Become a Self-Healer and Break Free of Emotional Cycles with Dr. Nicole LePera and Lewis Howes

all of our clues are there our past is present with us and that's why we're stuck and that's why we can't the way I say at least that's why a lot of a struggle to move forward and that's why I hear the words stuck probably more often than I hear any word spoken so how do people get unstuck first I think the consciousness we have to become conscious to ourselves welcome back everyone of the school of greatness podcast we have dr. Nicole Lapera in the house good to see you so glad you're here found out about you months ago on Instagram and just have been loving your work and the impact you make on people's lives so thank you for being here and you'll be moving out here soon hopefully right that's right that's the goal here it is hell out of Philadelphia I mean I don't know how you can come here and not want to stay it's pretty amazing I travel all the world all the time and there's amazing places but I always want to come back so you found your home I love it yeah the first year I actually hated it as I came from New York City mm-hmm I lived in Ohio then I lived in New York City before I moved here and I love the energy in New York but you've been on the East Coast for a long time so you're probably ready for like a break and a change of pace right but it's different energy it's a shift of energy I remember when I would travel out here getting used to the slower pace of things was a test of patience why you go so I'm like come on where's my coffee let's go I didn't like it that's why I moved here as opposed by the beach it's even like 10 times slower by the beach where you're staying right now but in West Hollywood have had a more of a New York walking vibe that's why I love it here a little more energy now you've been doing your work for how long now probably by the time my very long program and ditch school schooling about seven years probably after school but my program was about seven eight years of school and this sorry this is after my undergrad from the start of grad school until I was designated a psychologist and then ultimately able to get a license and then open up a practice it took seven eight years to get a license together yeah so it's that's for most era pistou I mean now five years of so the clinical psychologists to having a practice and essentially getting the license to have a practice was through a PhD a clinical PhD or what's called a society I don't you ever heard that at psy capital D anyway long story short things have since changed and now you can go and get a masters level education and we get license two years three years maybe I'm not sure if there's a thesis involved with that and then you can get you have to get enough supervised hours either route but you can you can hang a shingle and that was my ultimate goal and at the time I was very limited I had the psy.d or the PhD path so it was the PhD and then seven years later a nightmare dissertation some licensure hurdles uh say mildly in my wet my shingle Wow there you go I think in another life I would have loved to been a psychologist yeah that's a cool thing the mind is always really fascinated me and that's honestly as long as I can remember you probably would have heard me say I want to be a psychologist because of the mind piece I like helping people but it's interesting the more I kind of explored my own path in I realized it was less of oh I want to help heal people and more of wow the minds incredibly fascinating which is cool because I think that's a different route and I think that also kind of evolved me to the way that I'm working now with a really heavy focus on the mind and the power of the mind in a little different way interesting so are you coming back around and wanted to help people - yeah yeah I'm just fascinated by the power of the mind on both ends that keeps us stuck and then the power of the mind that can make us dwell and then beyond well I mean I just know myself because I was so limited if so many limiting beliefs in my own passed on from my own operating experiences I believe I've overcome a lot of them and that's why my big time scarcity mindset scares me around relationships everything really I've noticed food was one of my things I didn't know until I started to explore some of my patterns and and for me scarcity ran thing my rear of it so this idea and it would come up in my big joke in my relationship a lot it would be you know we would we live together and we'd have items in the food in the fridge and we chopped together and we eat the same die and I would go in where's my half and became incensed by where's my goddamn half of food like why is this so upsetting to me like I'm not with going without there's no just door next door three blocks I live I can walk to a Whole Foods like I there's no reason why when my half goes away what was that about and I started to realize the underlying driving thought of this was that scarcity so my food my things lack of money mindset things like that so that was a really big one I used to think genetically in some ways I would see the way people the way their bodies looked and how they were in the world I was just you know not gifted so I think that a lot of my own healing journey was overcoming that which is why I'm so passionate again these don't come out of nowhere these mindsets the way I see it at least they all come from an accumulation as I put it of our past experiences so was there it was there like I was talking about this this morning about memories about how really we have maybe five or six maybe tell me differently your of the psychologist but I think we have like maybe five six maybe seven strong positive memories then we have five or six or seven like strong negative memories that we always kind of reflect back to and think about and I would see there's filler memories but I was trying I was like I don't really remember much from ages 5 to 18 in between those 5 to 10 memories on each side if I really focus on like okay what I do in third grade when I was like eight years old or whatever it was everyday kind of forget like the 365 days in between the memories that we hold on to with these patterns is that kind of safe to say am i uneducated yeah 100% and what I would offer is the reason that you have those really high positives and maybe really low negatives was because of the emotionality attached so the bigger the emotion we tend to be able to retain those memories those memories because our memory Center our emotional Center our limbic system it's all interconnected and a lot of the reasons why we encode and then can retrieve essentially put the memory in and access it later is because of the emotion out how strong it will how strong it was so what were the memories you had experiences you had that created the limiting beliefs scarcity it's interesting you say that's because then there's another category and this is where I fall and actually diagnose myself with a memory impairment for quite some years memory impairment pyramid based on the fact that I had no memories I dated the girl that said she didn't remember anything between before eighteen one time I was like she was super positive but amazing and loving and I was like there's something off if you don't remember anything before eighteen nothing I was like how's that possible there's got to be some serious trauma that you're right and later I found out like there was incredible trauma well I think societally so there is that so societal so when I realized I had no memory I had two two theories no worries there is new working theories one was that I had such a cataclysmic trauma you know that I can't remember and that washed all my memories and I spent a lot of time thinking and oh gosh you know what could it have been and I keep coming up with I don't and then the other diagnosis that I gave myself was a memory impairment so anyway flashing forward I've now come to realize that I start to share when I got the Instagram platform I started to talk a bit more openly about my lack of memories I started to understand our nervous system and our stress responses a bit more and I came to realize that more of us than you would realize there like this ex of yours and myself that we don't have lock the memories and it doesn't have to be you know biological thing wrong in our brains and it doesn't have to be the big t is like the big t trauma that I think a lot of us talk about the big kind of clothes make event it's like you'd remember the trial right right yeah so sometimes it's a low lie or a low level stress a lot of stress and inability to have emotions present in the home that results in that of memory so anyway speak to answer your question though the way I came to know that I had a lot of my lack based mindset was because we still remember so I have people who reach out to me like oh my gosh if I can't remember how will I heal so I don't have a visual memory I can't go back in time and when I talk about inner child work and you go back to heal you don't need the memory to heal the way that I see it because we all are a walking memory whether it's in these habits based on our reactions our triggers our patterns the thoughts that we frequently think so a lot of mine would have orbit around Lac based or not having type of things lack of consideration so we can see evidence of our past whether or not we see our parents of that visual yes so you were being you know for example you were like where's my food my house is gone you took three fours so forth and so that's definitely like reflecting a memory of experiences or an experience you had that you held on to and said like I'm not deserving but now for there's never going to be enough for whatever the story you seem so frightened a lot of mine was based around this concept of being considered so for me it was a bit of emergence between lack so and I attribute that to my dad he very much was my parents are much older when they had me my mom was 42 and my dad was 45 how are you girl so and I am 30 I'll be 37 so so yeah so my dad very much had a lot of the Depression era based thinking and my garage looks like a fallout shelter with literally twine wrapped up because enough twine put together