On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Dr. Nicole LePera ON: Why You Feel Stuck in Your Past & Finding the Self-Awareness to Heal From Trauma

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon.Dr. Nicole LePera chats with Jay Shetty to talk about trauma as the root of all mental health problems. They discuss how one can utilize their own environment to self heal, why people are stuck with the same adaptive mechanism that doesn’t help them change, and taking many small steps on our way to complete healing.Dr. Nicole, a trained clinical psychologist, created the SelfHealers Circle to allow people to go on their own journey and create who they want to become. Dr. Nicole lives in Los Angeles, California and loves anywhere that involves the stillness (and quiet) of nature. She currently hosts the SelfHealers Soundboard podcast with Jenna Weakland focused on recognizing patterns, healing from the past, and creating oneself.Go to http://samatea.com/onpurpose to get on the list for early access + receive a free 5-Minute Wellness Journal made to help guide you through your wellness journey and daily routineWhat We Discuss with Dr. LePera:00:00 Intro02:23 The concept of the work: getting stuck04:33 Utilize the environment around us with many daily small steps07:23 What is epigenetics?09:46 Empowering yourself to be your own healer14:04 When you entertain the idea that maybe you are broken18:07 Overwhelming change could send us back into that same adaptive mechanism22:26 We work with the pattern we’re stuck in26:52 When we’re conscious, we can hear our body31:44 The uniqueness that makes each of us different35:31 The nature of our thoughts are reiterative and amplified in some ways41:35 How to nurture self-awareness and self honesty without leading to self-destruction?46:19 How do we stop letting other people's opinions define our choice?50:16 Creating empathy to people we can’t relate to52:47 Honoring the small choices you’re making and the moment you’re living in54:25 Dr. LePera on Fast FiveLike this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally!Grab a copy of your own Think Like A Monk book. Get the audiobook here: https://amzn.to/2THCYUuEpisode Resources:The Holistic PsychologyDr. Nicole LePera | InstagramDr. Nicole LePera | LinkedInDr. Nicole LePera | FacebookDr. Nicole LePera | YouTubeSelfHealers SoundboardAchieve success in every area of your life with Jay Shetty’s Genius Community. Join over 10,000 members taking their holistic well-being to the next level today, at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGeniusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible things we don't usually talk about?

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and yet I'm still striving to be better. Join me on this journey. Listen to the one you feed on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Getting to a root of trauma, speaking of voices, a lot of the voices we are hearing, like you said, those negative voices in our head, the very patterned ones, the habitual ones,

I call them those are stories. They can be a big indicator of the root of trauma in a sense. So to be clear, because I am asked often, do we have to know? So the gist of this question is, is there an uncovering? Do we have to go back to that moment? Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow.

And I am so excited to be talking to you today. I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of Love is out. And I cannot wait to share with you. I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book, I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it already, make sure you go to 8rulesoflove.com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love. So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up, or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book. And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour. Love rules. Go to jsheddytour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences, and more. I can't wait to see you this year. Now you know that we get this amazing opportunity to sit down with mines from the worlds of celebrity and music all the way through to experts in their field and thought leaders, business leaders. And today's guest is someone that I've been wanting to speak to for a long, long time.

I saw so many of her interviews. I read her book. She's a number one New York Times best-selling author of a book called How to Do the Work. I highly recommend it. We'll put the link to the book in the comments so you can go and grab a copy. We've been DMing away and she's finally here today. I'm talking about none other than Dr. Nicole Lepera. Nicole, thank you so much for being here. Jay, thank you for having me. I've been knowing you in your work. So the fact that our paths have crossed right now,

it's truly an honor for me. So thank you. Well, I was so happy to see the success of your book. And when I saw it come up, I literally saw everyone posting about it and everyone talking about it. And I just loved how clearly you've been articulating your message so effectively on Instagram all the way through to the book. And I'm so just happy.

And congratulations on all the amazing success. It's fun to watch. Thank you. It's wild even still to hear when I am, when I am intro that I have a book and this thing that obviously I dedicated so many hours of my life to, it's still hard to believe in a lot of ways, even just the whole of this journey I would have never imagined. I think it was July 2018. When I popped up my first Instagram square, I would have never anticipated, I should

say, kind of the journey that it's been though, it is an honor and I'm grateful for every moment of it. Well, you're helping people think about psychology in a completely different way and holistic psychology and can you share with us when you say the work? Describe to us what you define as the work. When you say how to do the work, what is the work from your perspective? Yeah, so the work actually, you know, my concept of it really came out of the traditional way that I had once been working. So coming through a system where I was trained as a clinical psychologist, I had a practice, I had the clients that came in week after week, on my own side of the personal side of things I struggled with anxiety. I think a lot of us do was in all of the

different types of treatment. And what I saw several years into my practice was the number one word that comes to mind was a stuckness. All of these humans, myself included, that had increasing amounts of insight, awareness. So I might even know where these patterns come from that no longer serve me. And I definitely might even have a plan of action

to create change, to do something different the next time so that I obviously don't have to live those consequences yet what I would come to see and with increasing amounts of frustration and even hopelessness is that inability to, as I say, bridge that gap. So for me, the concept of the work, the title of the book really kind of illuminates the fact that it does take numerous daily choices that we begin to make each day and that there of course is a reason why so many of us are stuck. So from that really low point, I would go to kind of admit even from my own personal life and of course being the hired healer in the room, the person who's supposed to, in part these individuals with the tools, it was quite low. I really understood one of the reasons why it's because we weren't working what I now

call holistically. In the field, we really just kind of chopped off the mind, you kind of intro by saying, we talked to these minds, I was giggling because our minds are attached to a body. And until we really understand that we are a whole person, in my opinion, a mind body and soul, so many of us are going to continue to remain stuck. And so what actually brought you to extending that out? I think we're all grown up with spiritually, we would call the bodily concept of life, like this, your engrossed in the bodily conception of life.

