Habits and Hustle - Episode 93: Dr. Nicole LePera – The Holistic Psychologist, Self-Healer, and Author

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Starting point is 00:01:43 Welcome to Habits and Hustle. We have a very special guest today. She, her name is Nicole LaPera and otherwise known as the holistic psychologist who has if you are on social media to any extent and are interested in any kind of personal healing or work, you probably have come across our stuff gazillion times. And I'm so happy to have you as our guest today. So thank you Nicole for being here. Of course, thank you, Jen. I'm truly honored to be here with you today. Oh my gosh. Well, I was saying just before we started filming that it's amazing to me how quickly you grown. Like I was just last by seven or eight eight months I was saying that I've been really kind of noticing

Starting point is 00:02:25 your work and you kind of, I assume that you were like doing this for years on online and you feel like what, over three million followers just on Instagram alone and engaged three million. I'm not talking and like just like people kind of casually coming to your page and it's only been what?

Starting point is 00:02:45 Like you just said. Yeah, I went on the creative the account July 2018. So a bit over two years. Now, is that surprising to you even that you've had such traction and that people have been so, as resonated so deeply with people, so quickly? Yeah, really surprising. I mean, my intention when I created the account

Starting point is 00:03:05 was really twofold. The first really intention was creating a space for me to begin to speak. What I was coming to understand were my new truths about myself as a human and also myself as a practitioner. Coming to the awareness that the way I was working really wasn't serving myself and my client. So the Instagram account was like, okay, here's my little space where I can start to talk

Starting point is 00:03:28 about what I was starting to understand was holistic wellness. My other intention was to start to connect with other people who were speaking the same language. I was at the part of my own healing journey where I think as a lot of us do, starting to feel really lonely, really disconnected. People around me weren't really kind of aligning. So going online, I would have never imagined it would have snowballed into the account that it is now. I understand that the growth, I think, is really a testament to the universality of what I'm talking about. I think a lot of us and the community

Starting point is 00:04:03 is very international. So wherever you're really living in the world, I think these truths are resonating, whether it's when I'm talking about all of the reasons why we're stuck, I'm a lot of my content talks about that, and then also the pathway to healing. So the second I showed up and began to talk about this, I mean, I was my blown at how much resonance and from where in the world it was coming. Wow. And it's been incredible. And I mean, while I said one of my intentions

Starting point is 00:04:31 was to create the community, I mean, the fact that they're showing up and resonating. And like you said, very engaged. I mean, that is just blowing me away. And quite honestly, it helps me in my own healing as well. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think that you are very unique though, right? Because it's not traditional psychology. That's why you call yourself the holistic psychologist. Where did

Starting point is 00:04:53 you even come up with even calling yourself that name? Because even in the name itself, it's very different, right? From your traditional. Yeah, absolutely. So I was trained traditionally as I think a lot of us are in Philadelphia where I used to live. I had the private practice where I had the office and I would do talk therapy. And what I came to realize is that I wasn't really helping people that I was still struggling myself. Right. For me, the name of the game was anxiety. As long as I can remember, I was a little girl scared of the world, hiding under tables long as I can remember, I'm someone, I was a little girl scared of the world, hiding under tables, and he thumped in the night. I mean, I was

Starting point is 00:05:30 assuming it was the worst case thing, the robber, you know, the thing that's not hurt me. So as long as I can remember, I was very, you know, aware of the kind of struggles that I think a lot of us have. And I went down the very traditional pathways to try and heal myself. I was on medication, I did talk therapy. And it kind of was just always there. And I wasn't really getting better. And what I started to see week after week with clients, once I opened up my practice, was a lot of the similar patterns. An amazing amount of awareness. I mean, people coming in week after week with these breakthroughs, these a-ha moments, knowing exactly what I want to do differently the next time this thing happens to break that pattern, whatever it may be.

Starting point is 00:06:13 And then yet that person would come in that next week with kind of a repetition of the same, you know, oh, engaging that same pattern, you know, I drank, I fought with my partner, what have you. Right. So I really was seeking to understand what is going on? Why can't any of us maintain changes and myself include it right and then what I came to realize Through you know an evolution my own dark night of the soul hitting bottom, you know really questioning myself my life my purpose You know my own lack of fulfillment, you know here, fulfillment here in this earth experience.

Starting point is 00:06:46 What I came to realize is that I wasn't really, I wasn't working with the whole human. Coming from a traditional system where it's kind of very much the medical model. When our body is sick, you go to the body doctor. When your mind is sick, you go to me, my mind doctor. Those things are very separate. And nowhere was anything talked about in terms of spirituality, a soul, something else. So what I came to realize is that separation was why a lot of us were really stuck, because we were operating within balances, in one or more of those areas, in my physical body, in my emotional self or my spiritual self.

Starting point is 00:07:24 And that's why I wasn't actually creating change. So, that's what holistic now means to me. It means understanding that we are interconnected human. We have these, I talk really simplistically, we have these parts, if you want. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Starting point is 00:07:39 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, an emotional body, we have energies and hormones that run through us that give us our feelings, our emotions, and they're very complicated. And I think a lot of us now are waking up to a reality that there might be something else. They're, you know, whether or not you want to call it something spiritual or a soul. I think a lot of us are starting to search for that essence that like something else.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Yeah. So that's what holistic means to me is acknowledging the wholeness of us and then seeking to understand what's driving our stuckness because I'm of the belief that it is an imbalance. Like I said, in one of those areas that's keeping us repeating the pattern. Right. So you said a couple of things I find very interesting to patterns. I want to get into that because I do feel we constantly relive the same patterns even if and it's not for people who are very insightful, who are smart and they're self-aware. It's not for just people who I think are just completely like going about their business and zero self-awareness. In fact,

Starting point is 00:08:38 it's even more difficult for people who are self-aware and who are insightful because you actually think that you can fix yourself by just acknowledging it. But I find like, you said it's like such a perfect way of saying it that like the more insightful you are, you go into therapy and you're like, okay, I know what I'm doing and I know why I'm doing it and how it came about. But still the patterner is not changing us. So what does someone do?

Starting point is 00:09:02 Yeah. And I think in the reason why I talk so much about The reason why we're stuck which I'll go into in a minute and obviously how we create change But I mean, thank you for kind of acknowledging that John because I do agree and a lot of us tend you know to feel it Maybe very shameful right about our inability to change especially those of us that are, you know, kind of observing ourselves, locked in, I call it in Groundhog's Day, locked in that same pattern, right? And so, the more insightful we become, I think the more cheerful we become, you know, some of us start to make statements, you know, internally, maybe about ourselves, maybe externally, and we start to think I'm broken, I can't change. You know, this is what I'm destined to do. Maybe I'm genetically chipped in this way, and I can't, you know, have the life

Starting point is 00:09:49 that I want. Right. And I believe that too. So I share my story a lot because I came from very much limiting beliefs. I felt like there was certain things that maybe it was my body was capable of, or maybe emotionally, I felt very flat all the time. I thought, maybe that's just a kind of person I am. I'm just very even cute. I don't feel high. I don't feel low. I feel nothing.

Starting point is 00:10:12 I came to realize it's not really who I am. I was very kind of stuck in that very constricted way based again on this patterning. So to find our way out, I like to talk about the reason why I were stuck and I'm happy you brought that up because like I said, I want to relieve the shame. And there's a very real reason why a lot of us are stuck. It lives in our evolution, it lives in our bodies and it lives in a very deep part of our mind called our subconscious. That is the part from which most of us are living our day in that autopilot.