you have a rope I mean that kind so very direct ways and indirect ways I'm sure my dad's messaging about money and holding and keeping and then the consideration piece gets wrapped up in there for me you weren't being taken not in considering scene yes and that comes to my mother who was very much emotionally completely vacant absent and some not feeling seeing heard understood so for me when items would come missing like my brownie that I really wanted it was it became not only do I not have enough for me but the meaning that I was I'm not considered and that would open up a really cheaply so well my partner's looking at me like what the hell is wrong with you it's a Browning a call go get you another one you know what I mean so but inside I was like a little girl who is not being seen it was being told that there's not enough for me and I mean so that's where that pain was coming from when I was tearing around the apartment about my brownie it wasn't about my brownie and I think that's the way that I mean if we all look at ourself and our patterns and I'm always talking about developing self observation to do that all of our clues are there our past is present with us and that's why we're stuck and that's why we can't the way I say at least that's why a lot of a struggle to move forward and that's why I hear the words stuck probably more often than I hear any word spoken so how do people get unstuck first I think consciousness we have to become conscious to ourselves because we're in our autopilot 95% of the day if we're not conscious and that's gonna be like the program I mean the computer analogy is I think the one that we all understand the most that's gonna be the program that we're running day after day after day so without consciousness there is no change and then becoming conscious to our patterns we are incredibly habitual creatures as humans whether it's our daily habits you know behavioral habits whether or not it's our patterned thoughts that a lot of us have we all tend to think the same content type thoughts and then the way I say is they induce feelings actual changes in our body's physiology and our neurotransmitters and our stress hormones and then that becomes our normal and that becomes our stuck place so without consciousness I don't think change happens so awareness of our patterns of our triggers of our pain of the trauma does that mean healing the past first and reflecting on all the past is that why people do therapy talk therapy because you're talking about the the things that created the pattern today I am always a believer and I 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 a 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 because don't think there's no magic cushion there's no magic anything at 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 are some games and some peace I mean a joke you may know I meditate in the morning so I can you know calm my mind yeah we get a little residual you know carry out carry away from sitting and meditating 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 when I'm triggered just when I'm having a big feeling about a current event typically the feeling is really big sits a bowel the meaning assigned to the event and the similarity of this now event based on my past experiences and so there's always a reason why things are way bigger than you know 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 so you're saying no one else should be determining our happiness yeah big shocker yeah yeah I talk a lot about interdependence is the kind of term that I've been going back to a lot of these I mean essentially being you know because we are we are social creatures as humans we actually benefited quite quite greatly from having tribes you know as we are evolving in terms of safety and division of labor so as I see it we all we need quote unquote little n wee little n 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 interdependence if they've been so reliant on the needs of other peoples especially you know under 18 the needs of parents for financial or yeah yeah yeah but if we're talking and you know adults how do you become inter dependent well you have a lot of trial yeah yeah pain well I mean developmentally Louis that is their reality up to a certain 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 dependent college debt yeah a place or living you know back to live at home to be able to pay for college debt I 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 ourselves 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 at a very large reason why I'm not evil or I choose now not to have contact with them is they are so a meshed 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 often 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 and that's I think a struggle that a lot of us have yeah I mean I've I feel like there's a lot of people that struggle with family family of boundaries I've gone through this challenge myself with different people 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 meets 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 we're all very privileged in certain sense right sure we all faced a level of trauma and have a level our own level limiting beliefs based on experiences and trauma that each one of us felt separately but I still have this problem 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 that's so how do we how do we manage the guilt and pressure and the feeling responsibility of needing to provide for our family or take care at all costs versus having personal freedom and peace in our own heart yeah absolutely tough I made that noise when you said that first one cuz family is everything might as well been a plaque in my home in my home foul I mean that was said as a mantra family is everything family is everything family is everything it was under the guise of the Italian you know culture my dad it's very much you know kind of 100% Italian so if you're not a part of the family is everything mono you might as well not be in the face yeah 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 then we become the adult that begins to believe that ourself on some levels so the thing I will always say first and foremost is boundary shock especially when you're creating them with our families these are dynamics that have been sitting 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 the limits of what it will no longer work for you but what I see that saving ultimately over time so the immediate discomfort that's really uncomfortable for some of us might be immediate for years it might be yeah but it the way I see it 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 you're not giving me something back and I get mad at them and then the relationship suffers but unfortunately I have to look at me and the role that I played and continuing to show up in a situation that wasn't working for me Wow so when did you I guess leave talking to your family how long has it been so it's been it's been officially a year but this right when I started Instagram right but this was I mean it was several I mean one might say was a lifetime in the making because tried to make it work I try yeah yeah and so part of the situation with me and again I I never prescribed my path as for everyone I have different journeys on this planet so part of the situation that made it in inheritant ly more complicated was the fact that my mom my dad and my older sister who was 15 years older than me I was much later in life child live in the same home they all live together live in the same home yeah with my nephew as well my sister my my mom will be she just turned 79 my dad I think is 82 sister's 52 yeah they all live together they live together in the home and now my 12 year old nephew so they're all over them so talk about a living you don't live there so I escaped I've gotten out I actually got the hell out as soon as I turned the ecology it was 17 when I flew off to college and I was out of there but I say that because I tried every version of separate relationships one of those versions you know hey my sister's name is Suzanne Suzanne you know let me try to you know have a separate relationship over here with you where we don't talk my mom is chronically ill so another bit of my background my mom is chronically ill and has been my entire life there's now a bit of a pain pill not a full-blown addiction I mean she's just is really no man halt or eating I mean that's exactly what it is it was to be honest but so pretty much my mom is the orbit around that my whole family kind of yeah she's a nucleus so mom's health moms and my mom has had when I was in my early 20s which was probably at the height of myung's I where I might as well I was living in New York it might as well have been one panic attack after another that I was living because my mom was actually having a pretty serious heart surgery at the time so yeah there's like micro health things so but it's always how's mom doing is mom okay mom has this health thing so one of the versions that I tried was having a separate relationship where we don't you know talk about mom and health with the dogs watched on television and it just couldn't you know and then she couldn't beyond that it was always you know I was needed to go to this doctor's appointment in that and it was just this endless search for this cure of this illness that way it just got really complicated tried separate relationship with my dad my dad might as well be a million miles away just always worried about my mom my mom is just now at this point with the pain pills completely on another planet so I say it was a year ago and I finally but I tried every version of direct communication I would just remove myself not go over as frequently then I would get the goddamnit text where are you call us back we're worried about you so much anxiety so finally about you here so what do you say when you create a boundary of separation from your family are you saying I'm choosing not to speak with any of you anymore if you want to talk to me feel free but it's not going to be on your terms what do you say to that so I mean what the way I suggest is a boundary is an eye statement so if this continues to happen I will no longer