think of all the different traumas that you've worked on at your clinic and worked on with individuals, all the different types of traumas, abandonment, abuse, neglect, all these different things, bullying, being cheated on, all these different things. What one is the hardest trauma to overcome that you've seen or takes the longest for people to psychologically wrap their heads around the wounds that they've received? You know, grieve, forgive, own, move on process. Which one is typically the hardest to overcome? What I have seen has been the hardest and what I have seen like people struggle with the most and has taken the most time has been abuse, childhood abuse specifically.

56:52Them experiencing childhood abuse. Them experiencing it, yeah. From a trusted adult, someone who either cared for them or someone who was proximal to them. And the experience of feeling almost kind of like their entire life formation was around that experience also being a part of it. And then having to extract that from all the layers of how it became a part of them is something that can be really, really hard. But also there's people that can live really abundant lives once they start doing the work in that direction. Yes. Usually wherever we feel the biggest triggers, that's where the work is.

57:34So when we can centralize the work there in that triggered space, right, it makes it so that we can experience probably the better part of our healing. I guess in storytelling mythology, there's heroes and there's villains. And they have a similar backstory. They've both been abused or abandoned or something happened to them, right? And the villain uses that pain to hurt others. And the hero works with that pain, transforms it into making sure that others don't have that pain ever again, right? And I probably had both of those in my life of like, I've used the pain to try to be angry at others and like dominate and win in sports.

58:19And then I've found transformation and be like, I don't want anyone to feel this pain ever again. And so I think we have a decision at different times of life of like, how are we going to use this trauma or this memory or this experience for us? Are we going to live it to harm others or to help others and be in service? And I think it's really tricky, speaking from experience, as an adult mind, trying to understand your 5, 7, 12, 15-year-old self who is sexually abused, childhood mind that's still stored inside of you, it's hard to reflect back and recall all those moments and then think about how you carried that trauma until the adult mind is reflecting on it.

59:03Process however many years that is and all the decisions you've made your entire life, why you've been reactive, relationships you've gotten in, challenges you might have, good that might come from it too, and then learn how to heal that time. It's like, it's kind of a mind, you know, it's a mind mess. You know, it's tricky. And so I think you're, you know, you're probably right in that that's probably a painful one to overcome. I know there's lots of different traumas, but that one's definitely painful. But I know from experience that there is incredible peace and love on the other side if you're willing to do the work.

59:44It took me a couple of years to really kind of feel like I could speak about it without having a nervous system response anymore. But I think also when you realize you can overcome something like that, it gives you a lot of confidence, a lot of poise, a lot of power, a lot of peace. And knowing, okay, if I can take on this as a 5, 7, 10-year-old, what can I take on as an adult with these tools that you're providing? So I think it's a great thing that you're sharing these tools because a lot of adults don't have them still. And I'm still learning as many tools as possible. But why is that so challenging for adult minds to understand sexual abuse or some type of abuse as a child?

1:00:29Why is it hard for adult minds to understand that and overcome it? Well, because there's been a really pervasive intrusion, you know, like a person feels like they are accessible to people like they like people can hurt them. Right. You know, they're vulnerable and they remain stuck in that vulnerability. Yes. And so the challenge in our adult lives is in the fact that that vulnerability just got carried on. And we still feel raw and open and vulnerable and like tender to the touch and people can actually hurt us easily. And so that's why very often people also develop the coping mechanisms to try and protect themselves because they don't want to land in a similar situation where then there's yet another intrusion and how will they then survive that, right?

1:01:22And so it makes it – I always say when it's doubly hard to actually get through something, the reward would be double. Right. Even more. It'll be exponential, right? I think so. And I think your story, which I know you've spent many years now sharing, and I think that it offers a beautiful moment for all of us to also reflect upon the fact that there is hope about abundance on the other side of healing. Because most of us think, like, when will this ever end? Will I ever heal? And we kind of get stuck in that narrative rather than in the narrative of just do the work and trust that there will be abundance on the other side.

1:02:07There will be a steady version of you that is meeting you on the other side. Yeah. I started the healing journey 10 years ago with this, with the sexual abuse that I experienced as a kid. And I thought that I had healed a lot of it. But I still kept, and I did in certain areas, but I still kept entering relationships that proved otherwise and allowing myself to be kind of cross certain boundaries that I didn't want to, right? Because I didn't have the skills or the courage to be able to stand for the inner child inside of me and what he really needed during certain relationships. And so it wasn't until about three years ago when I kind of revisited it again through intimacy.