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Starting point is 00:11:38 Visit RRI.com. Absolutely. So then what, what is someone, even like you using yourself as an example, you said it, and I find it very interesting because we always end up in the career that we actually ourselves have an issue with, right? So then you kind of like, if you have body, image issues, you end up in the fitness business or competitions, a lot of times, like if you have something going on in your, and they're all actually, as you're saying, it's all very like interconnected, right? Because everything starts with like your mind.

Starting point is 00:12:11 But how did, what was your pattern and how did you kind of, did you get, how did you unstuck, stick yourself, I guess? And you know, if that makes sense. So my healing, as I think a lot of our journeys do, the statement that we all love to hate in a little bit of, it's not linear, right? There's certain shifts and changes that began to happen for me. And what kind of sent me into the journey

Starting point is 00:12:35 was an accumulation of actually physical symptoms. So someone, my whole life I knew anxiety, like I said, so I'm very familiar with panic attacks. I've had digestion issues, I have chronic headaches, And one, you know, my whole life I knew anxiety, like I said, so I'm very familiar with panic attacks. I've had digestion issues. I have chronic headaches, you know, all the things tension in my body, thought nothing of it felt like it was just again very genetically predispositioned. I saw very similar patterns in my family.

Starting point is 00:12:57 So this is just kind of what I thought it was for me. Right. However, what started to then happen is I started to have, I started to faint. I started to have really serious cognitive. I had a hard time remembering my words in session in particular. I would just lose trains of thought. And then obviously when fainting started to happen,

Starting point is 00:13:16 I got scared. And I was like, what the heck is wrong with me? And that little anxious person inside was convinced that this was the symptom I was waiting for. And there's something is genetic, you know, I'm physically sick. That was a gift actually because what I did as a lot of us do, I went online. What's wrong with it? Exactly.

Starting point is 00:13:34 Google really scared. And so what I was met with actually was really relieving because what I, what I started to research and become aware of was a new science. The world of epigenetics. The reality that many of us are living, that yes, we have genetics, and then we have the choices that we're making each and every day. And what epigenetics is now telling us is that while we're, you know, dealt the deck of cards that our genes give us,

Starting point is 00:14:01 those choices that we're making, our lifestyle, how we're taking care of stress, how we're feeding our body and all of that in between, that's actually affecting whether or not our genes are turning on and turning off. That was my cracked open the door. I was still unwell in a lot of ways. However, that was my first kind of slimmer of light through because up until that point, I didn't think that there was a conversation appealing. I thought the conversation

Starting point is 00:14:32 that I was me and many others, we're having with ourselves was management. These are the ways that I am, emotionally this is what I'm capable of, physically this is what I'm capable of, and there's this is my, this is my lane, right? And I can't early go outside from that. Oh, but lane. So what epigenetics meant for me was, I just start to question. I didn't believe it yet, but I was like, interesting.

Starting point is 00:14:55 You're telling me that I can create change and that maybe these physical symptoms are coming from these choices that I'm making every day, and I entertained it. So for me, that was a pivot, and then obviously there was a lot of choices I began to make that led me into all of this other awareness. So my first stage of the journey was trying to heal my body

Starting point is 00:15:17 because I was fainting. Like I said, I wasn't doing well. My system was screaming out as something was wrong. So I created small lifestyle changes. You know, I made sure my sleep was in order. I made sure my nutrition was screaming out as something was wrong. So I created small lifestyle changes. You know, I made sure my sleep was in order, I made sure my nutrition was in order. And then I started to practice consciousness. And that's where I really developed the kind of pivot in the way that I work again. Yeah. Beginning to differentiate the difference between a conscious self and way of being contrasting that with the subconscious,

Starting point is 00:15:45 that autopilot that you and I keep kind of going back to, and then that's where I really began to understand the nature of our stock. So for me, it kind of happened in shifts. Yeah, stages or ages. And I think for a lot of us, it is important to understand the dysregulation in our body, that stage first, so that we can begin to minimize a lot of,

Starting point is 00:16:10 because a lot of the reasons we're stuck is because of imbalances in our bodies and our nervous systems in particular. So then what is, because I know you've seen you talk about this a lot, conscious awareness, what does that really mean? And how do people really get to that place? So thank you so much. This is kind of the crux of it. You're welcome. Because consciousness and people probably, I talk about consciousness so much, it is that pillar of foundational change. And if people follow you and they don't notice that that's one of the

Starting point is 00:16:40 major things, that in trauma, I feel that you speak about a lot, right? So we'll get to that later. And the two are really. Yes, I'm sorry. I remember. So coincidence, I'm sure not. Just like that. So going back to this part of our mind, it's ever powerful. We have a space that stores quite literally everything that's ever happened to us.

Starting point is 00:17:00 It's the house of our habits and our patterns. It's called the subconscious, the computer analogy that we all love to hate. It's all the programs that we've run day in and day out. And the reality is we're very habitual creatures. Even though a lot of us don't like to admit it, we do have those programs. We are behaviorally, you know, we have the same habits and patterns day in and day out, or even very habitual in the thoughts that we think that lead to the feelings that we have. So that very powerful subconscious begins to be imprinted upon since we get here.

Starting point is 00:17:32 However, you believe it is that we come to this, you know, earth journey, we begin to be imprinted and we begin to lay those programs down. So using that prime example that we've been talking about, when you and I are in a session, and we're having all this insight, chances are we're operating from our conscious mind. Consciousness just means I'm present in the moment now. I'm not operating. It's a different part of our brain. It's called the prefrontal cortex up here as opposed to more or less back here where our subconscious lives. Right. So where those sessions were happening or where where even our aha moments are happening for ourself, typically it's in our conscious mind.

Starting point is 00:18:09 We're able to see the past problem-solving, create a new future. However, where that kind of gets derailed is the fact that most of us upwards of, depending on who you read, 90, 95% of our day, we're not operating from that conscious state% of our day, we're not operating from that conscious state. We're operating, we're allowing that subconscious and all that programs to determine.

Starting point is 00:18:32 So that's where those habits and patterns live. So that aha moment on Tuesday in session, right, if I came up to plan for Wednesday, the next time my partner says the thing that bothers me and I'm going to do this on, right, by Wednesday and that partner statement, chances are I'm already in that subconscious autopilot. So what's really going to happen even though I laid some great insightful plans yesterday. Yeah. Probably I'm going to live that same old reaction because I'm not conscious. I'm not able to create change. What and how do we start doing that? Even if we acknowledge it and we're aware of it, how do we make it so when we make that plan, we actually execute on that plan.

Starting point is 00:19:13 We have to practice consciousness. So the first is becoming aware of how unconscious we are. Okay. Typical suggestion I like to give. We all walk around with a cell phone these days, set an alarm on your cell phone for random times throughout your waking day. So probably by the time the alarm goes off, you won't even remember what you said it. Yeah. When the alarm goes off, when you ask yourself, note, where was my attention? Was I lost in thought? Was I worrying about, you know, the argument with my partner that morning, was I worrying about tomorrow, was I just somewhere else entirely, or was I present in this moment? If you're not, if the answer is I'm not present, I was somewhere else, we want to begin to flex our consciousness muscle.

Starting point is 00:19:58 We now know our brain can change, right? Neurons are fired together, wired again, neuroplasticity. We can create new pathways. So we need to practice consciousness in that moment and beyond that moment. And the vehicle for the present moment that most of us can access is through our senses. Right? So a simple sensory check-in, right? The alarm goes off. I was lost in thought about, you know, the fight I had this morning.