When was it for you that you started to realize that we were more than this body and that we were affected by more than what happens to us physically? When was that for you and how did that come about? It was pretty much in real time with my practice that was there that existed because on the personal side of things, all of the tools that I thought I had had weren't working. I also started to kind of have breakthrough symptoms for lack of a better word. Anxiety that was somewhat manageable

was coming back again, feeling very unmanageable. And I actually started to have some physical symptoms. I started to faint. I had never had episodes of fainting. I started to forget my words mid-sentence, like beyond just I think the very natural. My thoughts wandered. It was a scary feeling, so it actually came in a moment of panic.

When most of us do, I went online looking for what I was convinced at that point was probably something wrong in my brain. Yet at that point, I didn't have my why because when I revisited the few memories of my child that I had, I didn't have those memories of my child that I had, I didn't have those big glaring moments that I was taught in school might map on to memory issues or to the same symptoms, the peaks and anxiety that I was having. I didn't have any explanation. I went online, like I said, as many of us do,

searching for the medical thing that I was going to find wrong in my brain, and I actually was met find wrong in my brain, and I actually was met with this whole new literature, specifically around epigenetics in particular. Coming again from a system where I was taught, your genes were it. You had the genetics that you were born with, and you really had limited ability to create change. So, for me, hearing otherwise, hearing that yes, of course, we're all born with genetic components, and then we have an environment, which has multiple aspects of it, the external

events, the people around us that really do impact those genes. So I wouldn't say I believed in epigenetics at that point. It was an interesting theory, like I say, it kind of just slightly opened the door that a very big part of me didn't feel was my story. Okay, this is great. All of these amazing stories I read. Oh, these humans create change, come back from incurable illnesses. I'm definitely gonna be the person

who that doesn't work for, yet it at least opened the door possibility. And then of course it took many daily small steps, as I call them daily promises, that I kept in my own life to begin to find out how to utilize the environment around us, how to make different choices, and how to create change. So again, I would lie if I said,

oh, that changed my world and one fell swoop. And off I went, absolutely not. I think us humans, we have to live the experience to believe it. However, it began my journey. Because up until then, I was taught that that door was closed. There was no possibility. And for those that are new to the idea of epigenetics,

can you break down for us what that is and how that's something someone can start to work on sitting from the comfort of their home? Yeah, so epigenetics does highlight the fact that we are all born and we have these inborn things, genetics that are passed on through generations. However, it's the choices we're making, how much sleep are we getting, how much stress is in our environment, more in particularly, how much support do we have

to deal with this stress? What are we eating, are we getting the nutrients, and really the list goes on, and then an interaction between the genetic components of us and those choices, then we get start to see either symptoms. We get that diagnosis, we get that disease, if you will. Or again, here comes the possibility that we don't. So the change begins, I always say two parts to change.

The one part is awareness. Beginning to see from a conscious mind, I love how all of your work on presence, I couldn't agree more that it becomes the foundation for change. Many of us have to just learn how to see ourselves day in and day out, because most of us are living from our subconscious.

We're living that autopilot. We're not even really aware. We might think we're getting more sleep than we are. We might think we're eating in a more healthy way than we are. So consciousness creates that opportunity then to begin to make those new choices. So change in my opinion comes when we become conscious and then gift ourselves with choice. We make small interventions. We maybe try to sleep a bit more, try to navigate our stress differently. And then again, we can mitigate those symptoms that many of us are feeling stuck in. Yeah, so it really is this 360 degree view of life, like you've talked about everything from nutrition, to sleep,

to the choices that we make. And you use this term in your book, you say like, you're your own healer. This idea that you're the healer of yourself. I think for a lot of us, we often look outwards for healing. Yes. We hope that someone else will come and heal us. We go to our doctors or we may even go to a guide

and tell me about that. The power in that statement is so true, but it's almost so hard to accept often. I know sometimes even in myself, I'll get to the point where I'm like, oh, I just want to come to come change my life, right? Like we always have that feeling. Like someone's gonna come and find me,

and someone's gonna come and change my life. And whether that's come from our childhood or wherever it is, how do you empower yourself with the belief truly that you are your own healer? And how do you really accept that? What does it take to really embrace that statement as something real? Yeah, and I would agree with you.

I mean, there were so many ways that I outsourced, as I say, my inner knowing. A lot of it is very conditioned. We're taught to do that. I could even make a big global statement that I think on the macro level, a lot of us in society, regardless of the culture you come from, are taught some level of that externalization, right? Whether you look to your religious sect or your family or again, the doctor, there is someone I think that many of us have been taught from a very early age. Sometimes it's not even directly where we're told this person knows better. Sometimes it's indirectly. We're seeing our parent figures, our caregivers, outsourcing their knowing to someone else

that then we begin to do the same thing. And I was one of those people. I mean, one might even say I was trained in a profession to be that outsourced guide for someone else. And it never sat well for a couple of different reasons. A, it did feel very, you know, it kind of continued to precipitate this disinpowerment, this idea that someone else knows better.

And it actually brought up a question for me, which is, how could someone else know better when they didn't live our life? They don't make sense of things the way our minds make sense of things. And I learned very early on in my training that it is natural for us to assume. To hear somewhat of a similarity between maybe my story and if you were to share with me your story, and then to assume a much greater similarity. Oh, you said anxiety. I have that. So you must have the exact same version I do. Yes. And I learned very early on in my clinical training or it was suggested to me not to do that, because we could be using the same words.