whatever so obviously at the pen what a threat so I mean that's writing me that's what people like I think the difference and it's interesting I was talking with Melissa Hartwig on her podcast and she asked what is the difference between weaponizing boundaries and about you know having a boundary and what is this idea of ultimatum I think it's a really that's how it's received battery is an ultimatum but yeah I mean it is but the way I see the difference is I'm not saying you you know I'm gonna do some this is me if this is my limit and if that gets crossed I am now going to take myself away to end the conversation to kindly talk to you when you're a bit calmer right and I think that anytime it's me or I based and I think that's when we can shift out of that idea however Louis I mean of course there's gonna be someone on the receiving end of that might I mean say and so I had my meditation yesterday I met a lot of followers and it was an incredible experience and they more often than not every three mentioned the concept of boundaries the fact that a they had no idea what a boundary was until they started to read my work and other people's works then they started to use boundaries and we're talking about how incredibly difficult it is I actually put a post up today about a lot of the the feedback that one gets you know we're we're told we're selfish or holier than thou who the hell do we think we are putting up these boundaries so I mean the short of it is they're they typically aren't received well some type of manipulation or guilting or are you better than me now or you've changed like you wrote in your post today man so how what was the reaction life for you with your family when you said okay I'm choosing to do this if yeah so in the beginning it was kind of just another joke at my family's might as well talk to this wall right here so it was heard it wasn't responded to but three days later three texts later you know back was the content that I wasn't interested in talking about or like I said I would try to experiment with a little more distance between calls or visits and then every now and again and weekend met with either anger or worry where am I you know am i dead in a ditch somewhere I mean just these crazy just not respond to their text anymore I would just say please don't work yes yes yes yes or in if it was direct content that I wasn't interested in discussing I was saying you know I've asked us not to talk about this you know I don't care to have this conversation you know I don't it sounds like unless you create about we get what we tolerate in life so unless we create boundaries or guidelines we're gonna continue to get the things that we tolerate and if you don't like something but you tolerate it you can't expect someone else to change and you continue to tolerate that fence until you make a clear request this is my request that we only talk about these things or we eliminate this from our relationship or whatever maybe and moving forward if that doesn't happen I want to create a boundary for myself right yeah we have to create a request and it can't be an angry mean request needs to be like a calm loving request yes usually it sounds like it's never going to be a calm response because the person may not want to change but why I always define three steps the first one is to define it for yourself and for some people we don't know at first we know we're not we never heard of what a boundary is we don't know that we can so this is I always say this is an individual process of looking within maybe kind of step back and gauge some of your relationships see the ones that are working and what looks or feels difference about different about those and the ones that aren't working so that's the process so defining your boundary then putting up and acting your boundary where you're communicating it I love you already very intuitively sedative calm time we're neat both parties are not reactive you're not gonna shout this out in a fight it's probably not gonna be the best time objective language I think is really great-looking about you where you just make it about you right and you just you know not know no fingers it's not you you know you're you guys are crazy so I'm never coming over or probably not gonna be the most well received and then the third step is also our responsibility and only ours is maintaining it follow through on it is following through because the second we don't do that we do send the message that enough kill enough anger can and and I and I say this too and I know this can you know kind of I don't know the way people can receive this can be you know many different ways but a lot of times that we're not upholding our boundary because of how we feel we I call the feel bad you know so we take our boundary down so that we don't feel I could have filled that I do you think I talk about them I come by the feel beds as part of my family you love to feel bad right but I say that because again it's it's our job to tolerate the way we're feeling and it's our job to tolerate our feel bad and not to do the easy thing that's gonna take our feel bad away which is actually acquiescing yeah and then be resentful all over again being that person and I know that that that's where some people are well you know it's so I actually it's like a self it a lot of the times and I'll even go from well but deeper into this a lot of the times that we struggle with boundaries is because of our own feelings we don't want to put limits up because of how it makes us feel yes we don't want to hurt people that we love and a lot of us want to show up as a caring individual in the world I myself included I fancy myself a very kind considerate person but there there's a limit a lot of times the reason we don't even initially have boundaries against we weren't modeled them but because we don't like how it feels feel bad you know what someone else has a people please you don't to hurt someone else even if you need to for your own sanity you still don't want to hurt people you don't like oh they don't like me right but that's where manipulation and kill ting comes into play and it's just like I learned a lot in the last few years about setting bat like I used to really care about everyone's opinion about me like really and want to try to like win them over if like one negative review like how could I win this person over even there's thousands of positive comments or whatever right on something and now it's just like I'm not gonna be able to change someone's mind necessarily and me putting energy on one person to try to make them like like me more is a waste of time we've got it I think we've got to continue to just reflect on like okay this person is not resonating with me is there something I can do to improve to move forward but if not I'm not gonna put my energy on trying to save one person's opinion about me right so yeah I like this so setting boundaries to find the boundary creating like a calm communicational request with the boundary and then staying your word and following through on the boundary otherwise I'll never met ya so how do you feel year later not talking to your family now it's been a it's been a year I mean coming to the decision to not talk to them was complicated it was really difficult and that's why I speak very openly and honestly about it tooks I think I was I'm very surprised when I get messages of other people that have have certain amounts of distance between their family completely no contact and I was not aware that there were so many other people that you know had had to put or I've chosen to put distance in because I did not come by that decision easily it was it was painful for maybe five years life to do that yeah then and I don't want to hurt them and I do love them and I do want what's best for them but I also have to love there's me and what's best for me so when I say it's been a hard year I I mean I have moments you know the holidays there's the positive the negative of that now you know on the one hand it's like oh I can actually choose what I want to do for the holiday that was completely new me and my partner starting to make our own traditions because a requirement of family is everything is you better believe your showing up for the big Italian Christmas gathering so I was I was given little flexibility to have spaced apart around holidays but obviously the other side of that came sadness knowing that my family was having a holiday without me with my nephew who's young there I mean it's it's complicated on a lot of levels talking about about you I know I know that it you know it's being viewed probably not me I'm pretty positive and my partner's very well over this herself that she's probably been villainized she's probably her who's taking me away from the file I mean you know whatever story that they want to are gonna create they're gonna create it's tough though because you know unfortunately sometimes if family is only destructive towards you you you shouldn't have to stay there and be responsible for their joy and happiness for decades if they're always destructive towards your health right and another end you could say well I'm just not going to allow it to affect me I'll be around them I'll still show up I won't like distance myself in the family but I'm just not going to loud their thoughts or words or actions towards me affect me is that something that's healthy too though just to be in the space while there's manipulation guilt shaming or whatever judgment whatever it's happening in a family dynamics can should people do that or should they more separate themselves fully from family if it's a constant I think if they can I mean if they can find the way so for me I got really good at being okay with it because what I would do and I didn't even though I heard this word in my schooling I did not realize that this is what I was doing is I would dissociate disassociate yeah so I would I call it my spaceship go away on I got one present I wasn't present I mean I got very savvy you would not have any idea having a conversation with me and I would be in that looking through me yeah so what yeah so let's let me tie this all together the reason I could not remember my childhood is because I dissociated