Break Old Patterns + Navigate Challenging Relationships to Stop Playing Small with Dr. Nicole LePera

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to the Earn youn Happy Podcast. I have to let you know that Chris and I are doing the most exciting thing next year. If you've not heard this yet, you are in for the up leveling of your life through your new network. And I know that a lot of you have pain points around getting the audience that you need, getting the access to help that you need, getting the access to people that you need. And that is why Chris and I have created the dinner series which will take place all throughout 2024. It is going to be three different events, half days of learning from us, getting facilitated in different networking breakouts, and also learning from our friends and experts in the industry. And to cap it off, at the.

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Nicole, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

I am so honored to be here. Lori, thank you for having me.

What Nicole doesn't know is she's just my morning, afternoon and nighttime therapist, that I'm just, you know, Nicole, something that I. That I love. And you are probably some of my most shared memes between some of my best friends or some of my siblings.

Because I'm like, look at this.

We have some words for it. We have some actual, like, ways to be able to express ourselves. So I just want to say thank you for that. And also, when did the whole social movement for you, where did you find kind of like how that was going.

To look for you in terms of.

I made the decision, put it this way, to. To create a social media presence. Geez. I think it was 2018 is when I created the Holistic Psychologist. Before that, of course, I did have a little Instagram page. It was private lockdown, as a good therapist should be, never speaking about ourselves as a human and of course, sharing that. Because so much of my presence online, Lori, really was my own exercise in being present and being a human who has struggles, who's healing and who at that point really was creating transformation in my own life using these holistic tools and coming from a system, no jokes aside, where we are largely taught, you know, not to be an individual in the room, not to share our own individual journeys. But for me, it was important not only because that was my clinical training, I carried that similar habit where I water down myself in every way. My wants, my needs. I wasn't even aware of them for the large majority of my life up until that point. So there really wasn't a me. So I created the account as, again, an exercise in healing. And I think even to speak to how you introed and sharing this among your friends, giving this language. As soon as I began to share my story, there was just such a. A universal resonance. People from all over the globe were kind of like universally shaking their head at the struggles I was having or the awarenesses that I was Having and I think it was because these are universal things so many of us are struggling with not having the language for. And as we gain it, we are looking to speak our story. We are looking to connect with other people in an authentic way. So.

Good. So tell me about just right before you started it, because it wasn't, it wasn't a normal thing for us to see, you know, therapists posting online. And I'm sure that maybe in your industry it was kind of frowned upon or what. What did that look like at first?

Yeah, I was, I was really concerned, you know, again, my own people pleasing habit I carry, my own personal, you know, worry, desire to be liked by other people. And a lot of it was, you know, informed by the clinical field by those very direct messages where I wasn't sure how my colleagues were, would be reacting. So making that decision again for me was personally really resonating with again these concepts of healing, but also the desire to spread this message. I was acutely aware of how the large majority of professionals, at least here in the United States, in the Western world, were working because I came from that same system. And you know, I was becoming largely aware of how important these holistic tools were and also at the same time becoming very aware at how we're talking internationally when we're talking about our global collective. The large majority of people living outside of the States don't have access to this information, to these tools, to these helping professionals. So for me, my commitment to speaking this was, was stronger than that fear. But again, I would be lying if I said, oh, I thought they were all going to be on board. Surprisingly, a lot were. A lot of therapists, clinicians were coming to the same awareness. We're shifting their own practices to work holistically. We're being a person in the room and we're relieved to see someone doing it so publicly. And then I think many more people began to, you know, express themselves through, you know, in the clinical field that is in using social media. That I think is just such an incredible tool.

Oh my God, I, well, I'm so grateful that you're on there. And I'm also just highly aware of how not to use them to be passive aggressive. Like, God, I hope my mom sees this. I'm just kidding, just kidding, Mom. Kind of not.

But.

Like, okay, let's just, let's just make sure that I'm looking at this from a place of more compassion, which is so powerful, but we'll actually get into that. I think that's a fun one. Okay, so like I told you before, this audience is a lot of entrepreneurs, big dreamers, maybe people who are into personal development or people who are just first getting into personal development. So, you know, you talk a lot about breaking cycles and patterns, and I feel like going into your dreams or a business or something that you have not seen growing up, something that's new for your family, maybe something that's totally new for you. I feel like there has just been on my journey, so many patterns that I've had to break. Can you kind of speak to that in terms of just when you're breaking outside of your normal family dynamic?