Starting point is 00:20:23 I want to become present. I want to activate consciousness. I can tune in. What can I touch in this moment? Right. What am I smelling? Maybe I'm eating. Maybe there was lunch in front. Right. Maybe I can tune into the taste of the food on my plate. When we're paying attention through our senses, I've now brought myself from wherever unconscious state I was in, into the present moment. And then we want to build on that practice, meaning we want to try to be in that conscious state as much as possible. Because when we're in that conscious state, when we're here in the present moment, that's when we give

Starting point is 00:20:56 ourselves the chance to make a new choice, to make a choice that's maybe counter to, right, what our subconscious would have done otherwise. And have you done this with your healing process? And like, does it, like I guess people should get discouraged and I would imagine that it's like, it takes a lot of practice to really kind of get into that space, right? It's because-

Starting point is 00:21:19 Very lot of practice. It's most of us are so used to. Yeah. And not even some of us aren't even aware of how to access the present moment. Because for a lot of us, the tendency to not be present to the moment began. This includes myself, and I'll share with you in a second that began when we couldn't handle the present moment. Right.

Starting point is 00:21:40 And to protect ourselves from what was here because it was painful. So to answer your question, consciousness was integral for me because what I came to realize when I became aware of myself in this new way, it came to realize how disconnected I was. So those words, how I described myself earlier, I'm flat, I'm not here, I'm unfulfilled, that was my reality because I was something that we call dissociated. I was disconnected. Because for me, in childhood,

Starting point is 00:22:11 when stresses in my family were too overwhelming for my young age, and I didn't have the support of an emotionally attuned mother, because she herself was internally preoccupied with her own anxiety and her own fight or flight response, unable to attend to my emotions, I did the best thing I knew how to do, which was like disconnected. A lot of us live in that state of dissociation, that's safe to say that's a state of disconnection, of lack of consciousness.

Starting point is 00:22:42 So for me, Jen, probably the better part of the first year of healing, that's all I did. I practiced being conscious and I practiced making those small lifestyle changes from that conscious state, paying a little more attention to what I put in my body and how it made it feel. Paying a little more attention to what time I was going to bed and how I was sleeping and making those small changes, because until I learned how to be conscious and then obviously in my body because that's another part of it, you know, even attuned to what my body is feeling in those moments, I couldn't really do the deeper work. So it's safe to say that a lot of us, a large majority of us, especially if you're resonating with the state

Starting point is 00:23:21 of dissociation or have heard about dissociation know that you dissociate, consciousness is going to be the foundation. So then how, okay, then, then is that the trauma that you're talking about that even it may not be you don't have to necessarily be sexually abused to have trauma, right? trauma is as a very large, I guess, what would you call it? Like it's a very big thing you can be, right? Trauma is, as a very large, I guess, what would you call it? Like it's, it's a very big thing you can be, right? There's different degrees in it. So you could have trauma in a, in a smaller state that really does affect you throughout your life, right? Yes. And then from those patterns, you end up choosing people or going into a

Starting point is 00:23:59 pad, like you behave, I heard you speak about this and write about this as well, then you end up being a certain kind of person that ends up picking people or it kind of like a trickle effect, right? Like it's one thing, it's snowballs, like your social media, right? And how do you like, how do you kind of stop that? Like if you can, what's the next step, I guess? So now you're more, I guess I'm babbling to say, once someone now kind of practices awareness

Starting point is 00:24:30 and conscious awareness, what do they do? It was the next thing that they can do to kind of stop those patterns and hurt them as an adult. We want to become, so there's the consciousness and then there's learning how to observe oneself for witness. Okay, so we want to see the patterns in real time, because you spoke something very profoundly.

Starting point is 00:24:49 When we're children, and I do believe that there is a much more expansive definition of trauma than many of us are operating within. In the 90s, or thankfully, we had the ACEs study, the first childhood experiences, and essentially at that time to keep it simple. For the first time, the psychological world, we determine that there are traumas, they're at that time, where referred to as big T, the sexual abuse, the physical abuse, the profound neglect. Having a parent incarcerated or severely mentally ill, and there's a couple other ones,

Starting point is 00:25:20 I think there's 10 questions. Depending, the higher, the more boxes you tick, the more traumas you've experienced, right? So at this time in the 90s in our field, we've came to a test with research now that, yes, bad things that happen in childhood affect you in adulthood, because that's what they were studying. They were saying now, not just in childhood, they were saying, you could have had this trauma when you were six. And now when you're 60, you might be suffering the consequences still of this. This is the first time we even studied that in the field in the 90s.

Starting point is 00:25:52 However, when I took the ACEs, I scored only a one. I think 60% maybe of the population, that's not very hot, put it that way. So again, this was a point of confusion for me. Yet I was seeing the same pattern of dissociation that I was seeing in people who scored seven. Because I've worked with people in extensive different, you know, context and treatment facilities, previously incarcerated, substance use. I mean, I did, I worked with people with eight, nine, ten, right? Wow. And the

Starting point is 00:26:19 gamut of it. I really did. So, and that's why I was confused. Because I'm like, okay, well, I understand why they are struggling. Why am I Shuggling again probably because something's wrong with me. I'm effective. I'm less than I'm not worthy all of the things that we tend to believe Anyway, so I say all that to say I believe that there's a reason and that there's a Broad broader definition of trauma that again originates in childhood. So when we're in childhood, Tiva's simple, we are born as humans in a complete state of dependency, meaning we can't meet our needs. I've never had a child, but anyone who has an infant, they need a caregiver of some kind to meet their physical needs. Again, I believe we have emotional needs that are present from birth, and

Starting point is 00:27:03 again, I believe their spiritual needs. our core spiritual needs, just so we can get clear on how I define those. Yes. I believe there's three quite simple ones. Our essence are being whatever you want to describe. The thing that makes you you and me me, I believe that at our core, three needs that we share are to be seen, to be heard, and to have the space to just be who I am. It's being that, you know, uniqueness that I am. Be understood. Be understood. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:31 To be seen is just who I am. It's different from you, maybe, and that's okay too, right? Back to that state of dependency. We are reliant on other people to first meet our needs. And then by meeting our needs, that's the model that we internalize over time within how we meet our own needs. Right, so how our parent shows up and teaches us how to care for our physical body,

Starting point is 00:27:54 chances are, becomes the way we care for our physical body. Same thing with our emotional needs, right? How our parents help us express our emotions or not, and again, we all very different experiences. That becomes the very patterned way that we take care of our own emotions. Same thing with spiritual, you know, if you have a parent who self expresses and allows you to self express, that's going to typically be what we do. So what happens for a lot of us, this is when we get really adaptive because we know we need those people, we're so attuned as children,

Starting point is 00:28:28 I think children are the most intuitive beings, attuned beings on the planet and adaptive beings. So what they do is they adapt. They find the way to ensure that the needs are met to the best of that caretaking environment's ability. They show up, if you will, they, you know, kind of sanction off maybe parts of themselves or their emotions, if they got negative feedback to maintain those connections that we need. Yeah. And then what happens is we repeat those

Starting point is 00:28:56 patterns. We take on those same roles in our relationships. You're the caregiver with your mother, chances are you're the caregiver in all of your relationships. As you develop over time. And then that sets into place, right? All of these habits and patterns that by the time I am in my 30s, 40s, 50s, I become the human who's maybe not tending to my needs, who's showing up or who's playing roles to my own the service. And so and that plays out a whole other litany of ways, right? Like a vahnhappiness. Then who are that you know, there's so much people who say you can't blame your childhood on how you are as an adult, you can't blame this, you can. Now, does, do you feel that then talk therapy or traditional therapy of some form? Just do you do that? Do you believe in combining how you feel people should heal with that or do you just feel

Starting point is 00:29:51 it's just not necessary because it's basically the hamster wheel. You spent a lot of money going down the same path doing the same thing and you know what reality is, I know many, many friends in mine who've been in therapy for 25 years, twice a week and they're not any better off than they were 10, you're 10, right? Like it becomes, that becomes your habitual thing. You know, you at 10 o'clock on Tuesday, I'm going to sit with my therapist, right?