so I wasn't surprising enough to put it in so there's nothing there to reiax s so that's just a tie that I'm physically present I was physic but that was out of yeah because of the emotional overwhelm of the family the anxiety you know when modeling or helping me to navigate those feelings as we do as children I will always say this as children I believe we come to this planet however you think we get here as adaptive intuitive creatures and of course we all have a guidance system and we all are incredibly flexible and adaptive so I adapt it I dealt with my own emotions my own way which was I'd associated so some people though in adulthood can find the way to show up with their family is not like I talk a lot about D personalizing simply meaning not owning it you know even if they say something negative to you if you can see that as more of a reflection of them yeah you can maybe maybe come and go and leave that interaction and be okay and if you know what to expect you're not expecting them to change you arrive you deal with it after the situation you can maybe I think humor is incredible and then you leave I did not find myself able though for that I did not want to use my old habit of dissociation and then like I said because of just the living structure and yes in depth ingrained nosov their dynamics it was much harder for me to find that okay space I don't know honestly what the future brings I'm just I'm doing and I'm using and so part of what would happen I would go back you know to visit and then my partner would notice this as well and I would then become almost regressed become reactive so I was trying to heal but I would only get so far and then I'd be pulled right back down or the next health crisis I'd be pulled right back in so my healing was limited so this year has been incredible for me to be able to actually gain some more full traction to do my own inner healing so that I don't know if a future comes and I can have some version of contact with them I'm not sure but I know that I have to be in a different place if I am going to be that person who can come home let them be them and leave that home intact Wow I'm curious I think a lot of people have challenges right whether it be family or living believe scarcity relationships health whatever it may be and a lot of people do talk therapy but why does it seem like most traditional talk therapy doesn't work and people keep going yeah how can it work better for them what do they need to do so that it starts to see benefits and results yeah what's your thoughts I'm really happy USA so one of the reasons I think and this is this happened in my own life so anxiety was all I knew I went to multiple years of talk therapy myself I was actually in and what is called a psychoanalytic training program so think Freud the couch clocking I mean these are people that go into treatment our I mean each day of the week you know five days a week for an hour so I was training in that modality and part of that training was we had to lay on the couch ourself and so at some points I was up in in therapy two hours a week I was on medication I had you know my SSRI my benzo in the back pocket and I was taking the traditional routes of treatment and I still wasn't getting better so for me realizing that we have to look at the whole person that's why I now work holistically that there's a body that I'm at my mind that's unwell if you will is attached to so for me it was exploring the nutritional the sleep all of the lifestyle based stuff because I was so physiologically out of balance that I wasn't able to a lot of my symptoms really of anxiety even sometimes even a depression or what we think of as depression or the result of this physiological imbalance yeah big time fuse got damnit I mean we now know that the gut is incredibly important in our health it's not only where nutrients are absorbed that damage to the gut results in chronic inflammation that can be really really problematic you know in terms of our mental wellness so for me without that I was just contributing and exacerbating my anxiety so no amount of talking in a room the way I see it or even medication because we also now know that the medication that we thought all the neurotransmitters were in our brain like I said are in our gut so yeah so we're doing talk to everything having a gallon ice cream and pizza afterwards mm-hmm it's probably gonna help us cuz we're to go up down up down up down constantly yes so and and I can assure you I've yet to find a program or meet a clinician and I now have a whole network of them that I'm connected to that have had any versions I mean the nutrition the gut the body is not mentioned in an in any training program so I think that's a huge limitation I also know that another big big problem for a lot of us whether or not we have the big T of trauma or the little T of trauma is it dysregulated nervous system yeah so now there's science yeah so now there's an incredible amount of science even dr. Stephen Porges is amazing he does polyvagal theory and so to put it really simple unless we start to address that dysregulation in our nervous system that at this part part most of us have that's gonna limit treatment so the sympathetic is that fight or flight fight or flight most of us are spending most of our time chronically in I mean from this I mean I'm looking out the vast city in the background I mean some for some of us the city luxury is enough my mind has now taken on a whole other capacity to induce stress so a lot of us humans are living chronically stressed you could be you could be a nature but your mind driving traffic yes you could you could have induced so completely in a panic attack I mean I've seen it happen in my office you know content we're talking about before I know what the person's having a complete visceral reaction right so without regulation of that nervous system I see that treatment talking about it only goes so far because we had a great session thanks Louis see you next week and now I'm out the door with my overactive nervous system and that next thing is gonna activate me and the next things in activate mean I'm gonna have a fight with my partner that also speaks to the power of the subconscious so what therapy is is talking from the conscious mind we can have a great insightful you know therapy session I can understand I can even have a great game plan but then I'm back out the door and if I'm not conscious I'm back in my subconscious and then I'm back in those patterns so then what I would see week after week me see me too I thought I was very insightful I thought I knew myself right and I'd work with people we'd a great session and back the next week and it's the same report Oh gotten the same fights with my partner still stressed out about work it's like nothing's changing and it's because again therapy the way I say it only addresses that conscious mind even the best laid plans of what we're going to do that next time we're activate it only go as far as me remembering to do do these new things so I think that the whether it's the lack of the body attention the lack of addressing dysregulated nervous system or really us not understanding I mean the subconscious is as crazy as this might sound not talked about in in any training program so unless these clinicians are given these tools I think that a lot of them are gonna and so part of it I was nervous I wasn't I wasn't sure when I started to go and shout from the rooftops these new holistic methods and how I did you know find the traditional model model to be limiting I was nervous about what my peers were gonna say and they've been nothing but receptive and I think a bit relieved I actually offer professional mentorship sessions now and I have at least one or two professionals a week that I'll speak to and help to update help them to update their practices in these ways because they say it they know it they're stuck they're probably stuck in their own life too and they don't see that I think their clinical work being as effective as they know on some level it could be yeah so how do we regulate our nervous system I guess yeah yeah nervous system so our goal is so we are actually structured as humans to be spending all of our time in the other nervous system the parasympathetic relaxing and that relaxed mode only yeah one my thing only to need right when we are literally at risk right yeah so the tool that I'm talking always about is breath work through conscious breathing this is the easiest one being just retraining the way you naturally breathe most of us have humans now have evolved to being a bit of a shallow chest base breather so even just so for me I couldn't when I first started doing breath work I was like gasping for air I'm lying down trying to get a deep belly breath in and now I've practiced consistently enough that I breathe mainly from my belly which indicates to me that I mean spending more and more time there's still times where if I'm feeling particularly stressed often remind myself to breathe as crazy that sounds I catch myself holding my breath or I catch my breath being a little more shallow so that's one that when I work with clients I talk about right off the bat because being able I don't say anything honestly as empowering is being able to begin to consciously gain control of the way your body is physiologically reacting especially if you sit on that anxiety spectrum and definitely if you have panic attack because I know that they feel like the most out-of-control place in the world to be so to show people that wait a minute I can start to pray again these aren't the magic elixirs we can't breathe from the belly twice or just use it as needed as a lot of us want to do you know it's not that but if you do practice it you can start to feel a bit more in control and I don't find anything as empowering as that yeah and when we can calm the mind then we can make a lot better decisions yes the wolf or in constant stress or fire flight in the mind and the body yeah it's hard to be mindful of our reactions we're just gonna go back to our patterns in the past yeah well I love that you said that because the mind about you're connected they're interconnected so just as much as you like you and I just said I