Yeah, I mean, we. We carry patterns in all areas, and the large majority of us operating on that autopilot, I'm imagining many listeners have probably heard of that concept. So many of those patterns we're not aware of. They become our identity. And nowhere is that, you know, I think, more evident in our professional life and in our business life. And, you know, so as someone. And I think this is an interesting, you know, kind of flip side of this, especially talking to a lot of, you know, dreamers of the world, a pattern I saw in myself that was very validated socially, externally, was actually overachieving, always, you know, exhausting myself, burning myself into the ground by trying to check every box, achieve everything, have as many letters after my name as I can. Right. And I think on the one hand, that is very socially acceptable, even praised. I mean, for me in my immediate family, that's how I got the most attention, was through achieving academically, athletically, things that, you know, I did, you know, excel in from an early age. That's when my mom was most present. That's when I got most validated. That's the side of myself that I fostered until, of course, as I entered my 30s and I began to suffer, if I'm going to really simplify it, the burnout that came from me consistently overstepping my needs, my limits, resources that I hadn't replenished or hadn't learned. Right. How to conserve or to manage, mainly in my body, around my nervous system. So I think that's just an interesting topic to speak to because so many of us are driven to achieve. And that's incredible, amazing if we can have a conscious, intentional relationship with our deepest passions and purpose and live in, to actualize that. Incredible, though a lot of us are driven to achieve as our way to self soothe, as our way to, you know, self regulate. So I think that's one of the habits and patterns that's important to become aware of so that as we begin to step out of, make new choices out of and now to get to your question of whenever we're going against the grain of our habits, the grain of our family habits, whenever we're doing anything to simplify it new, we'll face a sort of resistance. Whether it's in our own mind and body that interprets the new as possibly threatening, unknown, we don't know what comes next. My subconscious mind would very much prefer that predictable or whether or not we're stepping outside of those patterns that maybe we did learn in our families about what work quote unquote was or wasn't or a safe way, you know, to navigate or manage our finances. Everything that I do think applies to conversations when we're interested in creating our own business or going outside of those learned parameters. Similarly, I experience much of that friction coming from a family, right, who is very grounded in fear. A lot of fear, a lot of insecurity. Mainly around health related issues though also around finances. Coming from me personally, from two really post depression era parents with a lot of financial insecurity in their own childhood upbringings and in their own early relationship. I wasn't born to my mom until she was 42 years old, so a lot of financial insecurity translated to a lot of messaging that I heard of how important it is to work for someone else to have a steady, secure paycheck. Even going into having a private practice where it's uncertain how many clients I'll have in any given week. I don't know exactly what my paycheck would look like. My mom would go white as a ghost. Always afraid of not having right that financial security. So stepping out of course of that mindset then brought up a lot of friction or resistance. Being told how I shouldn't do that. Aren't I concerned? There's so much to fear. So just wanting to paint two versions of habits. Of course there's many other habits that we, you know, live in terms of our professional lives.

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Oh man. I mean, there's so many examples there that we can all find ourselves in. Thank you for sharing that. So in terms of the same vein of I'll just share an example because I feel like it does relate to a lot of different things when we're breaking Patterns. When I was growing up, I was in a really, like, restrictive religion. And then, same as you, just with the finances, it was a very like, you know, money is hard to come by, rich people are bad. Also tied into the religion thing. So for me, when I was kind of breaking out in my early 20s, I didn't know another way to cope.

And I also.

So this is. This is where my question is coming from. I didn't know another way to kind of like, find myself and go figure it out, other than to pull away. For almost two years, I didn't talk to my family much at all because I would find that when I went back, I wasn't strong enough yet to not fall into it and start doubting myself and be like, is what I'm doing crazy? You know, it's like I would sink right back into, like, little Lori mode where I just was like, what am I thinking? So people ask me all the time, like, wow, how did you, like, overcome all of these, you know, different things from your family and your childhood? And I don't know what else to tell them other than sometimes you have to do that. What are like, what's a way, though, that we can kind of be consciously doing that and protecting ourselves? Because I did it very unconscious. I was like, avoid, run. And I didn't know how to cope with what was going on.

Yeah. And. And I want to honor and thank you, Lori, for sharing, you know, that part of your journey. I think anytime we talk about stepping away, especially given the messaging, I know that in my culture, very heavily influenced Italian American background. One of the mantras in my family was family is everything, period. The end.

No questions, no.

No comments, like, no. Kind of straying from that. And having made a similar decision to you to step away, I think was just under two years for me as well. You know, also came at a time or post the time. And again, I don't want to ever kind of paint a picture that this was a moment in time where all this came to my awareness. Because it didn't.

Right.

It was gradual. It was. Over time, though, what I started to realize and observe in myself was how I didn't know myself. I mean, let alone. I just used words earlier, like purpose and passion.

Yes.