We could think we mean the same things, but there's so much individual variation. So now going back to this concept of this person outside of me who has that intimate awareness of me and or who's able to show up as me in those given moments, I mean, now it gets really silly logistically, right? No, I'm me. I need to navigate the next time that happens. So I need those tools. Peeling it back, I believe that that sense of knowing, that healer, is the state that we're

all born into. I do believe that we're a full, whole being worthy even with our essence or that thing that makes us our purpose, that we can then live out into the world and then our conditioning happens. And now here comes in that onion analogy, right? All of the layers start to form around us and then we become an adult who isn't living from that pure state and again who might have been conditioned to look outside of ourselves. So for many of us, this begins as a concept. I'm sitting here telling you, you know, it's internal peel back. For many of us, it becomes

when we take that first step that begins a journey of many steps, because change, of course, doesn't happen, like a light switch, like I call it, like many of us want to do it. I flip the switch and now I'm different. Though the more we empower ourselves through that consciousness, to create that change, then we can begin to embrace that reality, that we can be the healer, that we can make choices that honor our best interests, and then that kind of peel back those layers and bring us back to that state of wholeness.

So again, it begins as a theory, as all things do, until you begin to empower yourself to create these changes in your life. Yeah, you mentioned self awareness a few times there and the idea of inner knowing and self knowing, I find that. And this is what you're speaking about, the theory versus when it turns into reality.

But I find that, don't you think so many of us sometimes we're like, I know when I do that, I know what I need to change. And it's not even about shifting into action. It's like there's this, almost, it feels like an instinctive pull to do the opposite, right? And it's so strong. And from a spiritual point of view,

it's described as lust and not lust for the, for someone you're attracted to, not in such a gross way, but lust in the sense of this unflinching reaction, pendulum swing that's pulling you away from where you truly want to be. Tell us what's happening there. Why is it that we know that we need to eat this right healthy food? But we are so attracted to the unhealthy food. We know we should be waking up earlier and sleeping earlier to get better quality sleep, but we're not doing that.

What is that pull that's kind of just holding us back almost? It feels like someone's literally grabbing us by the collar and pulling us back. Absolutely, and you use the word in your description there, instinctive, and I would go ahead and argue that it is. It's outside of our awareness, and it feels very alluring in all of the ways we might even have. Right, really high

feelings almost as if we can't resist it. We are rendered choiceless. Yes, yes, that's it. That's the, yeah, that's real. I mean, you described the reality that many of us are living and that would describe that stuck place that I was referencing earlier. And like I said, that in my opinion, when we, when we continue to bear witness to, here's that old habit again, and now I'm living the consequences, here they come again. Many of us begin to feel shameful, right? We might even have well-meaning loved ones that are looking over our shoulder, wondering, you know, why the hell we're continuing to do this, also continuing to increase our shame.

And some of us now even begin to entertain these ideas that maybe I am broken. Maybe there is something just at my core that's creating this and what is at all of our core as humans is the desire to remain in the familiar. And so what happens, and again, our familiar, all of the things that have happened to us beginning at a very early stage, have, I like to talk about the brain and kind of what actually happens, begins to lay down pathways, quite literally, neurons that fire together, wire together. So what happens is we have all of these very

wrote, very patterned ways of being that many of us have been rehearsing since birth. We always do that same thing. Usually, again, this begins out of pain, out of experiences where we've had it adapt, right? The things that we're doing come from a certain place. Yes, they might have some long-term consequences, but usually in the immediate, we were avoiding something, some form of pain, some form of discomfort, and or we were attempting to feel love, to feel connected to our immediate

family or the people around us, the people who were in charge of meeting our needs. However, we repeat and repeat and repeat, and then those pathways get really strong. So then we come say to, you know, we decide we want to change. We've lived these consequences long enough. We see some sort of helper or we read a book and we have a new game plan of action. Now we're again using a different part of our mind, we're in that conscious part of our mind. However, that drive to that familiar is still there.

It lives in our subconscious and it's very strong. So what happens as I put it is we meet that resistance, either that overwhelming feeling, that drive, that compulsion, like you described it, some of us, it just stays in our thinking mind. All of the reasons why this isn't going to work, it's so silly, you should stop doing this. Before long, if I listen to either of those things, the thoughts I'm thinking, or the feelings I'm having that are new, that are unfamiliar,

before long, I end back in those gruts. And it's not because I feel good, it's because I feel like I'm used to feeling. And anything out of those bounds can feel threatening. A lot of our stuckness, again, is coming from that drive to safety. The reality that the unfamiliar, according to our subconscious, is threatening, because we don't actually know what comes next.

So those patterns are what is safest, keeping us again stuck in those patterns. Yeah, it's crazy how it works. I mean, I was reading a, you know, I've read the studies that say, you have 60 to 80,000 thoughts per day, 80% of them are negative, and 80% of those are on repeat. And it's the repeat part that really made me go, wow, we need to drive a train through this. Or we need to somehow break this pattern

because this pattern will just keep repeating and keep cycling and keep strengthening. And so we need to slowly weaken the pattern. Now I want to ask you that, is it that we slowly chip away and weaken the pattern? Or do we need something big, like a freight train to come drive through it? Which one is it and is it both? Is it neither? Is it, you know, what's the process?

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Listen to how to money on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So the pathway to change, the kind of what happens can happen, you know, a slow gradual descent as happened for me. You know, I gradually went across life. I checked all of the boxes that I thought were going to make me happy. There wasn't a cataclysmic moment when I was 28 or whenever this began that kind of initiated it, it was slow and gradual. Some of us are initiated into change when something cataclysmic happens.