said here I think stressful thoughts I'm having a stress body reaction our mind is monitoring our body's reaction to so if my body is having a reaction with and the stress hormones they have a longer shelf life I mean cortisol adrenaline takes our body a bit to metabolize those so our mind is going to continue to register that our body is stressed and it's going to try to make sense of it so then it's going to make it even harder to calm or to redirect our attention from a racing mind so it's very interconnected so that's why I talk about attentional control getting the hell out of those thoughts that are becoming the issue and inducing the body experience but also calming the body so that we can clip that up message - yeah it's working on both for sure you know it's like I try to think about like if my mind is a you know as a bucket right and there's thoughts that I can put in the bucket all day and there's thoughts that are coming in and leaving the bucket how do I constantly fill it with positive peaceful loving beautiful thoughts as opposed to chaotic stressful thoughts and I just try to decide every moment to have more beautiful thoughts than negative thoughts and a lot of my practices breathwork meditation and gratitude simple things it's really basic simple things and the more I focus on gratitude I find that my mind is in a peaceful beautiful state and there's no room for negativity when it's in a beautiful state so it's a practice because when we're in stress mode and we're in scarcity mode it's hard to think beautiful thoughts because you're just like I'm gonna die yeah that's how you feel like no one loves me they're attacking me and this negativity in these negative emotions calm so I just try to focus on gratitude for what I have and that brings more peace and positive thoughts into the bucket every day yeah well you're actually speaking is something that's very real too part of the fight-or-flight response is a shrinking of our perceptual field where we cannot see those expansive areas outside we only can see the immediate and we're actually primed to see threat oh so that's why it's always typically color- so those of us that are living this is why it's also imperative ly important to to get out of fight-or-flight or to build and practice that over time will shift us a bit more out of fight-or-flight because we are and this also goes into the whole financial climate when you're living under stress even if it's financially induced stress I can't pay my bills you are now dealing with them a shrunken perceptual field that makes it hard to lock out of that it's funny but once you start focusing on gratitude in scarcity you start to create more abundance and opportunities to generate you know financial income or the right partnership or whatever maybe so it's hard to get out of that but if you just focus on yeah okay what am i grateful for and how come my energy shift to be a magnetic force field of good to come to me good that's what it is I mean that's my gratitude there's I'm so excited now it's actually getting studied a bit that gratitude does shift us vibrationally energetically that even a small practice list one two things a day that you're grateful for does have those effects and it's becoming more and more proven that it does because it it's shifting our brainwaves to a different frequency I always think about you know people in service at restaurants when someone's waiting on you and they come with a grateful positive energy I guarantee they're making more tips then if someone's negative and focused in their own head and just angry or down in themselves you're attracting less you're attracting what you're creating in the world and I always hear these great stories with people that are so positive it's like I want to hire these people at these restaurants who are so positive and brink ratah to time like if you're grateful in this situation I can imagine how you would implement this energy to something else and I feel like they're attracting more what they want by being grateful and their way of being their energy it's not easy it's a practice so how did you start to eliminate scarcity in your own life where did you focus on when you recognized okay one of my living beliefs is not being seen or being scarce so what were the steps that you did did you start to do inner child work right away you know so first I first I practiced consistent self observation I watched observation right so I developed consistent now and I resisted meditating consistently but I built in a consistent meditation practice so that I could then carry that skill throughout my day because I knew that's where I really needed it so I practice that consistent daily self observation where I was looking at my thoughts you know all day long and and what journaling them or just be just noticing because the first way and this kind of ties into something you were saying earlier the first way that we can start to quiet our mind is we don't battle our thoughts away we can't obviously hit the mute button on them but we can start to pay less attention by removing our attention so each and every time I would see that because my subconscious our subconscious is what's offering most of our thoughts for us right so my cupcakes go on and up my subconscious is gonna assign that I'm not considered scarcity based meaning not my conscious mind right so I don't have control over that that's why I explain that so the conscious you don't control we do not have control we can we can reprogram reprogram it through consistent repetition of something new by being aware of our thoughts consciously okay that doesn't support me anymore yeah so the way at the simplest way I put us to change our subconscious we first need to start paying less attention to those older narratives that are naturally gonna be there and I say this attention to them first if they didn't notice them and then remove your attentional focus back to your breath back to the current moment and that is the tool the muscle I called a mindful a muscle that we're building our attentional muscle we all have one ours are most of ours are just very wimpy because either life that's endlessly distracting is grabbing our tension or a lot of us are spending way too much time looking if you will at our thought so noticing our thoughts enough to then redirect my attention away will weaken that narrative so that's the first layer of work okay noticing watching your thoughts what's the second layer and then if you want to the subconscious can be reprogrammed so then I started to play around with and the future self journal was kind of where I what I developed for this part of my own healing was to practice I mean what an affirmation is a new thought alright so then I would start to practice abundance based affirmations and that's a mental rehearsal in the act of affirming we're literally lighting up a new neural pathway in our brain so our brain does not know whether or not I already believe that to be true or not the goal is to repeat it enough that over time I believe that to be true so the subconscious can be changed later in life so the reason was the mantra you were using for this I'm I'm abundant just a simple one just simple one couple words a simple one here like ah trigger something like cookies gone whatever like I'm abundant first it was it was get out of there just notice it off sometimes I need to take a breath because I thought was that goddamn okay you know and then once I had a second then I could say but you know and then remind myself that I'm abundant there's a store up the street like it's not about lack of but we first have to pull it away cuz I think a lot of us try to go right in a strong arm and shifted and it just doesn't work because this is a belief that we've been practicing and some of us outside of our conscious awareness for as long as we've been walking the plan and I mean so this is a really strong network it's gonna take time cuz a years potentially decades potentially right now do you associate the thought with a physical feeling or physical motion or just like an abundant movement or is it just a thought with so what meant the way I define manifestation is pairing that thought with the bullet as if it's true so how believing me to be abundant how would that make me feel what I feel free what I feel you know limitless it might be different for each of us so that is part of it but for me so that the the narrative work is what subscribe getting out of the ole narratives if you choose to be committed practicing new ones it can work the deeper level because a lot of these narratives a lot of our subconscious is is is touching on a wound or not met need so for me this is where this consideration came so my deeper work my inner child work was now as the adult that I am to find the ways and I had to find them I did not know them no one taught me how to consider myself I did not have parents or caregivers they were they were modeling you know kind of self consideration or self care in any healthy way if you will so I didn't know when I say this cuz I think a lot of times we become an adult and we think we should know just know how to take care of our emotional selves but if we were never taught how would we know I did not know so then my deeper journey was okay how can I show up in the world consistently on the daily basis and consider myself consider my needs explore what they even might be how to even give them words and then what to do I didn't know how to give myself a feel better I dissociated that's all I knew so now that I was showing up to manage my feelings in a new way I was I was like a little kid again no [ __ ] idea well what to do and I just had to move toward okay does this make me feel better or worse and I talk with my clients a lot about this because it can feel really overwhelming when you're trying to navigate your emotions now in a new way we all have had a way that we've coped and we got really good at it but chances are that's not the way that's gonna get us the relationships that we want the life that we want so for me it was like stabbing around the dark and just moving toward what felt a little better and then you start to get a toolkit you start to say okay when I'm feeling down