There was a time where I would have read those in a book, you know, been very, oh, good for you that you. You have that genetic chip that missed me. They were not words I related to. Right. And there was a time that not only did I know that deeper aspect, which I now believe is Part of the authentic self of all of us. We have natural gifts, we have natural talents. We're all here for a reason. Though I was so disconnected from me, so stuck in a survival mode that I couldn't even really tell you how I wanted to spend my time. I would always look to other people, right? Was it my family that needed me over that weekend or no, maybe this weekend it was my partner or my friends really. Difficulty saying no, defining boundaries. So for all of those reasons, very gradually I did. I too made the very difficult decision to create almost the ultimate boundary of separation, which was to ask my family and let them know. I should say it was less of. Less of an ask, more of a alerting that I was going to take that time away. Though again, that came only after I tried to define limits. I tried to. I came to the awareness, right, I have patterns where I myself am not part of my relationships that began and continues to apply in my family. Okay, great, let me try to carve out boundaries. Let me try to change how I'm operating within those dynamics and similarly to you. It sounds right. Coming up. For me, that was complicated by the fact too that I was living in close physical proximity. I was in Philadelphia, they were right over the bridge in New Jersey. I mean, family dinners were a very real thing. Sunday, it was family dinner and where am I? So for many different complicated reasons, I couldn't like you. I wasn't strong enough. Every time I went back, my boundaries got blurred. I, you know, cared for them over caring for myself. So I made that hard decision, though ultimately with awareness, with coming to the awareness of these patterns and with not shaming ourselves, not shaming our caregivers, not even shaming the environments that we came from. Because we're all doing the best we can with the tools that we learned in our own childhood experiences. With that information of the patterns that no longer serve us, we could begin to make new choices. And of course that will look different for all of us. So the important focus is on the self, is not expecting those around me, especially when we're talking about family, where these systems are locked in place. People are playing roles. They've been doing it right for decades of time, lifetimes even. And we set ourselves up to fail when we go in expecting that they're going to do something different. Instead of going in with boundaries which are really an act of self service, I'm going to show up differently. You can and likely will continue to do as you do at family suppers every Sunday. And I'm Maybe going to limit my time there. I'm going to do something different. And so, again, we come to the awareness of the pattern, and then we can make those new choices while we're still engaging in those relationships. For a lot of us, though, some of us might have to make that more difficult decision that you or I did.

Oh, my God. Well, thanks for sharing that as well. You know, sometimes when you start to hear people's story, I'm like, wow, okay, that's. That's how she can speak so directly to this amazing topic I'm relating to as well. So for people who are listening and they kind of, you know, maybe they are going through that distancing phase, but they do want that relationship still in their life or eventually in their life, because I. I know for me, I still have those relationships, but I do have to limit that time. And I really have to be aware going in. Like, I almost have to arm my. To be prepared for it. Can you tell us a couple things? That if, you know you're about to go spend some time with someone who has not changed or done the work, and you kind of know what. What's coming when you're in the work, sometimes you get stuck on, why aren't they doing this? Because I'm doing this and you should be doing this. How can we perceive that whole thing and just go into it maybe in a.

A more.

A less emotional way?

Well, you're beautifully, I think, referencing it when you're saying arm yourself. So many of us wait for the acute moment, right where we want to do something different, right when Mom's going to do the same thing she always does. And I now want to have a new response. We want the tool to throw in my back pocket and only whip it out at that moment in time. And in reality, right, to remain grounded when we're feeling stress or activated when a deep feeling is coming up when Mom's doing that same thing, right in this moment in time, to remain responsive, we have to be in a responsive state of our nervous system. And the biggest shift I made in my own healing journey in my practice was including the body was shifting from that more traditional model of just thinking the right things or affirming. And all of that are incredible tools, affirmations, the mindset, all of that is incredibly important. And so is our. Our body. So to be responsive in a moment means that my body has to be safely grounded in that moment. I can't become overwhelmed with stress because that's when I fly into that old pattern of reactivity. So to arm ourselves, to use your beautiful language, that means all of those daily habits that, you know, I've made the daily commitment to integrate into my day to day, with an emphasis on, again, nervous system wellness begins when I'm sleeping. When I'm sleeping, the amount of hours that I need to sleep at night, when I have restful moments throughout my day, Even on the flip side of rest, when I'm moving, when I'm expending the energy in my muscles, my muscles do need to move and to release and to expend energy just as much as they need to rest. Nutritionally, my nervous system is part of my physiological body. And I might be sounding really simplistic, but am I eating food that's nourishing, nutrient dense, or am I eating as I did for decades? Am I eating food that's actually inflaming and stressing my body out? And all of these choices create balance in our nervous system because the large majority of us are so dysregulated that we're not setting ourselves up to be able to do something different. Especially when we go home to this embedded system and what we're usually then touching or activating our deep wounds and deep, right, old reactive ways, we've learned to cope. It is like when you said earlier, little Lori right, comes out. We do have those moments where we regress in time. And this applies to every moment where we want to do something different, when they're wired in our patterns, when we're not giving our body the resources of sleep, of movement, of nutrients, when we're not learning how to breathe in a way that's calming and grounding. Our bodies are never going to enter that state of conscious awareness and presence where we then get to choose what we do next.