We lose the relationship. Life does shift and change. Both ways can be pathways in. The pathway through change, I think, slow and gradual, because what happens again, because we're always looking to create safety, overwhelming change, changing our life from top to bottom between now and tomorrow, could send us right back into that same adapted mechanism

that we've learned at one point to keep us safe. Now, this isn't to say that people listening haven't had success changing lives from top to bottom, of course, though when we're working with the principles of the subconscious, our drive to saying that familiar, it's those gradual victories because what we're looking to do is create the consistent habit. Like I was referencing earlier, there is no light switch. There's no making these new choices, you know, here, there, maybe this week, maybe not

next week. We want to integrate these new choices into our habit. And to now, what we do, how we eat, how much we sleep. So consistency is key. Smaller choices are much easier to maintain consistently than five or 10 new things all at once. Yeah, one of the things I'm just thinking about this because it's been something I've been doing recently. So during my time as a monk, we did a lot of tough physical austerities. And what I found through all of that is that my mind strengthened, but my body decided not to want those physical austerities. So I, for a while, I just was like, nah, I'm good, I'm good. And then more recently,

I've started, well, it was actually because one friend forced me to do a cold plunge and then do a jump out of a plane, go skydow. And so when I did that, I was like, oh, and I did it because of this friend. I was like, you know, I want to do it with him, it'll be fun. And so when I did it, it broke through an old trauma pattern, an old barrier that was in my mind, which was, I don't like physically difficult things anymore, because I did so many. And when I say so many, I mean things like we would sleep on

cold stone floors, cold floors, we'd wake up often. If we were traveling in puddles this high, like we would, you'd be sleeping in extreme hot and cold without even thinking about it, you'd go days without eating. Like, there were a lot of things that we did that were great for my mind, but for my body struggled. And so now I've started trying to do after I had that breakthrough. So I needed to do something as radical as that, like skydiving, to feel like I could go beyond that physical discomfort. And recently I got reintroduced to,

so what I found was I was like, oh wow, I had a breakthrough. And then four months have gone by, and someone was like, do you wanna do a cold plunge? And I was like, no way. And all of a sudden I was back to that old pattern. And I went again, and I broke it. And then now I've been going every week.

And not only am I spending longer in the cold, I'm feeling more comfortable in it. I'm getting, I'm understanding how I can use my breathwork and meditation in the cold. And what's been fascinating for me is I'm like, I want to go every week on purpose. Because if I go every week, then that's no longer a fear anymore. And I see every week that my time gets longer, my breath gets better, I'm able to heat my body by breathing because of my breath work. I'm starting to see the power of my mind

and my breath work over my body in those scenarios. So what I'm saying is I can relate to what you're saying and that's been something very real for me in the last few months that I've been working through. But you talk a lot about these old, deep rooted traumas and how they block us. How do we uncover the root of a trauma? I find like so often we're dealing with the branches or the leaves or the fruits of a

trauma, the negative fruits, the poisonous fruits. How do you figure out what the root of a trauma is? Yeah, really good question. I was giggling when you were sharing all of that because I very much my body, I run. I did not have all of that training and doing difficult things so I was an athlete and still. And I share this often within my community. That first thought when I go on that hike

that the elevation starts right from the beginning, I'm not even 20 steps in. I'm like, maybe I don't really want to be hiking today. And just for me in that moment identifying, that's the old voice. And I can give myself with choice. I can choose to say, you know what, my body is fatigued right now, and I will listen to it, or I can identify it as being, you know, that old voice.

So getting to a root of trauma, speaking of voices, a lot of the voices we are hearing, like you said, those negative voices in our head, the very patterned ones, the habitual ones, I call them those are stories. They can be a big indicator of the root of trauma in a sense. So to be clear, because I am asked often, do we have to know? So the gist of this question is, is there an uncovering? Do we have to go back to that moment

or those many moments that began this trauma? And I'm often asked because when I share my story, part of it includes a large absence of those early memories, of really memories up until the more recent past for me. So reviewing my childhood for me in that kind of movie screened way to find the root is quite difficult. Because I don't have those. So, you know, the natural question that follows is,

if I can't find the exact root, can I heal it? So while I'll say those stories are helpful, those patterns, those reactions that we have, those activating moments, they can all give us clues to actually have the particular moment in all of its details is in my opinion not possible for some of us and not necessarily fully necessary for others because what we can work with is the pattern we're stuck in because it contains it right the book the body keeps the

score was one of the first right offerings of this idea this concept that our body is remembering. So even if my mind right can't put on that movie and say, oh, that's where it began to happen, my body is reenacting it in a moment that's similar to that moment. So our start point can be, what are those patterns? If I can drop into my mind, first becoming aware of how busy it is, how many thoughts are running through it, and then I can begin to watch. And most of us will begin to see the story, the story that we've made of us, the story

that we've made of our relationships, our path in life, whatever it might be, the patterns is where we want to begin our exploration. And again, we can just start with where are we stuck, right? What happens when I feel a really big emotion? That's a great place to begin looking. Oftentimes, that's something interpersonal, right? That happens in our relationships when I start to feel something really big.

And then we can drop in, OK, what is the story I've told myself about this really big thing? What am I doing to create safety in this moment? And then of course, can I begin to make new choices? So to get to the root, we can start where we are, and we can start in those very patterned ways, the things that we can see ourselves day in and day out once we're watching with consciousness, where we're becoming stuck, that can be our entry point for the work. Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for clarifying that. I think that's such

a great distinction between the root and the pattern and the recognition that you don't need to do that if you can and it's not possible and that's not going to stop you from healing which I think is gonna be so good for so many people to hear because I think you can almost get lost in the trap of like, where did this start? Where was that moment? Was it this?

Was it that and that can just de-ablitate you even more, I guess. And ultimately, the knowing of the story still remains in our thinking mind, right? I can go back and maybe even just tell the story as sometimes our therapy does. It offers like this continuous, just telling of my story, but again, kind of bringing this whole conversation full circle until I learn how to embody a new response in that moment, my story remains in my mind. So even on earthing, the cause of it won't shift then how my body reacts in that moment.

Won't allow me to then integrate a new feeling or make a new choice so that I can actually create change. Got it. That makes sense. What are some of the practices and methods that you've used, learned ones that you've shared with people, practical things that people can do that you think have really moved the needle for people in this regard, whether that's awareness of a trauma, whether that's starting the healing process.