you know while I might hate to say it moving helps me or you know a bath helps me or a time alone helps me I had to rediscover all of those new tools for myself in those moments so that was the deeper part of the journey is now because I've you it's my responsibility to consider myself to learn how to navigate my emotions and this it's not my partner's job not to eat the cupcake to consider me it's my job to and then I realize over time I wasn't assigning through that constant attentional control I stopped the signing lack of consideration meanings you know after a while yeah you know eatin food was eaten food dishes on the counter with justice is on the counter and then I was building myself up enough and repairing myself enough that I was feeling overall considered by me so that when she offered me an active consideration it was like oh great you know but it wasn't necessary anymore so my okayness and our relationship stability didn't depend on her showing up to give me a gesture of consideration anymore it was just an added bonus then I was able to let it in more because I think some of us become so rigid in exactly what we other person to fit my need in this way and now I could accept maybe it's not the way I would want to be considered but it's a little gesture and it's consideration and it's still tell you what fills my cup I I feel like I've gotten to the point of my life where I'm pretty abundant right I've created a life I want from eleven years ago being the most scarce I could ever be like broke on my sister's couch no money and no clear vision of how to make money it's an hour it's like okay I'm not worried about eating for a long time unless something drastic happens I'm not worried about eating for a long time I'm not worried about a place a roof over my head I can live in a one-bedroom apartment and be fine right studio it doesn't matter and I feel so good being independent that my my car relationship my girlfriend is amazing like yesterday I woke up late was a Sunday I woke up late I supposed to get up earlier to work out but I woke up late to a doorbell ringing because she and she's at Mexico City she has sent me Starbucks latte so I just woke up open the door and there's a latte from her from postmates and I was just like that just brings me so much joy there was no expectation that she needed to do that you know but it's just I'm allowed a believe it's better and I don't have any expectation I think when we put expectations on a partner so much sure there's certain boundaries and rules that we create in every relationship but it's like we shouldn't be expecting on the other person to make us happy that's when we get let down yeah right absolutely we shouldn't be expecting that and part of I think a dynamic that unfolds in relationships is we look to recreate what we knew first of relationships and those very early early relationships that becomes our normal are familiar in relationship so whether or not it's expectation just emotional climates we tend to look to recreate that which we first knew because that's our first journey and relationships is the caregiving you know the family structure looks different for all of us but whatever we're deposited in right you're seeing relationships happen sometimes you're getting direct messages about what's okay or not okay in relationships and then you're having your own experience being in relationships with these humans and then that becomes the the relationship model that could store the thing gets replicated over time so for me my current relationship was a big shift out of my past ones because I what I noticed looking back that I was searching for was those familiar feeling so I felt closest to the people that in some ways but that were much more surface that were anxiety I understood so I had a lot of partners that also were very much relatable in that because that's how my family unit felt so it felt familiar what we're seeking most is humans the way I say it's familiarity but and that comes up a lot in our relationship so even if logically you can look as they own maybe your friends are even telling this is the partner for you something feels really comfortable about it that's what you're used to it was normal and I think that happens in terms of what you expect like you were saying in relationships but also the feeling in a relationship registers too and I think sometimes we're just seeking that familiar you and if it's not logically the partner that we necessarily want to be building the life with you mentioned you learned how to repair it yourself what does that mean parenting yourself mm-hmm so whether or not it's so there's a lot of categories of it I think so some of it's just our physical needs right how do we show up and take care of the body that we're in in terms of sleeping and eating and again reminding each of us or looking at those earliest models that we were given what were we taught about those just very much just our basic needs how are we exposed to them being mad what were we told about how they should be met what do we see how are they met you know in those earliest environments and then it's our emotional world I think another major category so how do I learn my own emotions how do I come to know what they feel like in the body how do I come to know what to do with them and how do I learn but also how do I reach out to myself is that part of it - mm-hmm you talk to yourself so for some of us it's teaching I mean I had a family who did not talk about emotions I think a lot of people don't so it's learning emotional language might be the how do I talk is to talk why don't we talk - why don't I mean cuz it's not on the school's responsibility to teach us emotions necessarily although I wish there was a class in school that taught us about emotions growing up it's kind of what mr. Rogers was about right yeah kind of like was his mission because he saw that no kids not no kids but a lot of kids lacked the emotional capacity to express their feelings in a safe environment right it was anger fighting screaming manipulate it wasn't like this is how I'm feeling right because the anger and other things were actually more acceptable at least for me growing up it's like showing that you're a man by being angry and fighting or punching as opposed to like sitting down with the buddy of yours but I'm really thing sad about this is my life that the teacher did you know you just get made fun of yeah I think there's societal messages I often think about mantilax I think you guys have really really kind of structural messages that are put in place passed down from society at large that it's quite damaging the way I see it family cultures and climates it comes back to safety when we have caregivers that aren't comfortable with their own emotions they're not going to be comfortable with their children's emotions so before we know it we start to shave off the okay or the acceptable emotions and a family and so either we're left with none being acceptable we just don't talk about emotions this was very much my family or we're left with only the handful of acceptable emotions right which is anger or and then we internalize this and then we carry that into our adulthood so now I'm the person in the relationship who doesn't address anything emotions and I run from the conversation when I know when the persons are awesome saying we got a talk you know like I'm out of here bye-bye maybe I'm on my spaceship now because I don't want to talk about emotion that's scary to me or we become only these emotions are ok to talk about so and I think this is again passed down through generations likely our caregivers grow up in families where these emotions weren't ok and they were unsafe it really that's what it comes down to until you learn how to break the cycle it's very hard to break the emotional cycle of what you were how you're raised for me I started breaking it because I had a lot of breakdowns in my life when I turned 30 I had a massive break up break down a business partnership break down break up and I just started reacting in every area of my life when I felt I was under attack when I felt like someone was abusing me which was kind of my trigger it was like when I feel abused sexually abuses kid and I was bullied and picked on and it felt like I was the youngest of four and just felt like I was always the one who got the abuse that's the story that I told myself of 30 years and I got in a fight in a basketball game that meant nothing the game was like a no stakes game it was just a pickup game and I got a really bad fight and it's kind of like the perfect storm of like why is all these breakdowns happening it's when I finally was like wow I have a lot to lose here if I keep following this pattern and I decided I was like I need to take a look at my life I need to start making some changes I need to start being aware of why I'm doing this and learn how I can break through these triggers and that was really the game changer for me but I feel like it's hard for people to want to look for growth and improvement in a life without some type of drastic event or events happening a near-death situation a breakup and a longest long-term relationship a divorce of a career ending whatever maybe why is it so hard for us to want to improve or grow when there's no tragic accident yeah I often talk about having the the kind of cataclysmic events are necessary in a sense so I the way I see it is I mean it's not the only route I think people can consciously just evolve and decide to change on their own but a lot of times you will hear that as part of the journey you know the dark night of the soul or you know whether it's something objectively ended a loss things like that so something I've always said and I've always noticed about people and change and then I'm gonna I've come to understand why this is the case but something I've always said is we have to feel like that we have no other option like the option of life as we know it now is way more intolerable than the fear that comes along with change in general and again back to something I said earlier we humans are habitual creatures and to some extent we view change or uncertainty as threatening and there's a function now that I'm very much aware