1:02:50Like I was able to heal in some areas, but not every area. And that's when it took even more work. It was like an extra couple of years. So, you know, I feel like healing is a journey. It doesn't like mean, okay, I've done six months of intensive work. Now I'm good. Like new things might come up in a couple of years that you have to readdress. And at least that's what's happened for me. But not thinking you've got it all figured out, I think is something we need to have in mind. Be like, okay, I don't know all the answers. Even if I feel better, I'm going to keep working and processing. If we don't learn to heal our inner child as adults, what will happen to us?

1:03:30Well, we can actually develop the same type of inner child wound in our children. So they don't have to experience the wound. We're just passing it on, right? Yeah. And that comes up, of course, we're talking about intergenerational trauma having some biological, you know, connections, right? Like, so there's already a family that perhaps is already from a nervous system perspective, from perhaps an epigenetic perspective, already having tenderness and vulnerabilities that are emotional. And then you have, you know, the possibility of there being like misattunement between a caregiver and their child.

1:04:12The caregiver may be so preoccupied with their own stress and trauma, that they miss the social cues that their child is telling them, I need you. And that sense of emotional abandonment, you know, can surface or an inability to really relate to and connect with others, which is kind of like the general foundation of like attachment and attachment styles, right? A lot of those things can start to surface as a result of those initial imprints of the relationships that are primary to us, which are with our caregivers or individuals that in essence, taking care of us in the school system, any of the individuals that have proximity.

1:04:49And then, you know, it's going to be really important for us to also understand that whenever we're talking about like not wanting that to carry on to the next generation, not wanting that tender little soul in front of us to then experience the pain that we have carried for so long, we have to talk about how we can also heal our own wounds. We need to reparent ourselves.

1:05:17With time, I realized that, you know, everyone is fighting an unseen battle, Lewis. Everyone. And we are so good at the art of concealing the pain that we are in. All of us. You know, the methodology changes. You know, there are certain ways that we conceal pain. Sometimes we share, sometimes we don't. But we all are going through something in life every day, you know. and I realized that if I think that I'm the one who's the most broken one, no. I have traveled around the world. I have met so many people and they had shared their very personal stories of how broken they are. And let me tell you, none of them were in the wheelchair.

1:06:00So there are so many people who are walking around who are perfectly fine. They are running their businesses. They are so broken from within, all they want is to be understood. They want someone who can understand their pain, you know, and I feel so blessed that when people look at me, when they see me in the wheelchair, maybe, you know, they just think that because she is in pain, we can talk to her because she can understand what we are going through. Why do you think so many people are broken in the world who maybe aren't in a wheelchair, who have able-bodied, let's say, don't have a disformed body or something, but they're broken.

1:06:44Where do you think that brokenness is coming from for so many people? Too many expectations from people. Too many expectations. You know, we want to get into a relationship because we want happiness. We want to feel complete. right soul mates no you are your own soul mate period you know if you are not in a good relationship with yourself you will be miserable even if you are in a relationship with someone that's why people are broken my happiness cannot be taken by someone because my happiness does not come from someone nobody is giving me my joy i am the reason of my own joy if we manage to understand this tiny little truth about life, we will heal.

1:07:36And time doesn't heal you, you heal you. You need to love yourself enough, you know. And if you love yourself enough and you believe in self-love, no external force will ever be able to break you. How do we learn to love ourselves if we have been telling ourselves for so long, I'm not lovable or I had this accident or I went through a breakup in a relationship and they left me or they abandoned me or whatever it might be. How do we not let outside factors dictate our feelings about ourself and not let the fear of abandonment of people or people's love hold us back from loving ourselves? yes the fear of abandonment we all have that and we need to overcome this fear you know when i always say when wrong people leave right things start to happen and we all are living a life story you have your own story i have my story my brothers have their story my mother has her own story and when you find yourself in the wrong story just leave if someone is not adding value to your life story, or if you are not adding value to someone's life story, leave.

1:09:04Sometimes it takes letting go to realize we're holding on to nothing. We are too busy clinging on to those relationships, which are not meant to be in our journey. And that's why I say that these people are so toxic. With time, they become so toxic for you that, you know what, your presence in their life is their only definition. And they will never want you to leave because they're so weak. They want to stay in your shadow. So you need to pick and choose. This person is toxic. Leave. Liberate yourself by setting all these extra people free who do not belong to your journey. You know, and these people will always weigh you down.

1:09:50And if there's something is weighing you down, how will you fly high? You know, and fear of abandonment, if you can manage to overcome this fear, again, when you are on your own completely, that is where you will understand that solitude is very powerful. So powerful. It's very powerful. Yeah. You know, because even in that silence, you're having a conversation. I mean, there is no energy vampire around me, I'm on my own and I'm manifesting the best things for myself. I would never trade my solitude to anything because when I am alone on my own, I am the best version of myself. Really? Because I'm kind to myself.