Oh my God, I love that about the food. We used to joke about it, like, how Christmas is literally. Our old Christmases were literally like a formula for fighting because it was just like alcohol, bad food, stay in the same house for a week, don't exercise. I was like, this is. Would turn any sane person into a psychopath. Like, and we're all doing it together, bad idea. So we started to kind of change that. And a lot of it started with the food and just like making boundaries around. How about we all take care of ourselves the first half of the day and not start drinking at 11? Like, that's a great idea. And it really, really honestly changed our lives. So took a lot of years, but we did it. Okay, so we're kind of in that family phase where maybe you're first starting to go for your big dream or you've got this idea and there's some patterns that you need to break. And you kind of shared a lot about that and how you can distance yourself and boundaries and all the things. And now we kind of look around now that we are understanding what we need to do with family and we're like, oh, friendships. Like, okay, this is interesting. I have this best friend who is supposed to be my best friend for life. Maybe they've been in my life forever and now I feel like it's just not working and it's actually quite toxic. Or, you know, looking around and just not loving the friend group. Do we need to change them all or are we looking at it in a certain way? What does that look like? There are so many challenges to business.

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Yeah, friends is another really complicated issue, especially because so many of us do have or associate tenure or the length of a relationship, right? With these felt obligations and even sometimes with a determinant of the healthy, you know, the state of the relationship with this idea that the longer it's gone on, right, the healthier it must be. And so many of us maintain relationships over time for those two reasons. Because we assume that while they've been with us for this long and. Or we feel guilty as we come to the awareness that we're no longer aligned. And, you know, very similarly having to have those awarenesses. So even tying this in with the family, becoming aware is, for some of us, is where the healing occurs. If I can separate enough from my family and see their, you know, patterns that no longer serve me, see them in myself, see them in them, understand where they came from, I might have. The more the space to allow them to just be as they are. I don't to take it personally anymore. I don't to be hurt for me by my mom's inability to be emotionally present outside of those moments of achievement. I don't have to take it personally. It's nothing about me. So for a lot of us, when we see those similar patterns and friends, right, or we just. We come to the awareness that we're just different people now, we've grown apart, some of us may be able to use that information to then shift our expectations, right? We can very objectively and clearly see kind of how this friendship, you know, operates. Kind of what this person is about, what they want or need in the. In their friendship. And we don't maybe have to put an expectation that they're someone, that they aren't, that they follow us on the journey, that they evolve or give us the depth of relationship or as motivated as we are, we can allow them to be as they are. Same thing with our family. However, of course, some of us might come to that awareness and say, you know what? Engaging in this particular relationship actually doesn't serve me. I can't just allow this person to be. Maybe there's some sort of boundary violation or some sort of dysfunctional behavioral habits that no longer serve us or the reality that we've grown apart. And I'm feeling comfortable allowing that space to be. And then, of course, we can then use that as information and begin to separate ourselves, begin to actually acknowledge that a friendship that was maybe, you know, created in adolescence in our high school years, where a lot of us are carrying our lifetime friends from, was a different version of me. And I can let us both off the hook, that we have grown apart, that we are different people with different interests, and that that relationship no longer serves us.

Okay, so have you ever.

Which I'm.

I'm just gonna put Money down that it's probably a yes on this one. Have you ever gotten rocked to your core because your character has been talked about or judged by someone who was very close to you or kind of like that 10 year relationship or whatever that looked like? This is a big conversation in a lot of my groups and in my friendships right now. How do you get through that without really. And maybe you do question yourself, but let's talk about that process of what that looks like, what that feels like sometimes that can really make us question.

What we're doing in the world.

Yeah, I think anytime. I mean, we are social creatures. So as much as we want to, we can yell from the rooftops not to compare or worry about what others think. It's, it's wired in us. It's how we learned how to group together, you know, in communities which increase our likelihood of survival, increase our likelihood to keep ourselves safe, allows, allowed us to divide, you know, tasks and, and everything that goes along with being in community. So to be in community, we do have to look around and, you know, make sure that we're being accepted within that community. So this kind of tendency to look outside of ourselves and compare is very natural. So again, a lot of us shame ourselves. I like to just offer that because a lot of us, when we do feel, do see ourselves and now we have an endless way to compare ourself on social media, right? We might judge the fact that we're judging and comparing ourselves. So understanding that that's a normal natural process, though again creating the space to turn the volume down, if you will, in terms of how we allow those judgments to impact what it is that we do. So obviously we're getting a little more complicated in things the further the distance of the people. A stranger on social media and of course I've heard a million different things about myself, you know, that are completely, you know, inaccurate in a lot of ways from strangers, right? And so the process being more or less the same, which is to separate ourselves, to acknowledge. And of course it's easier when I can say objectively, well, this person doesn't actually know me. We've had no right person to person interaction. So what they're saying, again, I can depersonalize it. I can make their interpretation of me and hear it, I can leave it as their interpretation of me. I don't have to accept it as about me or as indicating my value. Of course, now the closer this person gets to intimate awareness of me, right, as an individual human, and to speak to your question, then people that we've had some version of relationship with. It gets harder to do that because it does on some level, right. Feel that what we're hearing from them is accurate, it's objective, and it's not to say that it isn't. So what is always important, I believe, and I do this with all feedback I get, is to hear it. And before we integrate it and react from it as if it's truth, take it as a point of consideration because we hold the ultimate power in terms of whether or not we accept it. So if I hear something from that close relationship, say, I can go be a witness to myself, right? Maybe painfully acknowledge that something I don't really want to hear about myself might be true, but I don't have to accept it just because someone else said it. I can try it on for size. I can view myself. I can ask other people if they experience me similarly. And then I might have to have the honest conversation that what I'm hearing about myself from someone outside of myself who's therefore more objective, right, than me, might be factual, though a lot of times, again, it's their projection, right? It's their interpretation how we're even being seen as being colored by all of their own past experience. So in that space, then we might hear what someone said, but then still give ourselves the opportunity to say, you know, why it. That doesn't necessarily fit me. That's not what is the case. And then I can allow their assessment to be part of their own interpretation or their own subjectivity.