Starting point is 00:30:21 And I think that's probably why it does, people do resonate with you because in everything that you just even said by now, like people could, they can feel themselves in that a little bit to some extent, right? Because we've all had something, like we said, trauma could be super broad, it doesn't have to be something small. And then how do, so then what? I'm just like fast enough. That was a lot. So I think, I mean, just to clarify, there is a time and a place for therapy,

Starting point is 00:30:50 I think in each of our journeys, I don't speak to the exclusion of it. I am often, my work is misinterpreted and I've heard people tell me that I've said not to go to therapy, that's, Oh no, I'm innocent. No, no, I'm not saying you said that. I'm just clarifying that for you, just for people,

Starting point is 00:31:03 because I do think sometimes a lot of people do find support in an outside person and having that space. What is most important, and because this is where I feel anything, whether it's the therapist, the gym, anything we're doing for one hour, say a week, out of however many other hours are in our week, is gonna be limited, because that autopilot in our week is going to be limited because that autopilot that subconscious is going to be at play the rest of the time. So therapy can

Starting point is 00:31:31 be incredibly helpful as a tool as well as what am I doing daily as well as those lifestyle choices. It's consistency with life consistency. So it's routine and consistency like you said one hour a week doing anything if you work out only one hour a week or Or if you only one good meal a week, you're not going to get results But I feel what you do. Maybe you correct if I'm wrong. You put the onus on the person on the cell on me and Empower yourself to make those daily changes to have long-term effects. Yes. The consistency is what we need for those long-term effects. Right. Maintaining consistency is incredibly difficult because of our subconscious.

Starting point is 00:32:11 Absolutely. Our subconscious operates, I use the word evolution evolutionarily before, earlier. Our subconscious is based on one principle. It's to keep us safe. Now, to clarify what safe means for evolutionary value, right? To sustain life of my organism. For according to my subconscious, that which is safe is simply that which is familiar. Because I know what comes next. Right. Because to the human, the uncertainty around that next corner could be the bear that kills me. I mean, I know this sounds kind of crazy and you're looking around. None of us are really living in that survival, you know,

Starting point is 00:32:47 kind of outward-saintly more. So why we're still though our subconscious is so governed in that way. Familiar equals safe. That's why change is universally hard to maintain. Because before long, as I start to make new choices to wake up a little earlier, to sit in silence, to think a new thought. That's what an affirmation is. It only a matter of time, and sometimes it's very quickly for us that that subconscious, who's on alert at all times, becomes uncomfortable with that change, doesn't know what happens next once you do this thing again

Starting point is 00:33:20 and again and again. And then what happens, this is what I call it, we get a form of resistance. It could come cognitively. A lot of us live in our monkey minds, thinking our way through life. So what this resistance could look like, the million reasons why not to do this new thing.

Starting point is 00:33:34 You don't keep things, you don't keep your habits anyway Jennifer, just stop it. Or you know what you should really be doing, you know, you have a son. So you should probably be taking care of him, right? Yeah, all of the reasons not to. And or some of us get in our bodies. We feel agitated.

Starting point is 00:33:48 We just feel, maybe just not like ourselves. We are different than we normally do. Yeah. And before long, it's only a matter of time. Before we give in to that resistance, we take it to be our truth. Right? You're right. I can't change.

Starting point is 00:34:02 And then we're right back in that familiar rut, in that familiar pattern of our subconscious. Right, because everything is for long term, you have to be working on it all the time. Right, now what happens if you're with somebody and you've kind of come to that place where you are getting more consciously aware and you've recognized that the partner you're with is not on the same page as you.

Starting point is 00:34:24 How does that mean that's when you stop a relationship? Or what do you do in that situation? I get this question a whole lot. And usually it's in the form of some version of how do I get? Yeah, I was getting a partner, my mom, the change, the change, the quality of the journey with me, again, completely normal. Right. For many reasons, we're in a relationship, we want to continue. Right. You know, for many reasons, you know, we're in a relationship.

Starting point is 00:34:45 We want to continue, you know, we love this person. We can see, you know, I'm objective. I'm separated from you. I'm not you. So for us, we can maybe see the patterns in our loved ones more clearly. Yeah. And want them to change from a very well intentioned place.

Starting point is 00:35:01 So I get a lot of this question. And my answer is always some version of the same thing, which is to right turn that focus back on this self, right, to create the change in you, right, as you're continuing to heal, regardless of what your partner does or doesn't do. Some pathways do lead down to the relationship shifting or changing or ending. Doesn't mean it has to. My current relationship, I began healing. Me and my partner were what I call a trauma bond, which really just means repeating those

Starting point is 00:35:32 patterns that we both learned in our subconscious. We were both in our zone of familiar when we met each other. It felt familiar, felt comfortable. It doesn't mean it was a fulfilling, full, authentic relationship. Most people do that though. Most people do that though. Most people do that. We are most of us are attracted to those patterns, to playing those same roles, or eliciting the same feelings, getting loved the same way.

Starting point is 00:35:55 Exactly. They're giving you the love language. We're childhood. Right. So, again, because of that drive to the familiar, we gravitate. And this is, again, where we can be really hard on ourselves, right? Fail relationship after fail relationship.

Starting point is 00:36:10 What's wrong with me? Why can't I pick the right partners? Maybe very well-intentioned loved ones are asking, what the hell's wrong with you, leave him? Yeah, can't you see? Yeah. And the truth is no, we can. We're locked in that familiar,

Starting point is 00:36:22 it's fulfilling that need, that definition of self, of love, whatever it is, that we only ever knew. So I share all of that because, you know, in changing, you know, while my partner and I very gratefully were feeling together, right, it was never a you-change, so that I can feel better, right? It was fully focusing on creating the healing in ourself. But what you doing it first and then they came along for the ride are they in the same business as you like how did that work? Her and I I mean we're pretty much on the same path in terms of she was having things in her life percolating on her around the same time hitting her kind of emotional rock bottom however the things we were working on,

Starting point is 00:37:05 and healing from were drastically different. The way we cope, put us at odds. She someone, someone who, when I run, I shut down. That makes her scared. She approaches. So there was a lot of complicated aspects of the healing journey. But again, the work really is to turn it back

Starting point is 00:37:28 and to say, what can I do now for me? And you're still together? We're still together. Really? Because I would think that if people are both meeting on when they were both in a trauma bonding, right? That when they're changing, they would pick opposite different

Starting point is 00:37:45 partners, not maybe not opposite, but different partners. How is it that you are able to kind of continue? Like even though you're both, didn't you know, did you not feel that you wanted when you recognize that, that you were, you were seeking something different and and vice end same for her? Well, this is where it gets profound because I believe that what we're seeking can only be found inside of us. This is, and that's where it gets really profound.

Starting point is 00:38:09 So this is why I'm kind of insistent on inward. Because as, and I'm still learning emotionally because I was so dissociated, it's still taking me a long time to be in body, to feel my feelings, to differentiate between what is this feeling. I don't even know what to call it, what I'm what to do with it. So, in a lot of ways, I'm still finding how to meet my needs.