What have been some of your favorite ones? I mean, treat. Yeah, so I think the most impactful one is the one that keeps coming up with that idea of consciousness. First, being, becoming aware of how unconscious many of us are living. By now we've all heard the word autopilot, we all know that upwards of 90% of our day we're in it. It becomes really impactful when you actually see it, right? When you see yourself, no sooner opening your eyes and shifting right into that same thing

you do first thing every morning, right? Being able to bear witness from the conscious mind creates, in my opinion, the greatest impact. Because what most of us see is how unconscious we are, how we're not even giving ourselves the opportunity to make a new choice because we're not there, we're not in the present moment, we're not able to shift our attention from wherever else it might be, for many of us that's lost in our thinking mind, ruminating about the fight this morning, worrying about tomorrow. If you're like me, you might just be somewhere else. I call it my spaceship. I just know I'm not here.

So for many of us building those choices in throughout the day, suggestions I often give because we all walk around with a phone, set an alarm for random times throughout your waking day. So you don't even remember that you set an alarm and at one third of your phone's buzzing, why is it buzzing? This is for your consciousness check-in. The first thing we can do is know

what were you paying attention to. Were you really immersed in what you were doing or who you were talking to? Chances are probably not. You were somewhere else right now, this gift shoe, the first opportunity to use either another tool you've already spoken of your breath right to use that to focus your attention on your active breathing

or if you're doing something somatic maybe you're eating maybe turn your attention to actually tasting the meal in front of you that you're otherwise shoveling down the more we create more moments of that consciousness of a the awareness of where is my attention and then be that control. The more now we're becoming present to what is. And now we can really individualize the work that we're doing. If I become present to a hyperactive body, so for me this was the common place. Once I landed my spaceship, I realized how stressed out my body was.

My heart rate was always elevated a bit. I had a bit of shallow breathing. So now I can maybe use breath work. I can intentionally change the flow of my breath and actually create a new feeling in my body. So for many of us again, it begins with choice. And within that choice, we can begin to reconnect. For so many of us, the what happens next comes from what your body is telling you.

What is your body feeling? Are you feeling expansive and excited based on what you're doing? Are you feeling constricted and scared? And if you're feeling the latter, can you create a change? Can you breathe differently? Can you meet a need?

Maybe you're hungry once you tune in and you can go get a snack. Can you feed your body? Can you tend to your body? When we're conscious, we can hear our body. Our body has a lot of wisdom that so many of us aren't paying attention to. For many good reasons, because being in our body was a fearful place, a scary place. We might have been in abused when we were within our bodies, though, again, building that bridge, creating that reconnection can help us then figure out, because I'm sure listeners are like,

great, I'm in my body, what next? The clues are there. The more we again peel back that onion and learn, have a listen. I love what you said about creating a new feeling in our bodies, because I think that that's really what we struggle with. We think feelings come from how people treat us,

or where we visit, or the place we just went to. But feelings are created and monitored also by us. And again, it comes back to the point about choice. But the idea that I said this all the time, like before I go on stage, I haven't done it for so long and I miss it. But whenever I go on stage, I still get nervous. And I've been public speaking since I was 11 years old and have done it religiously.

And I will still get nervous. And I have learned to realize that that shows I care. And so I feel good about that. So now when I feel that nervousness, I'm not feeling nervousness, I'm feeling care and compassion, I'm thinking, I care about my audience. I care about how I'm going to serve today, I care about my connection with them today.

So, that is why I'm feeling this way. And then, usually using breath work, I'll change my heart rate and the way it's feeling and that creates a feeling as opposed to accepting the signal feeling that I'm receiving, which is nerves, anxiety or whatever it may be. Of course, it becomes harder when it's been so repeated and that's what we've been breaking down. I want to know when you talk about holistic, I want to hear more about the spiritual soul side of your work and where you've found that integration between that and science and the deep presets that you've done over the years.

I mean, treat to find what are some of the parallels or what are some of your own personal spiritual quests or curiosities that you might be on right now that you could possibly share with us. Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you asking because that is the third component, right? So we've mind we've talked about body. And I do believe that there's a soul, a spiritual entity, whether we want to call it that or essence, that makes us, said, I'm speaking this from a diehard scientist, that if you would have asked me about a decade ago,

if anything religious-based, anything spirituality-based, I would have turned a blind eye to it. I wouldn't have believed in it. Because again, it wasn't at that point to my knowledge, at least, mapped on in the science of knowing. So again, this wasn't something for me that was an always part of my journey. This was something I've come to discover. And what I've come to discover in the simplest way

that I describe what soul or spirit is to me is the uniqueness that makes each of us different. There's something in me that's going to give me the life experience, the personality, the meaness that's different from you. And at this point, whether we agree on that it's coming from a spiritual place or a soul-based place, or whether it just is an essence and is thing. I think many of us in the collective are beginning to honor that there is something else, a deeper sense of knowing.

Scientifically, where I believe this inner knowing maps onto is a major organ that gets very little, you know, kind of time in the spotlight, or at least is getting more so these days, is not our brain at all, comes from our heart. Again, that whole place that I keep referring to, I believe it's when we're fully connected to our heart space. We now know that our heart has an incredibly strong electromagnetic field. It's sensing the world around me. It's sending out signals to the world around me, even beyond the magnetic field that my brain entails.

So our heart, the meanness, I believe, is contained in that scientific space. Very grateful for the HeartMath Institute, whose major goal is to put out this type of research. But again, I think it's peeling back the layers, understanding that there is a steeper place of knowing that is interacting with our general way of being, whether or where of it or not.

Everyone wants to know where is my intuition? Where is my purpose for this conversation? And again, I believe that comes from that heart space. So many of us though are disconnected from it or have grown distrustful of it that we don't look to it to listen. So being holistic again means honoring that there is something deeper. There is a place in me, not in someone else, that knows what my path and my journey is, and again it's cultivating that connection and beginning to listen. And then of course

walking forth in that truth, regardless of what the world around me is doing or saying about it, which is a whole other, you know, kind of aspect of doing and living in the work that I think many of us are up against these days. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that, too. And I love hearing, I think for so many years, when you look at some of the most phenomenal scientists of all time, like whether it's Einstein or others who've been able to bring together spirituality and science so wonderfully. And I always love hearing that kind of integration and integrated approach

because I do think we need both to have a healthy and powerful and insightful conversation about how we feel. I love what you're sharing about the heart. How do people start to notice the difference in the voices in their head, between their heart, their mind, their ego stories? Is there a way? Have you found a way? Have you come across something that has helped you notice the difference between when your heart is involved in a conversation?