Do you have something right now that is, like, just something you're focusing on for yourself or something that keeps coming up for you? That's kind of a theme that you're.

Working through right now, Funny enough, very much on top, you know, kind of piggybacking, building on this conversation. I struggle very much being a people pleaser, kind of wired into my neurobiology, right? Always trying to, like, not stress out the family system, always trying to succeed, to be perfect. I still very much care what people think. I want to be liked. And I have a conversation quite often with one of my partners, Lolly, and how she always advises me to stand in my power because so easily. Because there is a little, you know, child inside of me that is fearful that I'm just as unworthy and unlovable as I felt in that early childhood environment when I'm not performing. That is so tempting. And I'm, you say, now I met with this daily. I know where to go look and hear that negative feedback that Solidifies how unworthy I am.

It's funny when you put it that way.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Sometimes I don't have to look, Lori, and I'm sure you've. It's given to me, right. I don't even have a choice. And there it is. And in those moments is what the valuable piece of advice that Lolly always gives me that I remind myself consciously, which is to stand in my own power. And what that means to me is I can do exactly what I said, separate myself. I can understand even subjectively where your perception is coming from if I want to spend the time and energy on that in that moment. And I can still stand in my power of what I know to be true about me and the choices that I'm making in the alignment I have in my heart. I don't have to give it away to you, but that is something I'm faced with each and every day and I notice even bring this beautifully full circle. When I don't have my resources, when I'm not sleeping well, when I'm not eating well, when I'm not dealing with my stress well, when I'm not taking care of my body well, those are the moments where it's really hard not to catch myself down some spiral of negativity that before long I'm be wallowing in how unlovable and unworthy I feel.

Oh, sometimes it's so nice to hear someone else say it because you even just reflected back to me how important like that food and staying on purpose and sleeping. Because when I'm. When I'm tired, that's when I really do go to the crap like social media. That's when I. You just keep on looking for that low energy and go lower and lower. So yeah, when. When I'm in purpose or when I feel good, I don't tend to like, I want to go for more things that make me feel good. I love that. That was just so, so much clarity for me around why it's so important for us to take care of ourselves. Okay. You have an amazing book, how to Meet Yourself, which I love the title because that was really big when I shared that with you. Just around leaving what I was raised in and you don't know who you are at all. I think that life continues to do that. Like all of a sudden we can just keep waking up and we don't know who we are. And I was like, I need to go through this entire book again because I think in these different chapters of our lives we're re meeting ourselves over and over. So how do we meet ourselves? What does that mean to you? When you wrote this book?

Thank you for sharing, kind of your instinct, which is to revisit it at all these different seasons, moments, chapters of our life. Because that was my hope in creating the book. And this, the seed of inspiration for, for the workbook itself actually was planted when I was writing my first book, how to do the Work. And, you know, I very much tried to make that very practical, applicable all the concepts that you'll meet in the chapters, which really is exploring this reality that most of how we are in the world isn't who we really think we are. It's part of that autopilot, these conditioned habits and patterns, right? Giving this opportunity to reconnect with ourself. And at the end of every chapter, I, you know, translate it, whatever concept that it was, whether it was ego or inner child, into a journaling prop or an actual exercise to begin to embody or witness that part of ourself. Though as I was doing it, and as I remain acutely aware of, I even use this word earlier, of how subjective we are, I like to think of horses with like blinders on. And so, you know, when you read this idea, oh, I'm not my habits, right? I'm this other person. While the journey to figure out who I am first begins by witnessing the habits that are creating what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling and what I'm doing. And like that horse with blinders on it, we are blind to our own habits. So I started to think about how helpful it would be to have a kind of roadmap in the form of a workbook to begin to teach people kind of how to view and bear witness to all of these different habits that are greatly impacting our daily lived experience. So very strategically then imagining most people who, you know, even become aware that they don't know who they are, often shamefully, you know, as we age, we have this idea that we should definitely know who we are by certain, you know, milestones in life. And as the large majority of us look around and we don't know who we are, we don't know what we want, we don't have a connection to this deeper purpose and passion. We feel shameful. We feel something is wrong with us because we should know by now. So if we desire to pick up the workbook to discover who it is that we are, I very strategically placed, I broke the workbook up into three sections and all of the like, how do you meet your authentic self piece where we dive into things like purpose and passion and creativity and right, that like unique essence and spark that is me. None of that becomes possible unless we've journey through section one and two. And section one and two begins first with locating ourself in a body, right? Understanding that our nervous system. And if we're dysregulated, just like that example we used earlier, we are a reaction of dysregulation. Our emotions have taken over us. That's not who we are, right? So until we have that grounded conscious base in a body, we can't peel back. Then that next layer, which is all of the conditioning in our mind, this inner child, these ego stories, everything that we've created and interpretations we've made in a childhood with a developmental immaturity, with a lacking of safety and security and resources. Yet we continue to use those filters, coloring then our emotional experiences in our way of being. So until we begin that journey of reconnection, of peeling back the layers of mental now and emotional conditioning, we want of the space, we want of the safety to reconnect then with who we are. And what that again means to me is that unique essence. We each are someone different than everyone else around us. We have different perspectives, we have different natural talents. You know, we have just. We're a different essence. And that's what it means in my opinion, to be connected to who we are.