Starting point is 00:38:32 I'm still finding how to be the spiritual being and just speak my truth regardless of how people are hearing it or reacting to it. So that's in my opinion, the life work. It's all of us are on the journey to meet our own needs. Now again, this doesn't mean at the exclusion of others. I believe that the pathway to be fully authentically connected with others because we are interpersonal beings. Humans are wired to connect. We need other humans. However, so many of us are operating on patterns where we're trying to get needs met through other people that we have to focus inward first. We have to be able to fulfill ourselves,

Starting point is 00:39:11 meet our own needs authentically before I can then authentically present them to another person in a relationship. More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor. So we've heard for years that it's so important to have a diversified portfolio. You know, stock, spawns, mutual funds, that sort of thing. But if you've ever looked at the breakdown of the most successful portfolios, you'll typically see a diversified set of real estate. So whether you're just starting to invest in real estate or looking to add more, our friends at Fundrise have you covered. And here's how.

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Starting point is 00:41:14 being attracted to what you know is not right for you. But you say to yourself, I can't help with this, who I'm attracted to. How do you stop yourself from like physically or what otherwise? When you have who you're attracted to, right? Because you're, that isn't that kind of so sub, that's so embedded in your DNA, right? Yeah. How do you do that? Yeah. Attraction is, you know, one of those elusive,

Starting point is 00:41:37 elusive, all attracted to different things, you know, in people, awareness. Awareness will allow you to see that road, to play that path out, that person, right, and then allow you to make that choice to live a new pattern. Wow. So you're still going through the trauma belt. Like this is not like something that you can kind of like, you kind of get better at and then you go on to the next issue.

Starting point is 00:42:01 None of this is. So even, you know, when I talk about consciousness, there's still moments where I'm not conscious. I check out, I'm not fully present in the moment. I say, all of this is ongoing. That those old patterns for me are right there behind the surface, especially around my wounds. Those things that make me emotionally activated are still there.

Starting point is 00:42:22 There's even, can be moments in real time or whatever thing happens in my world. And I hear that ego voice. I hear what I want to say or do next. And yet I can still, this is what I call kind of expanding our consciousness. I can allow that to be and I can still learn to make new choices.

Starting point is 00:42:40 So it doesn't go away. Like I said, sometimes we slip in and out of consciousness. There's still moments where I react. A yell, I scream, I detach, I dissociate, and I come back and I'm like, oh, you know, right. And then I acknowledge I offer myself compassion, I maybe offer to whoever I was around at the time, my awareness of what happened. And then I work on building consciousness and creating change in that next moment. So yeah, there's no light switches. We all know that. I've done. I've been looking for this place of done-ness. If yeah, there's no light switches. We all know that. I've been looking for this place of done-ness. If anyone finds it, let me know. I'm going to be

Starting point is 00:43:10 a utopian hammock in the sky. I don't know where it is. So it's life in. And that's why I think it's so important when we're cooperating the changes to do so in a in a small way so that we can maintain consistency so that we can walk through the resistance that's going to be there in a small way so that we can maintain consistency, so that we can walk through the resistance that's gonna be there in our subconscious, and so that we can do this every day, because that's what we're talking about. Like you and I agreed, it's not just white knuckling it, doing five new things for the next month,

Starting point is 00:43:38 and then what happens day 31, day 32, right? We wanna create something that's maintainable, which unfortunately for a lot of us means change comes slower, right? Relief comes slower. I understand the desire to make it all better, especially when we're really uncomfortable. Of course, I come from a family too who wants to take the pill and be done with it and better tomorrow. Right.

Starting point is 00:44:01 And a lot of us want that, and especially when we're really hurting, however, what we're looking is, like I said, to set ourselves up to succeed, to maintain the change, and to live consciously every day so that we can be connected to our ever evolving needs. Right. That makes sense to me. I mean, it's complicated, but yet very simply, it's easy to understand. It's the most simplistic, complicated thing in the world. Exactly. That's a great way of putting it. What is emotional addictedness?

Starting point is 00:44:28 What is that? Mm-hmm. So I talk a lot about emotional addiction. It lives in our subconscious. The very habitual way we think for a lot of us results in the very habitual way we feel. And that feeling becomes that zone of familiar. So I'll use myself as an example. Growing up with a lot happening around me, I had a chronically ill mother and a chronically ill sister. My sister in particular had very big health issues when I was a kid.

Starting point is 00:44:55 So there was a lot of stress for lack of a better word and not much emotional support for me. Because understandably, my family was dealing with the next very real fire, making sure my sister was okay, you know, making sure food was on the table, you know, getting things like in order that we need it. Is she okay now? She's okay. Oh yes, yes, yes. So for me stress, right, was the need. That zone of familiar stress has hormones that are attached to it, right? Cordless hallage, Rammelin. So my body, the more stressful thoughts and stressful experiences I had in childhood, right, mapped onto the more cordis hall

Starting point is 00:45:30 that was coursing through my body. My zone of familiar became a stressed one. That's what my body knew as me. So this is where I got complicated. If you would have heard me speak, especially by the time I entered my 20s, discovered psychology, knew I was gonna be a psychologist, if anyone would have asked me speak, especially by the time I entered my 20s, discovered psychology, knew I was going to be a psychologist. If anyone would have asked me, you know, like, what are you looking for in life, you would

Starting point is 00:45:50 have heard some version of peace. I just want peace. You know, I just want to like, like, hit me at heart, throw my peace on, and just want like a peaceful existence. Yeah, this is what would happen. If I would find myself, find myself in a peaceful moment, maybe I was alone, and I had nothing agitating me. Because my subconscious was so used to those high court

Starting point is 00:46:12 of soul levels, it was only a matter of time before one of two things would happen for me. And I learned this because I observed myself. I watched myself enough. I witnessed what happens when you are alone at call. What happened was my house would be clean from top to bottom because I would have so much agitation from that cortisol metadrenaline that I couldn't just I talk about meditating new, couldn't sit, wasn't doing that,

Starting point is 00:46:37 right? I definitely wasn't meditating all alone on that day. I'd clean my house from top to bottom. That was how I would discharge. If I wasn't alone, or if I was accessible to my partner, I would agitate the relationship. Before you know what I'd be saying, you know what I'd really like the way you looked at me this morning, and what did you mean by that? That statement that you know you were doing it at the time. Not at the time. I would observe. And then before I knew it, lo and pull, I was in an argument and I was stressed out and I was upset. So that pull, right, because our mind and our body are connected. So it was happening in that moment.

Starting point is 00:47:11 My mind was picking up on all the cortisol, all the adrenaline, and it was trying to make sense of why. So it did. Well, why is because you're agitated. So go deal with that. You either go clean the shed out of your house. Right. Before. A new year partner. Yeah. And causes the argument. And a lot of us do that. You either go clean the shed out of your house. Right. Or annoy your partner. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:47:25 And cause the argument. And a lot of us do that. Wow. So the addictions, the emotions that we're addicted to are different for some of us as sadness, for some of us as anger. And again, it's just that pull of that subconscious. And when I'm not in that familiar state, because my mind and my body are connected, before I know what I can create that state in my life.