Yeah. And I think so, again, first is the practice of looking. And I'm saying that very intentionally because I don't think, for many different reasons, one of which being intimidation, we don't look inward. We don't take a moment to turn off the now endless distractions of our external world and even give ourselves the opportunity to begin to differentiate those voices.

We're always stimulated externally or in our thinking mind, right? So for some of us even suggesting, turning it off, even before you go to bed, and not bringing your phone in, and just giving yourself a moment of quiet, when we can turn inward, for many of us, oh, that's too close to meditation,

and it's too scary in there, and I don't want to. So for a lot of us, it's just beginning to practice, walking through that discomfort, so that I can begin to drop in and listen. To more specifically answer the question, are heart talks not in erratic? It doesn't knock us over the head, right?

And something that feels overwhelming, it's kind of there. And it's just like a softer, though still understandable and hearable message. Anything that feels frenetic, anything that feels repetitive, right? Our heart's not gonna on repeat, tell us the same thing like our monkey mind is, right? So our heart is gonna be that just like kind of behind their slow urge, that's not gonna feel,

I think the spike of energy that many of us are used to or again the repetitiveness, that many of us are used to or again the repetitiveness that many of us are used to hearing in our thinking mind and all of this becomes clear when we begin to spend time inward right when you begin to notice the nature of your thought whoever's listening and how your thoughts kind of are reiterative and are very kind of amplified in some ways and then learning what it's not sometimes can lead us on the road to what it is. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. I like that. And you're so right, it does take that. Like, I know that I, the way I try and do it is for a long, long time, and I've probably mentioned

this a couple of times, but I'll write down every choice I have or every opportunity I have in front of me when I'm trying to make a decision, for example, and I'll write above it the word of where I think that's coming from. So it could be like ego, like I'm make, I would choose that because it will be good for my ego, like my ego will feel good, or I would choose that because it will make me money. And that will be the reason, so wealth or money would be above it. And then I'm like, oh, I would choose that

because I love it. Like I would choose to do that because I love it. I choose to do that. Whatever. And I found that that's really helped me be really clear about looking at, looking at like, what would make me choose that?

Like what would be my reason for choosing that option opportunity job Item of work whatever it may be and then even if I accept it because all it is is money or Ego I'm well aware now that this is probably not gonna make me happy But it's gonna get me this thing that I think I'm doing it for. And that very honest, transparent feel allows me to be a ease and honest about my choices and also deal with the repercussions of them when things don't work out or whatever it may be. Or even when you do what you love and it doesn't work out, you know you did it because you loved it. And that's all you wanted from it. And so I think that's been a really good way for me at least to distinguish between whether it's my heart, my head, my gut, or... And so I think that's been a really good way for me at least to distinguish between

whether it's my heart, my head, my gut, or... I love that. I'm Jay Shetty, and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. O'Prob. Everything that has happened to you can also be a strength builder for you if you allow it. Kobe Bryant. The results don't really matter.

It's the figuring out that matters. Kevin Haw. It's not about us as a generation at this point. It's about us trying our best to create change. Louren's Hamilton. That's for me being taken that moment for yourself each day, being kind to yourself, because I think for a long time, I wasn't kind to myself.

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Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And what's important that you're referencing to or you're acknowledging or honoring is the honest piece of it. And I say that, you know, in a very intentional way again, because that's hard. It's hard for us to peel back our own on yet and to look at our honest truth and to label it and be with it for what it is. So many of us begin to contort things and out of shame, out of, again, perhaps many moments where we did share truth

in different ways and they weren't received and or we were made to feel very badly about them. So in the work I talk about, I think a lot and I attempt to practice at all areas that self honesty first, being honest with what it is for me in any given moment or what it isn't, just being honest before then we can even gift that honesty to someone else. Because a lot of entry points to the work is I'm not feeling satisfied in life, in my

relationships in particular, I don't feel meaningfully connected to others or the world around me, help. And we want to, or many of us, the pathway in or so we think, is to change the world around us, right? Find that meaningful person, find that meaningful purpose, maybe even, or that path. And again, that only comes when we're first honest, when we figure out what our honest truth is,

gift ourselves with that, live into that. And then we begin to have the opportunity to live honestly then in the world. And then of course everything begins to shift because whatever it is that we're experiencing is authentic to us. Yeah. I find there isn't, isn't partly our, our rejection of self honesty or the times we avoid being honest. That's part of our story's defense mechanism, right? Because if you're really, truly honest with yourself, you might have to change something. And we don't want to, and so the mind, or, you know, and that's why I'm asking you, where is it coming from? That desire to be like, well, I, I'm not going to be honest to myself because then That desire to be like, well, I'm not gonna be honest

to myself because then that breaks my story that I've been telling myself. So if I've been telling myself the story, I'm a good person and that helps me function in the world. Now that I've made a mistake, if I accept that mistake, then maybe that's gonna break me. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And so how do we kind of nurture this idea of self awareness and self honesty without feeling it's going to lead to self destruction? I think a lot of people at work, even in our relationships, it's like, if I've always been the person on time, if I'm late today, I don't want to tell people I'm late because it's going to destroy what I've lived to build up, right? If that makes sense. And I think about it in a very real way where, you know, I look at the life I've lived to build up, right? If that makes sense. And I think about it in a very real way where, you know, I look at the life I've lived in,

it's so like polar opposite and random and paradoxical. And, but I'm like, I'm so happy with getting to express all parts of myself today that are in love with media and that I am a monk. You were just sharing earlier today that, you know, you were like, I'm a rust fan, like I listen to rust's music, but I'm a holistic psychologist. And it's like, I think the fun is in the paradoxes of people.