I love that. Okay. There's so many things that you mentioned, mentioned in there. So one of the things that I can find myself in sometimes I look around and just wonder about this. So I can't wait to hear your feedback on it. Is kind of how we can, even with personal development, get kind of stuck, like personally developing or looking at our stuff or thinking about our past and trying to heal it. And I've had a couple realizations on the process of how important that is. But also you had mentioned, and I saw some of the awesome exercises in the book are really based on like creating a compelling future and doing things. And if we look at our habits, you know, there are days where I'm like, oh, I'm really depressed. And I'm like, what'd you do? Well, yeah, you did some personal development stuff, but you didn't, you didn't do anything that was new or exciting. When I am learning something new or when I am going and creating and enjoying myself and mostly learning something that's interesting, I feel it's like I get lost in all space and time. I feel happy, I'm very content. And when I don't have those things in my life, I can find that I can be living in the past. So what are some things when you were kind of on your journey that. Do you ever have moments where you're like my life is great except I'm not really like doing something fun or creative or you know, learning.

So before I answer that I just want to make a quick distinction because I do think it's very common to get stuck in these cycles or even lifetimes of self awareness or over analyzing or thinking about ourself in that way understanding our past. And why am I doing what I'm doing in this moment? And the reason why I'm laboring on this point just for a quick second is that's still a function of our thinking mind, right? We're lost in thought, we're not attuned to my body, present to the moment, grounded in this space in time. I'm still in a function in my mind, right? I'm not grounded in my body, not having this present experience. And I just wanted to differentiate that because I think a lot of people. And while couldn't agree with you more Lori, self awareness is helpful. It can inform why we're doing what we're doing and feeling and thinking what we're thinking in this moment, give us information. And some of us enter into those cycles of over analysis because it's safer. And I've learned habitually too. You said avoidance earlier to avoid the discomfort that's living in my bodies and in the present moment, what's really going on. Maybe because it's safe, safer in my mind and I hyper and over intellectualize, right? As a form of safety seeking.

I'm feeling attacked. Yes.

And again I used to see this in my own my malpractice, right? I was in the field of talking about things, increasing self awareness. So at some point we need to utilize that to as you beautifully said, create a new action plan, create a future that's different from that. So very similar to a lot of I'm sure listeners. I was always in my mind, hyper analyzing, distracted by my thoughts. So making that shift and the reason why I earlier introduced the idea of purpose and passion and how that genetic chip missed me. When we're in survival mode, right? When our body isn't regulated, when we're not eating and sleeping well and when our mind is racing because we're avoiding the discomfort that I feel too overwhelmed to tend to in my body, what I'm prioritizing is. And again, this might sound like crazy to apply this to the conversation, but physiologically, I'm only concerned on my survival in this immediate moment. And I can't be concerned about things like purpose and passion and creativity. There was a time where I thought, again, I was a very creative, if you will. I did art classes, put it that way up through high school, though you would never hear me referencing myself as a creative being. Not until more recently, of course. Course again. I thought my creativity ended when I left that art class for the last time. The purpose and passion. Oh, missed the mark on that. That's not something I'm going to get in this lifetime. Not because anything was intrinsically wrong with me, not because I'm not a creative being. We're all creative beings. Because my body was so locked in survival mode, prioritizing the immediate minute that, let alone purpose and passion, having a future, being able to imagine a future that's different was not something that my physiology allowed me to do. And again, laboring over this because there's a lot of us out there, I think, that feel purposeless, feel passionless or. And it's because we're locked in survival mode, not because we're not creative, we're not purposeful, we're not passionate. We haven't allowed our body to feel safe enough in that present moment to be able to be excited by new things. Because going back to something I said earlier, our subconscious mind doesn't actually get excited by newness. It gets threatened in that newness. Right? Fears the possible threat that could be at that corner that I've never turned. I prefer to revisit my past in a way, because it's familiar, it's safely familiar, it's habitual. I know what comes next. Even if it's not a great outcome, even if it's a terrible outcome, it's predictable. So to be able to appreciate newness for a very long time, I. My partner Lolly, that I referenced earlier is lit up by new ideas, loves to learn new things. I couldn't have been more different. I love predictable. I don't want to come home and hear that it's not like the night's not going to plan, proceed as I planned or imagined it. I want it to be predictable. And until again, I learned safety, I learned how to tolerate all of the different emotions that could be present in that uncertainty. I didn't feel safe, I didn't feel excited by the new that only became possible as I got more grounded in myself, as I learned More tools with how to navigate my emotions. Then I got more confident in opening the door to the newness that could come.