of the power of our subconscious so the simplest way I describe and this is why I will always say it changes heart it's universally hard for all of us I want to normalize that though I mean this when I say this because I think a lot of people become really self deprecating I'm lazy I'm undisciplined I just can't argue this I'm hopeless when they realize when they live the experience of change being hard the reason why change is hard is so our subconscious eye it's a silly a description but I say we each have a little Avatar you have a Lois one and I'm gonna call them so because what our subconscious has done and this might blows my mind it has logged every experience that we've had on this bar until today and will continue to log every experience we have in life until we're no longer on this planet which is a lot of [ __ ] and because we're very habitual it has we need our subconscious so this is me thing Thank You subconscious we need it to some extent because without some things Ottomans in that program if I had to wake up every day and remind myself and consciously think about being human brushing my teeth I would be I mean we would be debilitated so we need this however what happens is because we're so habitual what is in there are our behavioral habits more or less knows what we do first thing in the morning last thing before bed knows habitual thoughts that we think it knows how we those thoughts make us feel right so it has our little avatar mm-hmm it registers things in a very black-and-white way this is a very simplified description registers registers things are very black-and-white way the one end of the spectrum being familiar equals safe good unfamiliar equals unsafe possibly even threatening bad right so logically right you might sit across from me and you might say you know I want to start this new habit first thing in the morning I'm gonna start to say new affirmations I am good enough for I want to give myself a feeling of peace all I know is stress tomorrow comes and you give yourself one of those you make the choice to have one of those new experiences and your subconscious is gonna register that as unfamiliar and then one of two maybe both things are gonna happen what I call mental chatter the endless litany of reasons why not to do or never to do this thing again it sucks it's terrible it's bad for you or you know or dangerous or what are you doing and or cuz some of us get this will start to feel whether it's physiological and agitation sometimes it'll be described I'm just crawling on my skin sometimes I just won't feel like me I'll start to feel weird and again that is the power of the subconscious so for both of those reasons before I know it I'm right back in that comfort zone I'm doing back what I'm used to doing thinking feeling because it's familiar so that's why change is hard how do we stay consistent with the change so what I am the language I use is a small daily promise and I put emphasis on that small because I know speaking about expectations again we as humans can tend to and a lot of us I'm a perfectionist you know we set the bar so high up for ourselves but that is so damaging because what we're looking for is consistency I mean that's what this means they heal holistically to create habits it's not every other day we do it or maybe this time and then next week I'll try it again it's doing this each day but the higher the bar is if I don't meet that bar I become so disempowered I'm not gonna show up and try to meet that bargain tomorrow hell no I'd rather do any other thing on the planet so setting up those small yeah small excellent it's almost like okay instead of saying I'm gonna work out every day it's saying I'm gonna put on my tennis shoes and I'm gonna take one step outside yeah one step because that's gonna ultimately lead you into doing more steps as opposed to saying okay I'm gonna floss all my teeth every night when I've never flossed I'm just gonna floss one tooth yeah you get out the floss and do one tooth you're gonna do another one yeah maybe you stopped after even if you only do that one this is also what I suggest notice each and every time you kept that promise because that you get it would I say getting past your mind because tomorrow when you go to floss that one tooth and maybe it just was one tooth right your mind is gonna tell you all the reasons not to floss that one tooth again right so the more you show yourself that consistency and the way I put is we're rebuilding trust in ourselves most of us have I say self betrayal most of us have started to not trust ourselves and not trust our words we don't keep our word ourselves because change is hard all right so this is all interconnected so we have to to rebuild trust we have to show ourselves that we're keeping those promises and we can't expect our subconscious to get on board I joke and I say we can't wait for that cheerleading squad or and some of us wait to want to or to feel like we want to so I'm always on my story saying I don't want to do this [ __ ] but I'm doing it anyway because I've now built a trust in myself that I keep my word and my subconscious still gives me all of the reasons not to do it even years later into this but more you keep those promises and notice yourself keeping them you start to trust yourself and you start to get a little bit more empowered getting beyond that mind and self belief and confidence comes from keeping your word yes that's right I think Trust turns into confidence turns into empowerment you believe you deserve abundance you deserve great relationships you deserve better health when you fall through on that tell me about the inner child work every time I do any inner child work where someone's talking to me and I'm reflecting back and like holding my my baby myself was a little boy and looking in my eyes a five-year-old hugging my inner child like every time I think about myself as a child I was getting very emotional and the more work I do it I'm like wow this is really powerful to heal constantly healing why is inner child work necessary and what is it exactly yeah I think it's necessary I think we all have a wounded child in us again whether or not and some of us have lived through those big t traumas the abuse is the neglect the big stuff some of us have just lived with an underlying unmet need a lack of emotional love not just being now III see trauma in and of itself is not being seen just for the u n-- heard and understood of just a unique being is being enough without how showing up for the in the world so I think we all carry a wound so I think it's necessary I think it's important because I know what's happening those moments of reactivity where we're triggered and when we're expressing our you know feelings already outwardly whether we're tantruming or dissociated those are all those old childhood reactions that we formed at that time so we need to heal that and need to give ourselves some new options actually someone asked me though and I think this is really interesting to think about whether or not we get to that place where that wound is gone whether or not it goes away is that our goal of healing like I don't believe and I've yet to have any experiences or evidence that we get to the place where our wound is gone but I think our goal is to navigate life with that wound knowing when it's being touched knowing how to make ourself feel better when it's there knowing how to first and foremost I should have said this break that habitual way of reacting toward it and giving ourself a bit more new choices helping our relationships in those moments and then like I said giving ourselves those deeper needs to be met on our own but I think we're always going to retain some hurt things are always going to mine is gonna be something deeper and yours is gonna be something else and they're always gonna be the event where it's like oh that hurt a little bit but we can still show up as our adult self in that moment and have a new choice or yeah how do we become a self healer every day every day what can we do yeah it's just a simple practice I think it's simple practices I mean I think it's you know depending on what you're struggling first with you know if it is something that's you know kind of physiologically a dysregulation taking a look at the dis daily habits how much are you sleeping I was shocked about my sleep habits I always thought I was someone who needed a lot of sleep I wasn't getting consistently a lot of sleep my nutrition now that I became aware of the gut and some of these got damaging foods I was eating a lot of things that weren't helping me so I think some of it's just getting a look on our lifestyle the choices I think those of us who live in cities have you know endless options of you know food ordering and food that we're eating a lot of or just the way we're socializing with our friends you know so modify I think anything that is lifestyle based is a and small snaps I mean you might you know you're not gonna I mean some people might you know go clean out the pantry and have a completely different new set of options some people might just decide make one nut choice see one last thing that they know is problematic or out one less time say no to one reader at the bar I mean whatever it is right it starts small and then I always think consciousness developing some habit of being aware getting eyes practicing that self observation so that you can get clarity into you're stuck points into your subconscious into those deeper wounds and then you really can start to make those deeper level shapes but it is daily so that's what I think it is I mean it's it's picking just one area I always will say focused attention even though a lot of us like to think that we're great multitasking focus attention on one area and develop some consistency I know people hate this but you're not gonna do things for three days and have it down and this is your new habit you're gonna probably I mean I don't look into the research and if people go habits take 30 days 28 whatever habits take as long until your that's become into your life but you know what I mean so just focus on one thing remove one of the problems in your world in a small way for a consistent amount of time then build on it I