Starting point is 00:47:44 Yeah, that's why a lot of people are like drawn to tumultuous relationships, right? Where there's a lot of fighting and passion because at least you feel something. That was what was emblematic of my trauma bond with Lolli in the beginning. She and I together created that Warhol Acoster. There was emotional highs and lows. And then a fight would be picked and we'd fight. And then she'd run and flay. And that would activate me because my mother wasn't emotionally available. And I chase her. And then she'd get more upset and yell. And then before we know it, we're on our roll against her together. And that, but that also makes you feel like alive. And

Starting point is 00:48:18 the path that you have more, that you have passion because of it. Because I think this is an interesting thing because people I think confuse melancholy sometimes with boredom, with no love. I'm not really in love with them. You think lust and love is the same thing, right? Yes. So that's a great example. I've had similar type of personality

Starting point is 00:48:42 that you were saying with you and Lolly, is that right? That's the name. And so how do you get over that? Like it's hard to like, that's an adrenaline thing to right? It's like, I feel that's a really hard thing to shift out of into this other place. I love them that you said I'm bored. Yeah. Because if you were to ask my parents and my sister, what my favorite, they might have well said my middle name, was Nicole, I'm bored. Yeah. Because when I wasn't, I was very active physically as a child.

Starting point is 00:49:11 I had things every night of the week. And when I did it, I was bored. I was bored. Or so I thought I just wasn't activated. So you'll hear me talk a lot in the context of relationships. And I think culture and TV does a lot of it too. We are presented messages that relationships are these volatile highs and lows and very romantic moments of, you know,

Starting point is 00:49:31 in fact, and romantic comedies are built on this whole thing, right? And the reality of it is authentic love. Oh, once you're at the honeymoon stage for a lot of us, it's boring. It's boring. It's their eyesight peaceful. Yeah, exactly. Or the way it knows it's boring. I us, it's boring. It's boring. It's their I say peaceful. Yeah, exactly. Or, in other words, it was boring. I mean, it's true though, right? And then, but that's when, and then, a whole other litany of issues come because you mistake boredom for, like, unhappiness, right? Because I would imagine with what you do, when people,

Starting point is 00:49:58 you said, when people, you know, you said you wanted peace, when you thought when you were younger, whatever, what you'd want to be, I feel that the word that people use, I want to be happy. It's such a like, it's such a nonsense, or arbitrary word, right? Because happiness could be met in so many ways, right? And like, how do people really find, I know you're going to say, if within yourself, right, you've got to find happiness. But when you hear that from people, how do you use, what do you say to them? First question, just because you very astutely again, what is happiness? Something different to all of us. Yeah, exactly. Life is subjective. I learned this very early on in the context of a clinical experience. So anxiety, I know.

Starting point is 00:50:39 And I had a supervisor once tell me, right, when we were talking about, you know, patients with anxiety, for instance, I, she said, I want to urge you now. If anyone ever comes in your office, right, and you say, you know, what brought you in? And they say anxiety. Don't assume you know what they mean, even though you're very intimately connected to the experience of anxiety, because they knew enough about the right, the supervise of the time. And that was so profound to me, because I came to realize in that moment, the truth of the matter that you could say anxiety, I could say anxiety, we both go, yeah, we're anxious. And we could be both talking about two different things. Right. Your anxiety experience might be, you know,

Starting point is 00:51:16 something in your body or, you know, you might just be defining it different than how I experience anxiety. And that's so same thing with happiness. So the first question, and sometimes we say things that maybe we don't even know what we mean. Yeah. So the first inward exploration would be to define what is happiness. The my answer for happiness probably will be different than yours and would be different than everyone else's in this room. Right. So getting clear on what happiness means to you and being okay if you don't know, finding your way, finding the definition of happiness. And I think that's a really core component of a lot of the work that I do because we are very subjective. We are very much coloring our experiences with

Starting point is 00:51:59 our past, with our own meanings. So it's really important for us to get clear first for ourselves about what we mean. And then once we have that definition, then we could start to find the path of how to create happiness, for instance, in our life. What is the biggest question that besides that kind of question, what's the biggest issue you feel that people are really struggling with the most these days? I think disconnection. Self that then gets reflected. What it'll come out and what you'll hear. I'm unfulfilled in my relationships. I'm disconnected from people. I'm disconnected from the world. I'm unfulfilled in the world. I believe all of that, again, originates when we're disconnected from ourselves, authentically, first and foremost. But some version of that disconnect and the results of it,

Starting point is 00:52:49 I think pretty much sums up what most of us are struggling with. And so what do people do to kind of start that process? Besides being aware, I know that that's for being consciously aware, how do people start even getting to that place? Simple, difficult question. They have it oneself and as many moments as we can.

Starting point is 00:53:08 Yeah. What do I need right now? First hitting pause, that's stepping into the consciousness. Right, not just going about my day and oh, I don't even know what I need. This is what I do next. Yeah. Hitting that pause, coming to consciousness,

Starting point is 00:53:21 checking it with myself right now. What do I need right now? Do I need the strength of water? Am I okay, right? The sense is the consciousness that you're saying. Once checking it with myself right now. What do I need right now? Do I need the strength of water? Am I okay, right? The sense is the consciousness that you want to say. Once I'm conscious, right? So we need to become conscious or else I'm just going to go about my day and probably not ask myself what I need nor know what I need in that.

Starting point is 00:53:36 Right. So we want to do our consciousness, check in and out here and do this as many times as we can throughout our day and then begin to practice that simple question. I said simple yet complicated, because for a lot of us, we might not know. We might have no idea what we need in this moment, and then we need to find our way, learn, right? Checking in with our physical body.

Starting point is 00:53:56 Well, my cared for, my hungry, am I not learning those cues. Each of our body tells us things differently. This is where it doesn't, there's a road map, right? A lot of us are looking, well, what are the steps one through five? I know, I know. I'm a cactiologist. And I'm a cactiologist. So this is where we have to become the intuitive being, right?

Starting point is 00:54:14 That we started out as as children. We all do know. We all know. But we need to be able to drop into our cell. For some of us, we can be able to listen to our intuition and give ourselves the space to allow the knowing to come to the surface because so many of us are just blowing through life doing action and thinking. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:54:33 Trying to ask myself from up here, what do I need instead of dropping in saying, well, what do I need? Well, how does my body feel? Right. Does it feel like energetic or low? Yeah. That could be a star. You know, my hungry.

Starting point is 00:54:46 Am I not hungry emotionally? What am I doing? So what are stopping causing and then saying, what do I need? And being okay with not knowing and being okay with feeling our way and not thinking our way to that answer. Are you someone that you said you didn't like meditation before? Are you someone that meditates now?

Starting point is 00:55:03 No, I do. So the way I created a habit of consciousness, which is what I suggest, is I did what I was suggesting in terms of that conscious check-in in my day. I didn't start a meditation practice where I shut my eyes and I sat because it was too overwhelming. I felt like I was crawling out my skin. I didn't like what my mind was telling me and I definitely had too many things to do. I definitely did not have the time to be sitting there. So it did not, and that's

Starting point is 00:55:28 why I definitely suggest to begin to practice consciousness throughout our day, right? Even something we're doing can be a hook for our attention. If not our senses when you're washing the dishes, yeah, focus on the sensory experience of washing the dishes, right? Using your attention there. That's how I began to practice consciousness because sitting was overwhelming. Now, for me, the act of closing my eye, shutting the world out, that's the space in my day, and I do practice it each and every day in my morning routine, where I connect with myself, where I start my day, connect to what I believe is my spiritual being and then allowing me to open the dialogue to hear how I'm doing to see what comes up.