Okay, so speaking of the new, we now have kind of talked about the family relationships. The relationships kind of like outer comparison and criticism in these things. So now let's just say we're breaking through to success. This is really when a lot of people, you know, this is a whole other level of how do I wrap my brain around making money, charging more around, you know, with self worth, being so tied up and everything. I'm sure that with your level of success, I know you worked really hard, but it looks like some of it may have come on fairly quickly for you potentially. And what were some of the things that come up for you, and what are some of the things that you see consistently over and over around success and how do we learn to welcome that in?

So even just tying this from my own personal experience back to that little performer overachiever who's very comfortable in certain areas being said, seen, and mentioning, right. That the Instagram account even itself was such an action for me and embodying not just what I do, but who I am. Right. There is a very deep part of me that doesn't feel worthy of these objective markers of success, of having, you know, the opportunity to write books, of having the opportunity to have a successful business, of having the opportunity be sitting across talking to someone like you on a podcast like this. Right. Because that is the case of my external life, that is what's happening. Doesn't mean that there's not a deep part of me that feels so uncomfortable. For me, being seen in this way for my story and my just way of being and my presentation and the words that come out of my mouth, that being of interest to people. Right. There's still a very deep part of me that's doubtful that that's enough. And that's something that I think really applies to a lot of people. When we succeed, we might get all these objective markers of this success, yet we feel like an imposter. There's a deep discomfort in even having that objective marker of success applied to us. Because that then means that you're seeing me and. Or something of value in me. And if we didn't have, again, the safety to be consistently seen in childhood, as logical as it might be to be like, oh, that should feel good, right? It doesn't. Because to my system, my mind and body, it's unfamiliar being seen. As much as I believe that's a universal desire, emotionally, we all Want to be seen, valued or appreciated and loved, connected to. Okay, enough by being just who I am. Just because logically and universally we all share those desires. If that's not a consistent thing we've experienced that simple thing of being seen, of being valued by another person, of being loved. I still struggle to allow in the love that's ever present to me in my relationships. I struggle to allow in the support. I struggle to allow the acceptance that I am being seen. Because as much as I want it, as much as I can make a case, we all want it. It's deeply unfamiliar to me. So I think all of this conditioning, these deep rooted self beliefs about how worthy or unworthy we are, actually just did a workshop in my membership, the Self Healer Circle, and we're talking a bit about addictive behaviors and habits. And one of the questions prompted us to have a discussion around at our core, because very few of us had that safe environment to just be who we are. I can make a case that universally, I believe the large majority of us have that deep rooted unworthiness wound where we are secretively shameful, that there's a part of us or all of us that people won't deem worthy, won't deem lovable. And nowhere is that more prominent than again, when we begin to succeed, maybe in our business world, and we have all of these adornments of how worthy we are, yet it is really in opposition. And then we can shame ourselves because why shouldn't, shouldn't we be grateful? Shouldn't we be happy with what we have? Shouldn't that be enough? When in reality there's a conflict inside of us that's fighting us to even allow ourself to be in presence of the enoughness that that's indicating, if that makes sense.

Mm, okay. So you mentioned safety. And I feel like it kind of encompasses my whole journey that I've realized of when I have these areas where I don't, you know, feel good or I'm scared to take a leap into something, it's always because I'm feeling unsafe in a certain area. So maybe with business, if I'm afraid to go bigger, it's because I don't necessarily feel like I have my group of people who I can also be super vulnerable with, or I haven't looked at a certain fear yet and learned how to support it when that happens. What are some things that you do in your life to create safety? And I want to, I kind of want to talk specifically around when you're trying to Go and achieve something that you want.