And actually, I would suggest that I think if everyone looked at themselves, they'd find that they were paradoxical. And the paradox is what we're scared to accept, because it doesn't clearly define who you are. And so it was easier for me to be a monk than who I am today, where I'm like, yeah, I think like a monk, but I don't live like one. I adopt the practices of monks,

but I'm a married man, I'm an entrepreneur, and I enjoy all parts of that. And I'm learning to allow myself to accept all parts of myself. But I wonder why we're so scared of the paradoxes and how we can open ourselves up to actually realize the paradox has so much joy and potential in it. Does that, and you can disagree with me too, right?

No, I was smiling really big because it's beautiful and what you're describing is how I described the ego. We all have this story of ourself that was formed at, you know, began its formation in childhood, based on very real lived experiences and the feelings that we've had about them, though it's a very contained, it's only a story about an aspect or a part of who we are. However, it drops into our subconscious, anything that goes against it feels threatening, feels scary, actually shakes my core sense of self. I don't know who I am.

I do all this too. And two others, right? And so we then live our life in defense of that story, though for many of us, that story, like I said, is so small. It might not even apply to the current situation or the current choices that we're making day in and day out. So the goal, really, is to expand,

is to allow in, right, through honesty, through witnessing all aspects of ourself, because we all have all of those aspects of our self. And the way it mainly comes out is when we see an aspect of ourself in someone else, and then we don't feel negatively about ourself, because we deny that that's even in there, and then we project all of that negativity onto that person. So that's oftentimes where I offer is a great point of exploration and I'll share one with you all for a very long time watching people dance on the glorious thing that a social media would make my blood boil. Watching a human just let loose, you know, very kind of in self-expression,

moving their body, my ego would say all sorts of in self-expression, moving their body. My ego would say all sorts of things because at that point, I didn't identify as a dancer. I'm definitely not someone who moves my body not comfortably and for sure not in public, right? Meanwhile, I made it about this person that I don't know and their intention for dancing that I could never know come to know, right, that my wounding might not feeling comfortable in my body again began very early on in childhood. So I wouldn't dare to be that person that danced in public, yet I felt so strongly negative of others who did. Of course, for me, that

was a pathway in to begin to explore this story that I've now began to unpack. That's a great place to look. Great. When are you feeling so negatively about someone else? Might be that place of shadow or that part of you that you're not willing or able to be honest. Again, we do so out of fear, out of felt threat or protection of what if the world does see this side of me or what if I do allow this side of me to be alive right now. And again, honoring that fear that once was, because according at least to the way I framed the work, it did come at a time in a place that was adaptive.

However, now we can begin to create change and embrace all of us, all parts of us. That makes a lot of sense. And I'm glad that we're aligned on that. And you were smiling as I was speaking. I was like, oh, yes, someone understands it. Tell me about how do we stop letting other people's opinions define our choices? Because you were just talking about that right now as well. The idea that, you know, like you were maybe you're scared of putting yourself out there and now we're judging others of why they put themselves out there.

How do we stop letting other people's opinions define our choices? Yeah, really difficult. I first want to honor how for many of us that is part of our conditioning for all of the reasons because we had to put other people in front of us or so we thought at some time. I'm a lot of it is kind of culturally driven. And again, it becomes our conditioning, it becomes what we do. And then we fear, kind of doing our own thing,

we feel being judged, we fear being misunderstood, we fear all of the things associated with living in truth that might differ from the world around us. And again, there's no hack way, except to practice, right? To get so connected to your truth that it doesn't mean that it won't feel painful or discouraging when someone may be misinterpreted or doesn't view you

the way you imagine yourself to be in any given moment, though it also doesn't mean that you have to take their opinion or their perception over your own, right? There's always that space I call a kind of, you know, hearing and taking in the feedback because feedback can be helpful. Yeah. Feedback from someone who's not me offers me the distance that I might not be able to see,

the objectivity that sometimes comes with the distance and maybe the cold heart truth that sometimes comes within that objectivity that can help me. However, only if I so choose. So I always kind of describe a process of hearing, right, the feedback and then taking it and then deciding for yourself, right, trying on for size, seeing if it maybe you would like it to not apply and maybe it does, though not just taking it because someone else told you to or someone else is perceiving you in that way, it really is up to us. See, hear what someone's saying and now observe for yourself.

Do you do that thing that they're saying you're doing that, you know, in that moment, you are the one who gets to choose. And especially, of course, for those of us who are living on social media with many different eyes, of many different people, of different distances from us, the feedback can be there. It can be overwhelming,

and it can be very misunderstanding, though when you have that confidence, when you know that you're aligned internally, and when you do see all the moments, if we're honest, that you are misinterpreting other people, you can make space, I think, for other people doing that for you. Yeah, yeah, that, I love that.

That's what I found. It's like, I almost find, when I can't be, when I'm judgmental of others, like you were saying about the dons, dons, et cetera, and the idea of, when I'm being critical or judgmental of someone, even if not verbally or externally, but mentally, I find that I usually am critical and judgmental of myself

for the same reasons. And when I can't give grace to myself when I can't be compassionate to someone else, I can't be compassionate to myself, and when I can't be compassionate to myself, I can't be compassionate to others. And that's just been such a, it's such a difficult thing to play with.

But when you kind of have that light bulb moment, it becomes so clear. It's like, well, wait a minute. How would I want to be perceived if I'd just gone through that? Whether it was a divorce, whether it was a breakup, whether it was a, uh, a failure or a mistake externally, it's like, I've made mistakes, we've all made mistakes. Like, how would I want someone to deal with me? And how would I be feeling? And I think that how do we start to empathize with people

we don't know and people who we think are very different from us? Because I think it's easy to be compassionate and empathize with the obvious. I, someone doesn't have food or a home, you can, you can offer some compassion and love. Someone has anxiety just like you do, you can offer some compassion and love. But when you, you see someone else who's got a different struggle and a different challenge, we actually really struggle as humans to have

empathy. How do we start creating empathy for people that we can't relate to or don't agree with sometimes? Yeah, so I think, you know, I sometimes talk in Universal, sometimes try to avoid it. This is one Universal that I do believe very strongly in. Regardless of the very distinct differences that meant, you know, our essence, we are all different. I believe at our core, we share three very human needs to be seen, to be heard, and to be loved. I believe that unifies all of us. Most things that we're doing outwardly that might be the cause of that negative, I hate, don't love using the words positive and negative, but that less than savory reaction. Right? Are oftentimes the outward attempt of that human at getting one of those core needs met in that moment.