1:10:37Yes. You're kind to yourself. Yes. How much time did you spend alone after the accident? it? So I have this really cool habit. I switch off. So even when I'm surrounded by a lot of people, I'm actually not there most of the times. Really? Yes. I'm just thinking, you know what? Recently, I was thinking about something that when I was talking about that, how, you know, this beautiful balance of strength and vulnerability makes us who we are. I was thinking about it the other day that I experience this balance on daily basis. You know, when I see my social media, you know, when I read emails and people sending beautiful messages that, you know, how your words have empowered us and, you know, because of you, we're not never going to give up.

1:11:31It gives me so much strength, you know, and I say to myself, oh my God, I'm so strong. And then at the nighttime, when I'm thirsty, I'm unable to get up and get a glass of water for myself. Right? That's my reality. And how vulnerable I am at that moment. So this strength and this vulnerability makes us who we are. So I need to have my own moment with myself where I am willing to understand myself better. That if I am vulnerable, that's okay. I'm strong too. and the perfect balance of these two things make me who I am.

1:12:16I'm so fascinated by your story. And every time I see your content, it makes me smile. Every time I see you post a video or a photo, I'm always just rooting for you. I'm so excited for you and your life and the impact you make. And you are so much more talented than just an artist. At first, you wanted to be an artist and then you thought you couldn't be. You were like, these don't look good. But now you're selling your art, your arts in galleries. It's really inspiring. But you're also a massive activist. You're a TV anchor, model. You did modeling. You sing. And you're a speaker. And you motivate millions of people around the world.

1:12:56You could have not done any of it. You could have said, I just want to be an artist and just go after that one thing. But you decided to go for more. what what when and why did you say i want to start sharing the story and start putting this message out there in a bigger way and revealing these things about yourself that maybe you were scared to do you know um i remember when i gave my very first talk that was tedx and it actually happened when i decided and i manifested that i'm going to overcome the fear of facing people That's so ironic that a public speaker was once scared of facing people.

1:13:33I was for sure. Yeah. I know. So what happened was I gave my very first TED Talk. And after my TED Talk, a girl from the audience, she came to me and she was crying. And she said, can I give you a hug? And I said, sure. So she gave me a hug and she said, your 10 minute TED Talk has solved 10 problems of my life. And she said, today you made me realize that those 10 problems never existed. They were just in my head. And I was overthinking. And because of you, I'm never going to give up. You know, in that moment, in the flashback, I could hear my mother saying, one day God will show you. How did he choose you out of so many for this test?

1:14:15And that was the moment of realization that, you know what? If my words can change someone's perspective, maybe this is my true calling in life. You know, and as they say that in the end, what matters is how many lives you have touched. So art is my comfort zone, Lewis. You know, I can sit in the corner of my room in a cozy environment, have a cup of coffee and paint and sell the work, make both ends meet, pay the bills, raise my son and live. But I mean, is that enough? It's not enough. Because comfort zone is a good place to be, but nothing ever grows there. So if you really want to grow as a person, if you really want to learn and unlearn, we need to tap on all the abilities that we have.

1:15:03We are so blessed with immense potential, which remains untapped because we are too busy doing nine to five. We are too busy paying bills and we live the same routine for so many years. And then we end up calling it life. It's not life. It's not. You know, I realized later that, you know, I was labeled as the first wheelchair-bound model, the first wheelchair-bound singer, the first wheelchair-bound anchor, first wheelchair-bound, you know, and it was so much rubbed in my face that I said, you know what? I might be the first one to do all this, but I wouldn't be the last. I had to pave path for so many people who are supremely talented, who are differently abled, who are supremely talented, but maybe, maybe they were just a bit scared to take the first step.

1:15:52I took the first step. I broke those barriers. At least I tried, you know, and now I see a lot of young boys and girls doing amazing work. Why? Because now it's normal. It's normal for a wheelchair user to smile. It's normal for a wheelchair user, may it be a boy or a girl, to look good, to wear lipstick, to look nice, you know, to face the world. It's normal now. And even right now, when being an anchor person, you know, I'm working for the national TV of Pakistan. And when I'm doing my show, I'm always thinking about that little boy or girl, you know, sitting in a far-flung village watching my show.

1:16:34And I think about them that, you know, they might be thinking that if a girl or a woman in a wheelchair can do this, we can do that too.

1:17:04exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. Bye.