Starting point is 00:56:10 So now I sit not, you know, 10, 15 minutes, nothing extensive though that's quite some time. And like I said, I did not get there overnight. So anyone, a practice consciousness in daily life, like I said, that could be a little less overwhelming. What am I doing? Especially when I'm doing something sensory base, like the shower, the dishes, maybe those are things we used to hate. Right. We could change our relationship with those things. And if we are going to evolve into a sitting practice, or if you would find value in a sitting practice, one minute, two minutes, right? Nothing, don't put that timer,

Starting point is 00:56:47 the first time you're gonna meditate on to not even five minutes, that's a long time to be sitting. And for me, the value I find in that is that gives me the place to just be connected with me. And like I said, I do it in the morning, so before I start my day. So what is your daily routine?

Starting point is 00:57:02 What do you do in the morning? What is your daily routine? Yeah, it's a morning routine. So I say this again, from a recovering person who hate it morning, I definitely would feud with my dad for a very long time in high school over mornings. Because I now I've trained myself

Starting point is 00:57:16 to get up at an early hour. I'm usually up between five and six. That early? In the morning. I know you don't have to have kids. I go to bed very early. That's my best. I'll get to my bed. Oh, I was going to ask you to get back to bed.

Starting point is 00:57:27 I'm in bed by nine. Um, and I, so I, and for me, the morning, so this began when I was still seeing clients, which I don't do anymore. So I had a time of my day where I was starting client work. Um, so for me, having the mornings to not only care for myself, but then begin to do some of the creative work that I was doing as I was creating the account. Mornings was the time, because by nighttime I'm exhausted.

Starting point is 00:57:51 So it was very begrudging that I started to get up that early. I definitely wasn't excited about it. Now I love it. Now it's really that time before emails are coming in. I mean, emails are there, but before I start to tune into them if I'm good. So in the mornings, if all goes well, I'm up somewhere between naturally. I don't set an alarm.

Starting point is 00:58:08 So again, if I need a little more sleep, I might sleep until a little bit closer to six. And I'm up. And then in the morning, you'll always see me do the same sort of routine of things. I engage in a practice that I call future self journaling. Each and every morning, it's my practice I developed it when I was healing, and I still do it years later. It's where I set a conscious intention to change to maintain that habit. So each and every day, I follow, I have some journal prompts, so anyone who's interested listening wants to sign up for my email list, I actually just put out an expanded version,

Starting point is 00:58:41 so a whole how-to PDF packet, really what it is at each and every morning, I set the intention to continue doing the things that I want to do differently today. The value in that, A, it's my reminder. It's a visual. It's my visual. It's my reminder, and when I write it, and I suggest, if anyone who wants these journal prompts in this guide, we'll see it listed in there, I write as if it's already happened. As if I'm already doing those things in my day, I am this. This is happening. I feel this way, even if it's not yet true. Because what we're harnessing in that moment is two things, two beautiful parts of this brain that we're gifted with. The fact that it doesn't know

Starting point is 00:59:19 what's real and what's imagined. So if you're saying it in real time, as if it's true, in that moment, your mind believes it to be true. And in doing that repetitively consistently every day, you're practicing mental rehearsal. You're firing up that new pathway. The more you're, it's like you're training ground. Absolutely. Because the change, no, this is the caveat with the journal, it's not magic.

Starting point is 00:59:41 Okay. You don't close it. The spark will come out and you're not poof at different person. You still have to show up for yourself throughout that day. You still have to remember to do that consciousness check in that you said you would do in the morning. You still have to remember to use your senses, right, to be conscious at that time later in your day. You still have to do the work throughout the day. However, that journaling tool helps because if I didn't do that, chances are I'd slip right into that old pattern. And then it would be 7 p.m. and I'd be like, oh shoot, I

Starting point is 01:00:10 supposed to do that new thing today and I completely forgot. Yeah, absolutely. Although tomorrow. And then tomorrow slides right into that Groundhog's day experience. So I want that. I'm going to try that. So you should check out the journal. I'll make sure it comes your way. So that's every morning. OK, about five minutes it takes me. I write what I'm going to do. I focus on my same pattern. So a journal, I meditate again, 10, 15 minutes, depending

Starting point is 01:00:34 on how I'm feeling that day. A stretch, I move my body. I do some version of whether it's a yoga, and that's a very mindful conscious activity for me, or something a little more rigorous. Because I've learned that when my energy gets stuck in my body, it's only a matter of time before I'm back down that as old habits and matters

Starting point is 01:00:52 and before I don't know what to do with it, and I'm poking at you, and I'm the, and quarantine has been difficult a lot of ways, you know, for that. So for me, it's meditation, it's journaling, and it's movement every morning pretty much. And then at night, you've said you're an energy. And so by nighttime, I'm usually done with my significant work

Starting point is 01:01:12 by later afternoon, so by dinner time, I'm like, segwaying into peaceful evening, which means I'm probably not answering emails. I'm probably not working. I'm probably not watching anything that's gonna stress me out before I'm fed. At what time? Before dinner, I usually have dinner between five and six.

Starting point is 01:01:28 Oh, why? And then, so I'm probably not gonna put on the stressful news channel while I'm watching dinner. I'm trying to get myself into that calm state. And maybe I'm reading, I'm doing kind of low key calming activities so that I can be in bed around 9, 8, 39, and then asleep by 10. Also, you're asleeping by 10.

Starting point is 01:01:48 So you're in bed by 9 o'clock, huh? You know, maybe that's the trick because people... The bedtime is really, because if we all want a morning routine and we forget that we're... We need sleep, too. So the night routine is more important than the morning routine. The night routine sets you up for the night routine. And the way I even allowed myself to have a morning routine is and I was not trained to go to bed,

Starting point is 01:02:08 you know, at nine o'clock, at 10 o'clock, even I was very much up until midnight, like a lot of us are. So I would just put my ass in bed. Yeah. And just wait there. And then when in the beginning I did practice with an alarm.

Starting point is 01:02:19 I would set my alarm for five. I'd want to throw it against the wall and I'd get up anyway. Because I thought the more I just get myself up, that'll help me get more and more tired so that I can go to sleep and then wake up refreshed the next day. So then that's great because I reverse engineer. Reverse engineer, that's exactly what I was going to say. And it works.

Starting point is 01:02:38 It works. It didn't work overnight. I think this was very much a long time coming. There were still, now I like my mornings and I get up willingly and I engage all that willing. It took a while where I was just doing it. I was just keeping those promises to myself that I would do it, keeping those intentions before I actually wanted to.

Starting point is 01:02:55 And I share that a lot, because I think a lot of us wait to want to. We want to wait till we feel like it. And again, with that resistance and that subconscious that we've just been talking about, that's never going to be the case. We are going to be waiting until we're done. That's absolutely, that's such a truism in life.

Starting point is 01:03:11 So that's with everything though, you know, you wait, like you think for kids, like you know, there's never a good time. You're always going to find something else. It's kind of the same in the same veins what you're saying. You kind of have to force it along a little bit or just do it until it becomes your like new thing or your or your or your have that. That's so true. Then when did this whole because your book's not out? Yeah, your book comes up next year, but what was that? Well, I guess you'll tell me, but you had such such a huge response from your work that you decide, hey, I'm gonna write a book and then what happened?