Yeah, I love how you just kind of worded that, you know, kind of awareness, you know, of fear. Being aware that we're having whatever feeling it is, fear, not enoughness, anger, whatever's coming up as we're trying to succeed or achieve. When we can become aware or in presence with our emotion, in my opinion, we become that much more empowered because then we can be that much more conscious, right, about what's happening beneath the surface. Because if we, as many of us do, we learn to distract, right? Avoid disconnect from. Because that was the safest route for some time. That doesn't mean that those feelings aren't underneath the surface driving our reaction. So again, as simplistic as it might sound, as anyone out there listening is going to achieve, you know, oftentimes we are met with fear, whether it's just as simple as we talked about fear of unknown. What will come with all this success? How will it feel to have this new, you know, kind of lifestyle or these new resources available to us? So fear, you know, definitely of unknown. And then we might fear many other things. It might activate other emotions and becoming present to them, not minimizing it, not shaming in a way that I shouldn't be scared. Acknowledging the feelings that are very real and very present again, in my opinion, allows us to shift into a more conscious, intentional relationship with them where we can see them, witness that they're there, take the value of information, should it be there, and still remain in that responsive, intentional place instead of allowing it to drive my reactivity where maybe I throw my hands up and I stop pursuing my goal because that fear was beneath the surface, I shame myself because I shouldn't feel it. And before I know it, somewhere down the line again, if I'm not eating, sleeping and all these factors kind of storm together now I'm. I'm quitting or I'm, you know, I'm self sabotaging, or I'm allowing that fear to be my reactive point instead of I'm scared, I don't have to shame myself or I'm feeling whatever I'm feeling, I can be in presence with it, I can care for myself. And with using all these new tools that I now know how to make presence and regulate through. So then I can say I'm scared and I will still continue forward. I will still make whatever choice it is that's important for me to make. Week.

Oh, there is. I mean, it's literally endless. What I can chat with you about right now but what I love about your book is truly for anybody who has anything they're butting up against, you know, me right now just, I'm in a major just transition in business and I'm like, okay, I need to do this again. I literally need to go through your book to see who I am in this season of life, how I can support myself more during this big dream as well, because exactly what I said. Like, I need that creative outlet. I want to make sure that I'm not going to the fear when I have a lot of things come up. So I'm very, very excited about your book, but I also know you have so many other things that we can kind of partake in as well. So first of all, tell me a little about the book, where to get it, and then let's talk about some of the other offerings you have too.

Absolutely. So the book, the workbook, how to Meet Yourself, also the first book, how to do your how to do the Work, is available wherever you like to buy books. All major book retailers should hopefully have both copies on hand. I also have a website up howtometourself.com that could give you kind of links to all the different retailers if you want to just make it easy for yourself and check out that website. I have a membership, a global membership. It's called the Self Healer Circle. We open up enrollment three times a year. You can check out selfhealercircle.com for more information on that. And then daily, one of my commitments, again, bringing this beautifully full circle, seeing the lack of resources, the importance for these conversations for this community and for these tools I'm committed to at this point now on pretty much every social media platform, having a presence, usually under the handle the holistic psychologist. I think on Twitter, it's a holistic psych. And any version of that, you'll be able to find me, Dr. Nicola Perrott, on all the platforms to engage with these, these topics, this content, putting out free resources and what I think, most importantly, the incredible community of humans. I have never seen such an engaged community. Under every post meme, whatever it is, on whatever platform it is, you know, story video on TikTok, there is such incredible conversation of so many open, vulnerable humans who are sharing their perspective, their journeys. And you know, for me, I think one of the things, and I think this happens too in the entrepreneurial world a lot, it's lonely until you find that group of people that you feel authentic and safe and support it by. I mean, that was one of the predominant things that I felt early in my journey, at least put it that way, which is why, you know, finding these communities, creating and using that hashtag self healers, when I created that first Instagram account, and now translating that into the membership option for those who wish was part of it. So the community again, across any social platforms, however you desire to consume your content, find my name, the holistic psychologist. And also a weekly podcast that we do, my partner and I, Jenna, put out ad free where we have conversations about our own healing journey, these tools, these concepts. And something that we're doing more recently is we're actually deep diving into the workbook itself. So anyone listening who, for whatever reason, you know, can't get your hands on the workbook, choose not to purchase the workbook. You can tune into the episodes marked how to meet yourself and you'll hear Jenna and I kind of talking through the exercises, sharing our own experience and really taking people through, through that workbook again so that everyone can have resources or access to those resources.

Oh, my God. I, I don't know how. I didn't know you didn't have a podcast, but now that is good. I'm like, just whenever I listen to you, I, I can't wait. So now I can have you in my ears on my walks and all the things and, you know, referring to the community, you guys who are listening. I think one of the biggest things that I love about following your account is just kind of seeing the breakthroughs under the comments and how much we're all alike and realizing that we've all been through a lot of the same stuff. Our parents are fairly similar, sometimes our sibling relationships are pretty similar. And I feel so seen when I go look at your account and I really, really, really. It is one of my favorite accounts because it is just so much great information and making sense of so many things in our relationships. And I do believe relationships in this life are everything for us. So thanks for helping us keep them and not burn them all down and blow them up. So grateful for you.

You guys go and get the book.

I can't tell you that. If you want your relationships to be strong and also if you want to be a person in the world who's, you know, doing the thing you want to do and doing the business that you want, it's so important to know these things about yourself and do it in a way that you actually enjoy it. And it's not coming from that place of pushing or hating yourself through it. We can actually have fun. And I love that you are sharing so many tools on this, Nicole. So thank you again for coming on. You guys go find her, go follow her.

Most of all, buy her book, because.

It'S going to change your life. So until next time, earn your happy.

Bye, everyone.