So the way that we can unify the collective as I think the work is, the final chapter in the book is called Interdependence, this idea of coming back into, right? As are authentically honored selves now into the collective. I believe we're social creatures, all of us humans, regardless if you come from a self-identified collectivist culture or not, we are humans in relationship. And again, like I said, we're not all showing up authentically and honoring ourselves in this

relationship, though we are in that connectivity. And at our core, again, like I said, we want that group cohesion. We want to be seen and honored and loved. And again, many of us have all of these different adaptations and ways we go about it. But I think that can be one of the ways that we honor the humanity in each of us, is that our life is our best attempt, you know, given all of the past circumstances,

at getting those core needs met. So even if what you're seeing is unsavory and your opinion or in your experience, we can understand it, I think, through that lens. Now, of course, it doesn't mean, right? Opening the door to abuse, showing up when our boundaries have been crossed is still is creating safety to continue to get our needs met,

which sometimes does mean outside of that relationship with that possibly unsavory person at this time, though again, we can create the empathy by focusing on this similarity. Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much. Dr. Nicole, it's been so, so amazing talking to you. I'm wondering if there's something I haven't asked you or something that's in your heart right now that you feel everyone needs to hear, that you want to share, that maybe even something you've been reflecting on lately, would there be a message that you think everyone needs to hear and experience? I think the message that I am always offering to share first is honoring, you know, all of the

listeners out there, the curiosity, the maybe connection to your work, but just showing up, I think we diminish all all the things that we do do for ourselves each and every day, or we write them off is not enough. So the first thing I want to offer is that honoring of the small choices that you are already making in your life, and again, honoring the moment that you're living in your life, because you're there, your journey has brought you there for a reason. Maybe it's not a moment you want to stay in, though within that moment, like we've been talking about this whole episode, allows us to begin

to make those new choices. So anyone listening can start right where they're at, right? There's no prerequisite for healing, for changing, for doing the work. This moment might be the moment you become present. The moment you develop that consciousness and then build together those moments and I'm here to share still on my journey, not done.

I don't believe there is that done place. I'm okay, really not, yeah. Though I'm not where I once was and I'm excited now to see into that unknown that which was once scary and to be avoidable. I'm curious, I'm curious to see where my journey goes. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that.

I think that that message around honoring is just so powerful. We can get nine things right that week, and we'll focus on that one thing. We got wrong and make it huge and make it feel like nine things we got wrong. And so I love that. I want to honor our audience as Nicole's suggesting. Honor each and every one of you in our community and family for showing up and being here and listening every single week. So thank you so much. Nicole, we end every episode with a final five. As you know, the fast five. So I'm going to ask you five questions that need to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum. I believe a sentence

is roughly seven words. Maybe I don't know. I just made that up. So are you ready for your final part? I'm ready and I will attempt. I am wordy. So I will attempt to keep it short. Amazing. All right. Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever received? Not to assume. Good. I like that advice. What's the worst advice you've ever received? Worst advice I've received is that consciousness or being present mindfulness is an important advice. Wow, I'm surprised. An advisor in my, when I was trying to do my dissertation involving mindfulness, I was actually told that verbatement.

I knew that there was something suspect about that piece of advice. Where did that come from for them? I mean, treat. And you don't have to go into it if you don't want to. I believe it came from a mindset of genetics. That was it. You had this chip, and there was nothing else that was going to override that.

Kind of squashing the power of consciousness that I was starting to kind of wonder. And it took me many years to be able to utilize that. I would be lying if I said, oh, I talked it in my belt and just became conscious nonetheless and continued to change and I didn't. And again, it took me years to action on that practice though that was told to me and I'm happy

I did not listen of course. Amazing. All right, question of, I made you extend that answer so you're doing it. So that's not my fault. Yeah, that is not your fault. I'm taking this. Yeah, that was my fault. I was like, oh, question number three,

how would you define your current purpose? How would I define my current purpose? Living heart centered. I think that's where I am at on my journey and it also is informing a lot of the teaching and the work that I am and will continue to be putting out. Beautiful question number four. What's the first thing you try and do in the morning and the last that I am and will continue to be putting out. Beautiful. Question number four, what's the first thing

you try and do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? First thing I try and do is not look at my phone and take a moment for me. I say try because there are moments where I don't and the last thing I do at night is same thing, I don't bring, just be internal. Yeah, of that.

All right, fifth and final question. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? One law. Living from the heart, connect with the heart. I don't know how to law that, but law would be the heart is important. Make friends with it. I love it. Dr. Nicole LaPera, everyone, how to do the work. Make sure you go and grab

a copy of the book. We've put the link into all of the comments sections and subject areas so that you can go and grab your copy. I highly recommend it. And of course, please, please, please follow Dr. Nicole on Instagram so that you can see all our incredible posts and tag both of us with your insights from this episode. If there's been anything that she said that stood out and inside a piece of wisdom, a tip, a practice that you're going to start doing, tag us both, we'd love to see it. Dr. Nicole, thank you so much for joining me.

I'm so grateful that we got to meet just in time. Of course. And I hope to have you back on the podcast many, many times. So thank you, J.I. I hope our cross-knotes continue to cross and I'm so eternally grateful for you and your community. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone for listening and watching. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible

things we don't usually talk about. I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look, everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season, I'm joined by Stellar Gas, like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Eva Longoria and I'm Maite Gomes-Rajon. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast

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