Starting point is 01:03:45 So the book is really, the Instagram is a gift, don't get me wrong and I will never stop showing up on the Instagram. For me, it did Instagram. For me, it did. I have your Facebook too, though. I'm Facebook too. I just, I kind of always am talking about Instagram mainly just because that's the main platform in where the community lives. So content's very similar across Facebook. I have a YouTube channel. I say all that to say, giving those free tools, equalizing access, spreading messages to people

Starting point is 01:04:12 who, like I said earlier, might be in other countries, might never have heard of this stuff, might not have access to these type of practitioners or these tools. That's really important to me. However, I understand the limitation of a little square and amount of characters you know, provide. So as I began to think about, you know, kind of unify this theory and understand what that means and translate into the practical tools, which yes, I am putting out daily in this much more constricted way, small way. I really understood a book. I needed this place where I could talk about the whole theory of, you know, holistic psychology or holistic healing from start to finish along with the tools. So a book was a next natural progression.

Starting point is 01:04:52 You know what you do with with these little spaces, I wanted to, I let this open on purpose because I always like take these little screenshots of things that you say and I'm like, wow, that was so good. I said, well, that was so good. Most of it, well, I said we were all wounded children walking around and adult bodies, having tantrums, fearing abandonment, seeking validation, be kind.

Starting point is 01:05:13 Like, things like this, you fit a lot of information in like a square. That's like, it makes you stop in your tracks and like think about it and like, like, no, it's true. So I mean, like, actually, I think you do great with that little piece of information. I appreciate it. Oh, I appreciate it.

Starting point is 01:05:27 Like your behavior. What was the other one I liked not that recently, but how you behave the way you feel? Or I mean, who thinks of all these things? You just think about it in the moment and just kind of dispute it. A lot of it is informed by my day today, by I am very engaged with the communities who I'm watching. I'm always in the comments and kind of seeing, gauging,

Starting point is 01:05:49 you know, kind of tweaking based on what are they understanding, what is the need. I'm very try to be as a tune to what is the natural progression, what are things that are coming up for the community that I can speak on and just living in it. Sometimes it's my own life, you know, the argument I had, the thing that happened over here. And so it's just very much there. It's honest and it's the very honest. Yeah, I share a lot of my own, in the book too. So the book really is, what is holistic psychology?

Starting point is 01:06:15 Like I said, understanding the unified whole that we are physical bodies. I talk a lot about the different dysregulations, especially on our nervous system, that are keeping a lot of a stuck. I go into the whole world of relationships and emotional maturity and how we develop that. So it's really the unified whole in theory. Each and every chapter has workbooks, you know, kind of like exercises at the end, so that we can apply. I think that's a large reason, again, why the account is growing.

Starting point is 01:06:45 A lot, like I said, I'm not unique. The things I'm talking about have been talked about in different ways with different language. I believe we're all just messengers of unified whole truths, you know, universal truths that exist. However, I think I'm understanding that the way they're being talked about is in an understandable manner. And a lot of these topics have been just conceptual or theories or okay, that makes sense over here, but what do I do in real life? How does this play out in my day to

Starting point is 01:07:15 definitely apply? What do I do with this information? And so I say all that to say, I understand, again, the growth of the account through that lens, is that the way it's being talked about and understood is feeling more resonating, it's feeling more practical, and it's allowing people to do something, to action in a new way. So the book very similarly will offer that, and then throughout it, to speak to your point, I talk a lot about my own journey, about my own past, about the own, you know, my areas of stuck, my relationship patterns. I give a lot of other antidotal stories of people I've worked with, of people in the community,

Starting point is 01:07:53 other self-healers, so people can see themselves. I know that we are all looking to see ourselves, we are all looking for those moments of resonance, for someone else's story to remind us just enough of ours, right? That we can hold on to something. So I think that's a very important part of the book and throughout the book, you'll see that as well. And then you were saying earlier about that fact that people are so disconnected right now, especially,

Starting point is 01:08:16 and I think community is very, very important. Don't you have a community where people can kind of join? So outside of just the engaged community on Instagram, which I said, I'm always gonna be there and all all of the Facebook and the YouTube. They're very engaged comment sections there. I'm watching people out in my heart was just almost explode at the other day. On one of the posts I was watching community members organizing accountability partners. Reaching out just from the just themselves, just in comments section, hey, I'm selling so this is what I'm dealing with, anyone want to be an accountability

Starting point is 01:08:49 ability, oh, I do. I mean, I could have I could have explored it, right then just watching that. So really engage community again, free access for anyone who has an Instagram account. I have the last year, we just turned a year old, we have a virtual online community, the self-healer circle. It's a little more in depth. It's a paid membership. Each and every month we have a topic of healing that together as a group, I have outside experts that come in and present on each of these topics. And it's again a very interactive place. We just got a new website. So the newest gift of

Starting point is 01:09:22 this past month, we built out our own website so that we can house this interactive virtual community. So all the members are moving over and it gives them that space that's not on all the social medias where again, it's very community-based. I believe we heal in community. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you. Well, you're like a fountain of information, I can go on and on with you. I can talk all that. Oh my god. I get literally you're so fantastic. How do people...

Starting point is 01:09:50 What is your book out again next March 9th? It comes out. It's currently on pre-sale, so anyone who is interested in pre-ordering pre-sale, it will not be delivered though. It comes out. It releases on March 9th. And for those who don't know where you are, how do people find more information or get engaged with your community? Where do they find you? Absolutely. Again, I can't talk about Instagram enough.

Starting point is 01:10:11 So, community Instagram.holistic.psychologist. Anyone who's interested in YouTube by every Sunday, I put out a short teaching lesson as well around all of these topics on the YouTube channel, the holistic psychologist, the Facebook page, is the Psychologist. And if you go through the Instagram, I have a link tree that has the FutureSoft Journal prompts that you can easily sign up for for free, any of the links to pre-sale. There's quite a few international, so it'll be in several languages. So chances are, if anyone listening internationally, there might be a publisher that's able to get it

Starting point is 01:10:45 in your native tongue, which is really cool. And again, all of that's on the link tree in Instagram. That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for being a guest. Of course, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely, I want you to come back. I mean, if I've got other questions, I have on my page.

Starting point is 01:10:58 I know I could have, I could have got it. Okay, I guess I'm going on. I go back to my family. I'm like, my god, the girls are probably like, just getting tired, they're like yapping already. But thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Happy you. Thank you. Habits and hustle, time to get it rolling, stay up on the grind, don't stop, keep it going. Habits and hustle from nothing in the summit.

Starting point is 01:11:16 All out, a host of budget of fuck going. Visionaries, tune in, you can get to know. Be inspired, this is your moment. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Hala Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world, and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week, we dive into a new topic like the Art of Side Hustles, how to level up your influence and persuasion and goal setting.

Starting point is 01:12:02 I interview A-List guests on Young and Profiting. I've got the best guest. Like the world's number one negotiation expert, Chris Voss, Shark Damon John, serial entrepreneurs Alex and Lila Hermosi, and even movie stars like Matthew McConaughey. There's absolutely no fluff on my podcast, and that's on purpose. Every episode is jam-packed with advice that's going to push your life forward. I do my research, I get straight to the point, and I take things really seriously, which is why I'm known as the podcast princess and how I became one of the top podcasters in the world in less than five years. Young and profiting podcasts is for all ages.

Starting point is 01:12:39 Don't let the name fool you. It's an advanced show. As long as you want to learn and level up, you will be forever young. So join podcast royalty and subscribe to Young & Profiting Podcast. Or yeah, like it's often called by my app fam, on Apple Spotify, Cast Box, or wherever you listen to your podcast. we used to trust. American families are talking about a future of food shortages, banks failing, society breaking down, and what seems like the setup for the apocalypse. But instead of throwing up their hands, folks are leaning into self-reliance, investing in emergency food storage, now more than ever.

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Habits and Hustle - Episode 93: Dr. Nicole LePera – The Holistic Psychologist, Self-Healer, and Author

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