Dr. Nicole LePera describes self-betrayal as repeating habits that no longer serve you, then breaking the cycle by keeping small daily promises. She shares Ali's story: drinking one glass of water each morning led to habit-stacking, reduced MS symptoms, and bigger life changes.
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Humans, we don't actually want to change. We get really wired and stuck in our familiar patterns because according to our subconscious, the familiar is safer.
So there's this beautiful story in your book about the girl who changed her life by drinking a glass of water every morning. And then the cascading changes that came from layering on habits to that. Would you tell that story? Because I think that's so impactful to everyone here listening Ali's story.
And Ali met my work on Instagram, where a lot of people do, based on this concept that I call self betrayal. And essentially what self betrayal is repetition of habits and patterns that don't fully honor or serve our needs, that have likely changed since childhood into adulthood, the needs of our physical body, our emotional body, our spiritual self. So Ali, like many of us, has been operating from that conditioned self for almost 30 years. And Allie was actually beginning to struggle with pretty debilitating symptoms of multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis that she received. So Ali met my work on self betrayal really resonated, identified the million times of her life. She didn't show up for herself in her self care habits, in her relationship. The list for her was really endless. And she met this concept where I talk about creating a habit of making a small daily making and keeping a small daily promise. Because self betrayal exists, because humans, we don't actually want to change. We get really wired and stuck in our familiar patterns because according to our subconscious, the familiar is safer than the unknown, than doing something new. So anytime we try to change, we meet resistance. The endless thoughts, all of the reasons why not to change. This won't work this time or we just feel uncomfortable. More reason to go back into those familiar ruts and patterns. So anticipate anticipating that change will be hard, that those of us who are suffering from self betrayal, as we begin to create new intentions, it will be difficult to keep those promises. Ali began her journey and she set a small daily promise. Each and every morning she set an intention to drink one glass of water. It doesn't really matter what the intention is. So anyone listening, if, if drinking a glass of water resonates for your first small daily promise, great. For others, it might be, you know, a minute of journaling, a deep belly breath, flossing. It doesn't matter the promise. What's important is rebuilding that alignment where you begin to now show yourself and witness, living the experience of setting an intention and keeping the promise. And the more consistently you do it, you do that. Know that knowing that in the beginning you're not going to do it every day. There will become some days where you don't keep that promise. So when you show that alignment more consistently than not, you begin to re empower yourself. Your subconscious no longer rolls its eyes when you say, no, I'm going to do this new thing and stick with it. You begin to empower yourself toward creating change. So I talk about Allie a lot. She's now, you know, in well into her healing journey. Not only is she no longer debilitated by symptoms of ms, she's created an entire life for herself.
There's a really powerful lesson here for everyone. If you are having a hard time keeping commitments to yourself, start with something really simple like drinking a glass of water. Make that a habit, because it's so easy to do, you know, just keep a glass of water by your bedside and start your day with a glass of water. And then as that becomes a habit, you can stack another habit onto it. And stack another habit onto it.
That again, Ali is such an incredible story of change that begins with a small daily promise that I believe is possible for each and every one of you listening out there today.