always do what I call a foundational approach with the clients that I work with in my own journey and I suggest we do that just pick one area and you can always build and expand it empowers you on the way yeah it's powerful what's your vision for the future now you could spent the last year building your your years of work into and sharing it into the world it sounds like once you set yourself free with these boundaries you really set your ideas free to to create an abundance in your life so what's the next what's the vision for you more absolutely so I'm hoping to release some courses now to give some people a little bit more of a self-directed healing journey you know aside from just the squares I mean so all the content that I've always been putting out there was everything I would use in sessions with clients I didn't have a secret arsenal that if you got to work about all there's a real magic elixir I tell everyone oh yes so I was always putting it out there and I always intend to do that but I want to come up with some coursework so that people can have a bit more of a structure kind of workshop their way through subconsciously parenting I want to do some things on partnerships and relationships because I think these are all interconnected so I'm gonna fall out fold out some courses I want to I've shifted away or I stopped taking individual clients about two months ago now and I'm shifting into a group model I think humans heal very well in groups so I want to start to offer such gradual groups again where people can pace themself through a healing journey so just pretty much expand the tools and the the I guess reach of the tools in a way so that any human I also want to over time start to shift into teaching a little bit more in a structured fashion workshops and things like that for the practitioners let's start to update you know because again I'm not trying to change the school system or the school structure and that's just not my my time on this planet but I do want to make sure that clinicians out there are equipped to start to use some of these more holistic methods so and you have a thing called the future self journal right so how come people get this it's free yeah absolutely absolutely so the future self journal so my main hub is the Instagram and the dot holistic that psychologists your website to up there I have a link tree so you can get to my website at your holistic psychologist comm and signing up for the email list on that website but I believe I have that in a link tree in my Instagram that you can also access that and I'm always doing sweep up so good that is what comes upon sign up for the email and it's a template it takes you through what I call future self journaling which is a bit of a spin on good old-fashioned journaling where we journal about our past our daily experiences or feelings this was me really starting to make a pivot and explore ways to use the journaling practice to increase consciousness around future change so it's powerful it's a really cool and people are really getting but the same thing like I always say it's a tool to be used every day to set herself up to be more conscious throughout the day to be change to try the magic Journal I wish people team a fight if I had that if I found out the magic Journal I'd be releasing that but it doesn't exist so that's my office I use it myself we can get that there [Music] move inspired so you'll be doing more of those I'm sure you'll have a list of your events in the future in the website for sure yeah I'm gonna do one in Philly because I have to represent New York a couple months too and I'll do a warm-up there I bet you'll have your least amount of people that show up in your hometown I like this for some reason uh-huh you always get the lease maybe I prove me wrong but I always I'm actually interesting so I have a couple colleagues and things that I know are interconnected but I do have people randomly like oh you're feeling I'm feeling - I'm New Jersey I'm actually - figure out where the hell I'm gonna do it in Philly the beach was beautiful here oh my god it's a peach oh great thanks a big butt I'll figure it out but I want to make that a habit of pretty much everywhere I travel my soul is to be able to provide part I mean for me to meet people and to have that interface because I love meeting the humans join the incredibly supportive accounts that are on the other side of the Instagram but also to have it was beautiful yesterday I was watching humans connecting and exchanging numbers and you know maybe if you can get some support it can be really lonely is something that I've lived to myself as I start to evolve out of some relationships I was looking around on my oh [ __ ] out how many people left you know so when I went on Instagram part of it was a little bit of you know I wanted to find other people out there that were well they're not struggling or healing in the same way that I was because I would start to make because I was doing shifting the way I was living that me meant that I maybe wasn't at all the happy hours or I'm not out with my friends doing what they're doing so I was looking around I really have that wannabe ball so I think it's a beautiful way and the community that is really been created on mind-blown everyday they're incredibly supportive doing amazing work thank you why would I acknowledge you for jeez you just serve a lot of people Nicole and it's really inspiring I think a lot of people are healing for the first time on Instagram of all places they're able to find wisdom that you're creating whether it be through your Instagram TV guided breathing meditations or just the the images you put out are so simple you make complicated things so easy to digest where it's like oh yeah why don't I think about this and so I acknowledge you for putting yourself out there for creating boundaries in your life relationships that probably felt very conflicted in guilty for years to decide that but creating freedom for yourself is now healing the world I don't think I'm really I'm really inspired by your decisions and your consistency and showing up for all of us no thank you your gift that means a lot one of my goals was always to me because I think right now but this way that a lot of this material can feel overwhelming and confusing and the way that's talked about in some traditional ways you know it's not understandable it's not like and if it is understandable it's okay well now what so hearing that I'm able and I'll tell you those music those cute little memes and now I've I can do very much efficiently or the bane of my existence don't worry about like three hours a goddamn little square when I first got into the grey I was like oh I can't I can't sustain I made a promise to myself I was gonna post you know I think I was like two or three - alright now with three times a day and I was holding myself up to that promise but I'm eyes are bleeding trying to figure out the program and how to present the cotton out I'm in a flow thank you for it made it look very much easier that it was behind the scenes like yeah this question is called the three truths so imagine it's your last day on earth many years away from now you get to pick the day you can be a hundred two hundred years old doesn't matter but someday you got to go you've created everything you want to create in your life your future self has been manifested you've healed everything you've travelled done what you want to do before whatever reason you got to take it all with you so all your work all your messages your Instagram account books everything you create it's gotta go with you so no one has access to any of your content anymore but you get to leave behind three lessons that you would share with us what would you say are the three things that you want to share behind what I'd like to call three truths yeah absolutely I love this question so the first one that comes to mind most important this moment is life that was something that was really impactful for me when I first discovered the concept of mindfulness with this idea of just being present I think that's an incredibly powerful truth and the more we can each embrace that I think that that speaks kind of to life really sure so now the present moment I think that's definitely one of my truths another truth is that were each you know unique amazing good enough intuitive humans I think a lot of us don't have come to be conditioned out of that belief me included as well I thought I was a million things based on what I was told or the experiences that I've had and aren't what this is a concept loose of concept of authentic self I don't don't believe that was my authentic self so I think truth is that we all have an authentic self beneath it all and then I guess healing takes work life takes work effort consistent effort I'm always the speaker of this truth and but I think that's a hard one and honestly this was not one that I came by easily I whether its messaging that I've heard my mom's voice in my ear I had all the reason and and a lifetime of things coming easy I would be honest I school came easy for me sports came easy for me I didn't have to work so hard in some areas so this truth was a hard one for me to swallow was that things are hard and I know how to shop for hard things and to make a consistent effort and it is incredibly valuable to do that and I think that's the truth again of healing and of life really yeah I love those final question what's your definition of greatness yeah so as per the end of this conversation my definition of greatness is is healing I think our older wounds and being able to show up daily to consciously create ourselves I think that's incredible that's empowerment I think that's what the purpose of this journey is and I would definitely call that greatness love it doctrine to call thank you so much appreciate your amazing Louis thank you for having me [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 437,978

Keywords: dr nicole lepera, lewis howes, psychologist, self help interview 2019, the school of greatness, therapy, self improvement, entrepreneur, holistic, family, boundaries

Id: 8zc00EYi51k

Length: 82min 36sec (4956 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 03 2019